If Liz were Queen

Queen’s Comments:The fifth annual collaboration between Foreign Policy and The Fund for Peace has just released the Failed States Index 2009. No suprise, Somalia remains at the top. The USA although still “safe” has inched up one notch since 2008.  In 2008 we were 160 and this year we are 159.

Afghanistan is 7 from the top of the worst failed states and  Pakistan ranks 10 this year on the list of failed states. “Hopelessly overcrowded, crippled by poverty, teeming with Islamist militancy, careless with its nukes—it sometimes seems as if Pakistan can’t get any more terrifying.

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But forget about the Taliban: The country’s troubles today pale compared with what it might face 25 years from now. When it comes to the stability of one of the world’s most volatile regions, it’s the fate of the Himalayan glaciers that should be keeping us awake at night. . .

[AND WHAT IS THE USA DOING IN AFGHANISTAN AND PAKISTAN?  WE CONTINUE TO APPLY A MILITARY SOLUTION TO AN ECOLOGICAL CRISIS.  JUST LIKE MORONS WHO THINK THAT YOU CAN LEGISLATE MORALITY BY PASSING LAWS AND PUTTING PEOPLE IN JAIL .  IT AMAZES ME THAT SO MANY PEOPLE CAN CONTINUE TO BE SO STUPID.]

Ninety percent of Pakistan’s agricultural irrigation depends on rivers that originate in Kashmir. “This water issue between India and Pakistan is the key,” Mohammad Yusuf Tarigami, a parliamentarian from Kashmir, told me. “Much more than any other political or religious concern.”

Until now, the two sides had been able to relegate the water issue to the back burner. In 1960, India and Pakistan agreed to divide the six tributaries that form the Indus River. India claimed the three eastern branches, which flow through Punjab. The water in the other three, which pass through Jammu and Kashmir, became Pakistan’s. The countries set a cap on how much land Kashmir could irrigate and agreed to strict regulations on how and where water could be stored. The resulting Indus Waters Treaty has survived three wars and nearly 50 years. It’s often cited as an example of how resource scarcity can lead to cooperation rather than conflict.

But the treaty’s success depends on the maintenance of a status quo that will be disrupted as the world warms. Traditionally, Kashmir’s waters have been naturally regulated by the glaciers in the Himalayas. Precipitation freezes during the coldest months and then melts during the agricultural season. But if global warming continues at its current rate, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change estimates, the glaciers could be mostly gone from the mountains by 2035. Water that once flowed for the planting will flush away in winter floods.

Research by the global NGO ActionAid has found that the effects are already starting to be felt within Kashmir. In the valley, snow rarely falls and almost never sticks.

Water is already undermining Pakistan’s stability. In recent years, recurring shortages have led to grain shortfalls. In 2008, flour became so scarce it turned into an election issue; the government deployed thousands of troops to guard its wheat stores. As the glaciers melt and the rivers dry, this issue will only become more critical. Pakistan—unstable, facing dramatic drops in water supplies, caged in by India’s vastly superior conventional forces—will be forced to make one of three choices. It can let its people starve. It can cooperate with India in building dams and reservoirs, handing over control of its waters to the country it regards as the enemy. Or it can ramp up support for the insurgency, gambling that violence can bleed India’s resolve without degenerating into full-fledged war. . .”  SOURCE

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Of course, if you want to go along with the religious nuts and other paranoids who think that climate change is some sort of a “government” plan to trick us or the morons who recently met at the G8 and gave but a passing nod to climate change, then by all means, be a fool.

FOR MORE ON THE FAILED STATE INDEX, GO HERE TO SEE THE MAP.