The Great Illusion

Was someone here objecting on mnay boards to fasts? Curious.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow.asp?art_ID=5886204

JKLF chief Yasin Malik ends fast

PTI [ THURSDAY, APRIL 04, 2002 8:42:06 PM ]

JAMMU: Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) chief Yasin Malik has ended his eight-day-long fast to protest his alleged torture in police custody, at government medical college hospital here, official sources said.

Malik ended the fast late on Wednesday night after Director General of Police A K Suri reportedly agreed to initiate inquiry into his alleged custodial torture subject to findings in the report of the medical examination, sources said.

The JKLF chief consumed fruit juice in the presence of his sister Amina and human rights activist Tapan Bose, who persuaded him to give up the fast, they said.

The Udhampur chief judicial magistrate had on March 28 instructed the authorities to shift Malik to the government medical college hospital following his deteriorating health. Jammu and Kashmir High Court has also directed the government to conduct medical examination of Malik. He should not be subjected to any violence, it has said.

Malik was arrested last week allegedly for money laundering through hawala channel. One JKLF activist and a woman were arrested along with $1 lakh allegedly meant for Malik from Kud in Udhampur district.

Banjaara #293

Yes, there is a complete breakdown of law in Gujarat. Inncocent muslim indians have been attacked in the aftermath of another terrible attack on indians in Godhra.

No one defends what is happening there. Indeed, it is the responsibility of all indians to get rid of the brutal criminals running the goverment in Gujarat. I take responsibility to help bring these folks to justice, as do the majority of indians (if you bother to read the indian press).

Does the OIC take any responsibility for the suicide bombers? Has a single muslim country or major media organization questioned the use of suicide bombers on civilian targets? Of course not.

Do you take any responsibility for the murderers the Pakistani state has funded and pushed into Kashmir? These murderers have killed 10 times the number of people killed in Gujarat over the previous decade.

Of course not. You see, the murderers you have trained and funded are actually freedom fighters! Civil rights and process of law are things that other people should worry about. Especially Israel, India, USA ....

Talk about hypocrisy....

# 328

hey are you tahmad321. Nice handle dude. I think the proper phrase is ``bhang bhosra``, but anyway its good and self-descriptive.,

# 328

hey are you tahmad321. Nice handle dude.

Dost Mittar

Dost

Leonard Cohen, I liked ever since he came across as ``needle man`` in the very early 70`s. ``Dry ideologue`` - I resent the ``dry`` bit!

The ideas have you ``seen`` me present about the future of Islam and ``Islamists`` - you should be appreciative, or rather you will come to appreciate - you have ``seen`` the future in those ideas, in those writings and scholars. (sorry, just living up to my bill)

Aur bhe Dukh hain... - I hear you, just comes with the territory of ``conscious``, that`s why the imperative to make sense of it, YES, I know it doesn`t make sense, that why the word, ``make`` - that`s why I resent ``dry``, it doesn`t apply.

Zia was scum bag.

`A nation`s greatness is judged in its education, progress, and morals, Military strength comes last` (Kemal Ataturk to his Nation)

Rsaxena,

Only fools think of victory in military terms... I obviously was thinking of victory in terms of Human dignity, Human progress, success, poverty alleviation, health care and Modernity... I know you Indians would wanna stop that because you have always had nothing but ill will for us .. as you have done so for the last 50 years by showing unnecessary aggression. I for one agree... surrounding an out numbered already civil war weary army was Indeed a Great victory for the mighty Indian Army. Well done. Bravo. Now leave us alone? Since you have undone a 1000 years of a psyche of defeat by defeating us... You have won. Now please take your garbage elsewhere.

Others including Layman and Jay,

Listen dudes, I have nothing to do with Dawood Ibrahim... but since you people have a known criminal/terrorist as your Home Minister, I doubt that it makes a difference what Mr.Ibrahim did or didn`t do.

