A Decision to Regret

shammi #518: Your interest in my family background is interesting, and perhaps a bit odd. But here goes. If everything told to me by my elders is correct, then this is how it all panned out:

I always used to wonder why everyone at our family weddings wore those funny stubby pink pagris, and carried out strange traditions, that had nothing to do with the places the weddings were carried out, like Muzzafarabad, Islamabad, and New York. I couldn`t find anything related to these customs in Islamic history, either. A lot of outside influences.

Three out of four of my grandparents are from Indian Kashmir, i.e. they were born there, grew up there, played there, worked there, etc. They migrated to Azad Kashmir a few years after the partition. The remaining one is a Punjabi from Pakistan`s Punjab. Ironically, that one (with Kashmiri spouse) had to migrate the longest distance, since this one was somewhere deep in India at the time of partition.

Thus, three-fourth of my parent`s family, is from Srinagar. And from what I have heard, I would have inherited a hell of a lot of property there, had it become a part of Pakistan.

However, no one in my family speaks Kashmiri. A pretty good indication, they ended up in Kashmir from somewhere else, a few generations ago. Not to mention the funny looking pagris at weddings. And my last name. And the color of their skin, which is quite a bit more tan than the shining white skins of Kashmiris like Nawaz Sharif. This explains the Rajput part.

Ethnically, I consider myself to be 1/4th Punjabi and 3/4th from Kashmir (although not from the Kashmiri speaking Kashmiri lot). And because Muzzafarabad is where the family reunions are carried out, and where many of us live and end up getting buried. If however, I keep going back, when people want to get into a historical discussion, most of the roots end up somewhere in Rajput lands (perhaps Rajastan) via Muzzafarabad-Srinigar highway. And partially to somewhere in Central Asia from a highway passing through Potohar and Tehran.

So great.....great grand-dad was a Hindu Rajput, perhaps somewhere in Rajastan. One of his descendants, either saw the light, or was forced to convert, to Islam. Somewhere after converting, him and his family (or their descendants) ended up in Srinagar. Perhaps, they were kicked out of Rajastan, or they got an H-1 visa to Kashmir. They liked it so much there, they decided to settle down, and never went back to their Rajput lands. They did keep there customs, their skin color, their last names, etc. intact. And of course, the caste system is there, as well. They rarely marry anyone without similar last names. After a couple of generations in Srinagar, partition occured. And they moved to Muzzafarabad. Somewhere in between, one was married to a fair skinned Punjabi from across the Punjab border. From Muzzafarabad, some of them, moved onto bigger places like Lahore, Islamabad and New York. While a great percentage remained in Muzzafarabad, because it made it very easy for their kids to get into Pakistani engr. and medical colleges through affirmative action.

I myself, live in the outskirts of San Francisco, and after a lot of effort, have found a shop that sells those funny looking pink pagris. I hope that satisfies your curiosity. Now, if you could return the favor, and give me a detailed family history of your own, I would appreciate it.

sadna #522 You forgot your spelling of Pakistan: ``Pukistan``. Now, let`s see what is the scholarly and objective point you are trying to make...

July 8, 2001, Sunday

Agony Over Kashmir Echoes in Indian Courtroom

By JOHN F. BURNS

For one of its most controversial courts-martial in 50 years, the Indian Army has chosen a setting that seems like a stage set from the colonial past.

Inside the decaying single-story courtroom in the barracks in this sweltering Punjab town, the roof leaks and witnesses` testimony competes with creaking ceiling fans and parrots chirping in mangrove trees outside. Army tailors pedal past on rusting bicycles, and officers` wives stroll beneath brightly colored parasols, chatting languidly as they go.

Over all, a strict protocol prevails. A general testifying for the prosecution gets a red carpet, a ``V.I.P.`` water cooler and snappy salutes from lower-ranking officers serving as judges. Even the bathrooms have a hierarchy -- a neatly signposted urinal for officers, while all others fend for themselves.

The archaisms seem starkly out of step with the modernizing India beyond the barracks` gates. But the issues at the trial of Maj. Manish Bhatnagar, a 29-year-old paratrooper from Bhopal, in central India, are sharply contemporary, and they go to the heart of India`s pride.

The major is charged with refusing an order to attack Pakistani troops holding a Himalayan height inside Indian territory two summers ago. Pakistani Army infiltrators had set off a small-scale war in the Kargil area of Kashmir after penetrating along a 150-mile front, at heights up to 18,000 feet.

After eight weeks of fighting in which Indian troops ascended glaciers, snowfields and rocky crags to attack Pakistani bunkers under heavy fire, the Pakistanis were driven out, but not before more than 850 Indian soldiers and at least 700 Pakistanis had lost their lives.

If convicted, Major Bhatnagar could get 14 years of ``rigorous imprisonment,`` and a lifetime`s disgrace. But in the defiant, explosive defense he has mounted over 50 days of hearings, he has won broad support from fellow officers, military analysts and influential sections of the Indian press.

Supporters see him as a scapegoat for a government and army brass responsible for a slow-starting, inefficiently run campaign that many in India regard as the worst military debacle since India`s humiliating defeat by China in a 1962 border war.

The court-martial, expected to produce a verdict sometime this month, has come at a sensitive time. The Indian prime minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee, will be the host of a summit meeting with Gen. Pervez Musharraf, Pakistan`s military ruler, from July 14 to 16, when the dispute over Kashmir, which dates to the inception of India and Pakistan as independent nations, is expected to top the agenda.

