The Mumbai Terror Apologists

Of course simply61 jee. This looks like an extended discussion anayway. Take your time , as you ought to.

Re: # 517Arrey itne sarey article padne ko bhej diye aapne.Time to lagega na to read and then will react.OK?

Re: # 518

The munir guy and all other pakistanis conveniently forget that hi profile paki jihadis come to india. The LET leader asghar was arrested in india and was released after the pakis hijacked a plane to afghanistan.

The present mumbai mob also were planning to get the pakis in indian jails released.

4) The latest allegation implicating a so-called soldier of the Pakistan Army and two others in plans to attack targets in occupied Kashmir has been shown by the ISPR to be a lie (Dec 24). It turned out that he had deserted the army over two years back and the unit he is alleged to belong to is not even deployed in Azad Kashmir.

//the above is from dawn of today. India arrests a paki soldier and now they say that he was a deserter. Or rather deployed form the paki army as jihadist to india.

No one seem to recall the afghan hijacking incident, all of those pakistanis released by the hijackers have gone on to become heros in pakistan.

Re: # 518

The central premise of teh article is wrong. Mumbai attack has no links to kashmir, it is done by kashmir taliban at the guidanceof alquida.

It is an attack on the west and the jews and indians got killed inadvertantly. The targetting of the jews in india is significant.

This is classic alquida isi operation of global implications. No demands made, just slaughterer the jews and westerners.

simply61, the following the gives an honest picture of the Pakistani view. Apologies for the long c&P but it is a good piece.

Monday, December 29, 2008

The India-Pakistan challenge —Munir Akram

Despite Western media prognostication, there is no possibility of an extremist or jihadi government assuming office in Islamabad. Neither the Pakistani electorate nor the Pakistan Army would accept this

The India-Pakistan confrontation following the Mumbai attacks is the fourth such crisis in the last two decades. While India says it has provided enough evidence to Pakistan, Islamabad says what it has been given cannot be taken to a court of law for prosecution. Also, there is still no solid evidence that the Mumbai attacks were planned by a Pakistani group; or that the attackers were all Pakistanis. The audio recording of one of the attackers, available online, includes the use of Hindi words not in the Pakistani lexicon.

There is a strong sense in Pakistan that the Indian government’s allegations are designed to deflect attention away from India’s own security lapses, to safeguard against erosion of electoral support for the ruling party and to utilise the crisis to further de-legitimise the Kashmiri insurgency.

Western support for India’s largely unsubstantiated allegations has encouraged Indian hawks advocating military actions against Pakistan, especially airstrikes against alleged jihadi training camps. They see the continuing US Predator strikes against Al Qaeda and Taliban targets in Pakistan’s Western frontier as the example and precedent. But India is not the US and drone strikes have a more complex configuration.

No Pakistan government can acquiesce in such Indian strikes. As the Pakistan army chief has warned, any Indian attack will invite “a befitting response�. During the previous three crises, Pentagon game planners reportedly reached the conclusion that an India-Pakistan conflict is likely to escalate rapidly, including possibly to the nuclear level. Hopefully, as in 2002, the present Indian government will also reach the same conclusion and not allow the hawks to propel it into creating a South Asian catastrophe.

An Indian military strike, and consequent Indo-Pakistan conflict, would also imply the immediate termination of Pakistan’s cooperation with the US and NATO regarding Afghanistan. The use of the Pakistani airbase at Jacobabad; the NATO supply convoys through Pakistan to Afghanistan; intelligence cooperation on Al Qaeda and Taliban operations; the Pakistani military deployments and operations against Al Qaeda and the Taliban on the western frontier, would all end abruptly.

This is all the more likely because Pakistan’s collaboration with the US-NATO “war in Afghanistan� is highly unpopular in Pakistan and seen as the principal cause of the recent terrorist attacks on security and civilian targets within Pakistan.

Nor can President-elect Obama or New York Times editorials convince the vast majority of Pakistanis that the Taliban, not India, is the real enemy.

India and Pakistan have fought three wars. Indian military intervention dismembered Pakistan in 1971. India continues to brutally suppress the Kashmiri freedom movement and tolerates the systemic discrimination and occasional pogroms against its Muslim minority. It has deployed over 70 percent of its huge armed forces against Pakistan (not China) and seeks to establish its strategic dominance over South Asia and beyond. Indian intelligence agencies are supporting, if not organising, violence and terrorism in Balochistan and perhaps even helping some of the Islamist militants in the Frontier.

It is, therefore, naïve for the West to believe that the Pakistan government will forcibly suppress the militant groups which support Kashmir’s liberation struggle at least until Pakistan’s strategic differences with India, including Kashmir, are resolved.

Nor should there be Western expectations that political pressure and economic incentives would persuade any government in Pakistan to compromise on vital national issues, in particular its nuclear and strategic programmes that provide credible deterrence against Indian and any other foreign aggression.

Western discrimination against Pakistan on strategic issues, epitomised by the Indo-US nuclear deal, and the periodic unrealistic demands for the surrender or elimination of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons, reinforce the common Pakistani view that the West is conspiring with India to weaken and destabilise, if not dismember Pakistan.

