Please back off, Benazir!

Manto writes "The point is that Americans have gotten involved... but way too late in the day for us to blame our basic failures on our foreign policy."

Of course that would be the conclusion of an illiterate "study of history". The Americans do not get involved "late in the day", neither do they wait for their peons "to entice them in". They are fully in charge of institutions that operate based on their will, the Pakistan Army being the case in point. On the other hand this peon of irrationality says that ZAB had American blessings when it was ZAB who unaligned us from being a front line state that Pakistan had become under the military regime. Next he doesn't lay the blame for the Zia coup on the Americans because the poor myopic fool can not see the consequences of the coup and whose motives it fulfilled. Zia was dispensible as all individuals are but the American grand designs in using Pakistan followed a similar track. Musharraf will meet a similar fate because a new general is needed for the Iran adventure, he can either give up the uniform and become of no consequence or he will be got rid of in similar fashion.

America does not enter into these affairs "too late in the game", the world is not ruled in this slip shod manner, they know how the game is played, only that direct intervention is seldom involved when mazes (institutions) have already been set up for the mice to run in.....get an education fool, repeating your memorized trivia, and the well advertised "news" of the corporate media is little more than BS, the kind of BS that MAJ spouted time and again while doing just the opposite of what he was proclaiming, now thanks to some posters here we know the role he played in making sure the "Pakistan Army" became the occupation force of the Americans in Pakistan, another point on his tradition of the subversion of democracy in Pakistan...

Manto writes "You are as ignorant about the life and times of Mr. Zulfikar Ali Bhutto as you are of Mr. Mahomed Ali Jinnah."

Really and which point that I have made about either, which are indisputable by the way because they are well known and out in open, can you dispute? Note that unlike you I am not concerned with trivia about people's biographies or some hidden secrets which had no effect whatsoever on the broad scene. That ZAB evoked mass popular appeal, and thereby infused the democratic spirit in this country cannot really be disputed, that MAJ was a pro-West, baffoon who did more to fulfil the colonial agenda, set himself up as king and subverted democracy as a result, causing immense suffering to the Muslims that came to Pakistan as well as those who stayed in India, is also something that cannot be disputed by invoking a hidden legislation unrelated to the partition program which based on some Western man's authority you say helped the Indian Muslims.

And as people can tell by our posts here, you, you little idiot have the pea sized, man-worshipping brain, not I...

PS: What I think needs to be emphasised is that foreign policy is not constant and changes from time to time.

We should not be irrevocably wedded to any alliance and should not consider any friendship permanent. To beat down on the cliched phrase... a nation state does not have permanent friends and enemies.

The cold war is over. The war on terror will be over as well. Owing to its Geo-strategic placement... Pakistan has been a frontline state in both wars. If Pakistan has paid a price surely Pakistan has gained something from it as well. The dividends would have been much greater had Pakistan evolved a civilian democratic structure allowing trickledown.

Majumdar, Dashdot etc...

I don't remember off hand the source of my information because it is in Lahore... but I think this exchange took place somewhere in October/November of 1947.

Most of the American views are recorded and succinctly put down in this following (which I read as a part of new volume on Jinnah published by Oxford University Press two years ago)

Diplomatic History
Volume 5 Issue 4 Page 313-336, October 1981

To cite this article: BETTY MILLER UNTERBERGER (1981)
American Views of Mohammad Ali Jinnah and the Pakistan Liberation Movement
Diplomatic History 5 (4), 313–336.
doi:10.1111/j.1467-7709.1981.tb00786.x

Also read Dennis Kux's "Disenchanted Allies".

Most of the people who speak against Bibi-Mushraff Deal are actually - Punjabi Nationalists.

HP if you are a 'Jai-Sind' man - you are mad. Lets start with the Jai-Sinds activities in Karachi where the JaiSind is collecting bhata of Rs.5000-Rs.30000 from shop keepers of areas near 'Mosamyaat' , Scheme 33, Sparco and surrounding areas of Karachi University apart from there involvement of illegal arms and drug trade in Karachi. And obviously there 'gotts' - two of them I tried demolishing in 2005-6 - just behind Karachi University . Anyhow - I wish and I know atleast 3 good officers of SP who will rot them as soon as CM goes.
As for Bibi / Mushraff deal - whats wrong with it ?
Bibi is playing a good game - she knows the game - so does Mushraff - and both would make a good combination. She's much more better then 'Waskit-Wallahs' Nawaz Sharif & Co. who tried to ruin Karachi's Economy atleast - one of the examples was trying to shift landing rights of foreign airlines to lahore ; which never happened - but this resulted in moving of lot of airlines to dubia instead of Lahore.
Although not a PPP man - why is that from Osama Bin Laden to ISI spends money against Bibi ?
I least care about Bibi - all I care for is President Mushraff (rah) who is the right man for the right job.
Some here at times point fingers at Sheikh Rasheed? why Bhai? have to been to his constituency ? He worked - he was not part of Nawaz Clan because it was Nawaz Sharif who didn't offered his party ticket - and sold one to a infamous business man - S.Rasheed with all the drawbacks is from the masses (like all of the MQM) and should be supported.
So is the case with Dr.Naizi - he did good work in his constetuency - development speaks for itself - hes a honest person . Imran Khan with all the finances and grace did nothing for the voters of mianwali.

