Common Pakistanis US Foreign Policy

Re: # 202

Ahmed...Yeh kya ho hya...Gussa ho gaye.

Let me tell you I have lot of respect for Jinnah, and I am not aware if he ever told this for the Indians. I believe Pakistan would have been much better place if the following leaders and its people would have followed Jinnah as he had visioned Pakistan to be.

Re: # 181

Riaz, All your points are again reinforcing what I said earlier. I am aware of the points you mentioned - Islamabad nice city, big bunglows, well fed people, soaring KSE etc. Despite all this, pakistan is lining up in the list of top 10 failed nations, asking for IMF loans, its soverenity trampled (drone attacks) by its best friend, its top leaders lectured brazenly on what to do or not to do by visting dignitaries, international community shunning Pakistan more than ever before etc. This is declining.

India with its more pot-holed roads, poor infrastructure, millions of poor/underfed people etc. but still is part of G20, sending rocket to moon, has one of the better performing economies even in these difficult times. This is shining.

The world has made lot of opinions about Pakistan and they are based entirely on the events happening in Pakistan. Not a week passes by when there are no suicide bombing, now the terrorist attcks (Marriot, Sri-lanka players, Lahore police academy) have also become frequent, political situation is in turmoil for power struggle. All these point to an unstable and collapsing country.

I sincerly wish all this should stop, and Pakistan becomes a stable country. But this cannot happen by wishful thinking unless there is a fundamental change of thoughts and action this time.

Pakistanis always get defensive, justifying their country, about their past/present, and denying their problems. In contrast most literate Indians never shy about accepting India's weakness. That is the difference

Nowadays the Indian press and TV is so much active that they give enough coverage on day-to-day issues, that need attention. There was enough disucsion on the Bombay attacks, Ram Sene's Mangalore girl attack etc. These do not make India a safe country overnight. But at least a begining has been made and that is important.

It was a good sign when the common Pakistanis came out on roads in support of democracy against Musharaf and recently for reinstating judges / shariff etc. But it beats me why they never come out in open against these bombings and terrorism spreading in their country. That begining is not visible or am I wrong here.

Re: # 180

I do not divide the humanity into various religious, ethnic and tribal stearotypes. I have seen very decent Jews, Hindus, Parsis as well as Muslims.

Whenever I look at people I look at the common humanity. After Indra Gandhi assasination, a large number Sikhs were killed. For me they were human beings killed by fanatics.

When I said that learning English will expose them to new ideas, it meant the democracy, rule of law, honesty and hard work.

After reading posts it looks like being a Muslim transforms a person into some kind of monster like Talibans. Contrary to this thinking, Muslims around the World are no different than any other human beings.

However living under a system makes them so. The same people who migrate to the USA work hard, get eduacted, learn new skills and believe in democracy.

Re: # 202 for a man of god and peace etc, you are sure rattled and angry. I thought such base instincts were for the lesser mortals like us, O TAHMED32!

Oh, how the mighty have fallen

SPY: I agree too. And am glad you Indians have come to accept what Jinnah told you 60 years ago - namely, you indians can all go to hell.

RiazHaq: what is "opportunist" about Nawaz Sharif supporting the restoration of the Supreme Court?? If Nawaz Sharif is an opportunist, then I wish all other political figures in pakistan were opportunists like him!!

Re: # 196 Muqaddam

I agree and echo all your views in this interact.

Terror victims summoned
Tuesday, March 31, 2009
By Our Correspondent

LAHORE

AN inquiry tribunal has summoned all twelve police personnel and civilians who were injured during a terrorist attack on Sri Lankan cricket team at Liberty Chowk on March 3.

The tribunal consisting of consisting of Justice Syed Shabbar Raza Rizvi of the Lahore High Court has summoned them to record their statements.

Earlier on Monday, the tribunal holding in-camera proceedings recorded statements of DSP Special Branch, Race Course SHO, Shadman SHO, Ghalib Market SHO, Model Town ASI Riaz, SI Zulqarnain, ASI Ashiq, constables Muhammad Akbar, Ramzan, Saleem and Iftikhar. The tribunal has also asked the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to manage within one week production or statements of Sri Lankan cricket team members who were attacked at Liberty Chowk. The Punjab home secretary and top police officials have also recorded their statements.

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More than a dozen jihadis attack the sri lankans and see the paki govt response...they want statements from the cricketers.

