The Price

semipreciousme #242:

I hold no brief for the Indian govt`s stand on cricket ties with Pak. But to explain the govt policy, ours is a calibrated stand. We want to maintain good sporting ties with Pak, but to show our displeasure with Pak terrorist activities, we do not want to play cricket with Pak. I guess if Pak terrorist activity increases, it will affect ties regarding other sports too.

Pak stand regarding trade and cultural ties with India seems to be an all-or-nothing policy. Till Kashmir nothing, later everything is what your CE seems to say.

I hope I have been sufficiently clear in explaining the difference.

Romair 232:

I won`t disagree that China-USA competition will define international relations.

The important thing to understand is that USA and China will not offer any economic goodies (read foreign aid) to other states. That would bankrupt them. China has $175 billion in foreign exchange reserves. They could afford to pay Pakistan`s $30 billion foreign debt. (or at least a portion of it) Guess why they don`t pay it ?

I have question marks on the amount of oil in Central Asia. The question for Romair is that if it is right for Pakistan to control Afghanistan to control Central Asian oil, why is it wrong for India to control Pakistan to gain access to Central Asian oil ? What does Pakistan do if Uzbekstan turns off oil to the pipeline that goes to Pakistan ?

Why should people of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Iran, Iraq be anti-west ?? They will have disagreements with the policies of the West. Their disagreements with their rulers are more serious. Israel is a sideshow for most Arabs except 4 million Palestinians.

US has little influence with India. India does not rely on IMF loans and US military hardware like Pakistan does. If US can pressure India over Kashmir, it is 10 times easier to pressure Pakistan on Kashmir.

As far as Pakistani role in rebuilding Afghanistan just pray that you don`t lynched in the northern parts of Afghanistan.

As far as respect for Musharraf goes, I remember one Harvard educated female PM of Pakistan addressed a joint session of Congress. I believe all the 435 members attended the session. Very rare for a foreign dignitary. Guess what is she doing these days.

RE: EST Reply #: 232 Romair

Romair,

The world is awash with oil. All the illegal actions taken by OPEC(read hoarding, price-fixing etc.) hasn`t been able to prop up the price of oil for too long - witness the current calamitous drop currently despite a war scenario. Consequently, the U.S. is not desperate enough to place it`s oil future in the hands of an assorted bunch of buccaneers running Afghanistan and Pakistan.

China will reach it`s limit sooner or later. No cookie cutter manufacturing country has been able to take over the world without original ideas. Ask Japan, South Korea and Malaysia. China will have to come up with original ideas if it is to dominate the current century; if it allows original thought, it`s undemocratic system is threatened. A catch-22 situation. One way or another China will be the one to watch, though.

India has to shed it`s perpetual wannabe image, it`s closet socialists, it`s sons of the soil, it`s Ram bhakthas, it`s Pakistan fixation and other assorted baggage and genuinely put it`s future in the hands of it`s people if it is to make a significant place for itself in the world.

If Pakistan is to survive and flourish, it has to remove the India bone in it`s throat that`s choking it ever since 1947. It`s tried looking towards the West in the 50s/60s, towards the Middle East in the 70s and 80s, towards the East (China) and nothing`s worked so far. This is a golden chance for Musharaff to boldy shed baggage and normalize relations with India. There will be no significant opposition since the beards have been taken out by the U.S.. For once, let it`s leaders listen to it`s people who have always voted for roti, kapda aur makaan rather than the rich cake of Kashmir. Then I`ll believe Musharaff is another Attaturk in the making.

And so on .....

RSaxena:

“frankly, there is hypocrisy in pakistan`s stance...on the one hand musharraf has no interest in developing cultural and economic ties until the intractable kashmir issue is resolved...on the other hand pakistan wants to maintain cricketing ties?...cricket before kashmir is OK but a trade treaty or government-sponsored cultural exchange is not?...doesn`t make sense...”

