[AnotherUnixGeek]

Abdullah said most of his orders came from Peshawar, a city in Pakistan where many Afghan Taliban commanders still live and are educated

Pakistan comes in at #4 in the list of nations receiving the most US aid. They harbored Osama bin Laden, they harbored his son, they harbor the Taliban - and we pay them to do it.

[sport]

They have to do something to earn their money.

[Zhang Fei]

[Pakistan comes in at #4 in the list of nations receiving the most US aid. They harbored Osama bin Laden, they harbored his son, they harbor the Taliban - and we pay them to do it.]

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The country consists of real mess of factions and agendas. Politicians get assassinated for falling afoul of some of the agendas from time to time. Sometimes even by their own bodyguards.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salman_Taseer#Death
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shahbaz_Bhatti
https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2018/05/07/609007943/pakistans-interior-minister-survives-assassination-attempt

A place like this is only nominally a country. In reality, it’s a patchwork of fiefs. In some ways, a lot like Mexico, except Pakistan is far poorer.

The funny thing is - Afghanistan “harbors” the Pakistani Taliban, which is trying to topple and replace the Pakistani government with one similar to what prevailed when the Afghan Taliban ruled Afghanistan. “Harbors” in quotes because there’s really nothing the Afghan government can do about the Pakistani Taliban, which is headquartered in Afghanistan, and doesn’t attack Afghan targets - the Afghan government has got its hands full just dealing with the Afghan Taliban.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tehrik-i-Taliban_Pakistan

The Pakistani Taliban is basically Pashtun run. At 15% of Pakistan’s population, Pashtuns trying to overthrow Pakistan’s government would be like blacks trying to take over the US via armed insurrection. Long odds.