I put my Rupee on Nawaz Sharif. I lost all respect for Bhutto when she called India a rogue state. Speaking good English does not necessarily mean you will make a good leader. She is riding on Zulfikar's legacy which will not take her very far. Nawaz Sharif on the other hand appears more solid, earthy and can take the country with him despite earlier setbacks.

It always saddens me to see Urstruly lying like a heathen while claiming to be all pious.

When have the Ahmadis ever opposed any shariat bill in the country. If anything they were so stupid as to support all Islamic legislation right from the Objectives Resolution on wards.

Naqshbandi,

NS's 15th Amendment was an attempt to centralise all power in the Prime Minister. It was given an Islamic color.

http://www.karachipage.com/news/15amendment.html

Re: # 81

Tahmed sahib & Romair:

Supreme Court should not side with anyone. It must however be very active judiciary and vigorously independent. This is the only way to build all branches of the government. In India, after all, Indira Gandhi was sent to jail by active and independent judiciary. In Pakistan, some hot heads need to be cooled too, so got to jail would be a healthy monopoly card. It will restore people's confidence.

i wonder what the supreme court will do, when civilian govts. come into power......will it go after them with the same intensity as it went after musharraf......

if it does, then we will have some more showdowns......as bb and ns have been massively corrupt financially......we still have to wait and see what the supreme court ruling will be on bb's corruption cases.........what if it convicts her..

out of the available lot:

aitezaz ahsan should be the prime minister of pakistan and imran khan should be the president.....aitezaz is a true intellectual, quite honest and a genuninely electable politician.....imran khan is the voice of conscious of the country.......

i talked with some leading ppp and pml(n) politicians in pakistan, and they, themselves, mentioned these two names as politicians they respected....ironically, they spoke quite negatively about bb and ns; even though they were their party heads.....

yusuf raza gilani should be the speaker......he is no 2. of ppp....and spent four years in jail, under musharraf, without being convicted......he was offered all kinds of positions, but did not jump ship.....he was, originally speaker at the age of 41......

shahbaz sharif should be cm, punjab......a real workhorse, who can fix the road and clean the streets.....

..umar asghar khan should be cm, nwfp (unfortunately he passed away).........a genuine philathrapist and activist.....

.....not sure, who should lead sind or baluchistan......not too many stand out there......

........shaukut aziz should be finance minister, maleeha lodhi should be foreign minister.....

musharraf, bb and ns should be in the dustbin of history, along with altaf bhai, qazi hussein and maulana fazal.......

unfortunately exactly the opposite of the above is about to happen......musharraf will be president, bb will (may) be pm, ns may (will) be cm, punjab, maulana fazl will (may) be cm, nwfp.......and altaf bhai will decide who becomes the cm of sind......

urstruly: I see you have changed your view, and now suddenly the Pakistan public is illiterate and needs to be led by God's Specially Appointed Momins. Dream on.

Anil: Things are looking up indeed for Pakistan. While Musharraf and BB can make bilateral deals, the Supreme Court and Nawaz Sharif (if he choses to return) remain forces to be reckoned with.

Conspicuous by their absence in all this, you will notice, are the religious parties and islamic extremists who are nonentities in these critical days. Thus demonstrating that religious parties, not to mention Islamic extremists, do not enjoy any broad-based political support in Pakistan. And become prominent only when dictators are in power and find them to be useful idiots.

Musharraf agrees to shed uniform before presidential election claims Benazir
Updated at 2115 PST
LONDON: Former prime minister and Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) chairperson Benazir Bhutto has claimed that President, General Pervez Musharraf has agreed under PPP-government deal, which is close to be reached, to shed the uniform before the presidential election.

Benazir made the said claim in an interview to a foreign news agency on Wednesday.

Benazir hoped that Pervez Musharraf would shed the uniform before the presidential election under the PPP-government deal.

However, she said that Musharraf himself has to make the final announcement regarding the uniform

Re: # 78

The Shariat Bill during Nawaz Sharif was unanimously passed in National Assembly. I think only some single digit votes were cast against it by Mirzais and some other non-Muslim members of minority but not all. The bill was sent to the senate for formal approval after which it would have become an Act or the law of the land. But with a corrupt jury in the pockets of a corrupt westernized ruling elite this bill would have only more misery upon the nation than good.

Islam in its inherent nature challenges all avenues of corruption and opperession then how could a corrupt ruling class would have let it enforced in the country. It is an open secret that both NS and BB in their tenures as PM were appointed by the GHQ. They were not the elected representatives of people. They were only put in that position by a corrupt elite to safguard their own interests of institutionalized corruption and malaise.

Only a true representative political structure can establish political Islam in country - a system that challenges oppression. In a country where hardly 40% of voting population votes and 90% of them cannot spell their name, how can a representative political structure come into being. It cannot. In the words of Quran, how can a blind and one that seee be equal; how can a deaf be equal to that who can hear. That is the reason European style liberal democracy is an anthema to our society - every Muslim society.

also, if my memory serves me correctly, just before Nawaz Sharif was ousted by Mushy last time he was PM, wasn't he about to pass a bill in parliament which would have made Pakistan a much more Shariah based state de jure and de facto?

If NS becomes PM again, what chances of him further trying to Islamicise pakistan?
And, if the people finally get pissed off with all these political shenanigans, what chance of a popular Islamic revolution like that which happened in Iran?