This can’t be good:
Pakistan is continuing to expand its nuclear bomb-making facilities despite growing international concern that advancing Islamist extremists could overrun one or more of its atomic weapons plants or seize sufficient radioactive material to make a dirty bomb, US nuclear experts and former officials say.
David Albright, previously a senior weapons inspector for the UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency in Iraq, said commercial satellite photos showed two plutonium-producing reactors were nearing completion at Khushab, about 160 miles south-west of the capital, Islamabad.
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It’s becoming more and more obvious that the creation of Pakistan was the single biggest mistake Great Britain has made in the postwar era.
Oh — the existence of Gordon Brown excepted, of course.
And another thing. If President Obama really wants to do something smart with those 17,000 extra troops in Afghanistan, he’ll keep them on high alert right at Bagram Air Base, with cargo planes spun up and ready to go, 24/7. Those troops might be needed… elsewhere… and in a hurry, too.
I may be very wrong in my history here, but I don’t think Pakistan was created by the British. India–which at the time consisted of India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh–divided itself into majority Islamic and majority Hindu areas after getting independence from a very bankrupt England (they were fighting the Japanese and Germans for only twice as long and with much less manufacturing and personnel capability than the US.) England’s (and other European nations’) bankruptcy led to imperial collapses that also led to the creation of places like Iraq, Syria, Jordan, and a little strip of land called Israel. All in all, a very mixed result.
After a brief Wikipedia lesson, I’ve determined I was somewhat wrong. However, the ability of the British to do anything other than accept separate Muslim and Hindu areas setting themselves up in what was their Indian realm was quite limited. By economics and politics certainly, but mostly by the people in that area.