This is the what aboutism that most politicians toy with when they want to fool the public. But like I said this is a populous that are truly detached and delusional. They brought it on themselves.
Setting up of the mujahideen gave a semi legitimate veneer to its activities and a funnel for money.
However, you do conveniently leave out that it was the US toppling the Shah of Iran that resulted in a religious wave taking over the whole region. And it was the US, again, that armed and trained everyone in Afghanistan to the teeth to help them fight the commies. And it was the US, yet once again, that just bailed as soon as USSR collapsed, leaving a massive power vacuum in the Afghanistan, which led to the Taliban takeover.
Pakistani army merely tried to use that power vacuum to their advantage. And it failed miserably, might I add. The army has gotten used to the boatload of USDs for being an war ally, but all the US hatred now is creating fractions within it.
My point is, every country plays this game, and they all play it dirty. Why assign moral bankruptcy to a minor player while completely overlooking the major player that's stirring all the global shitstorms?
Every country plays games but not in a self destructive manner. If Pakistani leadership had any sense and if their people were not always fooled by thinking that their leaders are leading a jihad and protecting Islam, they would have realized focusing your entire foreign and economic policy based on the geopolitical rivalry over a piece of land that has less than 1% of total GDP is not a good cause.
Just wait till they have a balance of payment problem. Their reserves are drying up too all because of these stupid economic policies. Instead of doing trade deals with your closest neighbour and one of the largest economic powers, they actively sabotage any economic influence. These people are really stupid.
the water from that region is life for more 1-2 billion people in Indian subcontinent, east Asia and china.
Wars this century will be fought over water over in the Himalayas between three nuclear powers no less .
Climate change is not going to just impact the environment, it is going to displace a lot of people , people with guns ands bombs and badly affected by changing environments.
From the time of partition and standstill agreement the water disputes from Kashmir is deeply entwined in the conflict.
Hydrological importance of Himalayas for all three countries and others in the region cannot be overstated .
If we're looking for a founding mistake, it's probably the British (and French) betraying the Hashemite king [1][2][3], thereby permitting Wahhabism to take hold. That and the absence of a Marshall Plan for the post-WWII de-colonised world.
> every country plays this game, and they all play it dirty
The Mujahideen plotted attacks on Soviet military targets in Afghanistan. They're analogous to the Taliban post invasion. To my knowledge, the U.S. wasn't knowingly supporting terrorism in e.g. Moscow the way the ISI has supported militants striking Bombay.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hashemites#World_War_I_and_the...
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arab_Revolt
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McMahon–Hussein_Correspondence
The USA supported the Shah, and that's not 'what caused something else'.
Topping Mossadegh was not exactly a democratic move, but the Shah was, and still would be, better than any alternative.
The US supports worse people in Kuwait and Qatar - and at least from a geo/p perspective, it works.
Afghanistan is 100% the 'fault' of Communists. By the 1960's they were a poor backwards country, but not overrun with insanity. This '100's of years of occupation' is rubbish. The British left a long time ago. Young Communists failed in their democratic efforts but were stopped. They tried to overthrow government and failed, and then invited the Soviets in. American intervention during the 1970's was decisive, yes, but very limited. They didn't 'train' zillions of soldiers. It was a few soldiers and a few stinger missiles.
So after mass political chaos, yes, 'thugs' took over, like anywhere else.
As we can see from US 2003 intervention, which didn't result in an ongoing functioning state, what power on earth is going to change that equation? Afghanistan was a bit more like the other 'stans' around it until the Global Communist Insurrections of the 20th century.
The same thing in Chile. A fairy radical communist took over, was popular at the start, introduced some arguably needed reforms but then went way, way overboard. With only 30% of the vote he tried to overule parliament and the judiciary, crashed the economy and was well on his way to being a dictator. Western forces intervened and supported the 'other side' aka Pinochet, who was 'bad'. But on the whole probably not as bad as the alternative. Given the choice between Allende (Stalin-ish) and Pinochet (Putin-ish) the later was probably preferable, and 50 years later it's working out really well.
Arguably the same can even be said about the Shah vs. Mossadegh.
US supported not exactly the nicest people in both S. Korea and in S. Vietnam. We know how S. Korea worked out, and we know how S. Vietnam worked out: thousands executed, 100's of thousands in concentration camps many of whom died. Ruthless (albeit peaceful) authoritarianism to this day.
And with Egypt. US props up the secular Army, which keeps mostly 'hands off' with politics but is the ultimate power there, and that means Egypt is at least 'coherent' and not fully at war with Israel etc..
This assessment of a 'single country stirring the shitstorms' is glib. The world would be a complete shitstorm - or - have been taken over by absolutely ruthless players, were not for US/West, now include S. Korea and Japan in there. It's not all 'hunky dory' obviously, but in 50 years, Saudi Women will have many more rights and it won't come at the cost of total regional war between Israel/Egypt, Saudi/Iran etc. etc..
A narrow rent-seeking elite in a desperately poor country isn't a model for stability which pre-communist take over Afghanistan was.
Just as you can't hand wave at everything with the "it was the US", you shouldn't hand wave at everything as it was the communists fault.
Many would argue the military should be under supreme control of the state. Do you mean the state was under supreme control of the military (i.e., when Pakistan was under military rule)?
But then the snake they were growing in the backyard with the hope of hurting their neighbours started biting them. First the collapse in Afghanistan and then decade long war on terror followed by economic stagnation coupled with corruption at the military led the mass to basically become completely robbed.
This is the populous that somehow thought India is their arch enemy and their leaders are all on their side because the state religion Islam was used as a tool. Ya I don’t have much sympathy for them.