A Journey Into Afghanistan

Iran fills a void left by Pakistan`s decline

http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/008/nation/Iran_fills_a_void_left_by_Pakistan_s_decline+.shtml

By Anthony Shadid, Globe Staff, 1/8/2002

SLAMABAD, Pakistan - Long the regional heavyweight, Pakistan now finds its role in Afghanistan has all but vanished, dealing a blow to the nation`s influence in southwestern Asia and leaving an opening for rivals like Iran, diplomats and officials say.

Iran is seeking to capitalize on the dramatic shift in Pakistan`s fortunes with moves to tie its economy more closely to Afghanistan, according to officials here and in Washington. Pakistan`s longtime rival is opening links to Afghanistan by air and road, the officials said.

``There has been a complete flip-flop on who was the major player, and it has gone from Pakistan to Iran,`` a Western diplomat in Islamabad said, speaking on condition of anonymity. ``The Iranians are good about not gloating over that fact.``

Iran`s entry into the void shows both the extensive diplomatic realignment in the region since Sept. 11 and how far Washington has come in its perceptions about Iran, a state it still lists as supporting terrorism. Moreover, diplomats said, it underscores how far Iran itself has come in moderating its policies and playing a more assertive international role.

The decline of Pakistani influence here is remarkable, given the formidable authority Islamabad wielded in the US-backed fight against Soviet troops in the 1980s and the far-reaching support it provided the Taliban during its rise to power in Afghanistan in the 1990s.

Today, Pakistan`s once-extensive intelligence network in Afghanistan has gone the way of its Taliban allies. In Kabul, it faces an Afghan government with a still-vivid memory of Pakistan`s support for the Taliban and consequently an intense distaste for any hint of Pakistani meddling.

Mushahid Hussain, a member of Pakistan`s Parliament and a former government minister, said that in his nation`s pursuit of `` this flawed policy to install a friendly government in Kabul, we promoted favorites, we ditched friends, we suddenly had a romance with the Taliban.

``Of course after Sept. 11, we realized that our pro-Taliban policy was buried in the wreckage of the World Trade Center.``

Iran played a more extensive role than has generally been acknowledged in reaching the agreement in Bonn last month that made possible the provisional government in Kabul, the diplomat said. Tehran has also taken on a higher profile inside the war-shattered country by providing aid, including the funding of teacher salaries in Kabul for the next six months.

In a farther-reaching effort, Tehran has sought to bolster its links by road from Mashhad in western Iran to Herat, an Afghan border city with longstanding links to Iran. Iranian officials have urged the United Nations to make more use of the Iranian port of Chabahar on the Arabian Sea to ship aid into southwestern Afghanistan, and an Iranian diplomat in Islamabad said that direct flights would begin ``in the near future`` from Tehran to Kabul.

``They`re not missing a beat,`` said the Western diplomat.

He and other diplomats agreed that the Iranians appear to be a force for stability in Afghanistan, so US officials have so far raised no objection to their growing role.

``It`s obviously something we`re going to keep an eye on, but it`s not causing alarm to the extent that we`re trying to stop it,`` a State Department official said.

Pakistan`s diplomatic retreat from Afghanistan is occurring as the nation is losing ground in other ways.

For example, Washington is not only cooperating more with Iran, but is also diluting its reliance on Pakistan by forging closer ties to nations in the region such as Uzbekistan and, of course, Afghanistan itself. And the United States is reshaping the situation on the ground by increasing its military presence in the region, with Russia`s blessing.

Pakistan is also stinging - and presumably has lost ground in the region, at least for the time being - as a result of its ongoing military confrontation with India.

Although the Bush administration has pressured both sides to avoid war, the most intense efforts have clearly been made in Islamabad, which has reacted with unprecedented crackdowns on the Islamic militants it had been supporting. The result has been to make Pakistan seem less of a force, particularly compared with its archrival, India, which has offered no apparent concessions.

Some analysts say that next to the Taliban and Al Qaeda, Pakistan has lost the most as a result of the US campaign.

``Everything seems to have boomeranged against Pakistan, both in the east and in the west,`` said Hamid Gul, a former head of Pakistan`s powerful Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate.

It is hard to overstate the extent of Pakistan`s loss of influence, especially within Afghanistan.

After the Soviet invasion in 1979, Pakistan had treated its neighbor to the west as its strategic backyard, shepherding the US-funded resistance by the mujahideen that eventually led to a Soviet withdrawal a decade later.

But it was under the Taliban that Pakistan enjoyed its greatest influence.

From 1994 on, Pakistani intelligence fostered the Taliban as a military client, providing help in recruitment and training, logistics, money, weapons, and even military intervention on the Taliban`s behalf.

Hundreds of Pakistani volunteers, many fired by religious fervor, populated the Taliban`s ranks. And the religious militia drew on Pakistan`s religious parties, groups that grew in prominence during the 1990s, for financial and ideological backing. In 1997, Pakistan led the way in granting diplomatic recognition to the Taliban.

``If you look at Afghanistan, the Taliban regime was probably the most friendly to Pakistan in the last 100 years,`` said Pervaiz Iqbal Cheema, president of the Islamabad Policy Research Institute, a Pakistani think tank.

That very success with the Taliban, analysts said, is the reason the retreat has been so sweeping: Pakistan invested so much in the Taliban that it was left with virtually nothing to show once the Taliban disintegrated before the American military onslaught.

Diplomats and former officials said Pakistani policy is in shambles, reeling from the loss of influence in Afghanistan and with no realistic prospect of exerting any.

