Military Action Begins in Afghanistan

re tAhmed321 #232:

Thanks for your reply. I concur completely. None of Pakistan`s Messiahs in khaki were bad men, simply prisoners of compulsions and forces beyond their puny intellects. What never ceases to amaze me is the continuos gullibility of the `thinking` patriots who bring out bugles of joy whenever a despot takes over to rid the masses of democratic tyrants in the guise of protecting the idealogical and geographical frontiers of Pakistan. Whether they promise a turnover to civilian rule in 90 days or proclaim, ``who pushed me into the water?``-they all bite the dust in due course of time.

Come on tAhmed sahib-its not different-not even this time. A Porsche is driven for pleasure. Don`t expect it to provide you with milk also.

later

-sac

- Friday, Jumah

RANDOM BOMBINGS AND INHUMAN KILLINGS NOT THE ANSWER

After almost two weeks of continuing bombardment of Afghanistan by

American and British war machines, the people of these countries are being

prepared for a celebration of the might and glory of their governments; a

celebration of security and of power, a celebration of surreptitious

information retrieval, a celebration of victory in battle, and perhaps of

assassination or capture of a notorious enemy. All these will be described

as virtuous goals and achievements. They will be touted as if the terror

victims have been honored rather than defiled by actions that have

entombed still more innocent people in a country already ravaged by thirty

years of civil conflict.

But normal, honest, compassionate and good-hearted Americans who wept in

sorrow and sadness on September 11, will weep now for the suffering that

today`s events are exacting and hope to create a world in which such hate

and callousness disappears. But, unfortunately, the administration leaders

will cynically bulk up their ammo belts again while seeking to make

ubiquitous their presence world wide, and try to relegate other people`s

rights and freedoms to an incinerator.

In this environment, people of good will throughout the world have

unanimously declared that terrorism is horrific and insane and must be

eradicated. But irrespective of the pain and suffering of the American

people over the hijackings, they cannot comprehend the purpose of their

government in chastisement of innocent men, women and children who had no

role in the carnage and are being, and will continue to be, punished

ruthlessly and indiscriminately.

The prolongation of the heavy attacks and bombardments against Afghanistan

which, so far, has had no positive result in capturing Bin Laden and his

clique will ultimately bring dissent and opposition in many countries of

the world and will probably make even the American people themselves

question the justification and purpose of the actions and ultimate aims of

their government. Public demonstrations and civil disobedience will most

certainly be the expected reaction of the people. For the American

government, the answer to terrorism seems to be reciprocal terrorism -

whether by bombing or by starving civilians. The American Administration`s

response to one man`s misguided fundamentalism has been a declaration of

an all-out war and the mounting of a military crusade abroad. At the same

time, the so called war against terrorism has become an excuse for curbing

civil liberties at home. The answer to hypocritical inhumanity shouldn`t

be to opportunistically exploiting fear. The government is using the

events of September 11 as an excuse to turn its battered economy in order

to enrich the rich and empower the powerful at the cost of gutting social

programs at home and creating recession, economic turmoil and poverty in

many countries of the world. Already some six million Afghans are living

under famine and in abject poverty.

If the attacks on Afghanistan and threats of military action against other

countries that the U.S. Administration is threatening, are natural

consequences of its globalization policy, they are doomed to failure.

Globalization has, so far, made a small rich group richer to the detriment

of the majority of world population. Military belligerency as a complement

to economic dominance is not conducive to creation of peace and

tranquility in the world.

The American Administration must realize that it is directly responsible

for creating dissent and opposition throughout the developing and

underdeveloped world. The people of these regions whilst vociferously

condemning any act of terrorism, cannot remain passive onlookers at the

atrocities committed under the pretext of what the American government is

euphemistically calling war against terrorism.

Mounting a terror war, organizing starvation tactics, inflicting economic

embargo, rejecting Palestinian`s irrefutable demand on their homeland,

etc., are not correct answers to the plights and woes of today`s world.

