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Lars_H
SFN Regular
Germany
630 Posts |
 Posted - 05/30/2002 : 11:34:55
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What is the general opinion on the board on the current conflict between India an Pakistan? Is there going to be a war or will cooler heads prevail? Will they use nukes or is it all just talk to keep the fundamentalists on both sides happy? Should the west do more then they it it? Is anybody to blaim for the current situation?
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Slater
SFN Regular
USA
1668 Posts |
 Posted - 05/30/2002 : 13:39:16 [Permalink]
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They might very well nuke each other.
Frankly, although it's against my "cold war ethos" to say so, I think China should step in and slap the two of them around. If they do use nukes the fall out , prevailing winds being what they are, is going to come down in some of the more heavily populated areas of China, they should do everything they can to protect themselves from these religious nuts.
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My business is to teach my aspirations to conform themselves to fact, not to try and make facts harmonize with my aspirations. ---Thomas Henry Huxley, 1860 |
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NottyImp
Skeptic Friend
United Kingdom
143 Posts |
Posted - 05/31/2002 : 04:37:29 [Permalink]
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It is very tense, with plenty of the usual rhetoric. There have been small-arms and artillery exchanges, but that's a pretty regular occurence along the Kasmiri border.
I believe India and Pakistan have already had three wars since 1947 and independence, so there's plenty of precedence there.
"My body is a temple - I desecrate it daily."
Edited by - NottyImp on 05/31/2002 04:37:58 |
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filthy
SFN Die Hard
USA
14408 Posts |
Posted - 05/31/2002 : 07:50:02 [Permalink]
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Is it possible that they are really stupid enough to start throwing nukes around?
Hmph. I suppose it is. Talk about a no-win situation.
Slater's right: China should knock some heads. They have almost as much to lose as the combatants.
f
If I do not return to the pulpit this weekend, millions of people will go to hell.
-- Rev. Jimmy Swaggart, 20 May 1988
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Lars_H
SFN Regular
Germany
630 Posts |
Posted - 05/31/2002 : 08:47:21 [Permalink]
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Maybe, just maybe I am just overreacting and there really is nothing to be scared about. Espescially not if you don't happen to belong to the quarter of the worlds population that is living in that area. But somehow I feel that this crisis is underestimated by the west.
The News is full with all kinds of stuff ranging from the ongoing crisis in the middle to the football world-cup. 'Pakistan and India on the brink of nuclear apocalypse!' is hardly mentioned at all. I have seen politicians worry about Pakistan moving their troops to the Kashmir border, not because of that nuclear war thing, but because it hampers the War on Terror.
On the other hand, when the news actually say something about it, they do things like quoting an Indian official saying something along the lines of "India can afford to loose 25 million people, can Pakistan?" There also was a story about how Pakistan reserves the option of using Nuclear arms in retaliation to a conventional attack. I also heared Salman Rushdie describing Kashmir as the 'Most dangerous place in the world'.
On the web if you search for it you can also find gems like the interview with a dozend leading Indian strategist asking them wether they know how far they can go with Pakistan without risking nuclear retaliation. All of them said yes, but all of them gave different answers as to how far they thought they could go.
Maybe I was better of not knowing what is going on.
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Lars_H
SFN Regular
Germany
630 Posts |
Posted - 05/31/2002 : 08:53:27 [Permalink]
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Slater how do you think that having China intervene at this point would help the situation? What could they do? Threaten to Nuke both of them if they don't behave?
I also feel that at this point it would be very bad if Pakistan had a change of rulership. When the shooting has died down after the revolution and they take stock of their Nuclear arsenal they might very well find a paper reading "I.O.U. - Osama" where there used to be a Nuke.
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