The Rift Tearing Pakistan Apart

A lazyman blog entry here .... I was directed to this article by Don Belt of National Geographic Magazine, via a comment on another blog.

It's a link to a long, but very interesting article, which is now a few years old, and written when Pakistans President was Pervez Musharraf, who has since gone, but it explains the reasons why Pakistan is sliding into oblivion. It should be noted that the situation is now worse than ever.

I reproduce the opening paragraph as a taster to entice you to go to the National Geographic site to read the rest of it.

"If there is an address, an exact location for the rift tearing Pakistan apart, and possibly the world, it is a spot 17 miles (28 kilometers) west of Islamabad called the Margalla Pass.

Here, at a limestone cliff in the middle of Pakistan, the mountainous west meets the Indus River Valley, and two ancient, and very different, civilizations collide. To the southeast, unfurled to the horizon, lie the fertile lowlands of the Indian subcontinent, realm of peasant farmers on steamy plots of land, bright with colors and the splash of serendipitous gods.

To the west and north stretch the harsh, windswept mountains of Central Asia, land of herders and raiders on horseback, where man fears one God and takes no prisoners."