People demand rights, justice, equality and institutional organizations to

safeguard their interests. No one country can assume just title and legal

claim to inflict its hegemony on the rest of the world. Complete adherence

to international law and binding UN General Assembly adjudication of

disputes among nations are the only way to reach a consensus for remedial

actions to be taken for solving the problems that are besetting the world

today and ensuring peace and tranquility for the future.

sac #228 ``: Would you kindly enlighten us as to whom PM`s erstwhile predecessors owed their allegiance to? ``

To Pakistan (I say this based on personal knowledge for two of them, and based on general reputation). Do you have reason to believe it would be to anything else??? Why do you ask this strange question?

saminashah #221

PS: ``Now shall we compare the attributes of the boys in NYC to the ones in your city, as our colleagues have taken to on other boards?``

Reverse-objectification? Poor things, I think not :)

saminashah #221
``Once the jihadi factor is added...it seems like an unending cycle.``

You bet. And you get adversaries who believe its their religious duty to wipe out their dissenters and that compromise with adversaries translates into compromising their religious beliefs and forgoing heaven.

Thats not the best way to solve political conflicts on Earth, where the underlying assumption is that one is fighting for eventual compromise(on Earth) with ones adversaries.

`` Re: Mr. Rose; is he featuring progressive guests? not quite sure of your meaning. I feel that so many of my views are validated on Chowk ;)``

Its just that a few times, guests on the show have made some points which have made me think, Samina will like that. I see some evidence of self-realization (for reasons of self-preservation, no doubt) in the media discourse, I think thats what I mean.

btw, I know I am risking excommunication here, but I`m not sure what the defination of a progressive is :). Yesterday I found Charlie Rose had Thomas Friedman and Bernard Lewis on. I said uhoh :). Though I donot follow him closely, I generally disagree with Friedman. But he was OK yesterday. The previous day there was Barnett Rubin, an Afghanistan expert who spoke of how delay in Afghanistan will result in a large number of deaths, many more than in WTC.

Just reminder to those who already remember Sabra & Shatilla

Return of the Terrorist

The Crimes of Ariel Sharon



Some incorrigible optimists have suggested that only a right-wing extremist of the notoriety of Likud leader Ariel Sharon will have the credentials to broker any sort of lasting settlement with the Palestinians. Maybe so. History is not devoid of such examples. But Sharon?

Sharon`s history offers a monochromatic record of moral corruption, with a documented record of war crimes going back to the early 1950s. He was born in 1928 and as a young man joined the Haganah, the underground military organization of Israel in its pre-state days. In 1953 hewas given command of Unit 101, whose mission is often described as that of retaliation against Arab attacks on Jewish villages. In fact, as can be seen from two terrible onslaughts, one of them very well known, Unit 101`s purpose was that of instilling terror by the infliction of discriminate, murderous violence not only on able bodied fighters but on the young, the old, the helpless.

Sharon`s first documented sortie in this role was in August of 1953 on the refugee camp of El-Bureig, south of Gaza. An Israeli history of the 101 unit records 50 refugees as having been killed; other sources allege 15 or 20. Major-General Vagn Bennike, the UN commander, reported that ``bombs were thrown`` by Sharon`s men ``through the windows of huts in which the refugees were sleeping and, as they fled, they were attacked by small arms and automatic weapons``.

In October of 1953 came the attack by Sharon`s unit 101 on the Jordanian village of Qibya, whose ``stain`` Israel`s foreign minister at the time, Moshe Sharett, confided to his diary ``would stick to us and not be washed away for many years``. He was wrong. Though even strongly pro-Israel commentators in the West compared it to Lidice, Qibya and Sharon`s role are scarcely evoked in the West today, least of all by journalists such as Deborah Sontag of the New York Times who recently wrote a whitewash of Sharon, describing him as ``feisty``, or theWashington Post`s man in Jerusalem who fondly invoked him after his fateful excursion to the Holy Places in Jerusalem as ``the portly old warrior``.

Israeli historian Avi Shlaim describes the massacre thus: ``Sharon`s order was to penetrate Qibya, blow up houses and inflict heavy casualties on its inhabitants. His success in carrying out the order surpassed all expectations. The full and macabre story of what happened at Qibya wasrevealed only during the morning after the attack. The village had been reduced to rubble: forty-five houses had been blown up, and sixty-nine civilians, two thirds of them women and children, had been killed. Sharon and his men claimed that they believed that all the inhabitants had run away and that they had no idea that anyone was hiding inside the houses.`` The UN observer on the scene reached a different conclusion: ``One story was repeated time after time: the bullet splintered door, the body sprawled across the threshhold, indicating that the inhabitants had been forced by heavy fire to stay inside until their homes were blown up over them.`` The slaughter in Qibya was described contemporaneously in a letter to the president of the United Nations Security Council dated 16 October 1953 (S/3113) from the Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary of Jordan to the United States. On 14 October 1953 at 9:30 at night, he wrote, Israeli troops launched a battalion-scale attack on the village of Qibya in the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan (at the time the West Bank was annexed to Jordan).

