An outfit called Kashmir Tour Packages has left a comment on the previous post (actually it's an ad, not a comment, but whatever...). [Note added later: I have deleted the ad.]
I've been in Kashmir once, as a child traveling with my family; we were living in what was then East Pakistan and the Kashmir excursion was part of a vacation. We stayed on a houseboat for part of the time; I don't remember the trip very well. The landscape in Kashmir is indeed beautiful; however, these days I wouldn't want to travel in the immediate vicinity of the Line of Control, since Indian and Pakistani soldiers have been exchanging fire there, with resultant fatalities, in the last week or two. Tourists are presumably never allowed to get near the LoC anyway.
Btw, what about the UN observing/monitoring contingent in Kashmir? There is one, I believe, and has been for many years. But unless I'm mistaken, their terms of engagement, which are less 'active' than those of certain UN contingents elsewhere, don't permit them to do anything once firing starts. It's strictly an observational mission. The rationale is that the presence of UN observers, even if they're not empowered to do much of anything, will have a pacifying effect. This proposition is non-falsifiable, since we don't know exactly how much more violence, if any, would have occurred if the UN weren't there. But on balance I suppose it's better to have them there than not.
Added later: For the LoC clashes through the prism of 'the spiral model', see here. (H/t D. Nexon)
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5 comments:
LFC
I suspect many LOC/border incidents are the result of "Second Lieutenants can't read maps syndrome."
Could be, but in this case I don't think anyone who is not on the ground knows for sure *exactly* what has happened, given all the claims and counterclaims.
And every set of incidents like this has spillover effects on the broader India-Pakistan relationship: I see it just in scanning FP's AfPak Brief -- this visa program cancelled, that sports exchange disrupted, etc.
What is it with the Kashmir advertisements? (When I refer to other places in posts here, I don't as a rule get ads.)
Btw, an advantage of WordPress is that it's got a good spam filter for comments.
I don't have the "captcha" feature on my blog, and I get few if any spam comments.
(Whether or not this is itself spam for WordPress, I leave to the reader's discretion - Turing test!)
Duly noted.
I think, if I may speculate, that you are a lot more efficient than I am (I doubt I could practice law and blog regularly at the same time, for example, though I
I've never tried). Anything mildly technical, however simple, is a chore for me -- e.g. figuring out how to turn off captcha here if I wanted to, let alone switching to WordPress. Which is why for now I'll prob stay put w Blogger. Just don't want to take the time to switch. I'm just behind on everything rt now -- which seems to have been my mantra forever-- perhaps shd do a post on that.
Btw I've said the last thing I'm going to say -- I hope!! -- on that slightly bizarre CT thread re the New Deal etc. If DeLong hadn't shoved his oar in late in the day I wdn't have gone back in.
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