Pakistan's Afghan Policy

#143
You are making the same big mistake that Indians make that `Pakistanis are like us only, but slightly different`. You can`t be more wrong. Pakistanis are as unlike Indians as can be possible where the `pure Islam` of the Taliban is concerned. The Pak elites have a deeprooted hatred and contempt for anything even slightly Hindu or Indian and can`t stand even an Indian sounding name while they have happily and uncritically accepted anything or everything in the rubric of Taliban ideology, sectarian massacres to the total banishment of women from public life. There is a fundamental reason why the Taliban succeeds, and that is it.

Ref Mullah32 #72

[so rest assured that it is not without reason that the indian government has refused to allow kashmiris the right to decide whether to join india or pakistan or become a free nation - it knows that kashmiris would never agree to be part of a nation where there is so much hatred towards muslims.]

Tell you what, you can have the Kashmir Valley and its 7 million Muslims if you would take those other 140 million Indian Muslims that the Hindus hate so much and you Pakistanis consider to be part of the Ummah. Indian Muslims ARE part of the Ummah, aren`t they?

To sweeten the deal, you get WIPRO`s Azim Premji and all the Muslim IT specialists in his company.... all three of them.

How about it? Is it a fair trade?

Ref Mullah32 #76

[and i had this chat with this indian kashmiri over eid just a couple of days ago. i dont care about what the pakistan government says or what the indian government says. if you need a huge military force to keep down unrest in the local population - as this man told me was the case - then you have no moral claims.]

And if Pakistan -- claimed to be the homeland for the subcontinent`s Muslims -- won`t take in 150 million Indian Muslims, it has no moral claims for being a separate state.

Ref HP#82

[...``Here you have a neighboring country Afghanistan, that has installed a democratically elected government which is trying to rebuild the country and give a decent life to its people.``

HAHAHAHAH!

Can`t step outside of Kabul though... ....]

As if Pervez Musharraf is safe outside Islamabad! His car was attempted to be bombed TWICE between Rawalpindi and Islamabad...a distance of how many miles?

Ref HP #112

[Abey I dont take pride in any religion....Muslim or hindu. My roots and my ethnicity is not dependent on any religion. My cultural heritage is much more important...]

By your cultural heritage, are you referring to sex with goats (local Punjabi custom) or with camels (Arab custom)?

Re: # 145

frau sadna,

........... ``The Pak elites have a deeprooted hatred and contempt for anything even slightly Hindu or Indian and can`t stand even an Indian sounding name ``...........are you feeling rejected ? .......... look, we pakis have nothing against you indians other than the fact that you are occupying kashmir - give it up and we will give you a big hug .......

#146-49 hmmm..macaca harimau is chirping. must be early morning in macacapur. someone give him some heeng (macacas need heeng to chirp in the right tone).

hamidm #137 would that be the recipe for gourmet heeng??

#150 by hamidm2 on October 25, 2006 6:32pm PT


we pakis have nothing against you indians other than the fact that you are occupying kashmir


Look..we Indians(and I suspect Afghans and Americans and Britishers and Australians and Canadians) have nothing against you other than the fact that you tend to do a lot of the islamic terrorism thingy...

without islamic terrorism, you`d be west bangladesh to most Indians...

#135 by HP on October 25, 2006 3:08pm PT



Khasi foreign policy has been effectively bottled in Kashmir.


Yes...allah`s most favored nation is about to fly it`s flag on Srinigar..


They are not a player in the region.


What does a country have to do to be a player? Get bombed by the USAF..repeatedly..? have NATO aircraft intrude into it`s airspace regularly...? Put it`s hero scientists in ``house arrest`` and not allow him to even meet his own daughters? Have it`s citizens singled out for extra scrutiny because everyone thinks they are more likely to be terrorists?

By that standard, Pakiland is a huge player..

p.s. The nuke deal you said, against all facts, you didn`t really want...you really really want it..

Reality...female of the canine species

The official warned that the proposed Indo-US nuclear pact was a “one-sided deal” that could prove “counter-productive for US strategic objectives” in South Asia if Islamabad was not offered a similar arrangement.

Ms Pandey:

I did not find anything original in your article.

Pakistan`s Afghanistan policy needs to be viewed, first and foremost, from a Pakistani perspective, not an Indian, American or any other perspective. Looked at this way, Pakistani policies have made eminent sense and paid rich dividends for Pakistan and, especially, its elites.

