A Letter To President Musharraf

zeemax,

........ stop wringing your hands over your losses at the lal masjid ....... you guys are well on the way to evening the score :

MIRANSHAH: At least 24 Pakistani security men were killed and 29 others were injured Saturday when a suicide bomber rammed his explosives-packed car into their convoy in a remote tribal region near the Afghan border, the ISPR sources said.

#111 by hamidm2,

Yeah I know. The score will be even in not too long a time. 24 in one day against 11 in 9 days is not bad.

#111 by hamidm2,

But hamidm, I do not, repeat do not, support the destabilization of Pakistan by such actions which you and other shamimists support. However, if a line of blood has been drawn between the two Pakistans, you know which side I`m on.

Re: # 67 HNK

``...I keep hearing this logic of poverty behind religious militancy. How many high profile religious terrorists are poor. ..``

Amen! Here is what others say:

``Of course, not all Muslims are terrorists. But it`s been widely noted that virtually all suicide terrorists today are Muslims. Angry Norwegians aren`t doing this — nor are starving Africans or unemployed Mexicans. Muslims have got to understand that a death cult has taken root in the bosom of their religion, feeding off it like a cancerous tumor.

This cancer is erasing basic norms of civilization. In Iraq, we`ve seen suicide bombers blow up funerals and schools. In England, seven out of the eight people detained in the latest plot are Muslim doctors or medical students. Doctors plotting mass murder? Could that be? If Muslim leaders don`t remove this cancer — and only they can — it will spread, tainting innocent Muslims and poisoning their relations with each other and the world.``

nazarhayatkhan #: ``I keep hearing this logic of poverty behind religious militancy. How many high profile religious terrorists are poor. Not only that they were not poor, most of them were actually well to do.``

...i am not refering to the leadership......i am refering to the followership.......the followership is quite poor......if you take an account of the common factor amongst those students who are in madrassahs, it will, invariably be poverty.......hardly any of them will be rich - be they sindhis, punjabis, pathans etc........

i am quite sure if the govt. was able to provide aitchison college education to all of them, there parents would send them there, instead of to a madrassah......

.......once they are in a madrassah, they are vulnerable to whatever the madrassah leadership wants them to do.......they can brainwash them in any direction.......

........the solution to this is not to raid and kill them..........that is only a solution if they are caught in the act of killing......

as i said earlier, no one in lal masjid killed anyone..........however the most liberal and secular party in pakistan, mqm, killed people openly.........the later killing was not done by brainwashed poor kids.......it was done by middle class urbane people, who did it as a political act.........

don`t you think the govt. should have attacked the mqm first........yet it defended them......

one needs to be careful, in supporting extra-judicial raids and killings like lal masjid........in this instance, they happened to be against a group you oppose........if this becomes a precedence, the next time, it could be against a group you support........and then if one day lal masjid supporters get elected into power, what if they raid your house under the same precedence..........

this is where musharraf has a problem also.......las masjid wanted to take over political power forcefully, as they feld the state had failed........this is what musharraf, himself, exactly did, when he thought the state had failed.......

these problems are solved slowly over decades........they are only going to increase through military action like this.......and they are inhumane, as they were primarily carried out against brainwashed poor youth.........

there were other ways to control the situation.......most of them had been caught, or had left........the remaining could have been given a free passage this time.........they were all discredited in the eyes of the people and even religious parties were not willing to support them.......

now after the raid, the govt. is going to come under pressure and qutie a few people are going to oppose the action and support the lal masjid group.........

Re: # 113

zeemax,

.......... do you want me to go back and dig out all your posts in which you have advocated `jihad` against the murtadoon, kanjaroon and the munafiqoon ? ........ it is disingenous to claim that you can impose your agenda without bloodshed - the ideology thrives on blood .........

.......... anyway, as you say, the lines have been drawn and i will watch it from the sidelines sipping my gin and tonic ........ i don`t like violence ......

