The Significant Unit of War

The Last Stand

A Letter from Pakistan

by Ali Ahmed Rind

Jan 11-17,2002

http://www.laweekly.com/ink/02/08/new-rind.shtml





Pakistan’s leaders have proven to be very gullible when it comes to dealing with the United States. Way back on September 19, President Pervez Musharraf explained to his countrymen why Pakistan was turning against the Taliban and supporting the U.S. war in Afghanistan.

Wouldn’t you know, his reasons touched on the conflict now engrossing Pakistan — the debate over the independence of Kashmir. “Had we not supported the international community in its war on the Taliban, we would have lost initiatives in Kashmir policy and risked our nuclear assets,” Musharraf said almost four months ago.

In the days after that televised speech, Pakistani functionaries often boasted in private conversation that their Western friend would help resolve their No. 1 problem with India. “The U.S. has assured us that they will help us to resolve the Kashmir problem,” they would say. “First, let the dust settle in Afghanistan.”

But today there is no talk of the United States taking Pakistan’s side against India in the fight for Kashmir. In fact, before the dust has settled in Afghanistan, the international community is placing Pakistan under intense diplomatic pressure to withdraw its support from the Muslim radicals who seek to free the Indian part of Kashmir. The renewed pressure intensified, of course, with the December 13 attack on the Indian Parliament, which has been blamed on Pakistani extremists.

A brief history: When India gained its independence from Britain in 1947, the Asian subcontinent was partitioned into Hindu-dominated India and the newly created Muslim state of Pakistan. Kashmir was divided between Pakistan and India, and the two countries have fought two full-scale wars — one in 1948, the other in 1965 — over both sides ambition to assume full control. A Muslim insurgency movement has left more than 60,000 people dead since 1989; India blames Pakistan for the upheaval.

The Pakistanis argue that Kashmir should have become part of Pakistan in 1947 because most of its population is Muslim. Indians says that Kashmir has always belonged to them. Kashmiris, by and large, are divided over which country they would like to be part of, though most seem to prefer yet a third option: forming a united, independent Kashmir, with the United Nations overseeing the government for 15 years.

India has blamed Pakistan-based Muslim extremist groups Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Muhammad for the December 13 attack, and accused Pakistani military intelligence of masterminding it. India demanded Pakistan hand over the men responsible for the attack. Since then, both countries have deployed forces along the border.

Many political observers in Pakistan see India’s posture as rude intimidation tactics. “Certainly India is not acting on its own,” commented one of them. “Western powers are behind this military build up to pressure Pakistan for full compliance in the war on terrorism. They want to neutralize the pro-Jihad mindset of the state of Pakistan.”

Many observers also see the sentiment against Muslim radicals as a mandate for Pakistan to rein in such radicalism in Kashmir and turn Pakistan into a secular, liberal state. Pakistan’s ruling elite and powerful military — which sees Pakistan as a vanguard of Muslim awakening — abhors such demands and has been resisting secularization since the inception of Pakistan, half a century ago. “Jihad is the single largest export of Pakistan,” one political commentator observed.

Some political analysts argue that India, in its demands that Pakistan stop supporting fundamentalists engaged in the uprising in Indian Kashmir and hand over those whom India suspects of terrorist acts, is just imitating the U.S. action after September 11. “India is blatantly trying to get political advantage out of the current anti-terrorist climate,” said one analyst.

Islamabad has demanded evidence from India before it will act on the list of 20 people New Delhi has demanded be handed over as “terrorists.’’ India has so far refused to produce any such evidence. “If India thinks that they are in a similar situation to that of the U.S. because of the terror attacks, they are wrong,” one Pakistani official said bitterly. “The U.S., unlike India, is not an occupying force in Afghanistan.”

If Musharraf goes along with the demands of India and the international community to contain fundamentalist forces, what effect will it have on his government? As one observer noted, a sizeable section of the Taliban forces simply came back home to Pakistan. Some of them are undoubtedly demoralized and just happy to be alive, but others are angered by Islamabad’s “betrayal” of their cause and are eager to link up with the armed fundamentalist groups already in the country. A senior police official in Karachi admitted, “We know that arresting 300 to 400 people is like a drop in the ocean. These groups have plenty of hideouts, including the 15,000-plus religious seminaries.”