According to the diplomat`s account, Israeli forces had entered the village and systematically murdered all occupants of houses, using automatic weapons, grenades and incendiaries. On 14 October, the bodies of 42 Arab civilians had been recovered; several more bodies were still under the wreckage. Forty houses, the village school and a reservoir had been destroyed. Quantities of unused explosives, bearing Israel army markings in Hebrew, had been found in the village. At about 3 a.m., to cover their withdrawal, Israeli support troops had begun shelling theneighbouring villages of Budrus and Shuqba from positions in Israel. And what of Sharon`s conduct when he was head of the Southern Command of Israel`s Defense Forces in the early 1970s? The Gaza ``clearances`` were vividly described by Phil Reeves in a piece in The London Independent on January 21 of this year.

``Thirty years have elapsed since Ariel Sharon, favourite to win Israel`s forthcoming election, was the head of the Israel Defence Forces` southern command, charged with the task of `pacifying` the recalcitrant Gaza Strip after the 1967 war. But the old men still remember it well. Especially the old men on Wreckage Street. Until late 1970, Wreckage, or Had`d, Street wasn`t a street, just one of scores of narrow, nameless alleys weaving through Gaza City`s Beach Camp, a shantytown cluttered with low, two-roomed houses, built with UN aid for refugees from the 1948 war who then, as now, were waiting for the international community to settle their future. The street acquired its name after an unusually prolonged visit from Mr Sharon`s soldiers. Their orders were to bulldoze hundreds of homes to carve a wide, straight street. This would allow Israeli troops and their heavy armored vehicles to move easily through the camp, to exert control and hunt down men from the Palestinian Liberation Army. ```They came at night and began marking the houses they wanted to demolish with red paint,` said Ibrahim Ghanim, 70, a retired labourer. `In the morning they came back, and ordered everyone to leave. I remember all the soldiers shouting at people, Yalla, yalla, yalla, yalla! They threw everyone`s belongings into the street. Then Sharon brought in bulldozers and started flattening the street. He did the whole lot, almost in one day. And the soldiers would beat people, can you imagine? Soldiers with guns, beating little kids!` By the time the Israeli army`s work was done, hundreds of homes were destroyed, not only on Wreckage Street but throughout the camp, as Sharon ploughed out a grid of wide security roads. Many of the refugees took shelter in schools, or squeezed into the already badly over-crowded homes of relatives. Other families, usually those with a Palestinian political activist, were loaded into trucks and taken to exile in a town in the heart of the Sinai Desert, then controlled by Israel.``

As Reeves reported, the devastation of Beach Camp was far from the exception. ``In August 1971 alone, troops under Mr Sharon`s command destroyed some 2,000 homes in the Gaza Strip, uprooting 16,000 people for the second time in their lives. Hundreds of young Palestinian men were arrested and deported to Jordan and Lebanon. Six hundred relatives of suspected guerrillas were exiled to Sinai. In the second half of 1971, 104 guerrillas were assassinated. `The policy at that time was not to arrest suspects, but to assassinate them`, said Raji Sourani, director of the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights in Gaza City``.

Israeli complacency leading to their initial defeat by the Egyptians in the 1973 war was in part nurtured by the supposed impregnability of the ``Bar Lev line`` constructed by Sharon on the east bank of the Suez canal. The Egyptians pierced the line without undue difficulty.

In 1981 Sharon, then minister of defense, paid a visit to Israel`s good friend, President Mobutu of Zaire. Lunching on Mobutu`s yacht the Israeli party was asked by their host to use their good offices to get the US Congress to be more forthcoming with aid. This the Israelis managed to accomplish. As a quid pro quo Mobutu reestablished diplomatic relations with Israel. This was not Sharon`s only contact with Africa. Among friends he relays fond memories of trips to Angola to observe and advise the South African forces then fighting in support of the murderous CIA stooge Jonas Savimbi.