Mr. Vajpayee headed the government at the time of the Kargil conflict, and won re-election afterward in a campaign buoyed by celebrations in virtually every Indian village and town after India repelled the incursion.

General Musharraf was the Pakistani Army commander who devised the plan to seize the Kargil heights, and felt betrayed by what many in his military saw as their government`s failure to give them full backing at Kargil. Three months later, the general overthrew the civilian government that ordered the Pakistani withdrawal after most of the Himalayan strongholds were lost.

Now, both men have committed themselves to seek a compromise on Kashmir that will reduce the risk of major military confrontations, and satisfy the rest of the world that the possibility of either side using nuclear weapons in a future flare-up has been defused. But at the summit meeting, both leaders will be under pressure from wary domestic constituencies and will need to be seen as bargaining from a position of strength.

For Mr. Vajpayee, who heads the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party, which has traditionally presented itself as the most vigilant of all Indian parties on Pakistan, a conviction here would be a step toward bolstering the government`s record on Kashmir. An acquittal would be an invitation to more damaging post-mortems about the alleged Kargil bungling.

Even before the court-martial, the government`s self-congratulatory posture after the conflict had taken a battering. Though the infiltrators were eventually expelled, that they had ensconced themselves at all in such a sensitive territory was cause for serious political embarrassment.

Indian press accounts since the Kargil fighting have told of intelligence reports of the Pakistani intrusions going unattended for months in the Defense Ministry`s files, and of soldiers being sent into battle without the lightweight rifles the army had acquired for high-altitude warfare, and with such inadequate supplies of winter clothing and snowshoes that secondhand supplies designated for surplus sales were pulled from warehouses and transferred urgently to the front.

An official inquiry, reporting in December 1999, came to similar conclusions. Citing India`s casualties, it said, ``The best tribute to their supreme dedication and example will be to ensure that `Kargils` of any description are never repeated.``

At the court-martial, Major Bhatnagar has seen to it that none of this is forgotten. Assessed as an outstanding officer by his commanders before the Kargil fighting, he has earned front-page coverage in Indian newspapers with his performances at the trial.

Armed with a suitcase bursting with files assembled during months in custody, he has stalked the courtroom, thrusting papers at the officers serving as judges, demanding silence from prosecution lawyers and refusing demands that he sit down until the presiding officer, Col. Vinod Malik, raises his hand above a bell that summons armed guards.

The word scapegoat has never been far away. ``Have some conscience!`` he told Maj. Vipin Chakrawati, an army lawyer advising the judges, at a recent morning`s hearing. ``You are a very lowly man, lacking moral fiber.``

At another point, he said his concern was for India, not for himself. ``I`m not worried about myself; I`m worried about the truth,`` he said. Moments later, risking expulsion from the courtroom for contempt, he said, ``It`s a conspiracy; this whole trial is to fix me.``

The major`s defense lawyer, Rajneesh Bansal, sweating in a pinstripe suit, has restricted himself to points of law. But outside he has been vociferous. ``This is a farce trial going on,`` he said. ``The generals are making him a scapegoat, when they should be in the dock themselves.``

Vikram Jit Singh, a reporter for The Indian Express who covered Kargil at the front and is now covering the trial, agreed. ``What`s really stirring resentment in all this is the role of the generals,`` he said. ``They`ve all got off the hook, getting plum postings and awards. It`s a V.I.P. system of justice.``

Like the courtroom itself, the testimony has been rich with Victorian echoes. The prosecution has targeted Major Bhatnagar`s character, suggesting that the order to attack at Kargil had found, in the major, that ``all lofty feelings to serve the nation had subsided and become lull.``

The court listened solemnly as an army lawyer read a 19th-century poem by ``the great English poet,`` Alfred Lord Tennyson, celebrating a doomed attack by British cavalrymen in the Crimean War -- ``Theirs not to make reply,/Theirs not to reason why,/Theirs but to do and die.``

After a pause, the prosecutor drove the point home. ``What we find here,`` he said, ``is most precisely the reverse.``

On the key point in the court-martial, the army`s case has been badly shaken. Major Bhatnagar has said he never refused an order to attack a Pakistani bunker at a position known as Point 5203, at a height of 17,700 feet and above a strategic road. What he did, he has said, was to ask that the 80 men under his command be given a month`s rest to recover from joint pains, blisters and bruises after a grueling three-day truck journey, and a further day`s march, from another Himalayan confrontation zone with Pakistan at Siachen, hundreds of miles to the east.

Brig. Devinder Singh, one of the top Indian commanders at Kargil, has testified that he discussed the attack with Major Bhatnagar, but gave no order. Another major who was present has said that he, too, heard a discussion of an attack, but no order. The prosecution, closing its case, sought to finesse the point by saying that since an assault had been planned, any discussion about it would have amounted, ``to all practical purposes,`` to an order.

Less helpful to the major`s case, the prosecution has established that an earlier, failed assault on the height produced heavy casualties, and that Major Bhatnagar discussed the miseries endured with the surviving troops before taking up the matter with Brigadier Singh. Six days after the discussion, with Major Bhatnagar transferred away from the front, another officer led his men into battle, only to find the Pakistani bunker abandoned.

Months later, as inquiries into the Kargil failures began, army prosecutors began focusing on Major Bhatnagar`s actions, and eventually charged him with cowardice, only to move to the lesser offense now being tried: refusing an order to attack.