Re: # 115 Bulleya

``...i am not refering to the leadership......i am refering to the followership.......the followership is quite poor..``

Carefully read #114 again. Especially the part that states,``In England, seven out of the eight people detained in the latest plot are Muslim doctors or medical students. Doctors plotting mass murder? Could that be?``

Re: # 117

pepe,

........... before you go into your next fit of gloating, you might want to read this too :

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/13/AR2007071301884.html?hpid=topnews

........... just a reality check for you - personally, i don`t care much about what happens on the wrong side of the border ........

#118 by hamidm2 on July 14, 2007 9:47am PT

if your heart bleeds so much for the poor kashmiris, feel free to give them refuge in the land of the pure..

Anybody who is dealing with this issue of lal masjid on humanitarian grounds or exposing the ``hypocrisy`` of the liberals is engaging himself/herself in a meaningless exercise. No matter how sincere they are in their approach and emotions, it shows their complete lack of knowledge of the complex structures of society and how ideological movements emerge in the certain phase of civilizations.

It is evident by the human history that clash is inevitable in ideologies. Ideologies are bound to clash otherwise they are not ideologies. There is no ``peaceful`` ideology in the abstract sense. Every ideology on this planet is expansionist. Every civilization has its historical `sub-consciousness``. It is kind of organism. Now another civilization (western) is penetrating in Islamic civilization and now like an individual`s sub-consciousness its defence mechanism is resisting the alien culture, which it doesn`t find compatible with its values no matter how attractive jargons it carries.

So at the end the end of the day it is all down to the ideology you support. You have to have clarity what ideology you are going to follow and support. No ideology is Moral or Immoral in the isolated way. Every ideology has its own moral system based on its philosophical basis but no ideology construct its philosophical basis on its moral philosophy (it another thing whether an ideology`s philosophical basis ‘unconsciously’ inspired by the value system it `justifies` both pragmatically and intellectually)

I am not against hamidm2 because he opposes lal masjid clerics or he justifies and celebrates their killings, its his right because he is openly against Islam and all its offshoots (except naqashbandi version)I oppose him because he is my opponent. He has no sympathy with the people who are killed in lal masjid, Iraq and Afghanistan. It shows his clarity that he is not dealing with this issue ethically he is looking it as an ideological clash.

I have no sympathy with lal masjid people and the students who are killed there even though I support them (though i have different version of Islam, at least intellectually) because I know it’s inevitable. People, here, who are talking `dukh dard` bhari baatain and are in a position of neither here nor there are nothing but confused souls who are captivated by the kanjarpan of western values and at the same time are unable to get rid of their own `backward` values. There is no third way. Choose your pick. By making ``tarka`` of all these things you can solve your own psychological conflicts and justify your confusion by considering it `diversity, but it has no practical value.

But the problem is with pseudo like pervez hoood who claims to be pacifists but always in support of the killings of Muslims. He has picked and chosen kind of value system and thinks that by shedding some crocodile tears for humanity and some `liberal` values his entire BS is justified and valid ,intellectually.

This man always pretends himself to be a great intellectual but whatever he is unable to `comprehend` properly with his dimwit intellect he rejects that out rightly even if it’s a highly philosophical system e.g. for example post-modern theory of knowledge and sociology of knowledge. This third rate pseudo intellectual thinks that he is out to create awareness in people and everyone else is doing ``jhak baazi`` .Pervez hoodbhoy.. ...The philosophical developments you reject in one sentence (all what you are capable of) are so technical and highly philosophical that it would be impossible for you to understand them even in ``saat janam``. What do you think of yourself that you have the authority of rejecting whatever you want and others are bound to follow it? Just once.....pervez....just once....produce a research paper of worth-publishing in international philosophical journal(or even in a serious philosophical conference) just once......on any topic you want.....If it is published there I would be the first one to follow you.

The CIA outpost in Pakistani media, i.e. GEO was adding fuel to the fire for the coming mini CIA orchestrated civil war in Pakistan by mysteriously producing the telephonic transcript of the Ghazi / government last moment negotiations in which Ghazi accepted everything but the government double crossed to cause bloodshed....how they tapped that phone call is a mystery....The American elite using their occupation force the Pakistan Army orchestrated both crisis in order to facilitate regime change in Pakistan to fit in with their desires for the upcoming Iran war...that is simply what is happening in Pakistan, ignore the other BS, they care not about internal problems of Pakistan or its nukes or in any ``war on terror`` except for ulterior motive...Iran is what they happen to be interested in now

Okhla: shut up fool.