As defense minister in Menachem Begin`s second government, Sharon was the commander who led the full dress 1982 assault on Lebanon, with the express design of destroying the PLO, driving as many Palestinians as possible to Jordan and making Lebanon a client state of Israel. It was a war plan that cost untold suffering, around 20,000 Palestinian and Lebanese lives, and also the deaths of over one thousand Israeli soldiers. The Israelis bombed civilian populations at will. Sharon also oversaw the infamous massacres at Sabra and Shatilla refugee camps. The Lebanese government counted 762 bodies recovered and a further 1,200 buried privately by relatives.

However, the Middle East may have been spared worse, thanks to Menachem Begin. Just as the `82 war was getting under way, Sharon approached Begin, then Prime Minister, and suggested that Begin cede control over Israel`s nuclear trigger to him. Begin had just enough sense to refuse.

The slaughter in the two contiguous camps at Sabra and Shatilla took place from 6:00 at night on September 16, 1982 until 8:00 in the morning on September 18, 1982, in an area under the control of the Israel Defense Forces. The perpetrators were members of the Phalange militia, the Lebanese force that was armed by and closely allied with Israel since the onset of Lebanon`s civil war in 1975. The victims during the 62-hour rampage included infants, children, women (including pregnant women), and the elderly, some of whom were mutilated or disemboweled before or after they were killed.

An official Israeli commission of inquiry - chaired by Yitzhak Kahan, president of Israel`s Supreme Court - investigated the massacre, and in February 1983 publicly released its findings (without Appendix B, which remains secret until now).

Amid desperate attempts to cover up the evidence of direct knowledge of what was going on by Israeli military personnel, the Kahan Commission found itself compelled to find that Ariel Sharon, among other Israelis, had responsibility for the massacre. The commission`s report stated: ``It is our view that responsibility is to be imputed to the Minister of Defense for having disregarded [``entirely cognizant of`` would have been a better choice of words] the danger of acts of vengeance and bloodshed by the Phalangists against the population of the refugee camps, and having failed [i.e.``eagerly taken this into consideration``] to take this danger into account when he decided to have the Phalangists enter the camps. In addition, responsibility is to be imputed to the Minister of Defense for not ordering appropriate measures for preventing or reducing the danger of massacre as a condition for the Phalangists` entry into the camps. These blunders constitute thenon-fulfillment of a duty with which the Defense Minister was charged``. (For those who want to refresh their memories of Operation Peace for Galilee, of the massacres and the Kahan coverup we recommend Noam Chomsky`s The Fateful Triangle.)

Sharon refused to resign. Finally, on February 14, 1983, he was relieved of his duties as defense minister, though he remained in the cabinet as minister without portfolio.

Sharon`s career was in eclipse, but he continued to burnish his credentials as a Likud ultra. Sharon has always been against any sort of peace deal, unless on terms entirely impossible for Palestinians to accept. As Nehemia Strasler outlined in Ha`aretz on January 18 of this year, in 1979, as a member of Begin`s cabinet, he voted against a peace treaty with Egypt. In 1985 he voted against the withdrawal of Israeli troops to theso-called security zone in Southern Lebanon. In 1991 he opposed Israel`s participation in the Madrid peace conference. In 1993 he voted No in the Knesset on the Oslo agreement. The following year he abstained in the Knesset on a vote over a peace treaty with Jordan. He voted against the Hebron agreement in 1997 and objected to the way in which the withdrawal from southern Lebanon was conducted.

As Begin`s minister of agriculture in the late 1970s he established many of the West Bank settlements that are now a major obstruction to any peace deal. His present position? Not another square inch of land for Palestinians on the West Bank. He will agree to a Palestinian state on the existing areas presently under either total or partial Palestinian control, amounting to merely 42 per cent of the West Bank. Israel will retain control of the highways across the West Bank and the water sources. All settlements will stay in place with access by the IDF to them. Jerusalem will remain under Israeli sovereignty and he plans to continue building around the city. The Golan heights would remain under Israel`s control.

