Pakistan – changes to have a future

I was surprised with the degree as which I enjoyed my short 8 days in Pakistan. The people were friendly and engaging, spoke English, stunning Karakorum Range, the stale capital, Islamabad and mayhem in Lahore. I never felt unsafe and only a little unwelcome near Taliban areas of the KKH.

I was not long nor did I see a great deal of Pakistan but saw enough to want to go back. I think the country is a great tourism destination but there are ingrained attitude and security policies that needs to change to get rid of the home grown Islamist and Terrorist groups. The army needs to be independent of the government, government control the ISI and attitudes to India change. For example: there was a bombing in Lahore and attempted takeover of Rawalpindi police station, discussing these incidents with a Pakistani man, he was addimate that India was involved because why would a Pakistani person hurt another Pakistani? Other people shook their head and could not explain it while others thought all government, ISI, Army and public had to work together to get rid of extremist groups.

My opinion is the latter, until the power broking between the government, ISI and Army is resolved and a uniform policy across all three is in place, Pakistan will continue on the current path. Firstly the ISI must stop all support of the terrorist groups and realize that the idea of using terrorist/extremist groups to wage a war on India or their use as a defence force is counterproductive for the country to move forward. In the long run it is the Pakistani people that suffer.