December 17, 2008: India believes Pakistan is, as it did in 2001 (after Pakistani based terrorists attacked the Indian parliament building) going through the motions of cracking down on the terrorist organizations. In 2001, Lashkar e Toiba (which planned the recent Mumbai attacks) and Jamaatud Dawa (which provided money and other support) had its leaders put under house arrest and its offices closed temporarily. When the media heat was off Pakistan, the terrorist leaders were released, and the terrorist organizations reopened their offices under new names. For the last six years, India has been negotiating with Pakistan to reverse that decision. But Pakistan insists that the terrorists dedicated to seizing Kashmir from India are too popular, inside Pakistan, to really shut down. Since Mumbai, India is pressuring Pakistan to really, really shut down operations like Lashkar e Toiba. Pakistan is resisting, as in 2001, and apparently hoping to get away with doing nothing again. That's won't be easy. The international community, including the UN, has recognized Lashkar e Toiba and Jamaatud Dawa as  terrorist organizations and is threatening to declare Pakistan a "terrorist state." That would be interesting, as Pakistan has nuclear weapons and is in danger of falling apart.

Another problem Pakistan and India have with Islamic terrorists is agreeing on the importance of Kashmir (which both countries have claimed for over half a century). Islamic radicals claim that Kashmir is a similar situation to Palestine, where non-Moslems (Israeli Jews) occupy Moslem land, and must be expelled. What many Indians see here is not "injustice against Moslems", but the long held Islamic radical belief that the entire planet is "Islamic territory" and that it is the duty of every Moslem to support the worldwide conversion process. That's what it says on most Islamic radical web sites, and in sermons given by radical clerics. Even the Islamic radicals know that declaring war on the entire world is counter-productive, so to outsiders they pitch Palestine and Kashmir as isolated cases of injustice that should be corrected. But the real agenda is global control, and India knows that it is referred to as the next big conquest. Lashkar e Toiba and Jamaatud Dawa propagandists constantly talk about "completing the Islamic conquest of India" (a process that has been going on for over a thousand years, and has so far produced Pakistan and Bangladesh, but over 150 million Moslems in India are being ruled by infidels.) This all sounds absurd to most Westerners, but Islamic radicals take it very seriously.

Britain is also pressuring Pakistan to really shut down the terrorist infrastructure. Counter-terrorism efforts in Britain have found that 75 percent of the serious terrorist plots could be traced back to training camps or supporting organizations in Pakistan. Same deal inside India, and the Afghans are similarly incensed about Pakistani support for the Taliban.

In Pakistan's tribal territories, over 200,000 soldiers and police continue to battle over a million pro-Taliban tribesmen. But that war is also between pro and anti-Taliban tribes. The fighting here is vicious, with raiding parties from both sides seeking out the homes of enemy leaders, burning the compounds down and killing tribal leaders who oppose them.

The attacks on NATO/U.S. supplies being trucked through Pakistan, appears to be an attempt jack up the cost of moving the goods. The drivers want a raise, from $700 per trip (Peshawar in the tribal territories, 236 kilometers to Kabul) to $1,200. A few hundred dollars a month is a real good wage in Pakistan, and a driver can make several trips from Peshawar to Kabul a month.  The tribes and police that guard the route want bigger tips as well. It already costs several thousand dollars to move each cargo container from the port of Karachi to Kabul, and lots of people along the way see this as an opportunity to get rich. While the Taliban take responsibility for recent attacks, the trucking companies are getting demands from local groups for more money to stop the violence. The attacks, on some of the dozen major shipping container and truck depots around Peshawar, appear to be the work of local gangs, not distant pro-Taliban tribesmen. Meanwhile, NATO and the U.S. are developing alternative supply routes via Russia and the Caucasus. The objective here is to be able to abandon the Pakistani route completely. This provides an incentive for the Pakistanis to lower prices and improve security on the Karachi to Kabul route.

Peshawar is not only the scene of a battle over lucrative trucking income, but also between pro and anti-Taliban factions. It's really a war by the Islamic radicals, to impose a more restrictive lifestyle on everyone. The Taliban have made themselves particularly unpopular because of efforts to close schools, especially schools that educate girls.

Another bit of scandalous behavior in Pakistan is the recent assassination of a retired army general, who had attempted to publicize the existence of pro-Taliban generals, and their activities. The dead officer, major general Amir Faisal Alavi, is the brother-in-law of Nobel prize winning writer V S Naipaul, making it difficult for authorities in Pakistan bury the story along with general Alavi.

India continues fighting low level terrorism in the east (Maoists, which has killed about 600 so far this year) and northwest (Kashmir, where about 550 have died so far this year). Islamic terrorism in the rest of India has killed nearly 500 this year, and nearly has thousand have died from tribal and Maoist violence in the northeast tribal territories. That's about 2,500 deaths this year, compared to about 6,500 in Pakistan (nearly all caused by Islamic radicals)

December 15, 2008: In Baluchistan (southwest Pakistan) another bomb cut a main rail line temporarily.  Tribal separatists have been fighting, without much success, for more autonomy and a larger share of gas and oil revenues.