Pakistan has yet to open an embassy in Kabul, though a Foreign Ministry spokesman said that would occur ``sooner rather than later.``

``Where does Pakistan stand after 25 years of making sacrifices for Afghanistan?`` said Gul. ``Pakistan has no relevance as of now. It has completely pulled out.``

Gul, who supported Pakistan`s policy of fostering the Taliban, blames the US government. Washington broke promises to keep the Northern Alliance from taking power, he said. ``Pakistan was used as a pawn, not as a partner by the Americans.``

But other analysts here put the blame squarely on Pakistan, part of an assessment of policy here that some compare to US discussions over the victory of communists in China in 1949.

``Pakistan`s policy toward Afghanistan was one vast failure,`` said Hussain.

``Judge by the results. Ultimately what did it produce? It didn`t produce stability for the region, for Pakistan, or for Afghanistan.``

For now, Pakistani officials say they will support UN efforts to form a government in Kabul that represents Afghanistan`s mosaic of ethnic and religious groups. That in itself is new, said one senior Pakistani official.

``In the past, there were preferences for certain people and certain parties,`` the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity. ``That has proved to be a disaster.``

But given Pakistan`s ties of language, culture, and ethnicity, the official predicted that its influence would once again grow in Afghanistan.

``Whatever government ultimately emerges in Afghanistan will have to deal with Pakistan,`` he said. ``We are not worried about it.``

This story ran on page A1 of the Boston Globe on 1/8/2002.

Akar,anything over one week ,that Bush was not able to control the time & place of death of OSAMA,is a total failure of a wasp,super power,arrogant phaoaric power of U.S.A.

Death doesnt mean anything to mujahid but.For the rest, it means failure,defeat & loss only to the luxurious extravagant society like U.S.A. They will miss there Disney ,Vegas,Burger ,Coke , Nike & NBA to the point of alcoholic dependency.Cant exisit without the other.

Bad News Bearers

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http://www.sulekha.com/redirectNh.asp?cid=150891

By William Saletan

Posted Wednesday, October 31, 2001, at 3:36 PM PT

Three weeks into the bombing of Afghanistan, American journalists are beginning to declare the war a failure. Why? Because their political bias in favor of their country is being overwhelmed by professional biases that skew their coverage the other way, undermining the morale of the United States rather than that of the Taliban. Here’s how it’s happening.



1. Vicarious doubt. American reporters worry that if they call the war a failure, they’ll look unpatriotic. But that doesn’t stop them. They just attribute the F-word to somebody else. They seldom identify a source, preferring vague plural allusions. On CNN’s Late Edition, Wolf Blitzer asked Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld about bad things “some people are suggesting” and “some critics are saying” about the war. An article in this morning’s New York Times began, “Like an unwelcome specter from an unhappy past, the ominous word ‘quagmire’ has begun to haunt conversations among government officials and students of foreign policy.”

“Haunt” illustrates a favorite method of vicarious criticism: the immaculate verb. By this method, criticisms emerge magically rather than through the mouths of the reporters who might otherwise appear to be introducing them. At Monday’s Pentagon press conference, one reporter asked Rumsfeld about “criticisms and questions and skepticism that have come up in the last several days.” Another rehashed “this frustration question that seems to be bubbling around.”



Why Aren’t We Using Flamethrowers in Afghanistan?

Trick or Treat at the Supreme Court

Britain`s Soft Upper Lip





The reason such questions “bubble around” is that reporters raise and repeat them in a self-escalating cycle. Here’s how it works. On Friday, a reporter tells an admiral at a Pentagon briefing, “There is a growing chorus now—it`s still a small chorus, but it`s getting louder—of critics who are saying that the United States appears to be bogged down.” On Saturday, under the headline “New Sense of Impatience Is Emerging,” the Los Angeles Times cites the “bogged down” question as evidence that doubts have “crystallized” as “the military faces increasingly skeptical questions.” On Sunday, ABC’s Cokie Roberts opens her interview with Rumsfeld by noting, “There`ve been stories over the weekend that give the perception that this war after three weeks is not going very well.”

Taliban officials don’t have to address such vicarious questions, stories, and perceptions about their troubles, because any Afghan journalist, government official, or “student of foreign policy” who tried to make such a question bubble up would be executed.

2. Expectations game. Since Oct. 7, we’ve killed a lot of Taliban soldiers and destroyed a lot of Taliban infrastructure without losing an American soldier in combat. But according to the media, that’s not the story. The story is that we’re falling short of “expectations.” As Roberts put it to Rumsfeld: “Is the war just not going as well as you had hoped it would?” Expectations, like doubts, appear and grow by magic. At Monday’s Pentagon briefing, a reporter told Rumsfeld that the emerging chorus for ground troops “tends to push this expectation flow against” his defense of the air campaign. The dynamics of “expectation flow” were left unexplained.

That’s unfortunate, because the adjustment of expectations is as important as our progress in meeting them. The New York Times reported Tuesday that according to its latest poll, “Americans for the first time are raising doubts about whether the nation can accomplish its objectives in fighting terrorism at home and abroad, including capturing or killing Osama bin Laden, saving the international alliance from unraveling and protecting people from future attacks.” The Times headlined its front-page story, “Survey Shows Doubts Stirring on Terror War.” But the doubts expressed in the poll weren’t about the whole war. Arguably, the war can be won without killing Bin Laden, maintaining a permanent global coalition, or keeping the United States perfectly free of terrorism. Certainly, victory is more plausible if those definitions of success are surrendered. From that point of view, the public’s lowered expectations make the war on terror more sustainable, not less.

Taliban leaders don’t have to explain discrepancies between performance and expectations, because Afghan journalists don’t dare acknowledge such discrepancies.