It can be strongly argued that Sharon represents the long-term policy of all Israeli governments, without any obscuring fluff or verbal embroidery. For example: Ben-Gurion approved the terror missions of Unit 101. Every Israeli government has condoned settlements and building around Jerusalem. It was Labor`s Ehud Barak who okayed the military escort for Sharon on his provocative sortie that sparked the second Intifada and Barak who has overseen the lethal military repression of recent months. But that doesn`t diminish Sharon`s sinister shadow across the past half century. That shadow is better evoked by Palestinians and Lebanese grieving for the dead, the maimed, the displaced, or bya young Israeli woman, Ilil Komey, 16, who confronted Sharon recently when he visited her agricultural high school outside Beersheva. ``I think you sent my father into Lebanon``, Ilil said. ``Ariel Sharon, I accuse you of having made me suffer for 16 some odd years. I accuse you of having made my father suffer for over 16 years. I accuse you of a lot of things that made a lot of people suffer in this country. I don`t think that you can now be elected as prime minister``.

Ilil was wrong. He`s there. And now the bloodbath will begin.

Courtesy: Counterpunch

re ROmair #222:

``These people constitute 66% of Pakistan. So anything discussed by Pakistanis on Chowk (people from perhaps 1% of Pakistan) really is irrelevant, if it is not acceptable to this 66%. That is why I disapprove of the Ata-turk and Western styled idealistic democracy scenarios for Pakistan.``

Anyone who can count more than 4 contradictions in these 3 lines gets a GI Joe.

later

-sac

P.S: tAhmed Sahib: Would you kindly enlighten us as to whom PM`s erstwhile predecessors owed their allegiance to? Kindly discount the usual suspects(CIA,Zionists,Mullahs etc.).

Nuggets from the Urdu press

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Nasibo Lal in trouble

According to Khabrain, folk singer Nasibo Lal, while singing at Gujranwala Arts Council, allowed fuhush (obscene) dancers like Alisha, Khushboo and Lashana, to perform lasciviously in front of a local audience. People responded with great enthusiasm although the event was against the rules of decency. They repeatedly performed bhangra while ignoring ideology of Pakistan.

Milosevic and Osama

Historian of Afghan jehad Raja Anwar, writing in Khabrain, said that if Milosevic could be brought under trial in an international court why couldn`t Pakistan or any other state ensure that Osama bin Laden is brought before an impartial court? He could be punished only if found guilty. Raja Anwar wrote that Afghanistan had given nothing to Pakistan but kalashnikov culture and was not willing to make any concession, not even on the Durand Line.

Mufti Shamzai`s fatwa

According to Nawa-e-Waqt, Mufti Shamzai of Karachi`s Banuri Mosque issued the fatwa that when the Americans land in Pakistan his followers should immediately take over the country`s airports. Fifty thousand followers did bayat-e-jehad (pledge of war) on his hand. He said anyone fighting on the side of Christians against Islam would go to hell.

Sharif brothers part ways

According to daily Din, Nawaz Sharif and Shehbaz Sharif fell apart in their hideaway in Saudi Arabia and that Shehbaz Sharif had bought a residence of his own separately from the family still led by Abbaji. The paper opined that since Shehbaz had decided to part ways with the family he may lose Saudi financial help.

Pakistan`s paradox

Renowned columnist Nazeer Naji wrote in Jang that Pakistan had a strange history of upheavals. Bhutto, a liberal, chose a fundamentalist officer General Zia for promotion to army chief, who overthrew him and converted Pakistan into a fundamentalist state. Bhutto was a secularist but spent more time banning alcohol in Pakistan and apostatising the Ahmedis to please the mullahs. The initial paradox was that Jinnah was a secular leader who was opposed by the mullahs, but later Pakistan was to be moulded in the vision of not Jinnah but mullahs. Then General Zia chose Nawaz Sharif as his heir but in 1997 he was elected for his economic policies; instead he chose to enforce shariat after coming to power. But for a man devoted to shariat he chose General Musharraf, a non-Islamist, to head the army. General Musharraf who toured the cantonments to defend Nawaz Sharif for sacking an earlier chief, was later to remove Nawaz Sharif. And an Islamist army was now ready to get rid of the jehadi mullahs and rid the state of fundamentalism. Nawaz Sharif was opposing his anti-Taliban policy from Saudi Arabia although his brother chief minister Punjab Shehbaz Sharif had clearly said during his tenure that the Taliban were training the terrorists targeting Pakistani leaders.