What possessed Unkal Jay to address that post to me is beyond my understanding... but look at the conduct of your own government... you should be last people to ask for favors from us... I have told Unkal Jay on numerous occasions that I don`t want anything to do with him. But he doesn`t understand does he.

````The weekend surge of criticism of Mr. Bush`s supposed inaction began with Mr. Arafat and bounced around the usual places.

From Britain`s former foreign secretary Douglas Hurd came the suggestion that we lock Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Mr. Arafat in the same room and refuse to let them out until they agree to terms for peace.

From the Clinton administration`s assistant secretary of state for near-eastern affairs, Edward Walker, came the ..... recommendation that Mr. Bush ``step on the Israelis`` and ``make it clear that they are now beginning to impinge on serious American interests throughout the region.`` (WT)

For all the horror going on in Israel right now, there are a still some bright, inspiring moments.

One came yesterday when Christiane Amanpour interviewed Israeli Defense Minister Benjamin Ben-Eliezer, a Labour member of the current Israeli government.



This section of the interview, which I`m quoting at length below, points to the fissures in the current Israeli government, the firm determination even of supporters of the peace process like Ben-Eliezer not to give in to terror, and some slivers of hope for a way out of the current stranglehold of violence.



AMANPOUR: But what if there are more suicide bombings inside Israel? What do you do next?



BEN-ELIEZER: Listen, even if I will tell you that we are going for the separate operation, where they could just put fences, I don`t think that this will really close the way from those who want really to penetrate to Israel. As I have said, we have to work very, hard simultaneously to what to our operation.

We have to convince the Palestinian people as much as possible that our intention was and still to live with them together, to coexist with them together for a better future for the kids.



I am ready to say more than that. I am one of the few in the country that has accepted, for example, the Saudi proposal as a basis.



AMANPOUR: So if you as defense minister believe that, and Prime Minister Sharon as prime minister does not believe that...



BEN-ELIEZER: OK. Then I will move with this government until the minute that I will feel that I am prevented to do something that can be achieved. I hope that I -- you understand me.

______________________________________________

I will continue to be a partner in this government, in this coalition until the minute that I would realize that the breakthrough is possible and the fact that I am there I can do that. Then I will quit; we`ll go.



All the labor party, we`ll move out of this government.

_______________________________________________

I want you to know that I, through my service -- I used to be the minister governor of the West Bank and government coordinator. I know hundreds of families and I feel sorry about them, really sorry. I want you to know that I care exactly as I care about our kids, I care about their kids as well. But someone has to come from the other side and listen to us and try to find a way how to sit and to find a solution.



AMANPOUR: Do you care that your soldiers go house to house and arrest little children`s fathers and humiliate them? Do you care that your soldiers went into hospitals and separated nurses and doctors and kept patients unattended while they even removed injured people from their beds to check? Was that right?



BEN-ELIEZER: No, that`s wrong. That`s wrong.

First of all, no one have prove it to me. I know my people, I know my soldiers. I think they are the most moral soldiers (sure Mac). But in such operation, such big operation, I cannot ignore that some accidents happen from them. It`s a war.

It`s happened, it is not right. And I can assure you more than that. The first indication that someone makes something wrong, we stop it. We just stop it.



AMANPOUR: And what would happen if it was proved right?

BEN-ELIEZER: Someone would have to be punished.

Joshua M. Marshall

(Talking Points)

Bravo, Christiana! 3 cheers for OUR Christiana Amanpour!!

(April 2nd, 2002 -- 10:10 AM EST // link)



So today Ariel Sharon is hoping or somehow thinking that Yasir Arafat will solve his problem for him.

He`s offering him a `one way ticket into exile.` Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erakat, one of the really wise and good people on the Palestinian side, denounced the idea.

And frankly, so do I.

I`m not certain that it`s wrong (Arafat`s done everything he can to justify Sharon`s actions).

But I`m quite sure that it`s stupid.



And this is one of the great pities of the present moment.

Right when Israel needs a great and strong leader, a Yitzhak Rabin, it has a weak and incapable one.



No doubt, Sharon is a man of great conviction -- unlike the charlatan and opportunist Bibi Netanyahu, who`s again hitting the airwaves.

But he is also small-minded and brutal -- incapable, I think, of understanding the moment he`s in.

The problem isn`t even really that Sharon has a bad plan.

It would be bad if he did but he doesn`t.

It`s that -- as the last 18 months have shown -- he has no plan.

In that regard, he shares a great deal with his nemesis, Arafat.



Joshua M Marshall

(Talking Points)

Mr. Hobbyty

I hear you about the Shepard - but for the exact same reasons you gave am holding off until the kids are older !! I have a 3 yr old boy and 2 yr old girl actually, not 2 ``lals`` ... but little Kiki (Anika) is more trouble than 10 boys - absolutely fearless !! I actually signed up to puppy raise Labs - they are the standard service dog breed. But since my 2 spoilt tabby cats are not going to be too excited about the canine encrochment it is good that Hobbit is a tiny fella. Boston Terriers are a mix of Bulldog and Terrier and look more pug than anything - I`m hoping for a ``Milo and Ottis`` story.

Hope there won`t be too much hissing and flying fur come tomorrow !!!

The BBC`s Zaffar Abbas says:

Musharraf is convinced that the next parliament will never elect him, so a direct vote in the form of a referendum remained the only option -- Musharraf`s closest associates are understandably reluctant to admit as much, but what he has essentially gone for is the Zia formula--``To keep the army out, you will have to keep the army in,`` is the way another key adviser interprets the need for a permanent NSC.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/south_asia/newsid_1909000/1909869.stm

Emotional Hindian PM Urges End to Gujarat Violence

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/20020404/wl_nm/india_dc_118&cid=586

The national shame of India continues. The VHP/Bajrang Dal/Ram `Sewaks` have engaged in acts so evil that for a long time to come revelations of the horror that they inflicted will continue to stun us. That these individuals and groups are tolerated is a matter of shame -- that the Prime Minister has not had the courage to criticize them by name is morally inexplicable. That the Chief Minister of Gujarat still struts around with all the trappings of power is incomprehensible. If ever there was a symbol of India`s slide to obscurantism, there could not have been a better example than the Gujarat government. India (led by a different man and a different generation) was one of the prime movers of the Convention on Genocide enacted by the UN General Assembly in 1948 -- it is time now to invoke that convention against the new `servants` of the people beginning with those in power in Gujarat.

``...The colluding administrators (in Gujarat) should have the fear of an international, public trial. Genocide can`t hide behind sovereignty...it appears that well before the Godhra outrage, Hindu fundamentalist outfits were similarly extracting municipal records, employment exchange registers, telephone-bill addresses, electoral rolls and even a public relations firm`s business list to compile a dossier of Muslim residential addresses...(Raja Menon) ``

http://www.outlookindia.com/full.asp?fodname=20020408&fname=Column+Raja+Menon+%28F%29&sid=1

PAK MILITARY TRADITION,

On some other thread, Romair talks about the great pak military tradition, the great pak military colleges. Zia was the best of the pak military, to the extend that he became the chief, well assuming that pak military promotes only the best. Here is something to remind the pak military men on chowk of the deeds of one its greatest, of course apart from tiger niazi. From dawn of today abou Zia

``It is said that at one place while addressing an army unit which was on martial law duties and some of whose personnel had fired on an unruly crowd, he had said that they had fired 20 rounds of ammunition but there was only one body. Where, he had asked, were the remaining 19 bodies? At another place, he congratulated a young officer who had ordered firing on a youth. He promoted him on the spot. Later, two months before he staged his coup, he, along with the Chiefs of Staff of the other two services, issued an unusual statement, reaffirming their loyalty to Bhutto. This statement was given wide publicity.

On the evening of July 4, Bhutto held a meeting with his senior advisers at which Zia-ul-Haq was also present. The political situation was discussed and Bhutto told them that he would be resuming the dialogue with the PNA leaders the following day and intended resolving the deadlock. The possibility of an accord being reached between the government and the PNA was not to his liking and Zia-ul-Haq decided to act without delay to obviate that risk.

The plan for a coup which had been ready for some time was immediately put into action. The operation was a simple affair and was localized to the capital. The details had already been worked out by the Corps Commander at Rawalpindi, Lt-Gen Faiz Ali Chishti,and the whole operation was completed before dawn of July 5, 1977.

The public received the news with mixed feelings but by and large Zia-ul-Haq`s action, particularly because of his promise to hold elections within 90 days, was accepted by the majority of the people as having been justified in the circumstances. The public had not acclaimed his assumption of power but because of his promise to hold elections within a stipulated period, had accepted it as a reasonable step in the peculiar conditions that had been created.

Bhutto, however, saw this as a treacherous act of one who owed everything to him. He did not mince his words when he saw Zia-ul-Haq in Murree on July 15 and subsequently on a number of occasions spoke of revenge. The Constitution of 1973 had laid down death penalty for the kind of action that Zia-ul-Haq had taken and Bhutto had reminded him of that. Mindful of his personal safety and that of his close associates, Zia-ul-Haq was put on guard and decided that he would take no risks.``

When the educated of a country can glorify the system that produced the niazis and zias, you know what education means in that country and what future it holds.

ylh 306,

You said it all in the most eloquent two liner, the pak way of thinking.

In the pak mind set there are no principles, no guiding ideas, no values. It is all a question of the immediate and the excigent, a life of trding every thing for a few dollars, or it is just a question of imitation. The idea of an islamic brotherhood that sustained taliban went away at the sight of cluster bombs that could fall in faisalabad. Then of course the famous reason for the bomb, indians forced them to do it. IT is money or imitaion. Now citizenship for dawood, because americans did it.

I look forward to the day when pakistan as a true islamic country will abide by the book and start cutting of limbs. At least Zia had some principles, he did move pakistan in a direction he believed in. Now there will be elections because americans want it, the afghan taliban caught recently is readied for shipment to quantanamo, no proof required simply because americans want. Hundreds of doctors killed in karachi, no one arrested because americans do not care. One stupid yank got killed, a poor pakistani is facing death.

Long live dawood ibrahim.

Shah,

The focus on dawood is simply because he is the terrorist leader, others are jihadic fodder.