So the debate returns to the same point that we have been discussing since September 11, when Pakistan began to retreat from its support of fundamentalism. What if fundamentalists get a real chance to seize power in Pakistan? Certainly Musharraf cannot change the hearts and minds of his powerful military, or of the sea of fundamentalists who armed to the teeth in solidarity with Pakistan’s obsession with holy war against its neighbors. As one right-wing activist put it, “Pakistan’s military could swallow the bitter pill of retreat from Afghanistan, but not from Kashmir, where it has invested half a century.”

Ref Deodrant #: 247

This was a complete cut-and-paste of an earlier odoriferous post by another sour-grapes person. Get over the fact that India is the successor state to British India, that the majority of Princely states were contiguous to India and naturally had to join India, that Pakistan got its own share of Princely states such as Bahawalpur, Kalat and Swat.

Doesn`t Chowk have a policy on plagiarism? Why is the hydra allowed to repeat somebody else`s post as it it were his own original thought, of which he has none?

I have discovered the reason why you won`t ever get Pakistani citizenship and have to keep your hated Indian passport. The Nawab of Bahawalpur was the proud possessor of 4 wives and 150 dIldoes. Pakistan has decided they don`t need one more.

Ref tvarad #: 251

[What makes Muslims so special? Do they have three legs? 5 hands? 10 eyes? Or something different from other human beings?]

Just yesterday at the supermarket counter I saw ``World Weekly News``. It has a headline saying that Bill Clinton is dating a three-breasted woman (and has a grainy black-and-white photo on the front page to prove it).

The truth is out there!

Romair # 234

``Qatar and Saudi Arabia, Iran and UAE, Saudi Arabia and Yemen, all have territorial disputes. But they have not allowed the acrimony to spill into other areas.``

That is the key. Even when there is a deep national sense of injustice, as in case of the feelings many Indians nurse towards China, countries have gone forward to establish workable relationships. That normalization of relationships opens people`s minds to rational thought. We may then begin to see that passionately held one-sided views may not represent the whole truth. On a personal level, for instance, I have come to believe that the Indians, Nehru in particular, walked into a war in 1962 - a war they could have avoided (notice the distinction here: I do not believe that the Indians should have avoided war as a strategic manoeuvre, should have kept preparing for war, and fought a war when they got stronger. Simply, Indians did not have as strong a case as we would like to believe).

Similar softening of opinions may occur between India and Pakistan if the element of terrorism was taken off the table.

re Rsaxena 233

``...they deserve nothing more than the rights every other indian state has...``

Irrelevant, sir, given the fact that Kashmir is not an-`other indian state`. The only ethical solution to Kashmir, of course, is for all Indian and Pakistani elements to get out and let J&K have its plebiscite with three free choices. We have had this discussion many times before but I just wanted to reiterate it for kicks and giggles:)

ref: romair #234

For a guy who writes so much sense, Mr. Lone displays precious little of it in his own dealings. First of all he admonishes India and Pakistan for resorting to violence, yet he has little to say about the violence perpetrated by his own fellow Kashmiris. If it is better for India and Pakistan to resolve their differences peacefully, are the Kashmiris a breed apart that separate rules apply to them? Why are only they allowed to resolve things violently? Then he pretends to be the political wing of the freedom movement, but refuses to either talk to the Indian govt. or to contest elections. Hello! So how exactly does this political thing work then? Is he going to dialogue with god then to seek political solutions to his earthly problems, since he obviously does not deign to speak with mere mortals? I know Kashmir is heaven on earth, but isn`t this carrying things a little too far?

-narain

rsridhar #241:

``BJP has been spending a lot of money buying aircrafts, ammunition and so on. Now, it has mobilised the military as never before. I read yesterday that this is costing the country billions of dollars. What is all this for?``

On the contrary, George Fernandes has complained that over 80% of the defence budget this year lies unused, because no bureaucrat is willing to risk being involved in another defence scandal.

ref: Rsaxena #233

It is true that the Kashmiris have failed completely to put forward any cogent explanation as to why they object to being part of India, as also the justification why the world should allow them the right to achieve their objectives through violent means.

Independence is a good slogan, but what do they really want that the Indian state is unable or unwilling to provide them? It is not correct to say that the Indian state treats the Kashmiris as a captive or a hostage population with limited or no rights, and it is this repression which justifies their armed struggle for independence. In point of fact the Kashmiris have the exactly the same rights as other Indians. Now if even then they are unhappy with their lot and want more rights than the rest of India, this is a purely political objective, and cannot and should not, be resolved through the use of violence.

