Pashtunistan

[G_j]

apologies for the the size,




map:

http://www.1uptravel.com/worldmaps/afghanistan10.html

about:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pashtunistan

Pashtunistan, (Persian?) or Pakhtunistan is the idea of an independent country constituting the Pashtun dominated areas of Pakistan and Afghanistan that found support in the 1970s. Pashtun nationalists believe this historic homeland was divided in 1893 by the Durand Line, a border between British India and Afghanistan.<1>.
The Pashtuns are the largest ethnic group in Afghanistan. They are concentrated mainly in the south and east. In Pakistan the Pashtuns are found in the North-West region. The Pakistani part of Pashtunistan comprises an area that runs from Chitral in the north (where Pashtuns are a minority, with Khowar people being the majority) to Sibi in the southwest and intentionally includes the ethnically mixed region of Balochistan.
....

http://atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/KK06Df01.html


UNDER THE AFPAK VOLCANO, Part 1
Welcome to Pashtunistan
By Pepe Escobar

There must be some way out of here
Said the joker to the thief
There's too much confusion
I can't get no relief - Bob Dylan, All Along the Watchtower

PARIS - Something's happening in AfPak, but you don't know what it is, do you Mr Beltway think-tanker?

As Washington mashes up the "Taliban" - be they Afghan neo-Taliban or Pakistani Tehreek-e-Taliban (TTP) - in Empire of Chaos logic to justify perennial United States/North Atlantic Treaty Organization troops stationed in AfPak, an increasing number of Pashtuns living on both sides of the border have seized the opportunity and started to look to the Taliban as a convenient facilitator for the emergence of Pashtunistan.

But the Pentagon, make no mistake, knows exactly how to play its New Great Game in Eurasia. Balkanization of AfPak - the break-up of both Afghanistan and Pakistan - will engineer, among other states, an independent Pashtunistan and an independent Balochistan. Empire of Chaos logic is still British imperial divide-and-rule, remixed; and, at least in theory, yields territories much easier to control.

Don't mess with Pashtun nationalism

Tribal Pashtuns (from eastern Afghanistan to western Pakistan) have never given up on being united again. Everyone familiar with AfPak knows the region is still paying the price for the fateful and - what else - divide-and-rule British imperial decision in 1897 to split tribal Pashtuns through the artificial Durand Line. The line remains the artificial border between Pakistan and Afghanistan. Anyone who ever crossed it at, for instance, Torkham, at the foot of the Khyber pass, knows it is meaningless; people swarming on both sides are all cousins who never stopped dreaming of a pre-colonial, Afghan Durrani empire that straddled a great deal of contemporary Pakistan.

Few have noticed that Pashtuns were recently insisting on a very basic demand - that North-West Frontier Province (NWFP) in Pakistan have its name changed to Pakhtunkhwa ("Land of the Pashtuns"). The demand was shot down this past September by the dominant Punjabis in Pakistan. Pashtun nationalists protested en masse in fabled Peshawar, the NWFP capital. Pashtun national liberation is at fever pitch. Pashtun Guevaras are already issuing a call to arms.
....

[Lost-in-FL]

1. Afghan Taliban = Patshtun, nt

[roamer65]

2. Pakistan's government is primarily controlled by Punjabis.

Can you all see where this is heading?

Baluchis vs Pashtuns vs Punjabis = civil war.

A few years ago, Zbigniew Brzezinski predicted a ME regional war. I think we are months away from one.

[G_j]

3. they'll fight foriegners first

then get back to their own disputes.

[G_j]

4. just a reminder of how freakin' complicated this "war" is nt