India, Pakistan and America’s Mixed Signals

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Peace Rally

To stop war between India-Pakistan

Date: Saturday, January 5, 2002

Time: 10:00 A.M.

Place: Union Square
San Francisco
Corner of Powell and Gary

Please be on time

Please urge your friends to attend. All peace loving people are invited to participate, regardless of nationality, color or creed.

MILITARY LANGUAGE

Mushy is getting the message. There are reports of ISI stopping the support for kashmir terrorists, the arabs and the non-kashmiris to be weeded out, activities to be restricted to POK. These are the welcome signs, but the military action should be continued so that the terrorists are extradited, at least dawood ibrahim, an indian.

The embiciles of delhi should call the paki bluff and iraquise the country. Free operation in the pak skies is a minimum requirement for any semblance of peace and to achieve adequate kill ratios required in jihadic frontiers.

anarayan

Ras

{That America would win the war against terrorism in Afghanistan was known by all except a misguided few in the region. Passions are no match for 21st century technology and know how. To believe that a group of fighters armed with rudimentary tools of war were going to win against a super-power, which had conventional weapons of mass destruction at its disposal, was to live in a fool’s paradise.}

“Are you calling Romair a FOOL now? Where were you when Romair was pouring it on ??? Don`t recall anyone (except hamidm and tahmed) giving him a piece of their mind at that time.”

….to be fair to romair, there were also many russian generals, veterans of the afghan war, telling america to stay out, warning it of the calamitous consequences of fighting in afghanistan…

wadera #61,

well said

Tahmed321

Mr. Ahmed, you are so myopic that I can not imagine that you can read what I write, let alone interpret in the right context. We in Israel know more about your country than you know about us. You guys get mixed up in religion.

We want to live life while Muslims want to die and discard life. Your Mullah teaches you how to hate, disrespect other`s point of view and threaten countries, nations and civilizations in the most nefarious ways. If your community wants to blow themselves up then it is your problem. Go die. Go away. Your preachers are hiding in the caves of Tora Bora. You made Afghanistan a criminal enterprise from a peaceful nation. Pakistanis should be tried for human rights abuses. According to The New York Times, ISI is responsible for more deaths than Talibans.

Time is coming. I am not a soldier as you mentioned. You will be shocked to know if I told you I am a physicist and a Professor at the University. I have taught for more than six years and dealt with nuts like you. Even a roach in my classroom is more intelligent than Muslim terrorists. At least a roach knows how to hide and save its life but not a Jehadi.

Re: Tahmed321

``...It is duty of the Pakistan to put an end to these armed groups both as part of it`s obligations as a member of the international community...``

If you were President of Pakistan, Pakistan and S. Asia would be a much better place.

I think that this is not the time to talk war, but to cool down and take stock of where we are. There are no clear objectives that can be achieved through an armed aggression. War by itself cannot stop Pakistan`s support to the jehadis, and neither can India hope to capture and retain any significant part of Pakistani territory in Kashmir, after de facto recoginzing the LOC as the international border during the Kargil crisis. Indian hopes lie only in making the world pressurize Pakistan into changing its policies.

This has already had some effect. Pres Musharraf has taken some measures to restrict support to the Jehadis in Kashmir. This was no doubt a very hard step to take, and he should be commended for it. The question which needs to be asked now is whether his committment will outlast the pressure which is currently being applied on him. Indian troops cannot remain in their forward positions indefinitely, and as they move back, the pressure is also likely to wane.

Given how successful the jehadi policy has been in the past, and the need for Pakistan to find a safety valve for its domestic dissensions. At best India can hope for a scaling down of support, not a complete withdrawal. It may be that we shall see smaller scale attacks, focussed primarily on military installations and less on civilian targets.