Two justifications are commonly offered about why an armed struggle is okay in Kashmir. The first revolves around the use of violence by the Indian security apparatus. But the involvement of the army in the state occurred AFTER the start of militancy in the state, and was in response to it. Further there is no reason to believe that it will outlast the militancy. Both the Indian army and the polity have repeatedly stressed on the need for finding a political resolution and ending the cycle of violence. Thus an armed struggle cannot, in my opinion, be justified on these grounds.

The second explanation revolves around the denial of political freedom to the Kashmiris. The evidence sited here is the repeated tampering of election results, corruption and the inefficiency of the state government. These are certainly serious allegations, but on closer look they are no worse than what happened to any other state in India. And if these constitute ``oppression``, then all Indians and all Pakistanis (especially in Sindh) are similarly ``oppressed``. Thus this again is not a sufficient excuse for mounting an armed militant movement.

So I tend to think, in the absense of any other explanation by the Kashmiris themselves, that while they do have a right to make their grievances heard and redressed, they have no right to armed militancy.

-narain

RE: Reply #: 247 Deodrant

``Being Muslim they do have a right to choose between India & Pakistan or Independent.Its wrong enough that India unilaterally usurped Hyderabad ,Junagarh ,Goa ....``

What makes Muslims so special? Do they have three legs? 5 hands? 10 eyes? Or something different from other human beings?

SURRENDERING A NATION

Tiger niazi surrendered only a part of pakistan, may be even more than half, and now the great mushy, what shall we call him The lion of pakistan , has surrenedered the entire country to the.

Let me quote Wolpert from his forth coming book`` no general has surrenedered with out firing a bullet, no one has let down a religious movement that resulted in the massacre of its own people and the greetness of general m.. is that he achieved all this with in two years of his self imposed rule..`` See page 323 , Lion of pakistan, Harper Collins 2003.

US ready to launch raids into Pak to hunt Osama

PTI

London, January 10



The United States could soon be staging raids into Pakistan to track down Osama bin Laden and his key allies as the focus of the campaign against terrorism begins to move beyond Afghanistan, a senior US military official has said.

Pakistan`s government had given the US troops permission to cross the border in the hunt for Al-Qaeda terrorists and fleeing Taliban fighters, General Tommy Franks, commander of the military operation in Afghanistan, said.

Intelligence reports confirm fears that bin Laden may have escaped into Pakistan after the bombardment of his Tora Bora cave complex, a report in the Evening Standard said.

re: 12-head retard

{Being Muslim they do have a right to choose between India & Pakistan or Independent}

....thanks for showing us, yet again, that you have an amoeba`s IQ...

Check this out. There are five Sikhs on the list. What the hell are they doing in Pakistan? If they are not Pakistani citizens and are in Pakistan, then they should be send back to India. I have never seen a Pakistani Sikh in my life. Maybe, they are mona Sikhs? I would encourage the Sikhs, in India, to start looking after their own freedom movement leaders.

``16. Wadhawan Singh Babbar, chief of Sikh group Babbar Khalsa International, which was involved in an insurgency in East Punjab during the 1980s. He is wanted in over a dozen cases of sedition, murder and in connection with the assassination of East Punjab`s then chief minister Beant Singh. India says he lives in Lahore.

17. Ranjit Singh Neeta, chief of Khalistan Zindabad Force. He is wanted in cases of murder, bomb blasts and smuggling of arms. The Indian list says he lives in Lahore.

18. Paramjit Singh Panjwar, leader of the Khalistan Commando Force. He is accused of trying to revive the Sikh insurgency in East Punjab and is wanted in more than a dozen cases of murder, treason, conspiracy and arms smuggling.He lives in Lahore, according to thelist.

19. Lakhbir Singh Rode, leader of the International Sikh Youth Federation, is wanted in cases of arms smuggling, conspiracy to attack government leaders in Delhi and inciting religious hatred in East Punjab. He lives in Lahore, India says.

