The Conspiracy Theory

ijaz gul: you and goldfinger saw combat too! and goldfinger fought james bond agent number 007 singlehandedly no doubt!! i can see you and pava bravely commanding an M-48 tank. i am in the company of warriors!! i'll be damned!!

hamidm: i is too an alumni of that school, but sadly not half as illustrious or enlightening as is you or romair or ras or pava. you were at father byrne time? good man there. and sadly, not benefitting from world famous kakul academy (harvard for the martial race, no doubt!!) like romair and you and pavo. small world indeedy!!

Re: # 138

ijaz mian,

.... et tu? ....i might have to eat some of my words (again) ...... actually, inspite of romair, there are quite a few army chaps out there who are more than a match for civilian 'intellectuals' ....... nawabzada yaqub ali khan was not the only paper tiger even though he was always in danger of dying from a paper cut ....... okay, let's stop talking about tigers before some horrible hindoo gets his tail in a crack ....

hamidm2,
I take exception.
You forgot goldfiner, mateen and efcourse me who also saw combat.
Ok a citation from my side.
pavocavalry is an exceptionally gifted gentleman. I remember him being always at odds about stereotyped stuff. He was always well read even as a subaltern. Some said that he was a rebel and shyed away.

Cheerios

Thank God that I stopped studying

at St Mary's on Murree Road (Class 4)

and went to Dhaka! I was THAT close to an

Army education.

Ras

Mushy's lackeys are either complete morons or think the paki public is a bunch of morons.

Musharraf popularity poll exposed as Internet fraud

By Khalid Hasan

WASHINGTON: A public opinion poll that suggested an increase in President Pervez Musharraf’s popularity since he stepped down as army chief and became a civilian president has one major flaw: the US-based organisation that claims to have conducted the poll does not exist.

A press release issued last week claimed that according to a survey conducted by the US-based International Public Opinion Polls (IPOP), 74 percent of those surveyed had said that Pervez Musharraf would get a boost in popularity as civilian president.

The comprehensive directory of polling and survey research organisations in the United States does not list any organisation by the name of IPOP. Other than the alleged Pakistan survey, IPOP has never conducted any other polls according to its website, information confirmed through an Internet search. The IPOP website (www.ipublicpolls.com) carries no organisational details of IPOP. The PDF version of the poll posted on the website says that IPOP is located in Boston, Massachusetts, and gives its zip code as 02106, which does not exist on the US Post Office’s website.

The press release also claimed that the survey was conducted in Pakistan’s major cities via internet and telephone. Given the relatively limited access to the internet and landline telephone service in Pakistan, the methodology cited remains suspect. The IPOP poll also came up with the finding that 55 percent of those surveyed wanted Pakistan’s political parties to take part in an election under civilian President Pervez Musharraf.

Many newspapers carried the poll received via email. However, Daily Times did not publish it.

army education

pavo,

...... i studies at st mary's too ! ....... i studies ther when the rev. fr. patrick byrne was the principal and ayub khan was the patron saint ...... in those days, the boys at the bottom of the class joined the army - the rest went to cambridge and oxford - gohar ayub, asif nawaz janjua and other loosers ......... i also studies at st patricks' where general nusharraf was forming the modalities of the presidential constitutional order that he was to promulgate upon the institutionalzation of the enlightened moderation movement that he started when he was a gentleman cadet at pma kakul ......

......... i also studies at kakul where, like you, i learned all about the hinterland theory of geopolitics taught by a major from the army education corps ..... the major had a potbelly and he used to tell us that as long as russia contolled the 'hinterland' it would rule the world .... he also told us that the russians wanted a warm water port and therefore we needed afghanistan as a buffer state ..... sometimes the potbellied major would get confused and tell us that we needed afghanistan for strategic depth against an invasion from india ...... 'buffer' or 'strategic depth' ? .... i really don't know because the geopolitics class was right after wt, which was really tiring, and i would tend to doze off ...... but i don't think i missed much ........ later on in life i met many more fools in uniform who seemed to be equally confused and some even wrote all kinds of articles about conspiracy theories in pakistani newspapers ....... one of my uncles, a retired brigadier, made a good living writing weekly about these conspiracies - towards the end of his life, he actually started believing in them ! ..... poor man ......... i hope you have better luck ....

p.s. ...... i hope tahmed is not offended, but 'army education', specially in pakistan, is a laughable concept ...... just look at romair, me and now pavo .......

#119 Posted by pavocavalry on December 9, 2007 1:09:00 pm

and you didn't answer: which targets?
for targets in waziristan, JDAMs launched from bombers can do the job too.