The best hope for India is to utilize this temporary reprieve in terrorism to try and come to some political accomodation with the Kashmiris. It seems possible that a compromise is possible within the current setup. But I strongly feel that any solution should also have some role for Pakistan as a face saving measure to allow it to honourably withdraw from the situation. An ideal solution would be one which recognizes that Kashmir is the point where the two siamese twins, India and Pakistan are conjoined together. I think that maybe this is what Mr. Vajpayee had in mind when he said that India is willing to go more than half-way to meet Pakistan, provided it gives up support for cross-border terrorism.

-narain

dear Mr. Siddiqui,

May I first of all point out to you that it is quite wrong to put Palestine and Kashmir on the same footing. Unlike the Palestinian case, Kashmiris are recognized as equal citizens of India with the same rights and liberties as given to any other. It is true that they are alienated and estranged currently. It is also true that their political grievances need political solutions, not military ones. That is something that is fully recognized by the Indian govt.

It is India which is trying to get the political process restarted there. Within hours of the Hizb-ul-mujahideen starting a ceasefire, our home secretary was there trying to make it work. For the entire winter, Indian troops observed a unilateral ceasefire in the hopes that violence might stop. The central government has recently also appointed a 28 member committee to start talks with different Kashmiri groups to try and seek a solution. India clearly would like the cycle of violence to end. It has done all it can to try and make this happen. So who is to blame for the continued bloodspilling there? The question is how to get a political process started when there are elements out there waiting to kill anybody who dares to negotiate? Elements which many not even be of Kashmiri origin. Elements which receive sustenance and support from outside India`s borders. So yes, India is fighting the same war as the US is, and as Pakistan claims to be fighting.

You also say that ``today Pakistan needs terrorism as much as it needs a shot in the head``. The operative word here is ``today``. The same was not true pre-Sept. 11th. Since the early 80s, Pakistan has benefited tremendously from terrorism in India, first in Punjab and then in Kashmir. While its true role may never completely be known, it itself aknowledges providing ``moral and political`` support to such groups, and it provides safe havens for them. US negotiators at one time told the taliban when they hosted Osama that ``if your guest comes out at night to set fire to your neighbours property, then you are responsible for his actions``. The same holds true for Pakistan and the jehadis that it hosts, even if Pres. Musharraf is not in complete control of their actions.

Sahib nobody wants war. Three years ago Indians cheered wildly when our PM made peace overtures in Lahore. Today the same Mr. Vajpayee assures Pakistanis that India is willing to walk more than half way to seek solutions to all the problems that bedevil our two nations, including Kashmir. Yet if Pakistan wants to hold peace ransom to its own ambitions in Kashmir, that is its own decision. But at least it should stop trying to act like the victim.

-narain

Shankar #46

I think both Pakistanis and Indians suffer from a similar problem - that being an inability to recognize our own shortcoming and therefore rationalizing our own questionable (at best) actions. It is in that sense that I will first take myself to task for the actions of the past Pakistani governments. Meaning that we as Pakistanis had better come to grips with, and accept, the fact that we have supported extremists and have only ourselves to blame for our present predicament. When I expressed scepticism at the Indian claims that it is the Pakistanis who have been conducting `terrorist` acts against India, I do it after I`ve accepted the fact that the Pakistanis have radicals who can very easily be guilty of those actions (and killing civilians is a terrorist act - no question about it). But I cannot believe the accusation that the Pakistani government sponsored it. They have everything to lose and for some to say that the government in the past has supported these guys and are therefore guilty because of it does not take into account the fact that the present government is committed to getting rid of exactly these elements - (committed by actions, not words). On the other hand India (and these extremists) has everything to gain, and has conducted such actions in the past (based on the same western media: the Manchester media, London Observer and Times - I don`t have the exact dates). Not to mention the views of Indian sikh leaders on TV. Pakistan does not have clean hands - there are many actions that can be put at Pakistan`s door which make me ashamed. But I think we are now taking steps to become a more responsible nation. that means we have to look clearly at the atrocious acts we have committed. I can believe that the extremists (therefore not freedom fighters) may have committed some killings of civilians in Kashmir (though almost all the targets are Indian Army and personel). I also have read in the British newspapers exposes of attacks that India has manufactured for its own purposes. That`s why I express such scepticism at the sheer convenience of not 1, not 2, not 3, not even 4 but 5 or 6 such well-timed actions. As far as the westerner`s `fear` of India goes (leaving aside your tongue-in-cheek approach!) I think you will agree that India has a much better rapport with the west than does Pakistan. Because of that rapport and connection, most articles have a somewhat kinder approach to India. We Pakistanis have only ourselves to blame for this again, because the west sees Pakistan supporting groups like the Taliban and sees extremists having connections with Pakistan and I don`t blame the west (nor India). That is what Pakistan must rid itself of, if it is to follow a stable and progressive path. It does not mean that by doing this we will be the toast of the western world (I unfortunately am convinced that because we are Muslim, we will always be perceived with a somewhat jaundiced eye) - but so what? The only thing that matters is that we live our lives as good Muslims, that we are tolerant of others and their beliefs, that we prove to be honorable and honest in our dealings and that we do not bend our necks for any injustice.

