15 June 2008

Now you just have to decide...

Is the glass half full... or half empty?

While the Canadian media is making itself giddy over the Taliban jailbreak in Afghanistan... I suspect Canadian troopers are quietly pleased about the suddenly 'target-rich' environment.

Meanwhile, the news that should really concern people is tucked away in a dark corner...
A draft report released by a former U.N. weapons inspector found that the international smuggling ring that supplied nuclear designs to Iran, Libya, and North Korea also obtained the blueprints for an advanced nuclear warhead, The Washington Post reported Sunday.

"These advanced nuclear weapons designs may have long ago been sold off to some of the most treacherous regimes in the world," Albright wrote in his report, which was obtained by the newspaper.
Funny how that works.

(h/t reader rich)

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RELATED: Perhaps a little background...

...would help flesh out the narrative...
"When you consider all this in tandem, with the fact that A.Q. Khan, Pakistan's foremost atomic scientist, is some sort of freebooting nuclear pirate, it's a little unsettling, to say the least."
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LAST WORD: Diplomatic chewing gum & baling wire
The situation poses a number of strategic dilemmas for the US. US-led forces may have to assume the security responsibility for an area that Pakistan has effectively abandoned to the Taliban while simultaneously being pummeled by the "outrage" of same Pakistani politicians who abdicated it in the first place.

In the worst case Pakistan will demand all the dignities of sovereignty over an area for which they will assume no meaningful control. At the same time, the US must respond to this situation without wholly alienating Pakistan through which the bulk of US supplies pass. Afghanistan will be effectively lost if the supply lines are irrevocably closed.

While Pakistan remains broken it cannot effectively control its territory; and border problems will only get worse. A fractured Pakistan will ipso facto mean that radical Islamic organizations will always have a safe haven within its formal borders.
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POSTSCRIPT: Yet another link from Canadian Cynic

Hey, buddy... you're still a little peeved, huh?

Those bad people still chasin' you?

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