What's Going On In Balochistan?

February 28, 2005 12:53 AM

What's Going On In Balochistan? (part 2) Deception and treachery. Live and let die. The ultimate zero sum game. Repetition of bloody history: Call it what you may, something is happening in the Pakistani province of Balochistan that defies comprehension on any conventional scale. From a posting at The Agonist. According to the article Balochistan may be the key to future developments in Central Asia. Two former KGB agents report that Russian, Indian, Iranian and American agents are all supporting a resurgent insurrection which is becoming increasingly active. Why would these countries do this? Two easy answers: Oil pipelines and China's Gwadar Port.
posted by afu (9 comments total)

this would be my first fpp. the original article seemed to imply that there was a third section, but it wasn't published anywhere. maybe it will be published later.
posted by afu at 12:54 AM on February 28, 2005 [1 favorite]

Excellent post. Resource Wars covers the Central Asia pipeline war scenario pretty well (and it involves China.. this book came out pre-911 and has been pretty accurate thus far).
posted by stbalbach at 1:17 AM on February 28, 2005

funny, isn't it that the bush administration would go to these lengths to build an oil pipeline across pakistan yet are seemingly unable to overcome the opposition of environmentalists to build one across a corner of alaska?
posted by three blind mice at 2:50 AM on February 28, 2005

C'mon, Balochistan?

Is that even a real country? It sounds like one of those generic names used whenever a screenwriter needs to attack somebody. I'm sure it's very important (especially to the people who live there) but they really need to change their name.
posted by cedar at 9:59 AM on February 28, 2005

afu: Excellent post. Only thing I can think to do to improve it is add this link to a bit of historical info on "the Great Game." Western imperialists have been mucking about in Central Asia for a very long time, and it's pretty much never gone well for anyone involved.

cedar: If it's any help, it's also sometimes transliterated as "Baluchistan." If it's any more help, the Pakistani province of Balochistan abuts the remote mountainous region of Northwest Frontier Province where Osama Bin Laden is most likely hiding. I'd be willing to bet that if you'd heard such placenames as "Kandahar" and "Tora Bora" and "Fallujah" and "Kurdistan" in the summer of 2001, you'd have found them to be similarly comical irrelevancies.
posted by gompa at 11:58 AM on February 28, 2005

"Is that even a real country?"

Cedar, that was my first thought too. I had to click three links before I believed this wasn't a Mouse-that-Roared story.

They should stick with "Baluchistan." But still, this is an area few Americans know or care about -- yet. Like Gompa says, "Tora Bora" is pretty funny, and I wouldn't have guessed it'd be the center of much war and controversy.
posted by NickDouglas at 6:00 PM on February 28, 2005

Baluchistan is like Kurdistan -- more a people than a country.

It was also the home of the largest land animal ever, the baluchitherium, 18' at the shoulder.

No relation to John or Jim.
posted by Aknaton at 7:11 PM on February 28, 2005

Aknaton, the Baluchitherium is insane. I would stand about as tall as his nobby knee. Thanks for that unexpected linkage.
posted by stbalbach at 10:19 PM on February 28, 2005

Great post. Thanks, afu.
posted by languagehat at 6:50 PM on March 1, 2005