What will Pakistan give?

Famous columnist Irshad Haqqani wrote in Jang that Pakistan and the US had discussed the matter of Pakistan`s offering landing facilities during the invasion of Afghanistan but there was no discussion on territorial rights. But General Hameed Gul, through a letter, said that he had trimmed his anti-Musharraf position when assured by him that neither land nor landing facilities would be granted to the American troops.

US to take intelligence help

Famous columnist Hussain Haqqani wrote in Jang that during the Afghan war the Americans used Pakistani intelligence to fight the Soviet Union but this cooperation was not really beneficial; but this time, he hoped, it would be more fruitful. This was a crucial point of time in the Pak-US relations.

Osama wanted me killed!

Leader of the PPP Ms Benazir Bhutto said in daily Din that Osama bin Laden paid Nawaz Sharif of the PML ten million dollars to topple her from government through the device of a no confidence vote. She said that Osama also planned to get her killed, but his plans failed twice.

Present land holding against Islam

According to daily Din, Council of Islamic Ideology came to the conclusion that the present land holdings in Pakistan were against Islam and must be undone because the child born in the house of a feudal lived in luxury while the one born in the house of a poor man was deprived. In the past, land reforms were undone by the Federal Shariat Court on the question of annexation of land without payment of market price.

Beaten up for singing `mahiya`

According to daily Pakistan a police officer ASI Shameem Gondal of Malka Hans had the habit of following a lady school teacher singing the mahiya songs of Mansoor Malangi loudly to seduce her into thinking of love. But the school teacher suddenly took off her burqa and started beating him up with her shoe. Other school girls accompanying her joined in and also beat him up with their shoes. After the beating it was discovered that one tooth of the thanedar ASI was broken but he was allowed to go only after he swore on a copy of the Quran and made the school teacher his sister.

It is not aunt`s home!

According to Nawa-e-Waqt, ex-ISI chief General Hameed Gul said that after the Taliban shot down two unmanned spy planes of the United States, the Americans were bound to run away from the battle field. He said all would soon be well because defeating the Taliban was not khala ji ka ghar (easy as being in one`s aunt`s home).

Zia wanted Afghanistan

Quoting a journalist once close to General Zia, Maqbul Sharif, daily Pakistan wrote that General Zia did not want the Russians to leave Pakistan at the end of the Afghan war. He wanted the question of a new government in Kabul resolved before their exit. In fact he wanted to send Pakistani troops to Kabul in the same manner that India had sent its troops to East Pakistan.

Jehadi organisations are fake

Quoted in Jang, ex-ISI chief General Javed Ashraf Qazi said that 90 percent of the organisations engaged in jehad in Kashmir were fake. Hew said leaders like Maulana Fazlur Rehman and Maulana Samiul Haq were interested only in amassing funds and advancing their political ends. If they were sent to Afghanistan to fight they would jump out of the bus and run away. He said in the past the Taliban were warned many times that because of them Pakistan was being labelled a terrorist state but they did not listen.

Israel did it!

Talking to daily Pakistan, Sipah Sahaba chief Maulana Azam Tariq said that those who attacked New York and Washington should be sought in Israel and India because Osama bin Laden was blameless. He said if Afghanistan was attacked he would issue fatwa for the murder of Americans and Israelis. He said America wanted to attack Pakistan`s nuclear installations while pretending to attack Afghanistan. He added that there would be civil war in Pakistan if Islamabad continued to support the Americans.

Hekmatyar will join Taliban!

Editor Ausaf Hamid Mir wrote that if Pakistan were to sever relations with the Taliban in the wake of similar action by the UAE and Saudi Arabia, it will force two offended Afghan leaders, Hekmatyar and Sayyaf, to join the Taliban and make an anti-Pakistan alliance. This new alliance will stop the advance of the Northern Alliance but Pakistan would be forever deprived of the friendship of its precious Afghan brethren.

Allah will answer Mulla Umar`s call!