3. Subjectivity. American journalists think of us as the war’s subjects and the Taliban as the war’s objects. We think and act; the Taliban budges or doesn’t budge. This framework helps the Taliban, because only the subjects of a war are expected to rethink their behavior. In briefings and interviews, reporters often ask Rumsfeld whether the United States has “miscalculated” or “underestimated” the Taliban and whether our bombing raids “create new recruits” for the enemy. They don’t ask whether Taliban leaders ought to re-evaluate their behavior in light of our violent response to their recalcitrance.

4. Self-importance. On Tuesday’s front page, the New York Times presented its poll results in the context of “threats about anthrax unfolding virtually every day and little discernible progress in the air campaign against the Taliban.” Little discernible progress? The air campaign has inflicted far more death and destruction on the Taliban than the anthrax letters have inflicted on us (four deaths so far). By discounting Taliban deaths and treating even “threats” to Americans as far more significant, we set ourselves up for psychological defeat after any exchange of casualties.

5. Coalition fragility. We have an international coalition. The Taliban doesn’t. In absolute terms, that makes us stronger. But in relative terms, it makes us weaker. It’s easier to lose pieces of a coalition than it is to lose pieces of one country or regime. Because the media focus on momentum shifts, Pakistan’s presence in our coalition since the onset of the war isn’t news, but Pakistan’s possible exit from that coalition is big news. That’s why Rumsfeld spent the weekend on ABC and CNN answering questions about Pakistan’s government “getting impatient” and “the coalition falling apart.” Tuesday’s Washington Post front page distilled the media’s sense of a Pakistan-provoked momentum shift: “Pressure to Curtail War Grows.”

6. Offensive posture. We’re playing offense, and the Taliban is playing defense. In absolute terms, it’s better to be on offense. But in relative terms, it’s better to be on defense, because stalemate is interpreted as a victory for the defense. Reporters keep pressing Rumsfeld to explain why the bombing is limited, why the Taliban remains in power, and why Bin Laden “is still at large” (never mind that he’s pinned down and can’t operate freely). Any cutback in bombing during Ramadan will be portrayed as a retreat. It doesn’t matter that we’ll be bombing the other guys. What matters is that we’ll be bombing them less heavily than before.

7. Boredom. Journalists demand news. If the United States fails to provide news in the form of measurable success, journalists will make that failure itself the news. Last week, a reporter asked Rumsfeld, “What can the Pentagon do to keep the American public engaged in this, [so] that a certain amount of boredom doesn`t set in, as with Iraq? You know, every now and then we`d go and we`d bomb a little something, and everybody yawned. Unless there`s a bombing here every month, how do we really keep the public engaged?” The question revealed nothing about the efficacy or inefficacy of the bombing of Iraq. What it revealed was that the reporter equated military success with news value.

This is a big reason why Rumsfeld is being bombarded with questions about getting “bogged down” in a campaign that “doesn`t appear to be going anywhere,” hamstrung by an “impatient” coalition that’s “falling apart.” Reporters themselves are feeling impatient and bogged down in a story that seems not to be going anywhere. They want to announce that something is falling apart. If they don`t find that story in the Taliban, they’ll find it in the coalition. “Do you believe that you now, in terms of the public image, have gone into a defensive posture?” a reporter asked Rumsfeld Tuesday. The secretary could have replied: Sure I have. And you’re the one who’s put me there.

William Saletan is a Slate senior writer.

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Aakar Patel (author):

I think that you article, while full of flowery language, has numerous historical inaccuracies. You state that the only ones who made Afghans submit were Alexander and Genghis. Both were raiders, and could not consolidate their empires (which soon disintegrated after their deaths). If that is the yardstick that you use, then Nadir Shah and a whole host of Persians should also qualify.

So, should the Mughals and the Mauryans(Ashok). Mughal domains included Kabul, Kandahar (Jehangir defeated the Persians and added it to his empire).

It is good to use poetic language, but it is better to use historical facts as well.

Waiting for the Hindu backlash

Counterpoint: Waiting for the Hindu backlash

Vir Sanghvi





Forgive me if you think I’m overstating the case but I’m beginning to get extremely concerned about the impact of the war in Afghanistan on communal harmony in India. It is not that I expect huge Muslim protest demonstrations of the kind we’ve been seeing in Pakistan over the last fortnight. Far from it.

In fact, it is not the Muslims I’m worried about, at all. It is the Hindus. Nearly everywhere I go, there’s always somebody who says something like, “My God! These Muslims are fanatics!” Or “How can Muslims possibly support the Taliban?” Or, “Islam is really a medieval religion!”

Naturally, I always protest against the generalisations and point out that to judge Islam on the basis of what Osama bin Laden is up to is a little like judging every Hindu on the basis of what V Prabhakaran is doing in Sri Lanka.

Or, to use an even more telling example: Hindu mobs dragged Sikhs out of their homes in Delhi in 1984 and then burned them alive. But that does not mean that Hinduism is a murderous religion. Nor does the demolition of the Babri Masjid prove that Hindus are intolerant people who destroy other people’s places of worship. Similarly, the assaults on churches and the rapes of nuns in 1998 reflected on the people who carried them out, not on the world’s oldest religion.

And as for medievalism, let’s not develop short memories. Till around a century ago, widows were still being thrown on their husbands’ funeral pyres. And can any religion match what Hinduism did to its dalits; people so unclean that not only could they not be touched but that brahmins had to rush to bathe if a dalit’s shadow fell on them? Religions are not bad; people are.

But no matter how much secular and reasonable Hindus may want to think otherwise, a climate of derision and fear of Islam is developing.

