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November 6 2001: These are troubled times for Pakistan. General Pervez Musharraf faces pressure at home for backing the US-led war in Afghanistan; the conflict in Kashmir is threatening to escalate; and doubt has been expressed in the US over Pakistan's nuclear security. In the week Musharraf visits New York and London, we pick the best online journalism.
Special report: Pakistan
Special report: Kashmir
The weblog: latest issues in links
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Musharraf plays away
The Times believes Musharraf's decision to leave Pakistan while police are struggling to contain unrest at home is a courageous move, but one that demonstrates the pressure he is under.
Times
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Shifting alliances ...
Pakistan's stance on the attack on Afghanistan has shifted radically since October 7, as this chronology in Asia Times demonstrates. Musharraf may be hanging onto power in Pakistan, but his rapid changes in position betray his international weakness.
Asia Times
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... and a long-term view
'Where are we going?' asks former Pakistani minister Rafi Raza in the Dawn newspaper. Unlike most commentators, he has his eye on the long-term future of the country: 'Once the need of the moment is over, Pakistan can again be chastised for its lack of democracy, nuclear proliferation, and support for freedom fighters in Kashmir. Having overnight changed from being a pariah state to a front line democracy in the fight for freedom, there is no guarantee against an equally rapid reversal.'
Dawn
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After Bahawalpur
In joining the widespread condemnation of the massacre of 18 Bahawalpur Christians in Asian Age, Arab News editor in chief Khaled Al-Maeena has some praise for Musharraf. 'Fighting international terror; being a partner in a US-led coalition; appeasing hard-liners whose only political experience is sloganeering and flag-burning: Musharraf has his hands full ... given these unenviable circumstances, he is to be commended.'
Asian Age
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The lawless frontier
This is a September 2000 Atlantic Monthly report from what it called Pakistan's 'lawless frontier' - the border with Afghanistan, now closed to fleeing refugees. Describing the tribal conflict there, Robert Kaplan predicted that 'Pakistan, in fact, could be a Yugoslavia in the making, but with nuclear weapons.'
Atlantic
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View from the KFC
Out There News, an expert chronicler of opinion on the streets, visited the Rawalpindi branch of fried chicken chain KFC last month to canvass young Pakistani views on the war. 'They hang out at KFC, go bowling and watch Lara Croft the Movie,' runs the blurb; 'if it's careful, America can keep them on side'. Shortly after the article was written, the Karachi branch of KFC was set on fire.
Out There News
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The struggle continues
The continuing conflict in Kashmir may have a bearing on the stability of Pakistan, but as Izhar Wani reports in India's Newspaper Today, Kashmiri rebels are unlikely to influenced one way or the other. 'Kashmiris are embedded in miseries themselves,' he quotes a senior journalist as saying, 'hence they are not much bothered about the events happening elsewhere'.
Newspaper Today
Separatists fear change - Tehelka
08.09.1999: Background to the conflict
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The danger of a chance remark
As an illustration of the strength of feeling about Kashmir in India, here is a scathing piece in Chandigarh's Tribune about a remark made by the leading UN military observer in the region, who described Kashmir as a 'tormented country'. 'He has chosen to insult India's sovereignty,' the paper spits. 'Jammu and Kashmir is a state of the Indian Republic and there is no country within this country.'
Tribune, Chandigarh
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Pakistan without Musharraf is a threat
The Daily Excelsior, a newspaper for the Hindu minority in Jammu and Kashmir, carries this column by a former major general in the Indian army. He identifies his nightmare scenario as 'the removal or elimination of Musharraf by a fundamentalist leader from within or outside the army, supported by Talibans and Mujahideens, with a nuclear button in its hands and a dream to annex Kashmir.'
Daily Excelsior
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Time for self assessment
M B Naqvi, writing in Pakistan's News International, has a harsh verdict on his country's obsession with Kashmir. He blames it for the country's militarisation, its nuclear proliferation, the collapse of democracy and its economic failure - but believes the 'Taliban experiment' was even worse.
News International
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How safe are Pakistan's nuclear weapons?
Following an article by Seymour Hersh in the New Yorker about the security of Pakistan's nuclear arsenal, debate has raged as to whether or not something was seriously afoot. Marc Erikson, writing in Asia Times, thinks there was: 'The possibility that oppositionist Pakistani military leaders might take possession of nuclear weapons and pass them to terrorists may correctly be viewed by Musharraf government and US officials and experts as a remote possibility.'
Media off target in nuclear scare - Asia Times
Asia Times
New Yorker
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Why there's nothing to fear
Himal magazine reckons there is no need to worry about Pakistan and India launching missiles at each other. It predicts a catalogue of military mismanagement that leads to no one being able to get their warheads off the ground.
Himal South Asian
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