According to Khabrain Mulla Umar of Afghanistan had prayed to Allah for special intervention against the American attack, as a result of which Allah had sent down a storm off the coast of Karachi as a sign. Before this, Salahuddin Ayubi had also prayed like Mulla Umar and his prayer was heard and a Christians army was caused to be gharq (sunk) by Allah.

A Lahori heir to Afghan throne speaks out!

According to daily Din, Ashraf Durrani of Lahore was discovered to be in the line of descent of Ahmad Shah Abdali Durrani who established the first Afghan empire. Ashraf Durrani formally laid claim to the throne of Afghanistan and stated that the Afghan people were not satisfied with the government of the Taliban. He also laid claim to the diamonds presently owned by the Queen of England and said that the diamond had belonged to his ancestor Shah Shuja.

Allama Iqbal`s joy

Famous historian Dr Safdar Mehmood wrote in Nawa-e-Waqt that Allama Iqbal would have been overjoyed to see that the civilisation of the West was no longer obsessed by women but by a bearded man called Osama bin Laden.

Ms Mazari is anti-America

According to Ausaf, former chairman of the state-run Institute of Strategic Studies in Islamabad, Mr Niaz A. Naik, wrote to the Foreign Office saying that the present chairman of the institute, Dr Shireen Mazari, was anti-American and was harming the interests of Pakistan by writing against the United States. The paper said that upon an inquiry made by the Foreign Office, ex-foreign minister Agha Shahi stated that she had criticised the United States while defending the interests of Pakistan.

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EVEN THOUGH LOUIS FARAKHAN IS NOT MAINSTREAMOF ANYTHING ISLAM,OR AMERICAN OR BLACK ,HE IS MORE LEGIT THAN ARAB OR ASIAN MUSLIM TO PIN BUSH ON HIS TOTAL IRREFUTABLE & MOST IMPORTANT LEGALLY ACCEPTABLE PROOF OF OSAMAS INVOLVEMENT.

Nation: Nation of Islam leader urges Bush to reveal proof of bin Laden`s involvement in attacks



CHICAGO (October 17, 2001 2:58 p.m. EDT) - Urging President Bush not to ``hide behind national security,`` Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan said Bush should make public the evidence that Osama bin Laden was involved in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

``The nation would be more secure if you give the American people a reason to fight,`` Farrakhan said Tuesday night in a speech marking the sixth anniversary of the Million Man March.

Farrakhan said it`s not enough for America and its allies to say they have proof that bin Laden and his al-Qaida network were responsible for the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

``They have lied before and there`s no guarantee they are not lying now,`` he said of the government. ``There`s nothing wrong with asking the American government to show us the proof.``

The British government has released a dossier of evidence connecting bin Laden to the attacks, but the United States has refused to make its own display of evidence on the grounds that it could compromise its intelligence sources.

Farrakhan has previously condemned the ``wild beasts`` who carried out the terrorist attacks and agreed with government leaders that a strong response was warranted.

But he has also said that some of the hatred overseas of the United States is the result of the nation`s foreign policy, and he called for a re-evaluation.

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O.J. Simpson`s road-rage trial starts in Miami

Greyhound bus passengers thwart attempted hijacking

California allows pharmacists to dispense emergency contraception

FBI, Postal Service offer $1 million reward for anthrax leads

CDC warns doctors to watch for smallpox, Ebola cases

Security heightened following threat to Three Mile Island nuclear plant

Virginia state Sen. Emily Couric dies at age 54

Governor Pataki relocates staff pending further anthrax test results

Number of Senate employees exposed to anthrax rising

ANALYSIS: Thursday is the beginning of justice against al-Qaida

ANALYSIS: Suddenly world wants U.S. to lead

Hobbyty:

I do not think this is a complete list. ?

Stuka #216/217: I am still trying to figure out how women will be successfully inducted into flying in the PAF. If Pakistan can do this successfully, then I will have to say that anything that Pakistan puts its mind into is possible.

I spent half my military career trying to get postings on compassionate grounds, without succeeding. My cases were never considered compassionate enough. However, this did give me an opportunity to spend over a decade in the remotest parts of Pakistan. Infact, I never got to spend a day in any of Pakistan`s mid-sized cities, what to talk of large cities.

