Pakistan and the Taliban

[jake williams]

What is the best realistic solution for Taliban (we can, I think, provisionally accept the term at face value) violence in Pakistan? We can talk about the origins of the Taliban in imperialist support; but that's not too helpful right now. We can also talk about world revolution, but I don't think that's immensely helpful in the immediate either.

What realistically can the Pakistani state/people do in response to the Taliban? I'm not intending this at all as a defence of state violence - it's a quite sincere and open question.

I'm also not too interested in dismissals to the effect of it being purely "Islamophobic scaremongering". Sure there's some of that and it's worth keeping in mind, but I think it's reasonably clear and evident that there is actually a real material problem. I could be convinced otherwise, but that's not where I'm at right now.

[Hiero]

The Pakistani state can do nothing, and will do nothing.

The Pakistani state is as much an enemy, it is a comprador state of the imperialists bloc. It uses the existance of the Taliban to garner support from the imperialists, so waiting for specific moments to attack the Taliban.

The question is wrong.

What should Communists do in Pakistan?

They should work with the mulitple struggles in Pakistan, workers in the urban centres against the ruling class, peasants in the rural areas against international bourgeoisie using the local land lords and army to expropriate land and the national struggle against the Pakistani state intervening in their production of land for the imperialists market, which is tied into the peasant struggle.

The Taliban V Pakistan State is a imperialists issue. The real issue is the popular classes verses the Pakistan State. In many areas the Taliban is a none issue, but the US and Pakistani state and its sympathises will tell you otherwise.

So the material problem is the popular people against the comprador class, the comoprador state and US imperialism.