Myopic, Malevolent, Megalomaniac

So Naqshbandi, does that mean you are going to leave the UK and come back to live in Pakistan now?

after engineering the splintering of the stable political institutions in Pakistan -- the General is now trying to become the `indispensable` arbiter of power sharing -- among the proverbial quarreling monkeys --

but -- Mr. Musharraf`s new creation -- the MMA is going to be a BONE in Mr. Musharraf`s shish kebob -- that may one day choke -- his personal ambition of perpetuating his malingering messiah Dom and counterfeit Kemalism -- to death.

whatever may be his failings -- nobody can accuse that maulvi Qazi Hussain of cowardice in not standing up against the Usurper General -- on head to head -- toe to toe basis --

when almost all other politicians were cowering under the barrel of that Robber`s gun.

Hamidm

He does act in mysterious ways; doesn`t He?

:)

You cannot ask people to organise so that they can die for you, support them with funds, facilities and government machinery and then say sorry no political power because FBI says you are a fundamentalist.

I think the winning of MMA members is a more natural situation than the unnatural situation before, hence this is a more stable situation where issues will have to be confronted in public instead of being resolved with hypocrisy in public and underhanded deals behind the scenes. The shady liason of the past is now a marriage with one spouse yelling desertion.

Secondly re U-turn on Afghanistan, you look like a real hypocrite if you change policy overnight and brush the reasons under the carpet of `national interest` without providing a more reasoned and satisfying answer for the public to understand why. The Army cannot afford to provide such an answer and the mainstream parties looked unprincipled for playing dumb while MMA types looked good and principled by saying only one thing throughout, that they oppose the presence of US in Pakistan and the war in Afghanistan.

PAKISTANI EXPERTS,

With no apologies what so ever, the pakistani experts ranging from romair to sif are beack again. One should remember that each and every one of these were asserting that only 3 percent are the jihadists. The silent majority, who did not take part in the earlier elections, that is 60 percent of the pakistanis are the jihadists. Now that there is a good reason, to support the alquida they have come out in their droves, securing large nimber of seats.

The thick skin and the ignorence of the pakistani experts are out on display at chowk. It is again one of wishfull thinking and white washing, the realisation of the dream dream of jinnah, planned by zia is at last taking hold. The children of TNT, the products of madarsssa are at helm, both in the military and in politics. Experts take note.

Business Recorder in Today`s editorial says: Everything I said in my post of yesterday. If I were to think like SameerBj, I mighht take it to mean that I must therefore be right about other opinions, predictions and such?
But let`s leave that myopic BS behind - not time to for the ``sour grapes`` of the hypocrites who wanted democracy and now cannot stomach the results of the vote

``Election 2002: The roots of real democracy
EDITORIAL (October 12 2002) : With the general election of Thursday, incidentally the most disciplined and smooth in the nation`s history and by all accounts quite fair, Pakistan has taken the first decisive step on the way back to democratic order.

The national and provincial assemblies having been elected, power will be transferred, as President General Pervez Musharraf has announced, to the people`s representatives around the first of the next month.

That would be the formal end of a three-year military rule, which may nonetheless leave behind deep imprints on the course of events, in the shape of its wide-ranging socio-economic reforms, new norms of governance, and, above all, restructuring of the parliamentary system under an amended constitution, hotly disputed all along by important segments of political opinion.

Before the election dust settles, one may expect a storm over allegations of rigging and irregularities by the losers, a natural aftermath of all political contests in this country of aspirants to power as a divine right.

The hue and cry may be dismissed before hand; and as for the charges of pre-poll rigging the Musharraf government never made a secret of its morally unquestionable determination to legally keep the corrupt, defaulters and their ilk away from the corridors of power. All credit goes to President Musharraf and his colleagues for living up to his pledge and holding an unexceptionably fair election.

The biggest proof of their honest intentions lies in the actual results and the unenviable position of the Muslim League (Q) who were commonly labelled as the king`s party and were indeed close to the President with their unreserved support to his policies and constitutional amendments.

Perhaps, a more unmistakable evidence of his impartiality is to be found in the astounding success of the religious front, MMA, who have been after his blood for his pro-American policies. (MMA`s performance may indeed force a serious reappraisal of policy in Kabul and Washington as well as Islamabad). The losers` necessity of rabble rousing and averting political death apart, it is just impossible to programme a general election, for anyone, anywhere.

All elections have their surprises and upsets everywhere, the collective mind being inscrutable in matters of personal choices. (That doesn`t of course apply to the American mind on Iraq which has been assiduously robotised by their Jewish-phile media and well-paid intellectuals).

This election of ours not only had a larger quota of surprises, but has produced a virtual upheaval with the emergence of MMA as major political force with complete sway over the provincial assemblies of the NWFP and Balochistan, while no single party has been able to win majority at the centre or even the strength to claim leadership in a coalition of convenience.

Benazir Bhutto`s charge that the NWFP and Balochistan have been handed over by General Musharraf to MMA to ensure American support for his dictatorial regime, can only be ascribed to morbid frustration and puerile politics. Why should a dictator share power with sworn enemies, fanatically opposed to his policies, and, by the way, why should the super-power not discard a weak dictator and deal with the MMA directly, some components of which had a close relationship with it only a decade and half ago?

It is another matter that the one-time alliance against the Soviet Union has broken up; the Great Game in Central Asia goes on and may throw up new compulsions for the super-power.