Only two other officers involved in the campaign, both majors, have faced courts-martial, with one winning acquittal and the other being convicted, for faking a knee injury. But it is the Bhatnagar trial that army commanders who led the Kargil campaign have watched most closely, perhaps few more so than Gen. V. P. Malik, army chief of staff at the time. Now retired in Chandigarh, the 63-year-old general has been given a rough ride by Indian newspapers, which have recounted how he continued with a tour of Poland for 10 days after the Pakistani intrusions began stirring alarm in New Delhi.

A remark he is said to have made at the time -- ``I can`t stop going to the toilet every time a militant crosses the line of control`` -- has entered Indian folklore as has a report that the general with overall responsibility for Indian defenses in the Kargil area was off building a zoo in Leh, the capital of Ladakh, in the eastern reaches of Kashmir, at the time of the Pakistani buildup.

In an interview at his home, General Malik scoffed at suggestions that the army had taken a black eye at Kargil similar to the one it took against China in 1962, when the general, then an infantry lieutenant, was at the front.

``If the Pakistanis see it as a disaster, and they do,`` he said, reaching for a book at his bedside quoting Pakistani generals on their debacle at Kargil, ``I don`t see why we should see it otherwise. Both sides can`t have lost.``

As for the allegations of scapegoating, he was similarly dismissive. ``I don`t think it`s worth talking about,`` he said. ``We`ve looked at all these events with the greatest transparency, and what more do people want?``

July 8, 2001, Sunday

Agony Over Kashmir Echoes in Indian Courtroom

By JOHN F. BURNS

For one of its most controversial courts-martial in 50 years, the Indian Army has chosen a setting that seems like a stage set from the colonial past.

Inside the decaying single-story courtroom in the barracks in this sweltering Punjab town, the roof leaks and witnesses` testimony competes with creaking ceiling fans and parrots chirping in mangrove trees outside. Army tailors pedal past on rusting bicycles, and officers` wives stroll beneath brightly colored parasols, chatting languidly as they go.

Over all, a strict protocol prevails. A general testifying for the prosecution gets a red carpet, a ``V.I.P.`` water cooler and snappy salutes from lower-ranking officers serving as judges. Even the bathrooms have a hierarchy -- a neatly signposted urinal for officers, while all others fend for themselves.

The archaisms seem starkly out of step with the modernizing India beyond the barracks` gates. But the issues at the trial of Maj. Manish Bhatnagar, a 29-year-old paratrooper from Bhopal, in central India, are sharply contemporary, and they go to the heart of India`s pride.

The major is charged with refusing an order to attack Pakistani troops holding a Himalayan height inside Indian territory two summers ago. Pakistani Army infiltrators had set off a small-scale war in the Kargil area of Kashmir after penetrating along a 150-mile front, at heights up to 18,000 feet.

After eight weeks of fighting in which Indian troops ascended glaciers, snowfields and rocky crags to attack Pakistani bunkers under heavy fire, the Pakistanis were driven out, but not before more than 850 Indian soldiers and at least 700 Pakistanis had lost their lives.

If convicted, Major Bhatnagar could get 14 years of ``rigorous imprisonment,`` and a lifetime`s disgrace. But in the defiant, explosive defense he has mounted over 50 days of hearings, he has won broad support from fellow officers, military analysts and influential sections of the Indian press.

Supporters see him as a scapegoat for a government and army brass responsible for a slow-starting, inefficiently run campaign that many in India regard as the worst military debacle since India`s humiliating defeat by China in a 1962 border war.

The court-martial, expected to produce a verdict sometime this month, has come at a sensitive time. The Indian prime minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee, will be the host of a summit meeting with Gen. Pervez Musharraf, Pakistan`s military ruler, from July 14 to 16, when the dispute over Kashmir, which dates to the inception of India and Pakistan as independent nations, is expected to top the agenda.

Mr. Vajpayee headed the government at the time of the Kargil conflict, and won re-election afterward in a campaign buoyed by celebrations in virtually every Indian village and town after India repelled the incursion.

General Musharraf was the Pakistani Army commander who devised the plan to seize the Kargil heights, and felt betrayed by what many in his military saw as their government`s failure to give them full backing at Kargil. Three months later, the general overthrew the civilian government that ordered the Pakistani withdrawal after most of the Himalayan strongholds were lost.

Now, both men have committed themselves to seek a compromise on Kashmir that will reduce the risk of major military confrontations, and satisfy the rest of the world that the possibility of either side using nuclear weapons in a future flare-up has been defused. But at the summit meeting, both leaders will be under pressure from wary domestic constituencies and will need to be seen as bargaining from a position of strength.

For Mr. Vajpayee, who heads the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party, which has traditionally presented itself as the most vigilant of all Indian parties on Pakistan, a conviction here would be a step toward bolstering the government`s record on Kashmir. An acquittal would be an invitation to more damaging post-mortems about the alleged Kargil bungling.

Even before the court-martial, the government`s self-congratulatory posture after the conflict had taken a battering. Though the infiltrators were eventually expelled, that they had ensconced themselves at all in such a sensitive territory was cause for serious political embarrassment.

Indian press accounts since the Kargil fighting have told of intelligence reports of the Pakistani intrusions going unattended for months in the Defense Ministry`s files, and of soldiers being sent into battle without the lightweight rifles the army had acquired for high-altitude warfare, and with such inadequate supplies of winter clothing and snowshoes that secondhand supplies designated for surplus sales were pulled from warehouses and transferred urgently to the front.

