Military Action Begins in Afghanistan

Ras Siddiqui: Imran Khan does not speak for Pakistan - he contested local elections across the country this year and could not gain a single Nazim anywhere. Other political parties (other than mullahs) have come out uniting behind Musharaff. Also Imran Khan had Hamid Gul (the man who created th taliban) support him in the past, so you know the kind of thinking of Imran Khan. And Imran Khan failed to gain a single Nazim seat in the local elections this year. He is also known to shoot from the hip, talking about ``brown sahibs trying to ape the brits`` one day, and becoming one himself the next.

It is misleading of Hindustan Times to post the interview without this background. And for you to post the article without doing so either (you could of course be unaware of the Imran Khan - Hamid Gul links ,although they were quite open and reported in newspapers).

Bush Rejects Hope for a Short Campaign



WASHINGTON: The White House has contradicted statements by Pakistan`s president that he had received ``definite assurances`` that the military operation in Afghanistan would be short, the first sign of strain in the delicate relationship between President George W. Bush and General Pervez Musharraf, the Pakistani leader.

Asked Tuesday afternoon about General Musharraf`s comments, which seemed part of his government`s effort to calm protests in major cities across Pakistan, Mr. Bush seemed annoyed.

``I don`t know who told the Pakistani president that,`` Mr. Bush said. ``Generally, you know, we don`t talk about military plans.``

Mr. Bush said there was one way to shorten the campaign in Afghanistan: for ``Osama bin Laden and his leadership to be turned over so they can be brought to justice.``

The public airing of differences with Pakistan reflected the growing tension between the United States and Pakistan over the strategy being pursued in the war against Mr. bin Laden`s Qaida terrorist network and the Taliban leadership of Afghanistan. Mr. Bush has used every opportunity to signal to the Taliban that he would apply military force until the Qaida network is cracked, and has all but said that he would topple the Taliban because they harbor Mr. bin Laden.

General Musharraf, in contrast, clearly wants to portray to his own people that the attacks are a brief, unpleasant chapter on the way to a friendlier government in Afghanistan.

In conversations with U.S. officials, he has made it clear that a long conflict in Afghanistan would make it far more difficult for his government to contain the protests by Islamic hard-liners in Pakistan.

``Every day this goes on is more painful for him,`` one senior administration official said. ``He wants to hear that it won`t take long, and he`s repeating what he wants to hear.``

That is apparently what happened on Monday, when General Musharraf, speaking in English, said, ``One is hoping - and I have got definite assurances - that this operation will be short.``

But on Tuesday, White House officials strongly hinted that General Musharraf had never received such assurances.

Asked whether the general had been told by any senior U.S. officials that the campaign would be brief, Ari Fleischer, the president`s spokesman, replied, ``Not to my knowledge.``

At another point in the same briefing, Mr. Fleischer said that the action against the Taliban would be a ``long one,`` although he appeared to be referring to activities beyond the air strikes now under way.(WP)

I just learnt about one of the Pakistani who worked at the WTC and was killed in 9/11. A smart young air force officer who used to be ZAB`s ADC was a passenger in the PIA plane that was hijacked to Kabul several years ago. The officer was killed by the hijackers. He left behind a wife and a young child. The child grew up, finished college and started working with a firm with an office at the WTC. The young man was one of the over 100 Pakistanis who were killed at WTC on 9/11.

May God Bless the innocent victims of 9/11.

And may the sword of justice descend swift and hard on the perpetrators. And may Osama and his mullah followers find hell on earth before they find hell in the next world.

Ras

Imaran never distinguished himself as an intellect. He vomits the same crap that we have heard from thousands of terrorist apologists.

Banjaara:

Hey dont be so generous to the neighbours,once you

allow them,there is another group of poor folks, amounting to one billion, waiting for such a welcome....:))))

It is not the neighbors who are interested, but their neighbors, your erstwhile cousins who want to come to the great metropolis of Karachi. But you guys don`t let them :(

Reply #: 102 concerned

[``...DRDO`s latest invention...

drdo has bought `far eastern economic review` magazine? maybe you have some inside info... ``]

I was talking about this invention:

http://chowk.com/bin/showr.cgi?f=fkhan_oct0301&n=150#reply135

Now tell us if it fits snugly or you are having problems/cramps?

.............................................

