A Decision to Regret

dost-mittar #276 I dont really care what RSS (and similar specimen on chowk, like jay) think about Pakistan or Islam or anything else. You cannot reason with these people anyway. As for ali1, I basically agree with you - people who insult other people`s religions and countries on chowk in fact insult all of us, hindu or muslim.

I must admit thought that lately chowk has been full of insults and innnuendos - mostly from messrs, gowardhan, harimau, rsaxena, sadna and jay. I dont recall seeing similar insulting posts from ali1 or urstruly lately.

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Dilemma

Is it any surprise we read urstruly 268 and hobbyty 280 when every Pakistani is taught to view the world as full of Kafirs in conspiracy against them?

#280 hobbyty

I find your conspiracy theories amusing. Hersh quotes anonymous US officials. Unless you think he is lying and that he really is a front for indian lobby you are not making any sense.

About the ISI, you said BBC is not reliable. Now not even the NYT (or Robert Fisk of Independent). Who should i listen to? You? Why?

Those Jews (including Hasidic) observed holding prayers at the WTC were mourning for whom, I wonder? A person interested in knowing can scan the victim lists and find out for himself(if he really wants to).

Ulema in Pakistan who side with bin Laden and the Taleban do so because they are longtime associates who share bin Laden`s core belief that Islamic warriors have won wars on pure faith from early days of Islam, that Islamic warriors of similar strong faith defeated the Soviets and the British. So they think Islamic warriors can take on the US and win.

Neither Pakistani ulema nor bin Laden in their essentially megalomanical self-absorption, care to factor-in the role of superpower weapons and resources(including $2 billion and Stingers) and superpwer determination to prevail either in the mujahiddeen victory against the Soviets, or in the current war.

So the ulema are displaying the bravado of ignorance and delusion, donot stake your life(or faith) on it.

Lastly,

``As long as war is regarded as wicked, it will always have its fascination.`` (O.W) :(? :)?

URS:

There is another idea :) Cook some saa`g and get some fresh rotis(or make some if you are good at that). The aroma may excite them and they may come to you on their own with their respective stories. Ideas and stories aside, I would like you to consider my suggestion seriously. I have also heard and read many pyari batain of Sheikh Saadi(RE) when I could not understand him :)Now, when I look back, they remind me of the nut-khut me.

PS: My past post should read ``meet`` instead of ``met.``

Well ZAHRA, thanks a million for your kind sentiments.

I am desperately in Ishq with parables, probably because I have read Saadi at a very early age. What a beautiful idea.

URS:

A belated happy birthday! Hope that`s the right answer to all the dilemmas :) By the way, did you ever go to the jungle and met some animals to get their take on certain world issues? If you did, would you please be kind enough to share your notes with all the readers? Thanks in advance.

Kind Wishes.
Happy Halloween.

hamidm #224 ``... so you are saying that paganism should have been allowed to flourish inside the kaaba and the muslims should have built themselves a new mosque down the street? .... hobbyty and others might consider this blasphemous and declare you wajib-ul-qatl or something ...``

If hobbyty thought this was blasphemous he would have said so himself. So I think it is not fair for you to put words in his mouth. And the reason Hobbyty has not said so is I think because he realizes that what I am saying is entirely consistent with the basic message of Islam: i.e. (a) respect for all religions, and (b) that no man, not even the Holy Prophet, shares divinity with God. A message that many muslims often ignore, but which no muslim dares to challenge. Since he knows the meaning of ``there is no god but God`` and he knows that God has sent prophets other than Muhammed as well.

And all muslims (except, it seems, with the exception of Mr. Asim Hayat) are aware that the Day of Judgement is reserved, per the Quran, for all humanity and not just muslims. Being a muslims is no big deal, per the Quran, and it is only chauvinistic muslims who think it is.

An indictment of the same old flawed policy of Musharraf-Sattar Co.