The last time this happened was in the late 1980’s when such issues as Shah Bano, the Satanic Verses and the alleged intransigence of the Babri Masjid Action Committee (at least from some Hindu perspectives) led to a deep schism between Hindus and Muslims. That schism led to the demolition of the Babri Masjid, to the slaughter of Muslims in the streets of Bombay and eventually to the rise of the BJP.

My fear is that neither Hindus nor Muslims have learned from history. And that we will begin the new century repeating the mistakes of the last one. What worries me most is the manner in which all Muslims, all over the world, are being treated by non-Muslims: as though they are somehow culpable for the death and destruction. This is not only tragic; it is unusual, if not unprecedented, at least for us in India.

Over the last few years Hindus and Muslims have both learned to treat terrorists as a breed apart; as beyond religion. There is now no doubt that the Bombay blasts were executed by the Dawood Ibrahim gang at the urging of Pakistan’s Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) to take revenge on Hindus for the Bombay riots. Despite this, there were no anti-Muslim riots in response. Both Hindus and Muslims were equally appalled by the destruction and few Hindus (and fewer Muslims) believed that Dawood spoke for his community.

Similarly, few Hindus see the Kashmir problem as reflecting Hindu-Muslim tensions in the rest of India. No Indian Muslim of consequence (not even the Shahi Imam of Jama Masjid) identifies with the terrorists — and this is despite the frequent use of Islamic imagery (jehad etc) by the militants. The truth is that a Muslim in Bihar or UP, (let alone a Muslim in Kerala) has little in common with a Muslim in Kashmir and the community has sensibly rejected all attempts to turn the conflict into a Hindu-Muslim affair.

Why, then, are we unable to make the same sort of distinction between bin Laden and our Muslims?

Part of the answer lies in bin Laden’s rhetoric. For years, Hindu communalists have told us that Indian Muslims are Muslims first, Indians second. Bin Laden’s statements feed those fears. He appeals to some pan-Islamic identity, to Muslims everywhere in the world, regardless of their nationalities. His call is always for all Muslims to rise up to fight America. And every murder is celebrated as a triumph of Islam.

Clearly the man is a psychopath and a massive embarrassment to Islam. But here’s the funny thing: at some level, Muslims all over the world are responding to him. You might expect protests in Pakistan but how do you explain demonstrations in Malaysia?

How do you explain the fatwa against Tony Blair issued by a British Muslim group? How do you explain the uproar in Indonesia? How do you explain Imran Khan’s comment that the longer the operation takes, the more of a hero bin Laden will become to the world’s Muslims? For Hindus — and that includes secular Hindus of the sort who wept when the Babri Masjid fell — all this is discomfiting. Is there, in fact, a growing international pan-Islamic identity? Is this identity so strong that even an operation against a psychopath and the world’s most barbaric regime can stir up such strong emotions?

Most important of all: are Indian Muslims reacting as bin Laden wants them to? Why were bin Laden’s portraits on sale in Delhi’s Walled City? Why has the Shahi Imam (as always, God’s gift to the Bajrang Dal) called for a jehad against America? And so on. My concern is that if these questions are not satisfactorily answered, relations between Hindus and Muslims will plummet again. So far, at least, the answers that have come from educated Muslims have been deeply unsatisfactory or incomplete.

Answer number one is framed in terms of the standard anti-American response: America has double standards. It was quite happy to look the other way when 6000 Iraqi children died because of the sanctions but now treats the 6000 deaths in the World Trade Center bombings as a holocaust. Or: it was the US itself that created bin Laden and his ilk to fight the Russians in Afghanistan. That conflict used Islamic imagery (mujahideen and jehad), so what right does Washington have to get so self-righteous now?

All this is valid but unsatisfactory because it does nothing to address the key issues of a pan-Islamic identity and bin Laden’s support among Muslims who have nothing to do with him. Answer number two is framed in terms of the targeting of Islam. These were acts committed by madmen, say many Indian Muslim intellectuals. And yet one of the world’s great religions is being attacked. This is a conspiracy to link Islam with terrorism on the basis of the actions of a few individuals.

The problem with this response is that it is not America that is identifying Islam with these attacks. It is bin Laden himself. And the assaults were carried out by a transnational network of men who had only one thing in common: their religion.

But there is also a third answer even if few Muslims are giving it. This states that it is a fallacy to imagine that Indian Muslims feel any kinship with bin Laden or the Taliban. Every religion has its share of fanatics and crackpots who take an extreme view. Islam is no exception. But these nutcases do not represent the majority, just as those who burned Graham Staines did not represent Hindus.

As for the pan-Islamic identity, this is difficult for Hindus to understand because Hinduism is not a global religion. But take Christianity, for example. Catholics all over the world will kneel before the Pope or prefer his edicts on divorce or abortion to the laws of their countries. Does that mean that there is a pan-Catholic identity that comes before patriotism? Some Hindus will retort: What about the Shahi Imam’s fatwa then? The obvious response to that is: Who is the Shahi Imam anyway? Who does he speak for? Who appointed him as the representative of Indian Muslims?

This is a more satisfactory answer because it seems to adequately address many of the non-Muslim apprehensions. Sadly, few Muslims are bothering to provide this kind of response and to explain what is happening in their community. Instead, we get knee-jerk anti-Americanism and daft allegations of anti-Islamic conspiracies.

The problem with India’s Muslims is that despite all our talk of secularism, the vast majority has decided that the best way to get on in this country is to avoid drawing attention to themselves. Even those who have done well feel more secure when they address issues in purely secular terms and do not speak from a Muslim perspective.

