Witch's Brew

SSridhar on BRF writes that the ingredients are:

• The powerful and autonomous ISI,
• the indoctrinated Army & ISI officers both serving and retired leading to a close linkage between the regular Army and the terrorist organizations,
• the mullahs spreading venom every Friday from the kutbah,
• the Pakistani State's involvement with extremist organizations - benign in certain cases and active in others,
• the State's tolerance of the presence of militias of Uzbeks, Chechens, Turkmens, Tajiks, Uighurs, Indonesians and Arabs who have all cut deals with the tribes of NWFP for protection, hospitality and support,
• the lawlessness of the FATA where the Federal laws of Pakistan do not operate,
• the intra-Afghan strife after the withdrawal of the troops from FSU and the involvement of Pakistani security and intelligence agencies in the intrigues and power struggles,
• the huge cache of funds and leftover arms from the Afghan campaign,
• increasing poverty caused by decades of economic mismanagement,
• an opium industry patronized by the Taleban, Al-Qaeda and the ISI as an easy source of funding for procuring arms and promoting terrorist activities,
• the spiralling madrasseh generously supported by fundamentalist charity organizations from the Middle East, especially the Wahhabi Saudi Arabia, spewing out the extremist Wahhabi or Deobandi interpretation of Islam,
• the capitulation of the Government to the increasing Talibanized appraoch of these madrasseh,
• the indoctrination of young minds even in mainstream non-madrassah schools as a state policy,
• the fratricidal sectarian wars between Sunnis and Shias on the one hand and mohajirs and natives on the other, the intra-sectarian conflicts among Sunni Wahhabis, Berelvis and Deobandis,
• the deep ethnic fault-lines among the Punjabis, Seraikis, Sindhis, Balochis and Pashtuns,
• the collective hatred against the Americans, Jews and the Hindus (the Yahud-Hunud-Nasara conspiracy to deprive the Muslims of their rightful place as popularized in Pakistan),
• a single minded obsession to defeat a much bigger and more powerful India militarily
• and the State policy to use terror as a weapon against India and Afghanistan

all acted as a potent mix, and continue to do so with increasing vigour, in the terrorism brew.