Pakistans Problems In A Nutshell.

Pakistan is fighting a war to the death with those of its own citizenry, who believe that "Islamic" government is the only way the world should conduct its affairs, and yet its still seems to be unable to draw the conclusions as to how it got into this mess.

• Half the country of 165 million is illiterate.
• Roughly the same number of people live on $2 a day (there is a connection).
• Pakistani democracy is forever diluted by the perils of Feudalism and dynasty. President Zardari is the widower of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto. Their son, still a student at Oxford, is being groomed to take over one day. Mrs Bhutto's father, the other Prime Minister Bhutto, was executed by General Zia, who was himself killed by an assassin's bomb hidden on his plane.
• Violent death is one of the hazards of the job of running Pakistan.
• The country's middle class has either moved abroad or is cowering behind ever higher walls as the Taliban and their allies plot the next suicide bomb.
• The only institution that really functions well in Pakistan is the army - and that is not a healthy situation.

And this all boils down to two things:

1. A complete disregard for the state education system and
2. The founding of the state as an Islamic one.

Pakistan spends only 2.5% (or maybe less) of its gross domestic product on education (The US spends 7%, UK 5.3% and India 4.1%), and despite alleged 'crackdowns', including by the army, there are in existence thousands of "ghost schools". Corrupt officials pocket the salaries paid by the government to non-existent teachers and for maintenance etc, so the boys who have no chance of a state education end up in Islamic Madrassas, the girls get nothing.

Pakistan's government can barely count the Islamic Madrassas, much less control them. The last official figure dates from 2006, when the tally was 13,000. But there may be double that number, according to another estimate.

The obvious solution would be to bend every development effort (including foreign Aid) into state, secular, education, whilst closing down virtually every maddrasa .... this would;

a) Remove the recruiting ground for the Taliban.

b) Give boys and girls an education that would benefit them and the country.

c) Tackle the crippling corruption which hinders Pakistan's development.

d) Help fight the poverty bomb which is destroying the country just as much as the Taliban.

However despite the fact that the country is considered a failed state, it refuses to accept the obvious solutions, and continues to spiral back to Army control and eventually disaster.

Pakistan's real enemy these days does not sit on the other side of the country's Eastern border in India, rather its the homegrown cancer of Islamic extremism, festering in the cities and fanned in the tribal areas by constant poverty and war, which is the real enemy.

Yet most of the Pakistani army is still deployed on the Eastern front - only two reserve divisions have been deployed on the Western border with Afghanistan, where the real battle is taking place. "India is still our mortal enemy," a general said "They are using this as a diversion. It's a trap!" ...... madness and paranoia.

Without India as its 'mortal enemy', Pakistan, a forced grouping of diverse peoples, languages and geography, who are barely on speaking terms except about cricket - would have to go back to the drawing board and redefine why it actually exists as a state.

Pakistan's first president, Mohammed Ali Jinnah said. "In a few years we have made the Muslims of India, who were only a crowd, into a nation. We now have one flag, one platform and one voice."

Well that voice is legion now, and the platforms many, only the flag remains, and how long before its a white flag.