I am sympathetic to their plight but the unfortunate consequence of this stand has been that moderate voices within the community are hardly heard. This leaves the field clear for demagogues, rabble-rousers, mullahs and politicians. Because such people seek to win followers by inflaming the community, their rhetoric is often extreme and offensive.

And because there are few other voices, these views are taken as representative of the Muslim community.

During the communally surcharged days of the late 1980s and early 1990s, many educated liberal Muslims had recognised that they needed to speak up so that the whole country could hear them. Sadly, most of those voices have now lapsed into silence. And the fanatics are the only ones we hear.

This is dangerous. One reason why Sikhs were re-assured after the 1984 massacres was because so many Hindus made it their mission to bring the murderers to justice. Similarly, most of the condemnation of Dara Singh and the Bajrang Dal, in the aftermath of the Graham Staines murder, came from liberal Hindus who denounced the incident for what it was: a perversion of Hindu beliefs.

Liberal Muslims must do something similar. They cannot allow their community to be hijacked by the madmen and the rabble-rousers. Liberal Hindus can fight Hindu communalists. But we can only do this if liberal Muslims also fight their own fanatics. Otherwise, there is certain to be a Hindu backlash.

And all of us — Hindus, Muslims or whatever — will pay the price.



http://www.hindustantimes.com/nonfram/141001/VIR39.asp

if any one reads YLH`s posts they will think the pakistanis are all honey and faithful and true. Indeed if you read his juvenile sophomrish rant on paknews.com you will be convinced the whole world is against pakistan, and he is the white knight on the horse....

but I guess this little pipsqueak will ignore Friday times, and Khalid when he says the follwoign (note: this is jus a small snippet from the article - where Khalid shows the paki origins of the kargil heros)

quote

That`s what happened in 1993 when a certain Brigadier Kamal Alam that India would simply collapse after the Bombay mayhem. In the event, it turned out to be another Pearl Harbour, a act-of-anger operation that gained Pakistan nothing, except that General Javed Nasir got the sack soon after the Nawaz Sharif government fell. The man who fronted the operation, Indian underworld king Dawood Ibrahim, was bequeathed to Pakistan by the agency as the most negative fallout of the ill-conceived operation. In 2001, he is perhaps the most powerful man in Karachi owning large estates and keeping army and police personnel on his payroll.

http://www.thefridaytimes.com/news9.htm

read about the Dawood your General said didnot exist. Read about the paki hand behind the Bombay bombs. Generally , Khalid seems to be accepting that Pakistan has a very big hand behind the terrorism in India. So the phrase Pakistan the Terrorist State stands, the *hit sticks. YLH think you better hide that face in shame, and for once stop and think before you post extrarodinary junk in the hope of catching the eys of the pwers that be in pakistan.

As they say what goes round will come round. Now Al-bin-laden is going to take over the country - witness his latest fax to Al-jeezera station.

Boy, oh boy.

COST EFFECTIVENESS,

It appears that most of the buildings in afghanistan are made of mud bricks. Million dollar missiles are redusing them to sand and the local people are coming back, pouring some water over and rebuilding the structures. Waht the sofisticated weapons distroy is brought back to life with some water.

But in any case from a global perspective, events in afghanistan are good, a thousand pakistanis have crossed into afgh to become shaheens. If it were not for the war in afgh thses would have crossed into india attacking red fort and causing widespread damage.

May be it is time that the muslim countries are asked to pay for the afghan war, what is happening there is jihadic venting, a religious requirement, and it is time the co-religionists payed for it.

Cloaking it as anti terrorism is OK for the rest of the world, but for the muslims to stay in the coalition, it has to be presented as jihadic venting. Al Jareezas new channel, 24 hours non stop, ``stoking the jihadic flames``. Send your donations to lasker-e-jay@global-jihad.com.pk

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Nuggets from the Urdu press



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America`s `baira` will be `gharaq`

Famous warrior and chief of Lashkar-e-Tayba Hafiz Saeed told Nawa-e-Waqt that there will be baira gharaq (shipwreck) of America at the hands of Allah. He said it was the religious duty of all Pakistanis to come to the defence of the Islamic government of Afghanistan. He said the crusades were on and the Christians would come to grief. He asked General Musharraf why he agreed with the American bombing of airports and power stations in Afghanistan since they were not hideouts for the terrorists. Mufti Shamzai of Banuri mosque in Karachi ruled that the government which supports the Americans should be toppled.

Mulla Umar is nuts

According to daily Din, Mulla Umar the caliph of Afghanistan was mentally sick and was given to bouts of madness during which he screamed like a child. It was his routine to lock himself inside a room which his followers thought was a kind of maraqba (spiritual vigil) but in fact he tried to hide his madness.

Journalist who ate five times a day!

According to Khabrain British journalist Yvonne Ridley writing about her arrest at the hands of the Taliban intelligence agency said that the statement of the Afghan spokesman that she was given five meals a day `because she was used to eating all the time` was false because she was not given any food and that she was on hunger strike during her captivity and had eaten only after being released. She added that she was made to walk 80 miles.

Mulla Umar`s teacher held

According to Khabrain, Mullah Umar`s teacher, 67 year old Maulana Ghulam Sarwar, was picked up in Quetta and held in custody by the Pakistani police. The teacher, after being arrested, immediately declared jehad on America. The arrest was made hours after the beginning of the American attack on Afghanistan.