I do not know why people expected average Alladitta to dislike a neighbouring government that tried to impose sharia on its people. How many Hindus would oppose a Nepalese government impelementing Hindutva in Nepal? They get upset only if Nepal gets closer to China, just as Pakistanis get upset when Afghan rulers get closer to India. The ones who opposed such an action by Nepal would be termed `Liberaloons and Secularoons`, the same kind in Pakistan who opposed talibanization of Afghanistan in Pakistani media and here at chowk.

I also disagree with those who say that the US changed its policy towards Afghanistan after 9/11. That policy had been changing for quite some time, one might recall Clinton sending a missile aimed at OBL`s camp in August `98 and that too sending it over Pakistani territory without its permission. Anyone who had been reading/listening to Western media during 1998-2001 would recall the tremendous amount of negative publicity the Taliban were getting; nor was Pakistan spared, the focus of the Western media at that time were the Pakistani madrassas which were identified as the breeding ground for Taliban. During this period, and especially after the destruction of the Bamian Buddhas, the Pakistani handlers of Taliban were in fact trying to exert a moderating influence on Taleban as all other countries cut their ties with Afghanistan, except Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. However, the Taliban by this time were not completely under the ISI control and refused to follow its well-mening advice.

Pakistani elite were concerned only about two or three things; the large influx of Pathans and their adverse effect on the Pakistani society, especially sectarian violence in Karachi; the introduction of klashnikov culture in Pakistan and the risk of Talibanisation on the Pakistani society, especially itse effect on the Shia-Sunny relations.

Pakistanis are now trying to get back to their pre-9/11 attempts of distinguishing between the ``good`` and ``bad`` taliban and selling the benefit of accepting such distinction to the Americans. I am not reading much American analyses on this topic these days but my guess is that this topic is being hotly discussed by the Washington policy wonks and the lack of criticism of the Waziristan accord by the US suggests that the US may be veering towards accepting this distinction.

All one can do is wait and watch.

hmmmm...its that same macaca sound again....is it macaca harimau?? no. oh i see...it is macaca arjun!!! why do all macacas sound the same?? something to do with limited cranial channels, according to eminent observers of macaca behaviors.

#150
I am continuously amazed at the exaggerated sense of importance you Pakis have about yourselves. Why the heck would I care about `rejection` or anything by a set of uncouth abusive dishonest people like you? On the contrary the more you Paki losers badmouth me the more I know I am on the right track.

``Abey I dont take pride in any religion....Muslim or hindu. My roots and my ethnicity is not dependent on any religion. My cultural heritage is much more important...But that is beyond any macaca to follow... ``

Why is it kosher to take pride in ethnicity and not okay to take pride in religion? I take pride in my ethnicity as well, more so than I do in my religion. But I do not hold that position to be any more supoerior or legitimate compared to someone taking pride in religion.

Any sort of pride in any sort of group identity is essentially morally equivilant, be it Punjabis being proud of being Punjabi (accident of birth) or Muslims being proud of Muslims ( again accident of borth for the most part).

If anything, religion is probably a bigger cause to be proud of, especially if someone donverts for spiritual sustenance. Same goes for nationality, of it is one you aspired to acquire. Being proud of being Indian, Pakisani, Bangladeshi or Zimbabwean, if you were born to that, is pretty dumb actually.

#155
Now why didn`t that occur to me? Of course, 60000 Indians and the Indian Army have been fighting for Hindu rule in Nepal for the last 25 years on behalf of the Indian government and helping keep Hindu women and children from schools and colleges in the name of Hinduism.

#155 greetings DM. i just finished reading your post (havent read the article yet, i must admit). a couple of comments:

1. I dont know how familiar you are with traditional pakhtoon culture - but peculiarly pakhtoon strain of conservative religion is is to my mind is what the taliban are rooted in. There is not much the pakistan military (or any military in the world) can do to change the entire culture of a society. That takes time. On a positive side, the pathans in Pakistan are a smart and able people and there is widespread stress being given to education there. in rural areas around kohat, e.g., (one of the most backward areas on pakistan at one time), their literacy rate has mushroomed in the past several years to over 50% (I was told by a friend who is from that area and who gives scholarships to students from his village).

2. The rest of your post demonstrates eminent wisdom and ability to see things in an objective manner. hats off to you for that. (doesnt happen often on chowk).