I am sure all of you have heard about stock alerts on pagers. The way these work is simple, as soon as a stock`s price reaches a certain value, the subscriber`s pager starts buzzing.

Now the brilliant Indian scientists at DRDO have created a very useful device for overseas RAW agents (sleepers). It is called news alert on vibrators. The way it works is as follows.

A ``crawler`` software at DRDO`s HQ searches thousands of news websites for articles on Pakistan, Kashmir etc. As soon a it finds one, it sends out a ``vibrator`` alert. The RAW agents, called sleepers because they sleep with the news vibrator inserted into one of their cavities depending on the gender, immediately plugin their vibrators into the USB port of their computers which uploads the news item to websites like chowk.com, sulekha.com etc. Also uploaded are standardized comments and questions like ``Pakistan is a terrorist nation, as the article below says``, or ``Are private armies allowed in Pakistan?`` and many more.

Very impressive.

Re Eklavya #100

If you want an intellectual treatment of suicide (or why it`s futile), try reading Camus` `Myth of Sisyphus(sp?)`. It is also a very good introduction to existentialism.

From The Hindustan Times today...


Osama is hooking Bush for six: Imran Khan

Karl Malakunas (AFP)

(Islamabad, October 11)


Imran Khan sits inside his luxurious double-storey house in Islamabad`s finest suburb with Henry Kissinger`s latest book on the coffee table, CNN on television and anger over the US bombing of Afghanistan on his mind.
Recognised as one of cricket`s finest tacticians and a national icon, the former Pakistan captain turned politician believes the US decision to attack Afghanistan will backfire.

``With each bomb that falls on Afghanistan, anti-Americanism is growing in Afghanistan, in Pakistan and across the Muslim world,`` Khan said in an interview with Agence France-Presse.

When it comes to the troubled relationship between the West and the Islamic world, Khan is well placed to comment.

The scion of a prominent family of Pashtuns -- the fiercely independent tribe that dominates Afghanistan -- Khan was educated at Britain`s prestigious Oxford University, where he took a degree in politics, philosophy and economics.

When he announced that he was to marry his wife Jemima, the daughter of British Jewish financier Sir James Goldsmith, many expected him to settle permanently in one of London`s swankier neighbourhoods.

Instead he has based himself in Pakistan`s cultural capital Lahore, from where he leads his own political Justice Movement and runs a cancer hospital he established in memory of his late mother, Shaukat Khanum.

Khan`s beautiful blonde wife, his globe-trotting sporting career, and his devotion to Islam are all part of a complex mix from which his views on events following the September 11 terrorist strikes on the United States have been distilled.

``The moment I saw those scenes on television I knew the world was never going to be the same again,`` the 48-year-old says.

``The immediate response we all feared was this clash of civilisation theory would become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

``We all worried what the United States was going to do because there was this raging bull out for revenge but there was no clear target.

``So we waited for what they were going to do and they zeroed in on this part of the world.``

Khan says he does not object to Osama bin Laden, the accused mastermind of the attacks on the United States who is hiding in Afghanistan, being brought to justice.

It is President George W. Bush`s ``wanted dead or alive`` form of justice and the military action that is killing innocent civilians in Afghanistan that Khan says is wrong for moral and political reasons.

``The longer and bloodier the attacks become, the greater the sense of injustice in this part of the world and the more the hatred will grow against America,`` he says.

``This is what bin Laden wants. He wants the sympathies of the Muslim world with him. He will play on the double standards of the Western world.``

Khan says Americans do not understand the reasons for the terrorist attacks on them and accuses the nation`s media and political institutions of keeping the population in the dark.

``Unfortunately in the United States there is still this denial going on.

``I keep watching American television programs and I am shocked that they are referring to this hatred which has caused these terrorist attacks and they attribute it to (Muslim martyrs getting) virgins in heaven.

``They don`t want to look deeper into the causes.

``Unfortunately the reason is a very a sad thing -- the Israeli lobby is so powerful in the United States in the media and Congress, it just does not allow the debate to take place.``

Khan says issues such as Washington`s support for Israel and ``denying Palestinians all their rights`` are not discussed in the United States for fear of being labelled anti-Semitic.

``But they don`t understand they are endangering their security in the long run by doing this and they are endangering the whole globe.``

Khan describes bin Laden as a product of the CIA, in reference to the United States` intelligence agency support for the Saudi-born dissident when he fought in Afghanistan against the Soviet invasion between 1979 and 1989.