….india’s stand would be more “principled” if it cut off ALL sporting ties with pak….what’s the deal with letting squash, hockey, volleyball ties continuing and not cricket?….and the last time i checked india was sending 300+ players to the saf games in isb….so why is cricket singled out?….now if that doesn`t smack of hypocrisy, then i don`t know what does....

…and nowhere do i recall musharraf saying he wants to cut off cultural ties….if that were the case, then we wouldn’t have school kids visiting india, fashion shows with indian models, asha bhosle coming here for a tribute concert to noor jehan (which got delayed because of the stuff going on now)….

Re: Romair #232

More of his usual gas. With all this gas nextdoor, why is India looking to lay a pipeline all the way to Iran.

Here`s the interesting or sad part:

``Pakistan has gained greatly from the post-Sep 11 world.``

Today, Pack-istan is being mentioned in the same breath along with Sudan, Somalia and Chechnia, on any channel you watch.

MSNBC was showing today the 1993 WTC bombing mastermind Ramzi Yousef, a pakistani.

Today, the world over, the name of Pack-istan is M-U-D.

OK, Romair has excess gas. But I hope the other pakistanis are not this deluded.

goofballsaxena

(ah, my old friend binifer drops in from her conversion ceremony just to write me a note...so what`s your new name?..some bibi- something or the other?...ayesha maybe?...and have you met the other 3 wives? or are you the 1st, 2nd, or 3rd?...if that`s the case, do you get to have a say in choosing the next wife?)

so thats the best u can do little oinker? (sorry samina if you have copyrights to this beauty of an expression) Names still binifer sugarmuffin- lets see you come up with something original now

Ayaz Amir has another excellent column -

http://www.dawn.com/weekly/ayaz/ayaz.htm

Shankar and Romair (posts 224, 232, : Very good posts from both of you. (RSaxena (222), I understand your pro-India sentiments - but please read these posts again as an `outsider`!)

Shankar, I agree that Bush and Putin seem to have hit it off very well and their personalities seem to have much in common - I had noticed it as well prior to the UN talks. But we must remember, the presidents are not driving the agenda in the long term - it is the corporations. Bush may not be re-elected (same with Putin), and in any case, it is the Unocal`s and the Shell`s that are ultimately going to drive this particular policy. The Russian pipeline makes economic sense for the European Union, not for South Asia. The Russia-US co-operation has a fundamental economic reason - it will free up an enormous amount of billions from the nuclear disarmament for example. And Russia is perceived as a competitor, rather than an ally. Russia`s role in the Caspian sea and its pressuring tactics on the surrounding nations bears this out. Don`t forget - the countries in the Caspian region wil sell it to all and sundry - and China is a pretty big gorilla of the region as you have pointed out. The US is interested in the pipeline for India and South Asia primarily. Overall, I think the US does not want to see the pipeline restricted to just one option - it wants more than one distribution route to prevent any one country from putting a stranglehold on it. And this is why the Afghanistan - Pakistan pipeline makes sense. It is part of several distribution lines. And it is the one that makes the most economic sense for India and China. Actually, for China the pipeline most likely will take off from the existing Baku-Turkmenistan-Kazakhstan and feed off to Xinjiang. Why India and China? It is because South Asian demands are booming and competitors are scarce. In other words, pumping oil south and selling it in Pakistan and India is far more profitable than pumping it west and selling it in Europe.

Romair, you have it absolutely right regarding China - that is an insightful post: The US is on a competitive economic course with respect to China. The euphemism I heard for American foreign policy was called ``full-spectrum dominance``, by which they mean that the US will seek to control military, economic and political development worldwide. China has responded by seeking to expand its interests in central Asia. The defence white paper Beijing published last year argued that ``China`s fundamental interests lie in ... the establishment and maintenance of a new regional security order``. This is the main reason why the US has been establishing ties with India - it needs a counterweight to China, and it is not Russia. Russia and China in fact, have something called the ``Shanghai cooperation organisation``. Its purpose, according to Jiang Zemin, is to ``foster world multi-polarisation``, which is another way of saying that China will contest US full-spectrum dominance. The country that the US has focused on is India. And to realize those ambitions of the US, India will need a pretty large share of the pipeline. This is what will be pressuring the policies of our countries in the immediate future - politics is simply the struggle for wealth and power, and in this case compromise is required to build the Caspian oil regime, compromises that give more states a definite stake in their own development.

