Muslims in America

later...

Truth mian, the actions of a establishment/military controlled Pakistan cannot be equated with the actions of Pakistanis. That Pakistan would continue on its path as a non-sovereign whore of the colonials was a foregone conclusion known well to the MAJ, now it is changing because the people have woken up, wait and see what happens...

Maj writes "He raised the TNT banner becuase he felt that Muslims SECULAR, WORLDLY interests would be hurt in INC's vision of undivided India"

Not so, he knew Pakistan as a weaker nation would always be dependent on the British for defense which would keep it an impoverished nation, so much for the "worldly interests of the Muslims", next, an entire theological imagery was constructed by his side kick the Allama for this purpose in order to monopolize the Muslim vote, and at threat of them being excluded from the community, third, knowing full well the consequences and its effect when the nation would be created, you cannot just give a speech and expect the dynamic of these actions you undertook to go away, as they say, actions and their consequences speak much louder than words. Musharraf speaks so-called "enlightened" words too, talks the democracy and moderation talk, but the sob has done to this nation what no dictator before him has, f'kd it up completely....

Masadi,

You are right. But do you think political Islam is the problem? Or, is it Islam is political by design?

FYI, After 1857 Muslims didn't lift as much as their little finger to fight the colonialists. Your Quaid-e-Azam and his thugs in the Muslim League never went to jail fighting for your freedom. OTOH, they collaborated with the colonial masters to get Pakistan on a platter.

Pakistanis willingly submitted themselves for such manipulation, blinded as Pakistani were by an obsession to destroy India. They thought membership of MEDO, SEATO, CENTO and the Mutual Defence Agreement with the US will all help not only in procuring arms but also getting assistance in case of a war with India. With that false sense of security they embarked on misadventures against India. After starting the 1965 war, Pakistanis cried for assistance under these treaties but none were forthcoming because their calculation wasn't accepted by other members of these treaties.

FSU crossed Amu Darya on Christmas eve, 1979. On Jan 4, 1980 Carter publicly announced military and economic support to Pakistan. What did Pakistan demand anticipating an improved bargaining position and a willing US? It demanded the waiver of sanctions already imposed under the Glenn Amendment. It demanded the 1959 Mutual Defence Agreement with a more comprehensive and formal treaty akin to the 1971 Friendship Treaty between FSU and India. Gen. Zia initially dismissed the US aid efforts as peanuts. He said "Pakistan will not buy its security for $400 Million". Nobody asked it to. Pakistan could have simply walked away but it decided to arm twist and squeeze the last penny out of the US fist. On March 5, 1980, Foreign Minister Aga Shahi said, "It was felt on our side that acceptance of the US offer, unless substantially modified, would detract from rather than enhance the security". The rest is history. Again, Pakistan walked into the 'cold war intrigues' knowing fully well what it wanted. It wanted nuclear weapons, a pliant Afghanistan, a US treaty as a defence against India later, it wanted arms to attack India later etc. It got all of these in the end.

Masadi sahib,

OK I will leave aside ZAB for the moment.

But coming back to MAJ (pbuh), I must tell you what I keep telling my Hindoo compatriots. That it was not he who began the politics of mobilisation on communal lines. He raised the TNT banner becuase he felt that Muslims SECULAR, WORLDLY interests would be hurt in INC's vision of undivided India ( and considering how things have panned out in India he can only be considered right in hindsight).

I will let matters rest at that.

Regards

Re: # 82 How do you pronounce your name?

"BTW, I love the fairness of Chowk regarding portraying Islam. Two articles on the front page; One by an Ahmadi and the other by a Parsi. Way to fucking Go Chowk! You're real SOBs when it comes to painting Islam in a fair way!"

My comments to this were consumed as lunch by the Hungarian ChowQ-Stuff!

Maj #152, when you use religion for political purposes to monopolize the Muslim population's representation under that banner using all kinds of religious imagery and stuff like MAJ did, it lays the foundations of invoking "Islam khatray me hai" whenever the powers that be try to counter the people in their manipulations. This is what happened regarding ZAB, he merely tried to counter those manipulations, he was not to blame, he was a victim of the colonials and those with the MAJ mindset. We have discussed all of this before in hundreds of posts in multiple threads, no need to go over them again...

Dear Mr. Hamdani,
your piece was such a good read! I've been at Arizona State Univ. for the past three years, and before I even came here I had made up my mind not to embed myself in the desi community. I have never regretted my decision and I love the diverse group of friends I have and all that I have learnt from them. However the desi community has labeled me (but of course) - I'm "too good" for them, obviously I have some sort of a gora-complex and I will burn in hell because I'm a scar on the face of Muslim women around the world. Muslims will be Muslims and desis will be desis - no matter where.

tahmed writes "the US population was attacked by Al Qaeda in Afghanistan."

Firstly, the frankenstein Al-Qaeda was a convenient scapegoat, whose complicity in the attack was never proven, just based on the claims of liars who then lied about the Iraq WMDs is no proof.

Second, the US population was not attacked in Afghanistan

Third, Criminal negligence on part of the US national security apparatus at the very least, and criminla complicity to ensure that this attack happened by having total knowledge of its perpetrators but letting them get away with it, not to mention the material and other support through the ISI, an American agency through and through, and its own CIA down the network chains, makes this a case of the US admn attacking the US population

Fourth, What the US did to Afghanistan and its population in its proxy war, turning it through its acts and lack thereof into a stone-age parking lot was a much more serious offense against a nation state than the attacks of 9/11

Fifth, regardless of your cheerleading for the Iraq war in 2003 in your dimwitted article, using 9/11 to do to Iraq and the entire Iraqi population in that war was the height of inhumane, illegal, barbarism, and cannot be justified using that fictitious "attack" on the US population...