An official inquiry, reporting in December 1999, came to similar conclusions. Citing India`s casualties, it said, ``The best tribute to their supreme dedication and example will be to ensure that `Kargils` of any description are never repeated.``

At the court-martial, Major Bhatnagar has seen to it that none of this is forgotten. Assessed as an outstanding officer by his commanders before the Kargil fighting, he has earned front-page coverage in Indian newspapers with his performances at the trial.

Armed with a suitcase bursting with files assembled during months in custody, he has stalked the courtroom, thrusting papers at the officers serving as judges, demanding silence from prosecution lawyers and refusing demands that he sit down until the presiding officer, Col. Vinod Malik, raises his hand above a bell that summons armed guards.

The word scapegoat has never been far away. ``Have some conscience!`` he told Maj. Vipin Chakrawati, an army lawyer advising the judges, at a recent morning`s hearing. ``You are a very lowly man, lacking moral fiber.``

At another point, he said his concern was for India, not for himself. ``I`m not worried about myself; I`m worried about the truth,`` he said. Moments later, risking expulsion from the courtroom for contempt, he said, ``It`s a conspiracy; this whole trial is to fix me.``

The major`s defense lawyer, Rajneesh Bansal, sweating in a pinstripe suit, has restricted himself to points of law. But outside he has been vociferous. ``This is a farce trial going on,`` he said. ``The generals are making him a scapegoat, when they should be in the dock themselves.``

Vikram Jit Singh, a reporter for The Indian Express who covered Kargil at the front and is now covering the trial, agreed. ``What`s really stirring resentment in all this is the role of the generals,`` he said. ``They`ve all got off the hook, getting plum postings and awards. It`s a V.I.P. system of justice.``

Like the courtroom itself, the testimony has been rich with Victorian echoes. The prosecution has targeted Major Bhatnagar`s character, suggesting that the order to attack at Kargil had found, in the major, that ``all lofty feelings to serve the nation had subsided and become lull.``

The court listened solemnly as an army lawyer read a 19th-century poem by ``the great English poet,`` Alfred Lord Tennyson, celebrating a doomed attack by British cavalrymen in the Crimean War -- ``Theirs not to make reply,/Theirs not to reason why,/Theirs but to do and die.``

After a pause, the prosecutor drove the point home. ``What we find here,`` he said, ``is most precisely the reverse.``

On the key point in the court-martial, the army`s case has been badly shaken. Major Bhatnagar has said he never refused an order to attack a Pakistani bunker at a position known as Point 5203, at a height of 17,700 feet and above a strategic road. What he did, he has said, was to ask that the 80 men under his command be given a month`s rest to recover from joint pains, blisters and bruises after a grueling three-day truck journey, and a further day`s march, from another Himalayan confrontation zone with Pakistan at Siachen, hundreds of miles to the east.

Brig. Devinder Singh, one of the top Indian commanders at Kargil, has testified that he discussed the attack with Major Bhatnagar, but gave no order. Another major who was present has said that he, too, heard a discussion of an attack, but no order. The prosecution, closing its case, sought to finesse the point by saying that since an assault had been planned, any discussion about it would have amounted, ``to all practical purposes,`` to an order.

Less helpful to the major`s case, the prosecution has established that an earlier, failed assault on the height produced heavy casualties, and that Major Bhatnagar discussed the miseries endured with the surviving troops before taking up the matter with Brigadier Singh. Six days after the discussion, with Major Bhatnagar transferred away from the front, another officer led his men into battle, only to find the Pakistani bunker abandoned.

Months later, as inquiries into the Kargil failures began, army prosecutors began focusing on Major Bhatnagar`s actions, and eventually charged him with cowardice, only to move to the lesser offense now being tried: refusing an order to attack.

Only two other officers involved in the campaign, both majors, have faced courts-martial, with one winning acquittal and the other being convicted, for faking a knee injury. But it is the Bhatnagar trial that army commanders who led the Kargil campaign have watched most closely, perhaps few more so than Gen. V. P. Malik, army chief of staff at the time. Now retired in Chandigarh, the 63-year-old general has been given a rough ride by Indian newspapers, which have recounted how he continued with a tour of Poland for 10 days after the Pakistani intrusions began stirring alarm in New Delhi.

A remark he is said to have made at the time -- ``I can`t stop going to the toilet every time a militant crosses the line of control`` -- has entered Indian folklore as has a report that the general with overall responsibility for Indian defenses in the Kargil area was off building a zoo in Leh, the capital of Ladakh, in the eastern reaches of Kashmir, at the time of the Pakistani buildup.

In an interview at his home, General Malik scoffed at suggestions that the army had taken a black eye at Kargil similar to the one it took against China in 1962, when the general, then an infantry lieutenant, was at the front.

``If the Pakistanis see it as a disaster, and they do,`` he said, reaching for a book at his bedside quoting Pakistani generals on their debacle at Kargil, ``I don`t see why we should see it otherwise. Both sides can`t have lost.``

As for the allegations of scapegoating, he was similarly dismissive. ``I don`t think it`s worth talking about,`` he said. ``We`ve looked at all these events with the greatest transparency, and what more do people want?``

A glimse of the future?

From CSMonitor:

In Jakarta, countering American culture without violence

You wouldn`t catch Rizky ``Jimmy`` Nur Zamzamy justifying violence that way, though he professes just as deep an attachment to Islam as Abu Hamza.