Also, Western chancelleries should not exaggerate their political and economic influence over Pakistan, even with the present government. Pakistan does not need to rely on US or Western military support. The most advanced Western hardware and technology will not be made available to Pakistan. The rest it can get, more reliably and cheaply, from China.

Economically also, a West preoccupied with saving its own broken financial institutions is in no position to provide Pakistan with the magnitude of financial and development assistance it requires for economic stabilisation and rapid growth. Here again, it is China, which has the financial reserves to come to Pakistan’s rescue.

This is not to argue that terrorism and extremism do not pose a threat to Pakistan, to its socio-economic development and its strategic objectives. However, unlike the threat posed by India, the threat of terrorism and extremism is not existential.

Despite Western media prognostication, there is no possibility of an extremist or jihadi government assuming office in Islamabad. Neither the Pakistani electorate nor the Pakistan Army would accept this. Ending extremism and its terrorist tactics, in Pakistan and the region will require a comprehensive and painstaking process of police and intelligence action and cooperation as well as the elimination of the political and economic grievances which create the justification for terrorism.

In this context it should be noted that all four recent India-Pakistan crises — January 1990, June 1999, January-December 2002 and this one — were linked, directly or indirectly, to the Kashmir dispute. Unless this dispute is resolved, such periodic confrontations will continue to erupt. Such a solution must be one that is acceptable, first and foremost, to the people of Jammu and Kashmir.

Finally, a comprehensive strategy against terrorism in South Asia must also seek to end state terrorism, state-sponsored terrorism and Islamic as well as Hindu extremist violence, including that perpetrated by Hindu fascist organisations like the RSS, against Muslims in India.

simply61,

If it's experts you want here are a few who advocate something similar:

http://www.rediff.com/money/2008/dec/10mumterror-8-things-india-inc- govt-must-do-against-pakistan.htm

http://www.rediff.com/money/2008/dec/11mumt error-12-steps-to-shock-and-awe-pak-economy.htm

http://pragati.nationalintere st.in/

http://www.rediff.com/news/2008/dec/05pakistan-thus-far-and-no-further .htm

Of course, if you don't want even to listen to the other side, nobody can force you to.

Re: # 513 All of you are such experts at solving the "Pakistani problem",I am surprised that the governments of the two countries have not hired you as consultants so far!!!
Zardari and Pranab should stop their verbal fencing duels and come to chowk,take som etips and get all this mess straightened.

inbredistani troops move to the east...talibunnies take over pakiland and whack a bunch of pakis...

sweet....

Taliban Burning, Beheading Its Way Through Pakistani Valley

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Taliban militants are beheading and burning their way through Pakistan's picturesque Swat Valley, and residents say the insurgents now control most of the mountainous region outside the lawless tribal areas where jihadists thrive.

The deteriorating situation in the former tourist haven comes despite an army offensive that began in 2007 and an attempted peace deal. It is especially worrisome to Pakistani officials because the valley lies away from the areas where Al Qaeda and Taliban militants have traditionally operated and where the military is staging a separate offensive.

"You can't imagine how bad it is," said Muzaffar ul-Mulk, a federal lawmaker whose home in Swat was attacked by bomb-toting assailants in mid-December, weeks after he left. "It's worse day by day."

The Taliban activity in northwest Pakistan also comes as the country shifts forces east to the Indian border because of tensions over last month's terrorist attacks in Mumbai, potentially giving insurgents more space to maneuver along the Afghan frontier.

Militants began preying on Swat's lush mountain ranges about two years ago, and it is now too dangerous for foreign and Pakistani journalists to visit. Interviews with residents, lawmakers and officials who have fled the region paint a dire picture.

#512 Posted by simply61 on December 30, 2008 7:22:25 am

it's not that hard...

cut off the water(it was already done once)

keep border tensions high...they have a 3% GDP growth rate and 25% inflation...

simply61,

Here are my ideas on how to punish Pakistan.
http://www.chowk.com/unplugged/t/60906

Re: # 510Pakistani establishment(whatever that is made up of) might just be playing that double game but what do you suggest be done to 'punish'Pakistan? The solution shud be a solution and not the beginning of a newer greater mess, is what I think.

Publius, I used to be like simply61 *sniff* the good old days.

simply61,

You don't believe that Pakistan is playing a double game w.r.t taliban. That it wants to retain the option of using it for controlling Afghanistan once again when it hopes the US will leave ?

By seeking to "help" Pakistan rather than punish it, you are not just violating natural justice( which requires that Pakistan be punished for the mumbai attack) but you could well be ensuring that it is the Pakistani agenda of using the Taliban and Jihadis that will ultimately succeed.

Re: # 507The blot of Godhra riots on his, otherwise great, CV can not be wished away but yes,if he can truly take Gujarat state forward with the Muslims and Hindus( and all others too) as equal participants in opportunities and progress then maybe history might judge him less harshly.

Re: # 506Thank you akcheema.Its fun to be here.Things do get overheated most of the time but still.....its worth it.