---

For what its worth:


After Iraq, Pakistan? Is Worrying About Pakistani Nukes Serving To Keep Us In Iraq?
by Charles Knight


The bloody assault by Pakistani troops on the Islamic militants occupying The Red Mosque in Islamabad just might mark the beginning of the end of the Musharraf regime and the beginning of a period of radical destabilization for Pakistan — a prospect that causes great consternation in the West where commentators remind us that Pakistan is nuclear-armed and bin Laden has remained at large in its untamed northern provinces.

Some Americans may feel reassured to know that national defense experts have already been imagining the scenario of the US military intervening in Pakistan to prevent nukes from getting into the hands of al Qaeda — scary scenes of terrorists stealing away with a few devices in the chaos that engulfs the country after Musharraf is ousted. Two such experts are Frederick Kagan, leading neo-con and fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, and Michael O’Hanlon of Brookings and a likely under-secretary of Defense in the next Democratic administration. The Stanley Foundation has brought together a series of paired experts to “bridge the divide” between left and right in Washington and reestablish a stable bipartisan center. Kagan and O’Hanlon have coauthored “The Case for Larger Ground Forces”, The Stanley Foundation, April 2007 (http://www3.brookings.edu/views/articles/ohanlon/2007april_kagan.pdf ). In this paper they recommend increasing the size of America’s land forces (Army and Marine Corps) by 100,000. This is, of course, very similar to the current official plan to increase these services by 92,000.

The paper discusses a number of threats and scenarios which might “require” the deployment of ten and hundreds of thousands of US troops abroad. The most demanding of these scenarios is the radical Islamic Pakistan scenario which is so fanciful and extraordinary that I have quoted that section in it entirety below. I comment briefly on it afterwards.

“Of all the military scenarios that would undoubtedly involve the vital interests of the United States, short of a direct threat to its territory, a collapsed Pakistan ranks very high on the list. The combination of Islamic extremists and nuclear weapons in that country is extremely worrisome. Were parts of Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal ever to fall into the wrong hands, Al Qaeda could conceivably gain access to a nuclear device with terrifying possible results. Another quite worrisome South Asia scenario could involve another Indo-Pakistani crisis leading to war between the two nuclear armed states over Kashmir.”The Pakistani collapse scenario appears unlikely, given that country’s relatively pro-Western and secular officer corps. But the intelligence services-which created the Taliban and also have condoned, if not abetted, Islamic extremists in Kashmir-are more of a wild card. In addition, the country as a whole is sufficiently infiltrated by fundamentalist groups-as the attempted assassinations against President Mubarak (sic) make clear-that this terrifying scenario of civil chaos must be taken seriously. Were this to occur, it is unclear what the United States and like-minded countries would or should do. It is very unlikely that “surgical strikes” could be conducted to destroy the nuclear weapons before extremists could make a grab at them. It is doubtful that the United States would know their location and at least as doubtful that any Pakistani government would countenance such a move, even under duress. If a surgical strike, a series of surgical strikes, or commando-style raids were not possible, the only option might be to try to restore order before the weapons could be taken by extremists and transferred to terrorists. The United States and other outside powers might, for example, come to the aid of the Pakistani government, at its request, to help restore order.

“Alternatively, they might try to help protect Pakistan’s borders (a nearly impossible task), making it hard to sneak nuclear weapons out of the country, while providing only technical support to the Pakistani armed forces as they tried to put down the insurrection. One thing is certain: given the enormous stakes, the United States would have to do anything it could to prevent nuclear weapons from getting into the wrong hands.

“Should stabilization efforts be required, the scale of the undertaking could be breathtaking. Pakistan is a very large country. Its population is more than 150 million, or six times that of Iraq. Its land area is roughly twice that of Iraq; its perimeter is about 50 percent longer in total. Stabilizing a country of this size could easily require several times as many troops as the Iraq mission-a figure of up to one million is easy to imagine.