WARNING: NOT FOR LADIES & PRUDES

Bijli hai jiska naam shakal uski mohini

Kothay pe paee jaati hai badmast sohini

Hai jiska naam Faiza voh shay hai deedni

zahreeli aisi kaat le mar jaay dhamini

UryaN hui hai Fatimah,AAmir bhi saath hai

pee kar sharab naach rahi hai voh padmini

TaangeN utha ke late gayee pyari Deepika

kahte hain uski Shah bajata hai symphony

Lajo ka wazn aisa ke haathi kaheN jisse

har ek gali main usko pukaray hai hastini

Bazarehusn choRR diya,jab husn dhal gaya

ab tau tamam Chowk par banti hain Hajjini

Bapu jo unka baap hai,Dalla bhi hai vohi

din raat khoon choos ke banta hai ab dhani



mohini=pretty, badmast=drunk, shay=thing

dhamini=poisonous snake, UryaN= naked

Lajo= Lajwanti, Bazar e husn = Red light area

Hastini = A woman of elephantine proportions

Hajjini = Female Haji , Dalla = Pimp

U.S.Embassy in India try to win support of Muslims by Teleconference set up with there American Counterparts.

Indian Muslims browbeat US lobbyists



By Ghulam Muhammed, Mumbai, Inputs: M Ahmed Kazmi

In an exercise to gauge Indian Muslim intellectuals` reaction to the bombings in Afghanistan, and to call upon the services of some of the US Muslim leaders to interact with their brothers worldwide to clear up US position on Afghanistan war, US Embassy in New Delhi arranged a teleconference on 30 October between George Town University, Washington`s Imam Yehya M. Hindi and American Muslim Council`s director, Aly R. Abuzaakouk (of Libyan origin) on the US side and Jamia Hamdard Chancellor, Saiyid Hamid, former editor of Radiance Viewsweekly, Aminul Hasan Rizvi, Syeda Sayyedain Hamid of Muslim Women`s Group, Media Star`s Mohammed Ahmed Kazmi and others from New Delhi.The purpose of the interaction was ‘engaging Muslim Indians in a discussion on Islam in America and India and the American response to the September 11 tragedy.’

The planned duration for the interaction was one hour which was to be extended if need arose. It was taken up mostly by Imam Hindi, giving out the history of Muslims in the United States and their present condition. A much shorter time was made available to the Indian side, which was characterised by sharp reaction against the moral and legal basis of the American bombing of innocent civilians in Afghanistan. It was pointed out that both Al Qaida and Taliban were sponsored, nourished and exploited by the US as per its strategies in the past. Now that differences have cropped up, the argument is being settled through force that involves the whole nation of Afghanistan which cannot be punished for the supposed and unproved guilt of its government. As Afghanistan`s Taliban government was not an elected government, why innocent Afghanis should become the victims of America`s internal policy changes, an Indian interlocutor asked.

Both the US interlocutors evaded the questions raised by the Indian side and as it was felt that the going was becoming unpalatable, the teleconference was abruptly disconnected. The New Delhi embassy staff had drawn faces and they were fully convinced that nobody, even Indian Muslims, will accept the wanton death of defenceless innocent Afghan civilians, through the relentless, illegal bombings by a superpower supremely oblivious of all the norms of international rules, regulations and morality. All the genuine sympathies that were coming voluntarily to the US for the carnage of September 11, have evaporated all over the Muslim World in particular, and the silent protesting world in general, which is at a loss to understand as to how a superpower can be controlled if its leaders became as ruthless as Nazis. q

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Romair:

And if the pipeline is built as well, then I am going to sell my SunnyVale house, and buy land in Gwadar.