``Now he`s become a symbol of anti-Americanism not only in the Muslim world, but all over the world as a resistance to the great power.``

Khan says killing bin Laden, as the United States is aiming to do, will make him a martyr.

``Then there will be more Osama bin Ladens and that is playing directly into his hands -- that`s what he wants.

``In my opinion the way to deal with him was how a civilised world should have dealt with him and that is to have a powerful international court where evidence was presented.``

Khan says one of his biggest fears is that the US bombing of Afghanistan will lead to a massive rise in fundamentalism in Pakistan, leading to a radical Islamic government and making centralist parties like his Movement for Justice organisation irrelevant.

``I see a worst case scenario that Pakistan, by supporting the United States, ends up being destabilised, a radical government comes in and then we get bombed by the United States for supporting terrorism. I can picture that worst case scenario.``

As for the Henry Kissinger novel Does America Need a Foreign Policy on his coffee table, Khan gives the impression it is about as authoritative as a medium pacer trundling in to the crease with an old ball.

``The bloodiest raid, a Taliban official told AFP, hit the village of Kadam, about 40 kilometres from the eastern city of Jalalabad, killing more than 200 people, ``mostly women, children and the elderly.``

I saw this quote from a taliban and was wondering if they are stupid or what? Their stupid and lunatic policies prevented women to go out alone. The net result was that women(and their children) couldn`t get out of cities early on and seek safe haven and the elderly couldn`t get out because of they are older causing problems for them.

Thanks

hariharan

anNy #101 ``stopping them (Afghans) poor folks from coming would be really mean in my opinion even though i see the wisdom in it..they ARE our neighbours``

Bravo anNy. This spirit indicates real class. And there is wisdom too in being generous to your neighbors rather than mean-spirited.

Pakistan has been a refuge for over 2 million Afghans for almost a couple of decades. While there is much grumbling from Peshawarites about Afghans taking over Peshawar and Afghans taking over the trucking and other businesses, and in the rest of the country about Afghans introducing guns to the country, I am glad that they have been allowed to come and live in Pakistan.

I am sure many would wish to go back to their homes in Afghanistan, but those who wish to remain should be allowed to do so rather than having to disrupt their businesses and having to sell their property.

AnNy # 101

``stopping them poor folks from coming would be really mean in my opinion even though i see the wisdom in it..they ARE our neighbours.``

Hey dont be so generous to the neighbours,once you

allow them,there is another group of poor folks, amounting to one billion, waiting for such a welcome....:))))

Regards.

Bring home the bacon (to England, Trinidad, and India) after Amartya Sen did it not too long ago.

{{STOCKHOLM, Sweden, Oct. 11 — V.S. Naipaul won the Nobel Prize in literature on Thursday for his “incorruptible scrutiny in works that compel us to see the presence of suppressed histories.” Naipaul, a British citizen who was born in Trinidad to parents of Indian descent, has fashioned his novels and journalism from the cultural chaos of the postcolonial world.}}

Ras Siddiqui:

Its a good article, but there are way too many assumptions. I think the Taliban threat to Pakistan is over-blown. I was of the opinion that Pakistani society, with the exception of the burger type that you see on Chowk, was largely fundamentalist. Going by what I see on the street, and comparing the current demonstrations to those of the 1970s, I think Mussharaf has a secure hold on power. The Only exception being if he is thrown out from within.

ali1,

[...DRDO`s latest invention...]

drdo has bought `far eastern economic review` magazine? maybe you have some inside info...

ali1...do you realise how wonderful you sound when ure not swearing?

semipreciousme (aii behen, koee chota naam bata do plz):

i agree..but then if we were to put ourselves in their place...years of war...and then the manhoos taliban...poor people have no where to go..my drivers an afghani and you should hear him talk...people there are totally broken...instead of letting them come in just like that, koee sahee system hona chaiyae where they can come here and work under a certain program, make money and then go back home..but then again, we both know aisa kuch nahin hoga...stopping them poor folks from coming would be really mean in my opinion even though i see the wisdom in it..they ARE our neighbours

Studebaker # somewhere

Thanks for posting that analysis of suicidal tendencies. It is neat and elegant. It answers an intellectual question that had bothered me for a long time.

EK