Afghanistan

By Ardeshir Cowasjee

(excerpts)

This war now being fought will be a long drawn-out war. Those, such as President General Pervez Musharraf, who wish for a short, sharp encounter with a swift resolution will surely be disappointed. However, if the coalition does not manage to find Osama, there are hundreds of other bin Ladens on whom they can more easily lay hands, hundreds fuelled by ignorance in the guise of religion.

An illustrative story is told of Mulla Omar by those who went to visit him and try to persuade him not to upset members of the Buddhist faith, to leave the Bamiyan Buddhas alone, to tell him that they had been there long before the arrival of Islam, and that down the hundreds of years after the arrival of Islam no Muslim had objected to them.

Omar`s reply was that he wished he could leave them as they were, but that in a dream God had instructed him to destroy them, and that was that.

Experts on Afghanistan are many, experts on the Taliban are few. Many of the western embassies in Islamabad have dug out their old Afghan experts and sent for them so that they may be guided and informed. But all the old experts date back to the Afghanistan of the days of King Zahir Shah and of the Soviet occupation - none are versed in the ways of the Taliban.

But we in Pakistan are fortunate; we have our own homegrown man, who knows the Taliban backwards, who has studied them and their terrible ways for 20 years while covering Afghanistan as a reporter.

Ahmed Rashid`s book `Taliban - Islam, Oil and the New Great Game in Central Asia` took him 21 years to write. It was published in 2000 by I B Taurus of London and New York when 3,000 copies rolled off their press. As recounts a Reuters` report of October 21, ``The initial print run soon climbed as the hijacking by would-be Afghan refugees of an Ariana Airlines flight to London sparked a brief spurt of interest in Afghanistan. By September 11 this year, Rashid had been picked up by Yale University Press and more than 25,000 copies had run off the presses. `Taliban` had been translated into nine languages, including Japanese, Swedish, Dutch, Urdu and Dari - or Persian.``

After the events of September 11 the print run in the US has soared to 350,000 copies and in Britain to 80,000 copies and, says Reuters: ``Last week Ahmed`s book on the once little-known fundamentalist militia hit number one on The New York Times bestseller list for paperback nonfiction, and after bobbing up and down on the list of the most popular books on sale by on-line retailer Amazon.com, it also hit the top spot there....

``The book gives a vivid account of the Taliban, based on numerous first-hand interviews and meetings, widespread travel over many years to Afghanistan and its neighbours, and describes the bewildering politics and ethnic mix that is Afghanistan.....

In the prescient conclusion, Rashid issued a warning to the United States that their decision to abandon the Afghans to their own internecine and bloody battle for power after the Soviet threat disappeared with the withdrawal of their occupying forces in 1989 could return to haunt them...

``Today`s policymakers are reading his book in a race for knowledge about the Islamic movement they ignored for so long. In Downing Street, British Prime Minister Tony Blair is said to refer to it, the book is a must-read at Japan`s Foreign Ministry and German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer cites it in public.``

Have our men in Pakistan even read it?

And if so, have they attempted to learn from it?

One chapter of the book is devoted to bin Laden and the training camps he has set up across Afghanistan. The ISI, struggling without success to provide intelligence information to their coalition partners, would do well to have a look at it. Ahmed himself says the value of the book is broader than just the Taliban, that it is a primer for the new Islamic radicalism now fast spreading.

Ahmed Rashid is himself quite clear on how Pakistan should now approach the issue of a post-Taliban Afghan government. He now concludes:

``We should not try to create another Pakhtoon alternative (such as Pir Sayed Ahmad Gailani or Jalaluddin Haqqani) as a rival to King Zahir Shah. We should go along with the king and try to deliver to him a strong Pakhtoon element. The international community will back the king, and if Musharraf and his government are seen to be at odds with them we will once again be isolated, unable to repair our relations with neighbours Iran, Russia, and the Central Asian states.

We can reduce the influence of the Northern Alliance only if we are backed by the international community, and that means supporting the king.