Arrey chaddo yaar. Pakistan might do well but not that well. Kahan Sunnyvale, kahan Gwadar. Maybe you should buy land in Gwadar dirt cheap now, sell it in 10 years, use the money to buy vacation home in Marin County or Sonoma or Napa or something. Actually, come to think of it.......Sunnyvale with its endless stripmalls and boring suburban landscape....yeah, no wonder you want to move to Gwadar..

Semipreciousme / Rsaxena:

``....the loss was around 15-20 million dollars...it`s about time india got off its sanctimonious high-horse on that one...``

Arrey, it`s not Indians. It`s Uma Bharati, sports minister, who needs a big kick on her super-sized behind. And Bal Thackeray, who needs a big kick on his teeny weeny one.

frankly, there is hypocrisy in pakistan`s stance...on the one hand musharraf has no interest in developing cultural and economic ties until the intractable kashmir issue is resolved...on the other hand pakistan wants to maintain cricketing ties?...cricket before kashmir is OK but a trade treaty or government-sponsored cultural exchange is not?...doesn`t make sense...

That`s a valid point too. What makes cricket special? Why can`t it be across the board, media, culture, FOOD etc..Arrey, the least you guys can do is give us MFN status, which India has extended for long time. Build an economic stake in each other`s country, and there will be less reason to fight. After all, aren`t we all McBanias ;)

shankar/sherdil #216/224: Here is my spin.

The whole battle to control Afghanistan between Pakistan and Iran was for oil. Pakistan wanted its govt. in place, so the pipeline goes through Pakistan. Hence, Pakistan, along with the US, supported the Taliban. Everything was going fine for this little coalition, until OBL started his thing. His camps in Afghanistan were used for training anyone fighting a non-Muslim force; this included terrorists and freedom-fighters. I still don`t think he was behind the WTC bombing, though. Otherwise the US would have given out the evidence on day one, to satisfy the whole world; specifically the Muslim world. No intelligence source can be important enough, if a clash of civilisations can be avoided. And there would have been no need for the new closed military courts.

The individuals involved in it, probably were trained in his camps, so he may have been indirectly involved. The real head of this monster is probably a consortium, which sits comfortably in the five star hotels of Saudia Arabia, and is probably more Westenized than Tom Cruise.

The Taliban would never have been toppled, by the USA, had they kept OBL out. This war is obviously not over women`s rights, and Afghani common man`s freedom. Those have been violated for years, but no one was too concerned. It should now be very clear to everyone that fuel sources always take precedence over the rights of poor people. And that is why the US needs a friendly govt. in Afghanistan, as does Pakistan.

The short term interests are to destroy Al-Qaeda. In the long term, a friendly regime, for the US (and Pakistan) to control the pipeline. Whether the pipeline gets built is a different story. But, the West needs an alternate source of fuel than from the Persian Gulf. Because, once the Saudi kingdom topples (which should happen soon), the whole Persian Gulf (Saudi, Iraq, Iran, Kuwait and UAE) will either willingly or forcibly become super anti-West. Kuwait alone has 10% of the known oil reserves. Saudi has 26%.

The US`s main concern is China. It is now accepted that in 25 years, China will be a bigger economy than the US. It has four times the population, and is a semi-dictatorial state. This will make it more powerful than the US, which cannot get one soldier killed, without taking out a public opinion poll.

As they say, ``it is good to be the King.`` Countries want to become superpowers, not because it is an honorable act (it is usually very dishonorable, due to all the civilians one has to kill in other countries to maintain superpower status), but because one gets good deals in all the international markets. It is kind of like being the Mafia boss, who doesn`t have to pay for fruit at the local grocery store, and gets the best seat at the downtown diner, because people are afraid of him. The families of Mafia bosses are generally very well looked after, and happy (as is the local US population). However, the people in the neighborhood, rightly or wrongly, usually hate the Mafia Boss (but would not mind marrying into his family, however).