Now those barbarians plan to escalate the war into Pakistan using the same BS of a preceived plan to attack the US from Pakistani soil, and then take it into Iran. Not to mention that their trade policies and other domination of global institutions using their military might when needed has converted the world into an impoverished ghetto, these direct destruction of entire countries with populations in the tens of millions tells us that these elite are not deserving of membership in the human species. They are rabid dogs and pigs that need to be exterminated like cockroaches with impunity if humanity is to live...

Masadi sahib,

(ZAB had nothing to do with)

On the contrary, sir, he had. By pandering to the mullah's whims on the Q-community imposing prohibition and such stuff. In time soft Islamism gave way to hard Islamism just as soft Hindutva of MKG, Indira and Rajiv gave way to hard Hindutva.

(but not before MAJ had laid the foundations of it )

Both you and Hindoos on chowk accuse MAJ (pbuh) of encouraging just the same forces which actually opposed him all his life including calling him Kaffir-e-Azam. Please refer to the Lahore Resolution, 1940 and his 8/11 speech.

It is true his creation has taken the path towards Islamic fundoosim but has done so by neglecting his teachings. How is he responsible?

Regards

tahmed writes "and the mullah virus was activated in Pakistan by ZAB and zia -"

You miserable fool, ZAB had nothing to do with something he was a victim of. Zia working on behalf of the white man in his proxy war did it but not before MAJ had laid the foundations of it in the new nation, before that the white man's colonial bs of destroying India and its institutions gave rise to mullahism as the fallback- regardless of all of these the people have still rejected them...

PM,
I think in 2003 Bush made it clear that he was not worried about OBL.

Just remember if the US had captured OBL in 2001 or 2002, the whole WOT wouldn't have lasted long. The Bushies were interested in Iraq only...The Sage Cheney said, there weren't enough targets in Afghanistan.

PM, Majum,AKCheema...
Iraq war was definitely bad and even the sacnctions before that...It was punishment to Iraqis by US for not overthrowing Saddam Husseine and act according to US whims. The only way left for Saddam was to make friendship with Israel and submit to US axis.
Even during Saddam era, everything was not hunky dory in Iraq. Kurd problem, Shia-Sunni problem etc...was not creation of US. Somehow Saddam was able to control the Shia thugs (Muqtada -Al Sadar) and kurd rebellian. US invastion has destroyed the power equilibrium. Now, it is the duty of the Iraqis to find a peaceful solution within themselves. Still, I will not prefer to blame US invastion as the main reason for anarchy in Iraq (same way bloodshed in 1947 should not be attributed to Brits).
Regarding OIL stuff, USA attacked so many countries, without looking into the economic fallout. So, Iraq should not be judged from the oil reserve angle, alone.

This from an editorial in yesterday's Dawn. it should put to rest any silly ideas about the War on Terrorism being about stamping out extremism (except, of course, the extremism of the U.S./Iraeli war machines).

http://www.dawn.com/2008/07/03/ed.htm#5

Because the rise of Al Qaeda coincides with the above-mentioned development in the world’s economic history, and because it has been used as the pretext for invading countries not involved in 9/11, it is reasonable to assume that a certain degree of political engineering has originally gone into its making. The windfall profits from the dotcom bonanza of the nineties allowed the US intelligence comfortable access to tax payers’ money for financing covert operations that would plant the timed eruptions of terrorism in key strategic locations in the Middle East, thereby producing a moral Disney show that would lead the world to approve of the US invasion and occupation of otherwise much weaker countries in distant lands.

Osama bin Laden was ejected out of Sudan into Afghanistan at the behest of Washington. According to the 9/11 commission report, Sudan offered his custody to the US embassy but the ambassador declined. So did the Saudi government which works in close collaboration with the US in matters related to security. The fact that a dangerous international terrorist who openly called for worldwide attacks on US military and civilian assets, besides his involvement in the assassination attempt on the US ally Hosni Mubarak, was made to leave his known residence for an unknown one — no one yet knew he would land in Afghanistan — that too without the US embassy obtaining as much as even his fingerprints, casts aspersions on the sincerity of CIA’s pursuit of him.

Instead of arresting and interrogating bin Laden about his network, or getting the Saudi government to hang him, the US chose to rain 68 cruise missiles on Afghanistan from the Indian Ocean in 1998 because bin Laden now lived there. It highlights the theatrics that have gone into the making of CIA’s war on terror.

The writer is an energy consultant and analyst of energy geopolitics based in Washington DC.

Okay, for anyone still clueless about the real motives behind the war:

(same source as earlier)

some insight into why there was so little offical itnerest in tstoppiing the looting ahs since been provided by two men who played pivotal roles in the occupation -- Peter McPherson, the senior economic advisor to Paul Bremer, and John Agresto, diretor of Higher Education reconstruction for the occupation. McPherson said that when he say Iraqis taking state property-- cars, buses, ministry equipment -- it didn't bother him. His job, as Iraq's top economic shock therapist, was to radically downsize the state and privatize its assests, which meant that the looters were just giving him a jump start. "I thought the privatization that occurs kinda naturally when somebody took over their state vehicle, or began to drive a truck that the state used to own, was just fine," he said. a veteran bureaucrat of the Reagan admin and a firm believer in the Chicago School economics, McPherson termed the pillage a form of public sector "shrinkage."

re. majumdar:
"That leaves us with one motive- Oil. And at the end of the day, oil has only become dearer..."

If you're suggesting that this part of the plan didn't work, you're probably working on the questionable logic that U.S. National interests (you know, We the people, yadda yadda..) the the interests of those who control its foreign policy (esp wrt war) are one and the same.

They're not.

"... and the AQ has got a (potential) safe haven in a country where it had not much of a presence"

Sometimes "stuff [really does] happen"