Mr. Zamzamy, a rangy young Indonesian advertising executive in a pink shirt, is sitting in a Western-style cafe in Jakarta, his cellphone at the ready, and his fried chicken growing cold as he explains how he tries to be a good Muslim by right action, not fighting.

That, he feels, is the best way of countering what he sees as the corrupting influence of American culture and morals on traditional Indonesian ways of life in the largest Muslim country in the world.

Until a few years ago, Zamzamy led a regular secular life, hanging out in bars and dating women. Then he met a Muslim teacher who became his spiritual guide. Now he follows Islamic teachings and donates most of his $1,300 monthly salary to his ``guru`` to be spent on building mosques and helping the poor.

He says he has made sure that none of the money goes to extremist groups that use violence in the name of Islam, such as the Laskar Jihad group, locked in bloody battle with Christians in the Maluku region of Indonesia.

Two years ago, in line with his growing religious beliefs, he quit the advertising agency he had worked for and set up his own company along Islamic lines: He won`t take banks or alcoholic-beverage producers as clients, for example, and he does no business on Friday, the Muslim holy day.

But he is relaxed about those who don`t share his beliefs: He does not insist that his wife wear a headscarf, for example, and he is not uncomfortable sitting alongside the rich young Jakartans in the cafe who are flirting and drinking. They must make their own choices, he says.

And though he does not like the sexual overtones of American pop culture, he knows that ``you can`t hide from American culture.`` By living his life according to Islamic precepts, he says, ``I am fighting America in my own way. But I don`t agree with violence.``

For how long will our `elite` continue to offer its people as a collateral to beg,borrow,& steal so as to maintain a Dollarish-lifestyle for themselves & their progeny.



How the US `rewards` its agents

On Wednesday 19th of September an extremely nervous President Musharraf addressed the nation to justify Pakistan`s support for America`s new crusade against the Muslims in Afghanistan, saying that it will not compromise Pakistan`s interests. He said, ``Trust me. I will not disappoint you and there will be no compromise on Pakistan`s security and our defence is our first priority``.

Such a policy of co-operation with America is provided with a logic by its protagonists. It is reasoned that Pakistan is a lamb between the lions on the world stage. It is too weak to go it alone. Therefore it requires satellite-ship of the US to make its mark and way in the jungle of global politics. It is reasoned that in exchange for concessions to the US, Pakistan will secure its own interests such as; security against India and economic prosperity. Though we do question elsewhere whether Muslims are in fact lambs, at this time let us consider the results of this policy over the last fifty-four years of Pakistan`s existence.

This policy is flawed as a review of the years, elaborated below, will show. The history of Pak-US satelliteship shows ably that what drives the US is greed. All lions rewards a lamb in one way ultimately. Even if that lamb was in fact a lion, presenting itself as a lamb. Repeatedly, by the type of relationship that Musharraf proposes, Pakistan has been mauled in reward for major concessions to the US. This is because fundamentally no two nations can ever have the same interests in all matters. There is constant collision. By forming an alliance with a superpower in this way is indeed perilous as such a dependency becomes a handicap, where concessions are rewarded by betrayal. Also, swings and roundabouts that occur from a fickle relationship are an impediment to long term building and strategy. In such a scenario, we argue that it is in fact less dangerous to walk amongst lions as a lion.

Allah (swt) revealed,

``How then when a catastrophe befalls them because of what their hands have sent forth, they come to you swearing by Allah, we meant no more than goodwill and conciliation.`` [TMQ 4:62]

1946 US against division of India

Liaquat Ali Khan cautioned by American Mission that a continued hard line attitude by the Muslim League would cost US sympathy.

[Reference: Mission New Delhi dispatch to US State Department June 7, 1946, 845.00/6-746, DSR, NA.]

1949 US policies anger Pakistanis

``Our Palestine policy occasioned widespread press criticism and demonstrations in Pakistan. We have been criticised for too great leniency towards India in the Kashmir dispute and for favouring India at the expense of Kashmir.``

[Reference: State Department background memoranda on visit to US of Liaquat Ali Khan, April 14, 1949, President`s Secretary File, HSTL.]

1957 Pakistan concedes bases to US

During his July 1957, Prime Minister Suhrawardy`s informed President Eisenhower of his governments agreement for the US to establish a secret US intelligence facility in Pakistan and permission for the U2 spyplane to fly from Pakistan. After Suhrawardy`s term of office concluded a facility was established in Badaber, 10 miles from Peshawar. This was a cover for a major communications intercept operation run by the American NSA (National Security Agency). Badaber was an excellent choice because of its proximity to Soviet Central Asia. This enabled monitoring of missile test sites and other comms. U2 ``spy-in-the-sky`` was allowed to use the Pakistan Air Forces portion of the Peshawar airport to gain vital photo intelligence in an era before satellite observation.