20. Gajinder Singh, leader of Sikh group Dal Khalsa, is accused of hijacking an Indian Airlines plane from Srinagar to Delhi in 1981. He was arrested by Pakistan after he hijacked the plane to Lahore and tried. India says he lives in Lahore after his release from prison.`` (DAWN, Pakistan)

Babbar Khalsa International, Khalistan Zindabad Force, Khalistan Commando Force, International Sikh Youth Federation, Dal Khalsa; How many Sikh independence organizations are there, for heavens sakes? I can`t name a single militant organization, fighting for freedom in Pakistan. Why are there so many organizations fighting for freedom in India? I don`t know, but it`s all Pakistan`s fault, seems to be the rule.

The above reasoning will only work as long as Pakistan keeps bending. Indians need to figure out what they will do, if Pakistan draws the line. Will India really attack? If yes, then what are India`s plans for the South Asian nuclear winter? If not, then what is the point of this whole drama?

Interesting remarks from Ayaz Amir:

``.....If it is in a bullying mood nothing that we do will satisfy it. We should not be mounting the housetops, something at which we are very good. With quiet resolve we should be saying that the steps we have taken - radical and revolutionary in the context of the Kashmir policy we pursued for over 12 years - speak for themselves. Take them or leave them, beyond this point we will not be pushed.

In any case, there can be no concession over the 20-man list demanded by India. Let us deal with these men, if we have to, ourselves. But handing them over to anyone else should be out of the question......

We are not seeking war, and thank God for that. But should we shirk its burdens if it is forced on us? The French collapsed in 1940 before the attacking Germans not for want of men or materiel, the French army then having a hundred divisions. They had not the spirit to fight. Let not the same be said of us.

Let us not sound the drums of war as we have done often in the past. But let us be prepared for the worst. And, please, let us stop taking lectures from the Americans. If they were really concerned about our welfare they would be telling the Indians where to stop. In an emergency, however, we`ll be left to our own devices to defend our honour and integrity as best as we can.

What are we afraid of? We have half a million men under arms. Isn`t that enough? In seeking peace with India let us be guided by the example of Mandela. But in resisting aggression let us be guided by the spirit of Hamas.Soon I shall be sending a request to GHQ to be allowed to join the colours should hostilities be forced on us. Air Defence, my parent arm, is now more sophisticated than it was in the relatively primitive times of 1971. I would not be much good for it now (not that I was much good for it then). Should my request be accepted, an infantry battalion, preferably where the weather is not too cold, would do just fine.`` (DAWN, Pakistan)

I think Ayaz is jumping the gun somewhat. It`s the ex-soldier in him coming out. Pakistan needs to take one more step backwards, if needed. India is only harming itself with this war rhetoric. Pakistan should not do the same. At the same time, if a war starts, the USA and Britain are certainly not going to come to the aid of Pakistan. So we are by ourselves on this one.

One more step back, and then draw the line in the sand. After that, the ball will be in India`s court. Indians need to keep in mind that Pakistanis have not lost their cool, like the Indians. Imagine what would happen if the Pakistanis lost their cool also.

I don`t think India has it in it to attack Pakistan, so openly. It is a major bluff. If it doesn`t back off, sooner or later Pakistan will have to ask India to show its cards. At that point, we will see what the BJP is really made of.

It is quite sad to see that common Indians are willing to increasingly vote for a political party, if it threatens to attack Pakistan. What happened to all the, ``Indians and Pakistanis are togther`` crap that is prepetuated on this site all the time.

Stuka

….how was your trip to the border?…

Reply Rsridhar # 241

``BJP has been spending a lot of money buying aircrafts, ammunition and so on. Now, it has mobilised the military as never before. I read yesterday that this is costing the country billions of dollars. What is all this for?``

UP elections.

http://www.independent.co.uk/story.jsp?story=113665

Britain is home to `substantially more` than 100 terrorism suspects, says Scotland Yard

By Jason Bennetto and Andrew Buncombe

10 January 2002

Among the groups under scrutiny by anti-terrorist officers are al-Qa`ida, Egyptian Islamic Jihad, the Armed Islamic Group based in Algeria, and groups seeking independence from India in Kashmir.

Mr Veness also disclosed that the police had drawn up plans to arrest and question any citizens returning to Britain who had fought in Afghanistan alongside the Taliban.

The anti-terrorist branch and MI6 and MI5 are compiling information on Islamic extremists recruited in Britain by members of the al-Qa`ida network. There are about a dozen British prisoners being held in Afghanistan and Pakistan, but other supporters of the Taliban and Mr bin Laden are expected to try to return to the UK in the next few weeks.