Ras Siddiqui: I think you are avoiding reality in your article. The reality is that (a) we have armed groups in Pakistan who have been crossing the LoC to cause violence in a neighboring country. This is not the way to solve such disputes between countries. (b) These armed groups are solely religious groups - they have no broad based national support and are only supported by the religious parties that have themselves failed for decades to come anywhere close to power through elections.

It is duty of the Pakistan to put an end to these armed groups both as part of it`s obligations as a member of the international community (per a) and indeed in the interests of it`s own people (per b). The latter needs an explanation - per b, these same religious parties are seeking to form a state within a state in Pakistan, with it`s own armed groups and beholden to no one. If they came to power, the lot of the Pakistani people would be no better than that of the Afghans under the taliban.

If you understood these realities, you would thank God that India and the US are pressuring the Pakistan government to clean up the mess that should have been cleaned up years ago. If this had not happened, Pakistan was heading for a civil war where the mullahs would have tried to take through force (through their armed groups plus through infilterating the army) what they have failed to get through the will of the Pakistani people as expressed through elections.

Thank God also that there are people in Pakistan who have the courage to face reality and the integrity to accept the fact that on this one issue of jehadis the Indians are right and we are wrong. Read the article by Ayaz in Dawn (on the internet) where he says exactly what I am saying, only much more eloquently and coherently. It is just as bad to condone evil behavior (as you are doing by equivocating) as it is to conduct that evil behavior itself (as the jehadis are doing by misusing the name of Islam as they persue their personal ambitions).

Bodenheimer #42 You write: ``India can bifurcate Pakistan with surgical precision.``

If wishes were reality, you would be right, but they are not and you are wrong. (And ooops!, you forgot that Pakistanis may choose not to lie still as the doctor is performing surgery...they might even wrestle the good doctor on to the table and ask him to think of a word that starts with the letter `n`, has a vowel in the middle and a `ke` at the end). Lucky for your country you are just a foot soldier, and not responsible for any strategy other than how to avoid clean-up duties.

You write ``Muslims are so cheap and Besharam, they still not recognise their role in world terrorism. India should expel theses guys from India. Let them go to Pakistan or Arabs whose religion they follow.``

Oh! Oh! Just insulting us Pakistanis is not enough - you include 200 million or so Indian muslims too!! You may have picked up a word or two of urdu (``Besharam``, ``Crore``) but you are as ignorant of South Asian realities as you seem to be ignorant of what is going on in the rest of the world outside your own hate-filled little mind.

Goldsteen #43 I see they forgot to give you your electric shock treatment again. (I guess they decided not to waste it on subhumans like you).

…sigh…sometimes i think war wouldn’t be all that bad if it wiped out imbeciles like you….

TEMPER...TEMPER... :)

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