Pakistan and its national interest have nothing to fear from supporting Zahir Shah. He will not now be anti-Pakistan. Afghanistan has been destroyed to such an extent that no future government will be able to be anti-Pakistan.

``As it is, Pakistan has lost all credibility with all Afghans of all ethnic groups because of its gross interference, mismanagement and the insane short-sighted backing of the Taliban.

To win the trust of the Afghans we must go along with what they and the international community want - and that basically is a king-led government.

``When the 800-odd Afghan Pakhtoon leaders met in Peshawar last Wednesday with the purpose of setting up a counter-weight to the non-Pakhtoon anti-Taliban United Front, the Pakistan-backed Gailani, said to be a `moderate` spiritual leader, told them that he had met the king in Rome, had told him of the need to set up a `leadership council` of men who have the support of the majority of the Afghan people, and that the council would elect one member as chairman, and that member would certainly be the king.

But, what Gailani did not tell them was that the king has already formed a 120-man council in alliance with the United Front, and that his next step would be to call a Loya Jirga and select a new government.

``The feeling of the king`s men is that Pakistan is backing Gailani in an effort to bypass the king and the United Front, and that the Americans are going along with it as they need Pakistan for their military campaign.

``Meanwhile, leaders loyal to the king are busy trying to create some sort of anti-Taliban resistance in the Pakhtoon belt of southern Afghanistan, hoping to speed up the military operations and the creation of the Loya Jirga. They are having a tough time.

Neither the Americans nor the British are helping with money, equipment or supplies, and Pakistan`s ISI has either lost its touch or is purposefully holding back help on the intelligence side.

Pakistan needs to get into some sort of gear and deliver on its promise that it would create Taliban defectors. It has been unable to so far deliver anything and its western allies are surely getting impatient.``

Such are the views of our Afghan man, for whatever they may be worth.

Whilst Ahmed Rashid is courted by the foreign media and by foreign diplomats, our government continues to ignore him. Truly amazing, for they should now be seeking counsel from wherever they can find it and from whoever can enlighten them, no matter how controversial.(Dawn)



Great column, Mr. Cowasjee.

Urstruly (reply #268):

Dilema # 1

``Did or did not Jews working at WTC on 9/11 take a day off?``

Me:

I can`t believe I`m answering this question, but I guess ignorance needs to be addressed no matter how unbelievable. I happen to know of at least 2 people (relatives of co-workers) who were Jewish who perished in the attacks. If you watched the WTC memorial on TV you would have seen the services being held in churches and synagogues in and around NY for victims belonging to particular religous groups. Urstruly, you sound smart (sometimes), do you really believe that Jewish people across the tri-state area that worked at the towers were warned to not go to work that day ?. Do you really believe that if that were true, some if not all the people would come forward in the days following the attack and question the death of their friends & co-workers - in light of the warning they received.

Its not shocking hearing this outrageous claim from some madrassah student in Pakistan, but you are exposed to more and have more sources of information and have the insight of having been a part of American society.

Please remember these words when dealing religion, poiltics (or drugs): ``Don`t get high on your own supply``

So in short the answer is: NO, Jews did not take a day off on 9/11.

Urstruly: ``Dilema # 2

If the Ulema who are against Musharraf`s Afgahn policy are coward and opportunists then why are they taking stand against the world`s superpower. Aren`t these the best of the times to cash on the opportunity.``

I think Sattar2 answered this best in another board pertaining to one of your other posts, where he said that you claimed to be a bigot, a courageous bigot to be exact. Sattar goes on and says that because you claim to be courageous you consider your bigotry to be a virtue. (How does Sattar do it ? Reminds me of the way Socrates took apart arguments. No need to get a big head, Sattar :) ) The Ulemas are similar: they consider themselves courageous, and are also ignorant and bigoted in their views. Even the Americans recognize the courage and the tenacity of the Taliban (not of the Pakistani Ulema), but that does not mean that they are right or are supporting a just cause or man (Osama).