[References: 1. Amjad Ali, the Pak ambassador to the US at the time, narrated in his book ``Glimpses`` (Lahore: Jang Publisher`s, 1992) that the personal assistant of Suhrawardy advised embassy staff of the PMs agreement to the US facility on Pakistan soil. 2. Editorial note, FRUS, 1958-60, Volume 15, 615]

1958 Pak concerns over satellite-ship

Foreign Minister, Manzur Qadir, told US Chargee d`Affaires, Ridgway Knight, that he was concerned about Pakistani public opinion which ``was deeply opposed to Pakistan `satelliteship` to [the] US, while an uncommitted India receives favours from the US.``

[Reference: US Embassy Karachi telegram to the US State Department, January 14, 1959, FRUS 1958-60, Volume 15, 693-95]

1959 US Pak co-operation agreement

March 5: US-Pakistan bilateral executive security agreement. Article I committed the US to respond to aggression upon Pakistan. The manner of assistance would be ``to take such appropriate action, including the use of armed forces, as may be mutually agreed upon.`` The US maintains to this day that this pledge was limited only to Communist aggression, as envisaged by the Joint Congressional Resolution on the Middle East, 1957, and did not include Indian aggression. Pakistanis at the time and since feel they were led to believe otherwise.

[Reference: Department of State Bulletin, Vol. 40 (1959), 416-17]

1964 US agents attack US agency

President Johnson gave go-ahead for five year military programmes to both Pakistan and India. Pakistanis are outraged as to how the US rewards Pakistani favours to her by support to her enemy. President Ayub in the face of anti-US public opinion stated, ``Today American policy is based on opportunism and is devoid of moral quality…Pakistan deeply regrets that although she has fulfilled all her commitments, she has been let down by politicians she regards as friends.``

[Reference: Interview with Ayub Khan published London`s Daily Mail June 23, 1964.]

1965 Pakistan tries to cash in her services rendered

September 6: Pakistan at war with India. Ayub and Bhutto met the US envoy, MacConnaughy. The President invoked the 1959 bilateral executive agreement and the aide-memoir of November 5, 1962. The communication stated, ``As Pakistan has become a victim of naked aggression by armed attack on the part of India, the Government of Pakistan requests the Government of the United States to act immediately to suppress and vacate the aggression.``

[Reference: Text of Embassy Office Rawalpindi telegram to US State Department, September 6, 1965.]

1965 US `rewards` Pakistan

September 8: It was not in US interests to assist Pakistan in this matter. Not only did America elect to leave Pakistan high and dry, in return for its servitude, President Lyndon B Johnson announced before Congress the cutting off military aid to Pakistan. In the words of Bhutto, ``…[The] decision [was] not the act of an ally and not even that of a neutral…``

[Reference: US State Department telegram to Embassy Karachi, September 8, 1965]

1971 Pak helps US with China

President Nixon asked President Yahya to tell Pakistan`s friends in Beijing that Nixon did not believe that Asia could ``move forward`` without China and would not be a party to Soviet attempts to isolate China. Pakistan arranged for Kissinger`s secret trip to Beijing. June 15, 1971 Nixon caught the world by surprise by announcing this trip and his own planned visit there.

[Henry Kissinger White House Years pages 180-181]

1971 US `rewards` Pakistan

August 3: During the crisis of Pakistan`s dismemberment, the House of Representatives voted to suspend all assistance to Pakistan. American interests lay elsewhere. Nixon felt that an Indian Pakistan conflict ``could disrupt…our policy towards China.``

[Memorandum for the President`s file on meeting with Ambassador Farland, July 18, 1971, President`s Office File, NPMP, NA]

1977 Bhutto speaks of his `reward`

April 28: ``The party`s over, the party`s over. He`s gone,`` the Prime Minister referred to a tapped conversation between Robert Moore, US Consul General in Karachi and Political Counselor Howard Schaffer in a speech before the National Assembly. Indeed, on July 15 Bhutto`s party was over.

1979-88 The fickleness of US assistance

April 6: US suspended aid to Pakistan because of the nuclear program. December 24: Russian invasion of Afghanistan changed the relationship. In the words of Thomas Thornton, US national Security Council staff member, US-Pak relations ``overnight, literally, ... changed dramatically``. December 29, Carter instructs CIA to covertly provide weapons to Afghan mujahideen. Later ISI become the conduit for such US assistance. January 4, 1980 Carter announces, ``We will provide military equipment, food and other assistance to help Pakistan defend its independence and national security against the seriously increased threat from the north.`` From $60 million in 1981, US-Saudi funding for the covert operations ballooned to $400 million in 1984. April 14, 1988, the Geneva Accords are signed, marking the Soviet exit from Afghanistan. August 17, 1988, General Zia dies in plane crash, probably exited by the CIA.

1990 Pressler sanctions

October 1: As per the Pressler Amendment economic and military aid was frozen upon US intelligence informing President Clinton that Pakistan possessed a nuclear device. India suffered no similar penalties until its nuclear tests in May 1998, even though they were known to have nuclear capability since the time of Indira Ghandi.

1993 US brands mujahideen as terrorists

After the collapse of communism , the new major threat to Western hegmony is Islam. US changes tack with the Pakistani government, pressurising control on Islamic groups. Foreign Secretary, Shahryar Khan, speaks of changes in the US goal-posts, ``We fought the Afghan War for fourteen years and now the people who were committed to our side are suddenly seen as villains and branded as terrorists.``

[As quoted by Washington Post, ``After Cold War, US-Pakistani Ties Are Turning Sour`` April 21, 1993.]

1999 Betrayal in Kargil

May: The Pakistani army stood in jihad together with mujahideen groups, to a great and devastating effect upon the mushrikeen of India. Two weeks stood between them and victory, as expected snowfall would cut off supplies to India. President Clinto telephoned Sharif to urge him to have the forces withdrawn. Clinton sends General Anthony Zinni to Islamabad to second this message directly to Sharif and the new Chief Of Army Staff, General Pervez Musharraf.

