Militarily Troubled Pakistan and Terribly Administered Tribals

hey zeemax: looks like your hero didn't blow himself up but was iced by the paki army..

Security forces killed Mehsud, claims cousin

KARACHI: Abdullah Mehsud did not die in a suicide blast but was shot dead by security forces who should now refuse the support of the US in FATA, South Waziristan, North Waziristan, Khyber, otherwise bomb blasts will occur all over the country and especially in Karachi.

This was stated by a man claiming to be Abdullah Mehsud’s cousin, Major (retd) Muhammad Zaman Mehsud, also chief of the Mehsud tribe in Karachi. He held a press conference on Monday at the Karachi Press Club.

Zaman said that Abdullah was sleeping in the house of Sheikh Alam Mandukhel when some informer tipped off the security forces of his whereabouts. They raided the house and shot him. Zaman said that after this, the ISPR’s Major General Waheed Arshad appeared on television and said that the Taliban leader Abdullah Mehsud had blown himself up during an operation.

Zaman said that Mehsud took part in the Afghan jihad and that he also lost his leg while fighting. He added that Abdullah was satisfied with the peace agreement between the government of Pakistan and the tribals.

Zaman asked how Abdullah’s body could have survived if he had indeed blown himself up. Why did the government not have a postmortem conducted and bury him “in silence”. Zaman claimed that Abdullah did not belong to Al Qaeda but was a Taliban leader. His family had been freedom fighters and one of his brothers is in the Pakistan Army, Zaman claimed.

"banneditem: The current onslaught is not being carried out under the banner of "Pukhtoonwali" but under "Jihad". If it was Pukhtoonwali, the bombs wouldnt be going off in Peshawar and Bannu. I know its frustrating to see this senseless carnage, BUT channel your frustration to the culprits, this has nothing to do with ethnicities."
AK,
Unfortunately paktunwali and jihad is a cocktail of which taliban is the product. One of the examples of that is when the western govt/s asked taliban (predominantly pashtun) to hand over OBL, they refused with one of the reasons being "our guest", besides many others (jihad,money,inter marriages, "yeah right", "dream on" etc). Channeling frustrations Naah. Not my cup o' tea mate.

GT, IMHO, the key there is "common man's" religious ideals. Just like Mayawati who understand India at grassroots level.

The person will have to speak the language and understand the twists and turns.

Difficulty: There is too much diversity in Pakistan. Far more than it is in India. So the person will have to be a super mayawati, while even one mayawati is rare... :(

Alternative: Perhaps some combination of democratic appeal and skilful use of institutional force/coercion of some sort, because convincing any reasonable majority may be tough in the near future.

Pukhtoon khana, you cant have your cake and eat it too. This "Pride" of the Afghan/Pukhtoon was maintained because of Saudi/American money overseen by the ISI and Pakistani establishment. If the Afghans (read Pukhtoons) take pride in remaining "un conquered" then why give the credit (of the soviet defeat) to the ISI?

Time has come to look inside our own giraban, you say our people dont know about Al-Qaida!?! look around you zma wroora, the CD shops in kharkhano are plagued with videos of the latest attacks carried out in Afghanistan and Iraq, talk to the average rickshaw driver or the fruit wala and you will know how big a hero osama really is around peshawar. The time to blame islamabad was in the 80s, now its too late for the blame game. we have to deal with this monster our selves,as it is "WE" the Pukhtoons who are at the recieving end of this onslaught, both in terms of life casualties and in terms of our own culture.

This new "LAL MASJID" that zeemax ascribes to Wazirstan is infact in Ghazi Abad, Momand agency, and is the shrine of none other than "Haji Sahib Turangzai", this is a slap in the face of Pukhtoon nationalism, and given the new "hum bhi muslman hain" attitude of ANP and PKMAP I wonder if Asfandyar or Mahmood Khan are even going to speak out against it.

This is also an example of the weakening of barelvi islam in our region, all thanks to the "Haji Sahib" and "Amir Sahib" protocol given to these zombies.

banneditem: The current onslaught is not being carried out under the banner of "Pukhtoonwali" but under "Jihad". If it was Pukhtoonwali, the bombs wouldnt be going off in Peshawar and Bannu. I know its frustrating to see this senseless carnage, BUT channel your frustration to the culprits, this has nothing to do with ethnicities.

Mantolives: Snap out of the Gandhi hatred mindset for once. You are overdoing it. The Barbara Massacre was avenged by not even a single death, and the perpetrator (abdul Qayum Khan) died a peaceful death in "Peshawar". Keep that in mind before you start ranting about some "secret" document that only you have seen.

#68 Posted by echoboom

Echo and HP:

Echo, OK I barely know these big time sh*t. So you rule. BUT PLEASE READ THE REDIFF ARTICLE WHOSE LINK I PROVIDE. I bet you 10 to 1 that both you and HP will love it.