#119 Posted by pavocavalry on December 9, 2007 1:09:00 pm

The US doesn't need a base for that. A phone call to the general in charge and a reference to the stone age is enough.

Does no one love the Supremely Enlightened Moderate Lincoln Bonaparte Musharraf any more. And so Hamidm will now do his Chris Crocker act which is as follows: "Leave Mush alone!! Just..just..leave him alone!! All he ever wanted was to be allowed to keep his fine uniform, along with all those fine medals..and you forced him to take that off!! Now all he wants is to be Unelected President-For-Life with the ability to hire and fire and jail the Chief Justice if he wants, jail judges he doesnt like, change things in the Constitution when he wants, shut down TV Channels that dont applaud him when he does this!! Is that too much to ask for one man??!!"

European lawyers to protest outside Pakistani embassies on 10th

Staff Report

LAHORE: Lawyers’ associations across Europe will protest outside Pakisani high commissions in their respective countries on World Human Rights Day (Dec 10) to express solidarity with the civil society, lawyers and students in Pakistan protesting against the emergency rule and the crackdown against the judiciary. According to a Campaign for Democracy and Rule of Law in Pakistan (CDRLP) statement on Saturday, European human rights activists would organise protests on the platform of Council of Bars and Law Societies Europe (CCBE). CCBE President Colin Tyre said in a letter to the Pakistani high commissioner in Brussels that the CCBE represented more than 700,000 lawyers in Europe besides members of European Union bars. He said the CCBE through its Human Rights Committee placed great emphasis on human rights and the rule of law. The letter said the CCBE had unanimously adopted a resolution, in a meeting in Paris on December 1, calling for the restoration of the constitution of Pakistan. The reinstatement of sacked judges, release of lawyers and political activists was also the focus point of the meeting, it said. Colin asked the high commissioner to send the resolution to Musharraf to inform him how gravely the world viewed the current situation in Pakistan. The CDRLP statement also quoted Colin as saying that he had written a letter to President Pervez Musharraf to express his concern over the post-emergency situation in Pakistan. He told Musharraf that he had not seen any government undertaking that detained lawyers and judges would be released. Also, while addressing a Student Action Committee’s protest outside Lahore Press Club, CDRLP Secretary Sardar Khuram Latif Khosa said the CDRLP would continue its struggle till its demands were met.

Thinking further, GT, the dichotomy could be resolved if we introduce a zone of acceptablity of sorts...So, followers would follow the leaders if leaders actually pander to followers' needs/beliefs (leaders following the crowds), or because the followers simply don't care enough (or not able) to resist the leaders (either because leaders effectively use the brute method of carrot and stick, or sufi style deception of the masses, or a combination of the two.)

he he, you know GT, I rarely read anything, and only understand arguments people actually make here.

But your point is well taken. Real leadership seems to be the game of following the crowd and dragging it in directions it does not necessarily like, in somewhat equal measure.

Re: # 118 Iqbal took his concept of shaheen and freedom from Khushal Khan Khatak,the great 17th century pashtun warrior poet

#126 Posted by Eklavya

Kaal, long time no see. I believe that "good" leaders have to (not always) work inspite of there being "basic Differences" if any. That is just my POV and I know that there are a lot of counterexamples, at least in India.

"..elitism may be as much a property and a characteristic of entire groups as of some members of groups..." I have always been fascinated by this hypothesis. In a trivial sense, it can explain mundane matters like fashion cycles etc. Try reading a guy called Veblen if you care. Please do not ask me to explain or write an abstract :-)

#125 Posted by zeemax:

Been a bit busy of late, but fine. Yes, perhaps Iqbal was doing just that ... who knows?
Pavocavalry's main point seems to be that you cannot defeat the Pathans militarily. But the bigger issue is that why should there be a "need" to defeat. We, India and Pakistan, need to go a long way before understanding this. But, by then, who knows what will survive?
Regards.

GT, good points, but just to think in a contrarian manner, I have always wondered if basic differences between the leaders and the led tend to be sometimes overstated. For instance, it is hard to imagine a Gandhi becoming so powerful among the Muslims (so frontier gandhi met his just ends), or a Jinnah among the Hindus (although many hope one arises soon and gains similar levels of power).

As an unrelated random statement, elitism may be as much a property and a characteristic of entire groups as of some members of groups....That is, groups may exist that actually celebrate elitism for its own sake (brahminism could be one one such philosophy and its believers one such group. Iqbal's idea that people should be weighed not counted too comes to mind.).

zee, iqbal seems to be the ultimate fighter. I mean, the man openly called for fighting the infidels with their own tools and weapons, virtually destroying them in their own homes!! - a call that did not go unheeded.