2001 Attacks on US exploited

September 11: Devastating attacks on the World Trade Centre and Pentagon. US rapidly exploits situation to allow for military invasion in South Asia. A military presence is essential in order to keep watch on three matters of concern for America; China, oil in the Caspian Sea, Islamic revival in the Central Asian Republics and Pakistan.

2001 Decision time for Pakistan

Present day: Pakistan can still even now undo the damage done by decades of dependence upon the US. It is high time to walk as a lion amongst lions, rather than be led once again as a lamb to the slaughter.

Re: #521

bong_dongs,

``Sorry to step in, but surely you cant count Arnhem as a German counterattack.``

Perhaps Ferozk meant Ardennes, not Arnhem.

regards,

Fuzair: Incidentally, we now have the former Axis Powers (Germany, Italy, and Japan) all announcing within a few days of one another their provision of military units to support the US. Italians are even prepared to do combat. How things have changed since the five years of WWII and the fifty years since of Movies About WWII!!! Seems like the USA has a knack for turning former enemies into good buddies: they fought the Revolutionary War and the 1812 war with brits, and the two nations then forged a friendship in the two world wars; they fought the Mexicans, and the Mexicans are now waiting for this crisis to be over so they can again become Buenos Amigos.

bong_dongs #520
Apparently, some researchers have found that the possibility of violence and war in a region is highly correlated to the percentage of young men in the population, and India and Pakistan have almost the highest possibility of conflict of all regions in the world for this reason.

Its archived now, but in Washington Post:
Boy Trouble
June 24, 2001
`` Wars are not caused by bad leaders or by bad ideas, but by bad demographics. At least that`s the provocative conclusion of two Canadian researchers. They contend that the relative number of young men in a country`s population is the best predictor of whether it is headed for war or peace. In fact, the greater the proportion of younger men to older men in a country, the deadlier the conflict is likely to be, claim Christian Mesquida and Neil Wiener of York ``

Dear Eklavya -- I was just kidding -:)

Ferozk

``Berlin fighting a retreating German army, which twiced counter-attacked the allies at Arnhem``

Sorry to step in, but surely you cant count Arnhem as a German counterattack.

tahmed #510

I havent read Druckers article yet but i dont think I am making too much of an extrapolation. The fertility rates in Pakistan are still very high even by S. Asian standards.

OTOH this finally disproves the theory that you cant be angry at the world if you are getting enough in the sack :-) (look at Mullah Omar for instance :-))

re: Romair #507

I have read you describe yourself variously as Rajput, Kashmiri (am I missing any?)? You could be one or the other, but not both. Who ARE you?

Re: tahmed321

A retreat is more difficult to manage than an advance, because the retreating army, if not managed, can easily break down and a retreat can turn into a rout.

Incidently, the retreating Germans did counter-attack at Kasserine Pass and it took the much vaunted Red Army 3 years to get to Berlin fighting a retreating German army and it took the British and the Americans almost a year to get to Berlin fighting a retreating German army, which twiced counter-attacked the allies at Arnhem and the Battle of Bulge! :)

Rommel and Giap cannot be compared, because one was fighting a classical conventional war and the other was fighting a classic guerrila war. In a tactical sense, yes; both can be credited for being innovative and brilliant.

Re: Shammi

The German generals obeyed Hitler, because the German army`s code of discipline did not allow disobedence of a superior`s orders and it was this act of the German officer corps, which saw most of the tried and convicted and executed at Nuremburg for following Hitler`s orders.

The German officer was naive politcally and he trusted Hitler and they could not disobey him, because, under Hitler`s orders, they had taken a personal loyality oath to him. I agree that this sounds really childless and simplistic in today`s cynical age, but the sad truth is that German officers sense of loyality and obedience prevented them for resisting Hitler.

``It boggles the imagination as to what the German army could have done to us, if Hitler had not been working so effectively for us``

Major-General Norman Cota
29 Infantry Division USA (United States Army)
Red Dog Sector, Omaha Beach Normandy
June 6, 1944

Ciao

Tahmed:

With all due respect to Giap, the French surrounded themselves at Dien Bien Phu. It is a bowl completely dominated by surrounding hills and Legion commanders had questioned the advisability of establishing a base in Viet Minh dominated territory that could only be resupplied by air and that was so vulnerable to artillery fire from the surrounding hills. The French artillery commander at Dien Bien Phu assured the Legionnaires that it was impossible to move heavy arillery through virgin jungle and that his counter-battery fire would destroy any light artillery or mortars that the Viet Minh could deploy. The Viet Minh, of course, dismantled their heavy Russian 105 mm howitzers (I think they might even have managed to bring up some 155s), carried them and the ammo, using thousands of coolies, up into the hills. This made Dien Bien Phu a giant killing ground and rendered the airstrip unusable. The rest is history. The Viet Minh achieved the seemingly impossible by positioning heavy artillery up in the hills and that meant that Dien Bien Phu was finished.

Incidentally, the French artillery commander, when he realized that he had condemned all the men at Dien Bien Phu to defeat, shot himself during the middle of the siege. Thousands of French soldiers , conscripts and regular infantry, at Dien Bien Phu essentially refused to fight and deserted into the hills BUT the Legion (the Regiment Etranger Parachutiste) and the RCP (the Regiment Colonial Parachutiste, les Paras) fought on till the bitter end. Legion and Para volunteers were parachuting into Dien Bien Phu as reinforcements until a few days before the surrender, when the French high command finally refused to send in any more men to their death. Entire units of the Legion, non-parachutists, volunteered to be dropped into Dien Bien Phu well after its fate was clear. So the French High Command in Vietnam couldn`t plan its way out of a paperbag BUT that doesn`t mean that individual units did not fight extremely well.