In one of the small towns in Central Punjab, I had a civilian batman, in his 40s, who had never even been to Lahore. In another place in NWFP, I had another batman, who had worked for 35 years in the same job, polishing people`s shoes. Another young guy there, had gone onto get an F.A. degree but ended up in the same shoe-polishing position as his uneducated dad.

These people constitute 66% of Pakistan. So anything discussed by Pakistanis on Chowk (people from perhaps 1% of Pakistan) really is irrelevant, if it is not acceptable to this 66%. That is why I disapprove of the Ata-turk and Western styled idealistic democracy scenarios for Pakistan.

Most of the marraiges between officers, in the Pakistan military, take place between male officers of all branches and female military doctors. Infact, I think it is taken as a given that the husband of a female military doctor will be in the military. I believe they are always assigned to the same city, when they are in service. This gives them a pretty big advantage, since there are very few places which can accomodate both of them. So they don`t have to move around much.

It will be interesting to see Pakistani female military pilots. Imagine a female Pakistan F-16 pilot. Now that would be interesting.

sac #218 ``he owes his allegiance to that very institution ``

he has so far demonstrated allegiance to Pakistan. As long as he does that, he will have more than enough support to stay in power. This allegiance includes gradually introducing democracy, as he as started to do at the grass-roots level.

May Allah hold them to His heart and may he shower their families with patience and peace:

``List of Pakistanis killed in NY attack

NEW YORK : The New York-based National Unity Council of Pakistanis has issued names of 53 Pakistanis who died in the terrorist attack at World Trade Centre here on Sept. 11, 2001.

The deceased are: Tariq Amanullah, Taimoor Khan, Muhammad Salman Hamdani, Ehtesham U Raja, Muhammad S Chaudhry, Raza Mujtaba, Yousuf Saad, Samad Afridi, Badruddin Lakhani, Naveed Rahman, Qamar Malik, Umar Namoos, Assad Samir, Arsalan Khan Khakwani, Ayub Khan, Qasim Ali Khan, Talat Hussain, Shahzad Hussain Khan, Ataullah Khan, Mian Muhammad, Asim Khan, Ahmad Ali, Umar Ahmed, Jameel Hussain, Jameel Swati, Azam Ahsan, W Waheed, Mujeeb Qazi, Saleemullah Farooqui, Shabi Ahmed, Muhammad Abbas, Ahmad Ahsan, Amjad, Muhammad Haleem, Jumma Al Haque, Sultan Khan, Ahmed Noor, Kazi Ahmed, Shamsuddin Ahmed, Mubarak Ahmed, Syed Haq, Qazi Ahmed, Muhammad Shahjehan and Khalid Shahid.

The deceased women are: Taranum Rahim, Humayra Rahim, Amena Rasool, Sanoober Syed, Sarah Khan, Yasmeen Jamal, Zahida Khan, Yasmin Khan, and Amena Aziz.-PPI`` Business Recorder

Nasah,

Thanks for the kind words. I remember you and Kirin kicking around some poetry a few monthes ago (which seems almost an immeasurable time in light of recent events)...iradha hai in beginning something like that again?

regards

Sadna,

You do bring up some interesting points...I actually had not thought about increased jihadi terrorism in Kashmir during this time...but then I am so easily distracted by other issues.:) My reason for bringing up Kashmir is that because Pakistan can`t fight at least two wars simultaneously, perhaps this time period may force Pakistan to think about a less involved role in Kashmir.

In terms of Central Asia, I think some really difficult questions have been developing viz Muslim Central Asian independence movements. You know that I find the option of automatic Islamization troublesome; however we can`t condone violent and repressive tactics as a suitable response. Once the jihadi factor is added...it seems like an unending cycle.

Re: Mr. Rose; is he featuring progressive guests? not quite sure of your meaning. I feel that so many of my views are validated on Chowk ;)

Now shall we compare the attributes of the boys in NYC to the ones in your city, as our colleagues have taken to on other boards? Or as Urstruly suggested in a previous post, discuss the charms of various terrorist leaders? (rolling eyes upwards).

regards

Fuzair

My opinion of the analysis and comparison that Mr. SameerJB makes, is clear. If others should feel that equating a corp commander with a war lord is an apt and correct comparison, they are welcome to such a point of view, however; suggestions that misrepresentations make for interesting or illuminating reading, will remain unconvincing.