Dr Israr`s pearls of wisdom

Quoted in daily Din, Lahore`s famous cleric Dr Israr Ahmad said that the attacks in New York and Washington on September 11 were carried out by the Jews. Next, the Jews will destroy Masjid-e-Aqsa in occupied Jerusalem. He said Israel will finally be conquered by the combined power of the mujahideen from Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Gul sways lawyers

According to daily Pakistan, ex-ISI chief General Hamid Gul told the Lahore High Court bar that the terrorism in America was actually the work of Americans and Jews. He said America wanted to end the power of China and Pakistan. After Afghanistan, America would end Pakistan. After his speech, the lawyers became extremely emotional and shouted that he should lead their procession against the government, but the office bearers of the bar succeeded in containing the fiery passions of the true Muslim lawyers.

Astrologers on Taliban crisis

According to Khabrain, a handful of astrologers in Lahore expressed conflicting views on the future of the on-going American attacks on Afghanistan. Almost all of them said that America will fail and that the Taliban will win and the Muslim world would unite, but disagreed in detail. One said that Pakistan will emerge from its own crisis in 2002, and another said that Osama bin Laden would leave Afghanistan but Mulla Umar would lose power in 2001.

A bungalow for Mulla Umar

Famous columnist Nazeer Naji wrote in Jang that Osama bin Laden came to Afghanistan and took control of it and in return built a bungalow for Mulla Umar. After that he got rid of Mulla Umar`s Afghan guards and appointed a new guard comprising the Bengali warriors of his organisation, Al-Qaeda. These were salaried men who had learned to hate Pakistan.

Jesus writes to Christians!

Columnist Ismail Qureshi wrote in Nawa-e-Waqt a letter from Jesus to his Christian followers wherein Christianity was accused of having imposed crusades on Muslims and then exploited the Muslim world in the 20th century, building its World Trade Center with the usury extracted from poor Muslim states. Then Christ sent ghaibi (invisible) power which destroyed the World Trade Center, after which Christianity declared war on poor Muslims. Jesus said that he could not remain quiet on this injustice and asked Christians to reform themselves and do penance.

The name of Osama bin Laden

Daily Nawa-e-Waqt wrote in its Sare Rahe column that Pakistan foreign minister Abdul Sattar returned from Doha and held a press conference at Lahore State Guest House but carefully avoided naming Osama bin Laden while the world was talking about him and President Bush was waking up at night crying Osama, Osama! The column called on the Taliban ambassador in Islamabad Mulla Zaeef to rename himself Mulla Qavi (powerful) because that was what was needed against the Americans. His name Zaeef means weak.

Gen Aslam Beg speaks again

Quoted in Khabrain, ex-COAS General Mirza Aslam Beg said that if the Americans sent land troops in Afghanistan tau oos kay hosh thikanay ajayen gai (will be brought to its senses). The last time he said this during the Gulf war, the Americans landed and Saddam Hussein was quickly defeated. But the genius of General Beg has remained undimmed in the service of Pakistan. Ex-ISI chief, General Hameed Gul said in Khabrain that America will never send land troops into Afghanistan. He said OIC was murda (dead). Maj-Gen (Retd) Tajamul Hussain Malik said not so originally that America wanted to take hold of Pakistan`s nuclear weapons and give them away to some other country. He said the war against the Taliban would be a long one and the Americans would run away after seeing dead bodies.

Praising great actresses

Film producer Khwaja Pervez wrote in Khabrain that a statement by actress Reema, Mira, Resham and Saima that they would die for Pakistan was a great gesture of self-sacrifice for the country even though the statement was the work of a destitute journalist sitting at his desk. He said Reema had made Pakistan famous by doing colossal shopping in America, thus picking up its economy and making it beholden to Pakistan. He said the debt of the tawaef (courtesans) was great on Pakistan since they sang all the TV songs. They should now be sent to America to persuade it not to kill the Afghans.

India will remember its `nani`

Quoted in Khabrain, General (Retd) K.M. Arif said that if India attacked Pakistan it will be made to remember its nani (grandmother). He said the Americans had superiority in the air but if they sent land forces into Afghanistan, then the Taliban will have superiority over them. Two superpowers (Britain and the USSR) have had themselves already defeated in Afghanistan. General Hameed Gul said that the Americans will soon learn the rates of atta and daal in Afghanistan.

Parachinar refuses asylum to Afghans

According to Khabrain, the tribal people of Parachinar in the Kurram Agency refused to offer asylum to the Afghan refugee fleeing their country `because the last we did that the Russians attacked us and killed 12 of us`. Seeing this, the political agent set up three refugee camps in the lower part of the Kurram Agency.

Osama like Napoleon and Quaid

Astrologer Abdul Wahab told Khabrain that the thumb of Osama bin Laden was like the thumbs of Napoleon and the Quaid-e-Azam. He said Osama was under threat till November 4, after which he will be safe. According to his lines, Osama was incapable of attacking America but he had a personality that attracted human beings like honey attracted bees. Osama did not bow in front of anyone and was a man of great determination, but he would meet a sad end.

`Reema lao!`

According to Khabrain a local theatre in Lahore was nearly put on fire by an angry crowd after film actress Reema failed to turn up in a show arranged in her name. After Reema failed to appear, the crowd shouted Reema Lao (bring Reema) and began to damage the property of the theatre. The administration said that though the show was dedicated to Reema there was no pledge by them to bring her to the theatre. After this the crowd tried to set fire to the theatre.

Americans eat sleeping pills

Great columnist Muzaffar Bukhari wrote in daily Din that America was worth pitying because 20 percent of the Americans were clinically mad and the rest took sleeping pills to go to sleep. He wrote that the Americans should read the following line of Allama Iqbal: tu agar mera nahin banta nan ban apna tau ban (if you can`t be mine be your own person).

Hekmatyar joins whom?