GT:
India, has always been in the thick of things in Afghanistan..not of course militarily but " watching its interests" and why not? As an awake nation it must do to be ready in a pre-emptive way.

Indian ambassador was with Ahmad Shah Masood & helping to prop up & buttress the National Alliance when Massod was killed by the "TV camera man". I believe the ambassador was injured as well.

I as a Pakistani may not welcome such incursion but then the thousands upon thousands of afghans who chose India over Pakistan as refugees & a l;ot many of them got indoctrinated at the JawalLal Univ... The hotbet od Secularism & socialism in India.

I personally know a lot of these guys...and they thought they will be the new maadren & westoxicated civil servants
when & if muslims lose. A fw were even part of the Grand Jigaa...but they returned Disgusted with the UNited Satans & the West even more..

and am I happy that they are even more FUNDAMENTALISTS now!

car was told to stop, when it didn't stop, the occupants got whacked...if this was in iraq, the pakis would have their undies in a knot...

Seven killed in Pakistan tribal area

MIRANSHAH, Pakistan (AFP) - A Pakistani helicopter gunship fired on a suspicious car that was following an army convoy near the Afghan border on Monday, killing four suspected Islamic militants, officials said.

"The army spotted the car and ordered them to stop and they ignored the warning. They were fired on by a helicopter escorting the convoy," the security official told AFP on condition of anonymity.

"Four people inside the car were killed, they are suspected militants."

North Waziristan has seen a spike in violence since pro-Taliban militants scrapped a peace deal with the government on July 15 and after the army stormed a radical mosque in Islamabad earlier in the month.

Hours after the gunship attack, a remote-controlled bomb exploded near a military vehicle killing three paramilitary soldiers near Miranshah, security officials said.

Guys,

I am no political pundit, but I do remember talking about Mayawati being the PM someday. Check this out:

http://www.rediff.com/news/2007/jul/30nazar.htm

#64 Posted by echoboom:

"...and India tempted to intervene." by Mujahid Margolis.

So this is what the great analyst thinks? Even I do not believe that the Indian govt. is that stupid!

Listen to the one who HAS been there , done that...

Mujahid Margolis was in Afghanistan, Kashmir, Chechnya, Bosnia, and Iraq WITH muslims, with the Mujahideen..

He knew each and every leader there...

His judgement has never been wrong or questioned...
He knows what he is talking about.


_________________________________________________________


Ju ly 23, 2007
IS THE US PREPARING TO ATTACK PAKISTAN?


The Bush Administration may be preparing to lash out at old ally Pakistan, which Washington now blames for its humiliating failures to crush al-Qaida, capture its elusive leaders, or defeat Taliban resistance forces in Afghanistan.

One is immediately reminded of the Vietnam War when the Pentagon, unable to defeat North Vietnamese Army and Viet Cong forces, urged invasion of Cambodia.

Sources in Washington say the Pentagon is drawing up plans to attack Pakistan’s `autonomous’ tribal region bordering Afghanistan. Limited `hot pursuit’ ground incursions by US forces based in Afghanistan, intensive air attacks, and special forces raids into Pakistan’s autonomous tribal region are being evaluated.

This weekend, the US national intelligence chief and other intelligence spokesmen confirmed that strikes against `terrorist targets’ in Pakistan’s tribal belt are increasingly possible. These warnings were designed to both further pressure Pakistan’s beleaguered strongman, President Pervez Musharraf into sending more troops to the tribal areas to fight his own people, and to prepare US public opinion for a possible widening of the Afghanistan war into Pakistan.

Pakistan’s 27,200 sq km tribal belt, officially known as the Federal Autonomous Tribal Area, or FATA, is home to 3.3 million Pashtun tribesmen. It has become a safe haven for al-Qaida, Taliban, other Afghan resistance groups, and a hotbed of anti-American activity, thanks mostly to the US-led occupation of Afghanistan which drove many militants across the border into Pakistan. Osama bin Laden is very likely sheltered in this region, as US intelligence claims.

I spent a remarkable time in this wild, medieval region during the 1980’s and 90’s, traveling alone where even Pakistani government officials dared not go, visiting the tribes of Waziristan, Orakzai, Khyber, Chitral, and Kurram, and meeting their chiefs, called `maliks.’

These tribal belts are always referred to as`lawless.’ Pashtun tribesmen could shoot you if they didn’t like your looks. Rudyard Kipling warned British Imperial soldiers over a century ago, when fighting cruel, ferocious Pashtun warriors of the Afridi clan, if they fell wounded, `save your last bullet for yourself.’

But there is law: the traditional Pashtun tribal code, Pashtunwali, that strictly governs behavior and personal honor. Protecting guests was sacred. I was captivated by this majestic mountain region and wrote of it extensively in my book, `War at the Top of the World.’