On a side note, when the Ulema of Afghanistan told the Taliban to ask Osama to leave voluntarily. Why did the Taliban and Osama not comply ?

Are the Ulema in Afghanistan not to be trusted ?

Your answer will be much appreciated.

Urstruly:

Dilema # 1

Did or did not Jews working at WTC on 9/11 take a day off?

``It is absurd`` is not an answer. Could someone please quantify and qualify his answer.

Yes, the Jews did take a day off. It is all a Hindu-Jewish conspiracy to eliminate Radical Islam. There. You happy?

Does that change a thing?

Dilema # 2

If the Ulema who are against Musharraf`s Afgahn policy are coward and opportunists then why are they taking stand against the world`s superpower. Aren`t these the best of the times to cash on the opportunity.

They are cowards because they don`t have the balls to fight an enemy face to face. They are cowards because they hide behind women and children. In Kashmir, Burqa clad terrorists shoot at security forces, from within a crowd of women and children, KNOWING fully well that when the security forces shoot back, innocent women and children will die. These are the cowardly scum you look up to.

Opportunists they are, but not in our terms. They are opportunists in the sense they use the worlds` sense of compassion to their own perverted means. Hiding in mosques, putting tanks in residential areas, these, yes, the hallmarks of Jihadi scum.

Since dialogue is impossible, I suggest you wait for death.

Soysauce

Is it coincidence that so many stories in the NYT recently seem to be the kind of articles and the kind of content I ususally reads in Indian newspapers? I think Hersh is being spoon fed the Indian line and Hey, it`s a free country, he can feed where he likes and say what he likes.

ISI is a component, within the tradition of the armed forces of Pakistan. All this fantasy, about ISI being a shadow government is simply not reasonable to any thinking person. Being the kind of organization it is, the kinds of missions it is tasked to perform, means that politicians and hostile States can make allegations and accusations that really cannot be backed up by any evidence and that ISI can not respond in public. But that goes with the territory.

NYT is expressing Hindu nationalist and zionist agreement about the nature of the threat they percieve they both face. The Hindu nationalist get a free ride on what is basically the same zionist line that NYT has always followed. Iraqi bad, Saudi bad, Egyptian bad, Iranian bad, Yemeni bad and now Pakistani bad - all Teeh-rroarrr-izt

All Muslim - could there be a relationship? Lets not go there; Eventhough between you and me, they`re all the same, and that izlum is just, bad.

On one hand the American govt has done away with every sanction against Pakistan, is going to increase aid to Pakistan, has asked it`s Western allies and Japan to show the same kind of generosity. Saudis have arranged a pakage of upto USD$ 5 Billion for new purchases of military industrial systems and assured that they will promote private investment.

American Govt is also studying the idea of providing assistance to the nuclear program to ensure the ``nuclear assets`` remain safe and provide for high confidence. The Americans have also agreed to keep the Indians and the Israelis out of the coalition. The Indians only role is now to make belligerent speeches, threatening this and that, followed by American requests that the Indians should show restraint. The Israeli has had to pull out of the places it has recently occupied, it`s Prime Minister`s meeting with Bush, scheduled for November, now will not happen - whereas Bush will meet, ``break bread`` with Musharraf, then hold a joint press confrence as if he were a official guest.To top it all Americans say that the wishes of the Kashmiri people about their future have to be taken in to consideration Tsk, Tsk, Tsk - What is the world coming to? A message to all Hindu nationalists and Zionists - Don`t sweat it! This is just temporary. or is it an ISI trick?



In view of these develoments, look at the record of the kinds of negative propaganda articles that NYT is producing. Sour grapes, it seems to me.

By the way, watch for America`s relationship with Israel and any other country that puts it`s relations with Muslims in jeopardy, to suffer. We are all against teehrroarrizm.

Re: Urstruly #268

At least you`re honest.