The worst thing for a Mafia boss is a challenger. And China is about to become one. China is the one country, which has played all its international cards, correctly. Its foreign policy is not hijacked by a third state, like Israel (all the hatred against the US is primarily due to actions the US has taken in the Middle East, to satisfy Israel; before Israel came along, the Muslims, and other third world countries, looked upto the US, as a non-colonist). The anti-US states, will openly jump on the China bandwagon. Pakistan already has, even though it is not anti-US. What happens if Iran, Iraq, Saudi (after the topple) etc. jump on that bandwagon, as well.

The Japenese and Europeans, due to China`s close proximity will be interested in trading with China; as will the Asian tigers and Australia. And it doesn`t matter how deep one looks into Putin`s eyes, Russians still hate Americans. Currently, they have no choice but to be friendly to America. An ex-superpower never takes defeat lightly. If India were to successfully break up Pakistan, would the Pakistani Punjabis, all of a sudden, fall in love with India. The center of the economic world in 25 years will shift from North America to EuroAsia.

This leaves out one state, i.e. India. And this is why India is so important to the US. If India jumps on the China bandwagon, well then, the US has no one. That is why the US is going out of its way to be friendly with India. If one person is killed in Tainaman Square, all trade with China is off. But the US quitely turns a blind eye to what is going on in Kashmir.

Pakistan has gained greatly from the post-Sep 11 world. Pakistan does not need to be on the good side of the US. It just needs to make sure it is not on the bad side. From now on, the US itself will make sure Pakistan will not be on the bad side. So Pakistan is ally no. 1 of China (every decision made by the Pakistani leadership, including the nuclear explosion and Sept. 11, is made after discussing it with China), and is on the good to neutral side of the Western world. That is where Pakistan needs to be. After all, Asia will be dominated by China, not the US. Now if the pipeline is built, it will have to go thru Pakistan, to Gwadar. That will put Pakistan directly into an even more important position.

Things are looking very good for Pakistan. More important than the aid that came in, is the access to foreign markets, and most importantly a role in rebuilding Afghanistan (all of that will definitely come through Pakistan. It is not going thru Iran). And even more important is the fact that all the Pakistani problems simmering under the surface were exposed (Taliban, religious extremism) and had to be handled. It is now a well understood fact that the religious parties could not get more than a few thousand people`s support (more people than that gather to help fix a flat tire, in Pakistan). And it is understood that Musharraf is a popular leader, locally and abroad. He may not get the grand receptions in the US any longer, but he is the only leader in South Asia, whose word is greatly respected in US homes, now. Most Americans probably could not name the PM of India, Bangladesh, or Sri Lanka.

Now, if the current restructuring can be carried on for ten years. And Musharraf sticks around in a position of power, while simutaneously allowoing the civilian professionals to do their thing (like he is currently doing; Pakistan`s policies are made by Shaukut Aziz, and not Musharraf). And BB, NS etc. can be kept at bay for that long, Pakistan will be a different place in ten years. And if the pipeline is built as well, then I am going to sell my SunnyVale house, and buy land in Gwadar.

Dost Mittar,

You might have a point with Alanis, (is Sarah McLaughlin from Canuck? doesn`t she live in the US?), but Celine...all pitch and no soul...you might as well let this one go...movies I`d give to Iran and China, but admit it DM, your comics and bacon are the main export here. Think Kids in the Hall, Sctv, Mike Meyers...don`t even think about bringing in France Jolie (who`s one hit I heard as a child visiting my cousins in Montreal).

However, Canada is extremely reasonable and the people tend to be lovely...isn`t that enough?

regards

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Dear slinky:

Never mind that ``Islamist slip`` comment -- I was just kidding. You`re no Islamist.

By the way it is a great article -- we all suffer from this anguish of uncertainty from time to time -- and we should -- it`s always difficult to be a thinking skeptic -- very easy to be a ``true believer`` -- in fact this world is full of unthinking believers.

regards