Thaths <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > On Thu, Aug 21, 2008 at 6:44 PM, Perry E. Metzger <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >> >> By pure coincidence, this seems to have shown up on the BBC web site. >> >> http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/spl/hi/south_asia/03/kashmir_future/html/default.stm > > Thanks for the link. Looking more closely at the map, it appears to me > that it is not in Pakistan's interest to have an independant Kashmir > or a re-unified Kashmir that was part of the Indian union. (terrain > permitting) Indian tanks would able to roll into Islamabad in much > shorter time than Pakistani tanks rolling into New Delhi.
I noticed that myself. Something of an irony there, isn't it, given some of this discussion. Of course, arguably, with the territorial questions settled, India and Pakistan shouldn't have any more cause for mutual hostility than the US and Mexico -- which is to say, a bit of suspicion, and a history in the past of violent conflict resulting in territorial conquest, but no realistic risk of warfare re-appearing. Sure, Mexico is dirt poor, highly corrupt, and only very vaguely a democracy, but there has been peace and mutually valuable trade across that border for a century. If the US and Mexico can be friends, if Turkey and Greece can both be members of NATO and possibly soon the EU, if Japan and China can engage in vast amounts of peaceful trade with little threat of violent conflict, then there is no reason India and Pakistan could not eventually be free of the threat of mutual war and actually reasonably friendly, provided that the excuses for conflict were removed. In such circumstances the distance of the Indian and Pakistani capitals from the border would no longer be a matter of importance. Perry -- Perry E. Metzger [EMAIL PROTECTED]