Not even a single person has been arrested. This is classic ISI 101 operation, just like the benazir one, excpet that the crime scene was nor washed clean per ISI instructions.

One should not forget that the bus route was changed per paki amy directions to take it to the jihadis. Now you see no one is arrested as I said before.

Keeping guard dogs becoming a necessity
Tuesday, March 31, 2009
by Noor Aftab

Islamabad

Purchasing guard dogs was once a hobby of those mostly belonging to the elite segments of society but keeping in view the increasing crime rate this once a hobby is now considered by many as a necessity to keep criminals away.

The role of guard dogs is now not limited to the security at home but now these dogs are also used for protection of female owners outside their homes.


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What is happening to the land of the pure. Per the book dogs are haram, now even women are keeping dogs in pakistan.....toba toba....

Re: # 194
Jihadi kid,
The CEO of Satyam Swindled the company. It does not imply Satyam is doing bad. IBM is planning to acquire Satyam.HP is also in frey....

This is a request to all Indians interacting on Chowk. India has emerged and is respected the world over as a successful multireligious multiethnic democracy where everybody has a say. Countries like Malaysia have since their independence taken a lot of lessons from India in this regard.
President Abdul Kalam was nominated for the President's post by Hindutvawadi BJP as much because he deserved the highest post in the country as to recognise a Muslim Indian's contributions to nation building.
A situation is developing where the Indian Muslims are joining the mainstream and are competing with the rest in their own right as Indian nationals.
Recently after the Mumbai carnage by Pakistani bigots, the Indian Muslim religious organisations have refused to bury the bodies of the killed Pakistani terrorists.
Things are changing. The presence of Muslims as a noticeable minority is also a fact.
By clubbing Indian Muslims with those of Pakistan we are just playing into the hands of the Paki hate machine which would like to show the world how bad Hindus are towards the Muslims.
Sure there are prejudices, but instead of calling Indian Muslims by derogatory term of Muslas we may just refer to them as Indian Muslims. For Pakistanis we may continue to use the term Musla but qualified by the word Pakistani.

Re: # 190
Hasho: "Kaiser Bengali is a known government agent. He has always written in favor of the army. Ask any one at Karachi Press club."

Kaiser Bengali is a respected economist with whom I have often disagreed. Bengali has been extremely critical of Musharraf and Zia. He has liberal political views and he detests right-wing opportunist politicians like Sharif and his PML(N) cronies.
Riaz Haq, PakAlumni Worldwide

Re: # 191

Arjun: "lincoln was wrong...all pakis can fol themselves all the time.. "

Since when are Sikand, Dalrymple and Bendreich "pakis"? I presented their impressions, not any "paki's" impressions.

"what's the market cap of the KSE?"

Based on the Pakistan's economy , it's less than 50% of the GDP. A lot more real than India's stock market which reached 200% of India's GDP based on the extraordinary hype that had nothing to do with the reality of India's economy (as proved by Satyam scandal) and then it collapsed to less than 100% of GDP, . The prognosis for India's Sensex is not good either. What it means is that even if the Indian economy continues to do well over the next two decades, GDP would have to more than double for the market cap to return to its previous heights without an equities bubble. If the economy keeps growing at 7.2%, that doubling would take at least ten years.


Riaz Haq, PakAlumni Worldwide

Kamran Shafi's numbers are off..in 1991, India's forex reserves were 1.2 billion $, not 5.8 bilion $.

A paki in touch with reality? he must be smoking something..


Better wake up sirs, and fast
By Kamran Shafi

WHILST I think President Barack Obama’s policy speech on the Afghan–Pakistan–Taliban imbroglio (or as Madeleine Albright put it quite aptly, ‘migraine’) was just great, why did President Asif Ali Zardari do a jig when he was told about it?

What was there to ‘hail’ in a speech that said clearly that there were no free lunches anymore for Pakistan, especially for the security establishment?

“Pakistan must demonstrate its commitment to rooting out Al Qaeda and the violent extremists within its borders … we will insist that action be taken — one way or another [are you listening, sirs?] — when we have intelligence about high-level terrorist targets,� said President Obama.

Chilling words, what! Sure enough, the very next day our FO came out with a mealy-mouthed response to the American president’s speech, to the effect that Pakistan would inform the US about its concerns “in due course�. These concerns should be many for an establishment used to getting blank cheques when the quite out-of-it Dubya and his “tight buddy� the Commando, were calling the shots.