The 40 million Pashtun – called `Pathan’ by the British – are the world’s largest tribal group. Imperial Britain divided them by an artificial border, the Durand Line, which went on to become, like so many other British colonial boundaries, today’s Afghanistan-Pakistan border. When Pakistan was created in 1947, the Pashtun were split between that new nation and Afghanistan.

Pakistan’s Pashtun number 28-30 million, plus an additional 2.5 million refugees from Afghanistan. Pashtuns, one of the British Indian Army’s famed `martial races,’ occupy many senior positions in Pakistan’s military, intelligence service and bureaucracy, and naturally have much sympathy for their embattled tribal cousins in Afghanistan. The 15 million Pashtun of Afghanistan form that nation’s largest ethnic group and just under half the population.

The tribal agency’s Pashtun reluctantly joined newly-created Pakistan in 1947 under express constitutional guarantee of total autonomy and a ban on Pakistani troops ever entering there.

But under intense US pressure, President Pervez Musharraf violated Pakistan’s constitution by sending 80,000 federal troops to fight the region’s tribes, killing 3,000 of them. In best British imperial tradition, Washington pays Musharraf $100 million monthly to rent his sepoys (native soldiers) to fight Pashtun tribesmen. As a result, Pakistan is fast edging towards civil war, as the bloody siege of Islamabad’s Red Mosque and a current wave of bombings across the nation show.

The anti-communist Taliban movement is part of the Pashtun people. Taliban fighters move across the artificial Pakistan-Afghanistan border, to borrow a Maoism, like fish through the sea. Osama bin Laden is a hero in the region, and likely shelters there.

The US just increased its reward for bin Laden to $50 million and plans to shower $750 million on the tribal region in an effort to buy loyalty. Bush/Cheney & Co. do not understand that while they can rent President Musharraf’s government in Islamabad, many Pashtun value personal honor far more than money, and cannot be bought. That is likely why bin Laden has not yet been betrayed.

Any US attack on Pakistan would be a catastrophic mistake. First, air and ground assaults will succeed only in widening the anti-US war and merging it with Afghanistan’s resistance to western occupation. US forces are already too over-stretched to get involved in yet another little war.

Second, Pakistan’s army officers who refuse to be bought may resist a US attack on their homeland, and overthrow the man who allowed it, Gen. Musharraf. A US attack would sharply raise the threat of anti-US extremists seizing control of strategic Pakistan and marginalize those seeking return to democratic government.

Third, a US attack on the tribal areas could re-ignite the old irredentist movement to reunite Pashtun parts of Pakistan and Afghanistan into independent state, `Pashtunistan.’ That could begin unravelling fragile Pakistan, leaving its nuclear arsenal up for grabs, and India tempted to intervene.

The US military has grown used to attacking small, weak nations like Grenada, Panama, and Iraq. Pakistan, with 163 million people, and a poorly equipped but very tough 550,000-man army, will offer no easy victories. Those Bush Administration officials who foolishly advocate attacking Pakistan are playing with fire.

Copyright Eric S. Margolis 2007
Posted by Eric Margolis at 01:19 PM | Comments (57)

#60 Posted by jang

Jango,

Jai Shiri Ram,

I am confused here. Help me out .... Isn't it true that Indian democracy (post 1977) has induced political parties to closely adhere to the 'religious beliefs' of its constituents? I do not only mean caste, breaking coconuts before flagging of sulabh sauchalays etc. I mean things like the lyrics of say Gadhar (CPI-ML, Andhra) etc. You know .... If anything democracy, post 1977, has become disgustingly pleasurable .... e.g. the evolution of the speeches of Mayawati and Laloo over the past decade ... they might sound vulgar and cheap to you and me but by jove they are able to carry the message through ... And please do not tell me that the CPM do not use it. Nevertheless, nobody perfected it like the half naked fakir. Anyway, you like democracy ... well then learn to live with it ... I have had the pleasure of seeing M.M. Singh slurp his puri aloo and discuss religion with people ... You are free not to believe though.

Jai Hanuman.

...contd...#61,

... I mean one emerged, but they killed him. They wouldn't be able to kill the next one.

#59 Posted by GT,

That commodity is missing in Pakistan ... but not for long. Events will take their natural course.

{Rest assured. Leadership will emerge and most probably it will be driven by young idealists. But, IMO, successful leadership will be provided by only those who understand and are in tune with the common man's 'religious ideals'.
}

GT Jai Sri Krishna,

is this also true for the colonial cousin india? if not, why not? if so, which religions religious ideal?

#56 Posted by bulleya

".......who else is left as a leader........."

Rest assured. Leadership will emerge and most probably it will be driven by young idealists. But, IMO, successful leadership will be provided by only those who understand and are in tune with the common man's 'religious ideals'.

#55 Posted by Urstruly,

Just trying to use common terminology. Liberal-Fascists is a new term which many will not comprehend so soon.