The French military`s view was that establishing a base in Viet Minh territory would draw them out into a set piece battle that the French, with their superior firepower and air-superiority, would win. This would be the decisive military battle that would destroy the Viet Minh. Only it wasn`t the Viet Minh who were destroyed.

Giap, if I remember correctly, was the ``mastermind`` behind the Tet Offensive of 1967, the greatest North Vietnamese/Viet Cong military defeat of the war. I believe he was quietly retired after the magnitude of the disaster became known. You can argue that Tet was a stunning political victory for the North since US public opinion began to change after that and, furthermore, the North also managed to have the US destroy ALL homegrown (i.e., South Vietnamese origin) resistance groups, so ensuring that the North would have no internal rivals when they finally took over. Then thi was as masterful
a coup as Stalin`s decison to ``rest`` his troops for three days, so allowing the Germans ample time to put down the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, thus destroying any possible post-war anti-Soviet groups (the Jews and the Polish Home Army).
Maybe so, but it was still a military defeat and Giap was sacked for it.

Rommel fought incredibly well against always much larger and better equipped enemy forces and came within a few miles of achieving total victory by taking Cairo. In Normandy, he begged Hitler to release control over the two SS Panzer Divisions to the local commander and launch an immediate counter-attack because he was convinced that Normandy was the real attack and not the feint that Hitler thought it was. If the counter-attack was launched immediately, as Rommel and other German generals wanted, then D-Day would have been as great a fiasco as the Dieppe raid and WWII would have lasted at least until 1947-48 since its unlikely that the Americans would have launched another invasion until 1946 at the earliest.

Regards.

People who oppose US strikes on the Taleban are really giving comfort to the Taleban. Do you want to be treated like the refugees below ?

---

Taliban gunning down fleeing refugees

Quetta, Nov 7

The Taliban are slaughtering Afghans who try to flee the country, gunning them down in cold blood, refugees who have made it to Pakistan claim. On the outskirts of this southwestern Pakistan town, near the Afghan border, thousands of ``invisible`` refugees exist in abject poverty.

They have fled because of the bombing of Afghanistan and a severe drought. But more than anything, they have fled to avoid persecution by the ruling Islamic militia.

Of a dozen Afghans interviewed, all had tales of random killings, human rights abuses and persecution. Some told of mass murders.

Ovr Mohd, 65, fled to the hills from Bamiyan to avoid the rampaging Taliban. When he returned he said he found his three sons shot dead. He said they were targeted because they were ethnic Hazaras, whose sympathies lie with the opposition Northern Alliance.

``When we decided to leave Afghanistan we saw the Taliban attacking people who were fleeing. People were gathering on the road to leave and they were shot. We have seen this,`` he said. ``I saw 50 people in front of me who were killed. They were women, children and men,`` he added, claiming the killings happened a month ago. ``I hate the Taliban for doing this.``

Most of the 5,000 or so people who live in what has become known as Hazara town in Quetta`s west, a dusty maze of dirt roads and mud brick houses, are Persian-speaking Shia Muslims descended from Mongol troops. They are among the 100,000 Afghans believed to have crossed the border illegally since the US began pounding Afghanistan.

They have no identity papers and officially do not exist in Pakistan. They refuse to move into refugee camps for fear of deportation. Consequently they receive no help from aid groups.

Saeed Zaman, 35, said he witnessed similar killings in Kabul, the Afghan capital. ``There is a chowk (roundabout) where the people go when they want to leave. The Taliban are attacking them there. I saw dozens killed (on Friday). The people were pleading to leave but the Taliban shot them,`` he said.

``They left the bodies where they fell. The animals were eating them.`` Zaman paid a smuggler 1,300 rupees to escape the terror, arriving in Quetta on Monday. Six of his family have been killed by the Taliban, he said, including his wife.

Sad Shah Musa, 50, echoed these experiences. ``People are running and the Taliban are shooting them,`` he said. ``We have lost our lives in Afghanistan. We have lost everything.

``Why are you fleeing, this is your country`, they say. They say, `You are against the Taliban, you are running away` and then they shoot.`` The Taliban have also been accused of forcibly conscripting young Afghans to fight their holy war (jihad).

They came for the three sons of Baqhtawar, a 60-year-old woman from near Herat, in western Afghanistan, 12 days ago. When she protested she was punched in the face, losing four front teeth. She was left sprawled on the floor with a bloodied mouth and has heard nothing from her children since.

She fled soon after under the cover of darkness and arrived in Quetta 10 days ago. ``The Taliban took our husbands and our sons. They burned our homes and our mosque,`` she said. ``We have not come to Pakistan because of the bombing but because we are hungry, thirsty and the Taliban are so cruel.``

The Taliban said on Tuesday the war against the United States could go on for decades, but Sadiqa, who arrived here eight days ago from Kabul, said Afghanis were tired of the fighting, of the killing. ``We are tired of this life, living like this. We are dead inside,`` she said.

Said Shaqi, 45, added, ``The Taliban are terrorists and murderers. We want them to leave. We just want peace.``