Indeed, the Americans are even now asking for a full accounting of the billions of dollars that they quite unthinkingly paid directly to the security establishment, much of the funds allegedly outside the purview of the Pakistani finance ministry!

Many months ago, I had warned the powers that were/are, that they should beware the election to office of a highly intelligent and aware US president. That he would bring sense to the war on terror. Whilst ‘sense’, as we well know, is not something of which there is a surplus in the Land of the Pure, the establishment must immediately stop playing its usual, silly little games. For, from every indication, the Americans will hit it (and poor old hapless us!) very, very hard if it doesn’t.

It must also take serious note of what very senior American officials — generals, diplomats and all — are saying about the nexus between the Pakistan Army and the ISI, and the terrorists/extremists/Al Qaeda. The Americans have all but alleged that the army and the ISI are complicit in the nefarious activities of the terrorists/extremists/Al Qaeda. That operatives of the army/ISI warn high-value targets of coming hits…!

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, the New People’s Party goes on making a complete hash of things, and therefore exposing itself to more ridicule and loss of face and popularity. As if the massive mishandling of the restoration of the judges and the shemozzle wrought in Punjab by Laat Sahib Bahadur Salmaan Taseer was not enough, the Punjab government goes on posting public servants, specially police officers, hither and yon as if there was no tomorrow. This, despite President Asif Zardari’s so-called conciliatory speech to the joint sitting of parliament.

Why is Salmaan Taseer displacing these public servants when another, more permanent government belonging to the party that has the majority in the provincial assembly will soon be in office? Who will pay for the move of the officials when the posting orders are cancelled by the new government? Will Taseer, hugely rich man that he is, pay for the moves of the officers out of his own coffers?

So what goes on in the New PPP please? How much longer will it be at the mercy of people who have repeatedly shown themselves to be the incompetents they are? How come not one head has rolled for all the damage done to the party and to the country by people such as Rehman Malik and Salmaan Taseer? As asked before, what is so special about either of the two?

I must add here that to my utter surprise, to his credit Salmaan looked positively embarrassed and completely at sea when he appeared at Asif Zardari’s side at the Governor’s House press meet this last Sunday afternoon after it was all over. Is it at all possible that a germ of honour has come alive within his bosom? Is it possible that an iota of self-respect has come bursting out of his heart, finally? Is it at all possible that he has finally understood that he was completely wrong in helping rob a political party of its right?

I have to end with a rejoinder to the alleged Quetta denizen, Abdul Mannan Qutabzai’s recent letter in Dawn that there are no no-go areas for women in Quetta and that there is no danger at all of the Taliban declaring Sharia there. I invite him to go to http://pkonweb.com/2009/03/19/ capital-talk-on-geo-news-mar-19/ and see what eminent people like the good Senator Mir Hasil Bizenjo son of the good Mir Ghaus Bux Bizenjo; and Lt Gen Abdul Qadir Baloch, former governor of Balochistan, have to say about the matter.

We Pakistanis must stop living in denial forthwith if this country is to survive. We must take head-on the terrorist/extremist/Al Qaeda menace if we are to leave our succeeding generations a country half worth living in. We must stand up collectively as the great nation we are and say to those that engineer situations to suit their own institutional needs and wants that enough is enough!

I mean, really! We seem to have learnt no lessons at all from history. We were in denial about East Pakistan and see what happened there. We foolishly became the front-line state for America’s war against the Soviet Union and see what a mess we made of Afghanistan, and of our own country as a spin-off. We went along with the ‘bleeding of India’ nonsense in Kashmir and see where that particular exercise landed us. In 1991, when we began to ‘bleed’ India, our foreign exchange reserves were $300m and India’s were $5.8bn. In February 2008, India’s reserves were $292bn and ours in November 2008, nine months later, were $6.5bn. So who bled who?

Wake up, sirs, have some shame and let this country off the hook!

#182 Posted by RiazHaq on March 30, 2009 6:59:47 pm


After falling about 60% since last year, along with stock markets in the rest of world, the KSE-100 is still 4-5 times of what it was in 2001.


really? what's the market cap of the KSE? How much foreign portfolio investment is coming in? Can you name 5 paki companies listed on the KSE that can hold their own in the world? something like tatas or reliance or infosys?

and what's up with the KSE having to be effectively shut for 3 months...and yes, setting a "floor" for stock prices is effectively shutting the exchange..

lincoln was wrong...all pakis can fol themselves all the time..