“Of course, any international force would have local help. Presumably some fraction of Pakistan’s security forces would remain intact, able, and willing to help defend the country. Pakistan’s military numbers 550,000 Army troops; 70,000 uniformed personnel in the Air Force and Navy; another 510,000 reservists; and almost 300,000 gendarmes and Interior Ministry troops. But if some substantial fraction of the military broke off from the main body, say a quarter to a third, and was assisted by extremist militias, the international community might need to deploy 100,000 to 200,000 troops to ensure a quick restoration of order. Given the need for rapid response, the United States’ share of this total would probably be over half-or as many as 50,000 to 100,000 ground forces-although this is almost the best of all the worst-case scenarios.

“Since no US government could simply decide to restrict its exposure in Pakistan if the international community proved unwilling or unable to provide numerous forces, or if the Pakistani collapse were deeper than outlined here, the United States might be compelled to produce significantly more forces to fend off the prospect of a nuclear Al Qaeda.”

There used to be a popular piece of strategic wisdom that said, “Never get involved in a land war in Asia.” Good advice… and, of course, we are now deep into Afghanistan and Iraq. It seems once you throw off restraint and reject wisdom you might as well plunge deeper into dangerous territory; at least that seems to be the preference of the nascent bipartisan center now trying to regain its footing after being tripped up in Iraq.

It is tempting to conclude that these guys are just nuts. Certainly they haven’t learned much from the adventure in Iraq which they both supported. But we shouldn’t dismiss them; there are some powerful forces in Washington that want this kind of thinking to be part of the “new center”.

Kagan and O’Hanlon greatly underestimate the troops needed to invade and stabilize (read ‘occupy’) Pakistan. Pakistanis are not fond of Americans and they won’t see us as liberators. They are likely to put up the same sort of fight that Iraqi Sunnis have against occupation. Hard evidence suggests that the pacification of Iraq would have required 500,000 troops (not the 150,000 that Rumsfeld insisted was sufficient.) Kagan and O’Hanlon point out that Pakistan is six times are large in population. So why do they say “a figure of up to one million is easy to imagine” when the Iraq experience indicates that up to three million would be needed in Pakistan? My guess is that they figured people would stop reading it they included a scenario that requires three million Americans deployed to Pakistan. So instead they offer a Rumsfeldian fantasy.

If the “new center” in Washington were seriously considering interventions abroad that might require up to 3 million troops deployed they would need to start providing basic training to a significant portion of Americans between the ages of 18 and 24 — and that, of course, means conscription. Really! If Kagan/O’Hanlon Pakistani chaos scenarios require a military response from the U.S. we need to get serious about a major re-make of our Army. We need a structure much more like we had during World War II — capable of mobilizing millions of soldiers to fight in and occupy territory overseas. We have a relatively small professional Army these days, fundamentally unsuited for this sort of mission.

It is not for an imagined Pakistani chaos that the Army and Marine Corps are now in the process of growing by 92,000, but rather to make possible the routine extended deployment of 75,000 troops to the Persian Gulf including up to 60,000 in Iraq. That is what we should expect first and foremost from the ‘new center’. And if we don’t like that prospect (say 50,000 troops still in Iraq in 2020) we should call them on it.

We should also argue strongly to put an end to the American strategy of offensive counter-proliferation wars. The first one in Iraq has been a disaster. We must not let Republicans or Democrats lead us into others in Iran, Korea, or Pakistan.

Charles Knight, co-director Project on Defense Alternatives

#116 by hamidm2,

By `actions`, I meant the military action on Jamia Hafsa. You`re quick to misread and jump to conclusions according to your tilt.

The Lal Masjid`s Jihad didn`t kill anyone. Now they will, and I will support that.

in UK the bloody indian muslims are giving every muslim a bad name with their terrorism, worst of all they turned out to be from middle class and well educated, while the paki-muslims are model uk citizens and two of them have been inducted in to UK cabinet this week.

i think it is clear that musharraf`s biggest concern always has been: regime survival not national survival. take a look at haqqani`s article at www.jinnah21.com

#121 masadi,

That phone conversation is further proof of the confusion of the government in trying anything to save face for the disaster. It only raises Ghazi`s posture even more.

If you have the transcript, please post it. It will be in the papers tomorrow anyway.

Re: # 118 Hamidm

I was gloating? Really?