According to daily Insaf great Afghan leader and former ISI favourite Glubuddin Hekmatyar joined the Taliban with his men and all the weapons he had got from Pakistan`s ISI during the Afghan war. He was keeping the weapons as buried cache somewhere in Afghanistan. Other reports said that Hekmatyar had joined the Northern Alliance.

Mulla Umar`s family killed

According to Ausaf, the wife of Mulla Umar, one daughter and two sons, got killed during the American air attacks. The sons were injured on the first day of the attack. His close relatives were also either injured a or were killed by the American bombs falling on Kandahar.

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Some interesting article.

The Bush-Bin Laden Money Connection

``Former President George Bush met with King Fahd, right, on a trip to Saudi Arabia last year as part of his work for the Carlyle Group.`` (NYT, 3/5/01)



A Second Bush Oil Deal To Come With Murky Ties To Saudi Financiers And Osama Bin Laden

``On September 24, President George W. Bush appeared at a press conference in the White House Rose Garden to announce a crackdown on the financial networks of terrorists and those who support them. “U.S. banks that have assets of these groups or individuals must freeze their accounts,” Bush declared. “And U.S. citizens or businesses are prohibited from doing business with them.”

``But the president, who is now enjoying an astounding 92 percent approval rating, hasn’t always practiced what he is now preaching: Bush’s own businesses were once tied to financial figures in Saudi Arabia who currently support bin Laden.

``In 1979, Bush’s first business, Arbusto Energy, obtained financing from James Bath, a Houstonian and close family friend. One of many investors, Bath gave Bush $50,000 for a 5 percent stake in Arbusto. At the time, Bath was the sole U.S. business representative for Salem bin Laden, head of the wealthy Saudi Arabian family and a brother (one of 17) to Osama bin Laden. It has long been suspected, but never proven, that the Arbusto money came directly from Salem bin Laden. In a statement issued shortly after the September 11 attacks, the White House vehemently denied the connection, insisting that Bath invested his own money, not Salem bin Laden’s, in Arbusto.

``In conflicting statements, Bush at first denied ever knowing Bath, then acknowledged his stake in Arbusto and that he was aware Bath represented Saudi interests. In fact, Bath has extensive ties, both to the bin Laden family and major players in the scandal-ridden Bank of Commerce and Credit International (BCCI) who have gone on to fund Osama bin Laden. BCCI defrauded depositors of $10 billion in the ’80s in what has been called the “largest bank fraud in world financial history” by former Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau. During the ’80s, BCCI also acted as a main conduit for laundering money intended for clandestine CIA activities, ranging from financial support to the Afghan mujahedin to paying intermediaries in the Iran-Contra affair.

``When Salem bin Laden died in 1988, powerful Saudi Arabian banker and BCCI principal Khalid bin Mahfouz inherited his interests in Houston. Bath ran a business for bin Mahfouz in Houston and joined a partnership with bin Mahfouz and Gaith Pharaon, BCCI’s frontman in Houston’s Main Bank.

``The Arbusto deal wasn’t the last time Bush looked to highly questionable sources to invest in his oil dealings. After several incarnations, Arbusto emerged in 1986 as Harken Energy Corporation. When Harken ran into trouble a year later, Saudi Sheik Abdullah Taha Bakhsh purchased a 17.6 percent stake in the company. Bakhsh was a business partner with Pharaon in Saudi Arabia; his banker there just happened to be bin Mahfouz.

``Though Bush told the Wall Street Journal he had “no idea” BCCI was involved in Harken’s financial dealings, the network of connections between Bush and BCCI is so extensive that the Journal concluded their investigation of the matter in 1991 by stating: “The number of BCCI-connected people who had dealings with Harken—all since George W. Bush came on board—raises the question of whether they mask an effort to cozy up to a presidential son.” Or even the president: Bath finally came under investigation by the FBI in 1992 for his Saudi business relationships, accused of funneling Saudi money through Houston in order to influence the foreign policies of the Reagan and first Bush administrations.

``Worst of all, bin Mahfouz allegedly has been financing the bin Laden terrorist network—making Bush a U.S. citizen who has done business with those who finance and support terrorists. According to USA Today, bin Mahfouz and other Saudis attempted to transfer $3 million to various bin Laden front operations in Saudi Arabia in 1999. ABC News reported the same year that Saudi officials stopped bin Mahfouz from contributing money directly to bin Laden. (Bin Mahfouz’s sister is also a wife of Osama bin Laden, a fact that former CIA Director James Woolsey revealed in 1998 Senate testimony.)

``When President Bush announced he is hot on the trail of the money used over the years to finance terrorism, he must realize that trail ultimately leads not only to Saudi Arabia, but to some of the same financiers who originally helped propel him into the oil business and later the White House. The ties between bin Laden and the White House may be much closer than he is willing to acknowledge.`` --Wayne Madsen, 10/22/01

Wayne Madsen, an investigative journalist based in Washington, is the author of Genocide and Covert Operations in Africa 1993-1999.

Deaar vineet:

Thanks for posting Mr. Sanghvi`s column:

Mr. Sanghvi started on the right foot eschewing generalization but three paragraphs later he seems to fall in the very trap of stereotyping that he professed to avoid in the beginning.

He writes:

`` all this is discomfiting. Is there, in fact, a growing international pan-Islamic identity? Is this identity so strong that even an operation against a psychopath and the world’s most barbaric regime can stir up such strong emotions?``

The answer is YES and NO. YES there is a pan Islamic identity of retrograde militant Islamic fundamentalism -- but NO there is no pan Islamism involving the overwhelming majority of the Muslims all over the world including Indonesia, Malaysia or even Pakistan -- despite the delusion the OIC represents.

On the other hand there is a nebulous and benignly warm cognizance of Muslim presence in other countries such as China, Russia, Turkey or Middle East -- similar to the warm feelings that an Indian Hindu might have for a Nepali Hindu or for a Balinese Hindu.

NOW You wouldn`t call that Pan Hinduism – would you.

Reading his column now I can understand why Farzana Versey a liberal secular Indian Muslim -- finally got sick and tired of this annoying whining and “expectations” by others from the “Indian Muslims” to ”diasociate” themselves from Osama bin Laden.

The fact is that Indian Muslim majority -- barring the crazy fundamentalist and a mercurial illiterate contradictory imam -- are NOT and NEVER BEEN the “associates” of that crazy criminal to begin with – that they have to “disassociate” themselves before everybody.

Here I agree with Ms Versey 100% that it is none of the Sanghvi’s business to demand “disassociation” from the Indian Muslims and that they have to “prove” themselves.

Why – why the Indian Muslims have to prove themselves for what? -- for something that a psychopath Arab mongrel does or says – in the land of Islamist barbarians?

What is so amazingly incredible -- that this whining is loudest from some of the secular Hindus who perhaps cannot read or don’t want to read the myriads of columns written by Ayaz Amirs, Irfan Hussains, Khalis Hasans, MJ Akbers, Jawed Naqvis, Mushirulhasans -- of India AND Pakistan -- CONDEMNING -- in no uncertain terms --this degenerate raving mad criminal -- who embarrassed and let down -- a proud community of I billion Muslims – all over the world for decades to come.

hasan

nasah,

You got that right. Goes to show that no one community has exclusive claim to bigotry. If there is one thing Muslim Indians have shown, it is that they are not sheep driven by some Arabs. It is pretty sickening to see some Hindus bleating like bakri whipped up by RSS propaganda. These guys ought to cool it.

Aaker : Very good and moving article but your history of is not true at many point. For example babar was not the grandson of Timur but about five generations down. Afghanistan, previously Khorasan, was conquered many times without much difficlty by several Muslim Turkic rulers of India and before that Greeko-Persian empires, Bactrians and Parthians and even Ashoka whose edicts are found in Brahimi script in Kandahar. Last successful capture of Afghanistan was by Baccha Suqai who captured Kabul with the help of tribal people from NWFP, I believe Afridis. Most of southern and western Afghanistan was considered a wasteland and of no interests to big players in history, much like Arabian peninsula (Egyptians, Babylonians, Greeks, Romans and Persians never fought over Arabian peninsula during their rule). Afghans are different than Turkic people and Ghaznavi, Ghori and Aibak were all Turkic. India was ruled by Afghans only twice, once by Lodhi dynasty and later by Sher Shah Suri.

A Pashtun or some better knowledgeable person can explain the tribal divisions of Afghans but mu understanding is that in the north it is mostly Mohammadzai and Yusufzai Pashtuns (some Yusufzai think of themselves as a lost tribe of Israel) and in the south it is ghilzai and popalzai. Durrani is a sub-group of ghilzai. Popalzai only ruled once in the entire history of Afghanistan and he was either Babrak Karmal or Najeeb Ullah during communist rule. It was non-ghilzai loyalties to communist regime that kept them in power for several years after Russian withdrawal frrom Afghanistan and finally the defection of Dostum to rebels eneded the communist rule.

Re: nasah

Thank you for putting it down so clearly. I echo your thoughts. Its a shame that the ``free liberal press`` Hindustan Times is so biased, it`s scary. The only reason why the writer ended up lumping it all on `the pan islamic identity` is his the fact that he is not muslim. How can that be a reasoned article? This has to be critiqued fully. The writer starts with an open fair stance ostensibly defending secular rights and then reverses the entire logic to blame it all after all on the Muslims__``they`` somehow have a hidden agenda that is mysterious and brutal. Of-course all of India`s nationalism is reactionary and poor things have no choice. Funnily, writers at the Hindustan Times just dont get it that the so-called Islamic world, is a bunch of people fragmented and at odds with each other over islam and islamic interpretation. For them to have an `agenda` of any sort is impossible. That has been a criticism of the Islamic world conscience for a long long time. As for what they should do? for heavan`s sake. Arent they doing all they can to help America? It goes against the grain of every sane person to bomb Afghanistan but the Islamic world is tolerating that abuse--aiding and abetting it, all because of the collective embarassment of Osama.
I am so disgusted with Hindustan Time`s coverage of the issues that I have left reading it. It was embarassing to see the glee and joy at the opportunity to call Pakistan a terrorist state. The self righteousness was disgusting. ...Sep 11 was so obviously an excuse to run down anything about muslims. I cant help getting the strong impression that the only good muslim in India, is one who is ashamed to be one.

Saima Shah

{ Its a shame that the ``free liberal press`` Hindustan Times is so biased, it`s scary}

- Just because a newspaper does not follow the Pakistani military junta party line is not of itself wrong, what does this have to do with a ``free liberal press``? Its a point of view. No wait. It shows the reality of the horrible Hindoos and their true face etc etc....[continue Pakistani whinge ad nauseum.......]

{I am so disgusted with Hindustan Time`s coverage of the issues that I have left reading it}

-Stick to reading the reasoned, liberal, rationalist and not at all bigoted commentaries of the Pakistani Urdu press then.

{ It was embarassing to see the glee and joy at the opportunity to call Pakistan a terrorist state}

Why? A country that is implicated by the entire world in being complicit in atrocities in Kashmir, a deep intimate relationship between the military intelligence service and the Taliban and Al