As things are, MMA has completely changed the perspective for Pakistan. Its onslaught, certainly on the backing of the anti-American sentiment what with the mad bombings in Afghanistan, the unrelenting support for the Israeli atrocities in Palestine, and ambivalence on Kashmir, is a new phenomenon pregnant with all kinds of possibilities. With absolute power in the NWFP and Balochistan, the kith and kin and immediate neighbours of the victims of B-52 targets in Afghanistan, the clerics will be on test as administrators and policy-makers.

The unhealthy influence of power notwithstanding, they may turn out to be difficult partners in the federation, with serious disagreements on principles. It will take a high calibre of statesmanship for whoever is in charge of the federation as Prime Minister, to forge an understanding with them and carry them together in the endeavour for national good.

As the mentor and guide of the new system, which probably does not conform to his conception and expectations, President Musharraf may have a formidable task on his hands, which will be a test of his mettle, acumen and political skill. To begin with, he has to wait for a workable coalition to grow out of a babel of conflicting interests and ambitions, a team which can act according to rules under a trustworthy Prime Minister.``

#47 hamidm2: *hands u a paper baG*.....now breathe...gently...slowly...alternatively....LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL.....i feel your pain :)

rgds,
samina

this has been a great week for islam ..........

first the mullahs won big in pakistan paving the way for allah`s return to islamabad; then the umah was able to slaughter over a hundred hedonistic infidels in bali; and now taslima nasreen has been sentenced to one year in prison for writing a book .............verily, the forces of allah are on the march ........... how do i officially convert to hindooism?..........and i am not setting a foot in filthy ganga, or putting that silly red paint on my forehead ........

nasah:
let me guess... u don`t like/trust Musharraf ? right ?

hamidm2:
You can`t convert from Muslim to anthing else in Pakistan, otherwise you are liable to be killed according to Islamic laws. You can`t convert in India according to the new laws promulgated against any kind of religous conversions- the Hindus are getting insecure about their religion too.

You live in the US as it is, so I guess u can convert to anything here.

Church of Scientology is supposed to be fun. You may get to hang out with some celebrities. anyone know anything about it ?

It is interesting to see how the US foreign policy is having effects on areas outside the US.

In Pakistan, a coalition of religious parties, which had only 2 seats in the last elections, now controls two of the country`s four provinces. Considering the fact that the maulvi brigade could only win a few seats even after Zia, and during the time the PPP was putting up the Taliban in Afghanistan, would be a good indication that Pakistanis do not naturally vote for maulvis. Obviously, Pakistan has not become a maulvi state, just within the past three years - specially since Musharraf`s govt. has actually been going in the opposite direction of where the maulvis wanted to go. It is correct that internally Pakistanis wanted a change from the status-quo parties, but why go towards the maulvi parties for change? There were other non-maulvi non-status quo alternatives, as well. It would be correct to assume some external event has caused the success of the maulvis.

That external event is the foreign policy of the Americans, and the huge wave of anti-Americanism that is now sweeping everyone again.

But this anti-Americanism is not limited to the Islamic maulvi brigade. In Germany, Schroeder was recently able to come from behind and win the elections, after he stated that under no circumstance would he ever support a US attack on Iraq, even if the UN approved it.

In Britain and other European countries, some of the biggest peace rallies in European history have taken place against US adventurism.

Arundhati Roy, the Indian human rights activist, is flying around all over the world, pointing these things out. Interestingly, her stance on this issue is nearly identical to the stance of the maulvis in Pakistan. Even L.K. Advani of India is not openly supporting this action. Mandela has now started calling it racism against a black UN Secretary General.

If US action can put people as far apart as Arundhati Roy, l.K. Advani, Mandela, Qazi Hussein and Schroeder on the same platform, then maybe the US should realize that its foreign policy is leading to events in other countries, which will only be a long term negative for America.

Unfortunately, the one area where the US has the least qualified professionals is in its State Dept. Some of the brightest American students I have ever met in my whole life used to ask me the stupidest questions while I was studying here in the US: do you have tomatoes in Pakistan? Does every Ayyraab have four wives? You guys have oil and are Arabs, correct? Do Indians ride elephants? etc. etc.

If this is what the best and brightest in the US know, in their early and mid twenties, about the areas with which the US keeps going to war, then all I can say is they will remain bumbling idiots in the foreign policy arena, even when they are in international decision making positions in their forties and fifties.

People correctly fear the maulvi brigade, all over the world. Power in the hand of ignorant, narrow-minded people, who can see nothing but their own interests, can be very dangerous and can lead to fundamentalism. I equally fear the US foreign policy makers, for exactly the same reasons. And currently the later has a lot more power than the former.

My advice to my US friends from college, some of whom now maybe occupying decision making positions in various US State Dept. desks: Please don`t attack countries, if 99% of your countrymen do not understand enough about those countries to know whether they have tomatoes or not, or where those countries are even located on the map, or how to even pronounce the names of those countries correctly.

Then again, if 99% of the US population knew anything about the countries that the US attacks, they may not support those attacks. So it is actually in the interests of the US govt. to have a foreign-policy ignorant population, which readily accepts Bush`s analysis of world politics. Just like it is in the interest of the OBL`s of the world to have ignorant followers, who accept his teachings on Islam.

I hope the recent success of the maulvi brigade in Pakistan will make the Americans realize their foreign policy adventures and attempts to subjugate this brigade, is actually having the opposite effects. I hope instead of bombing, now the US will decide to dipolomatically engage all parties, and try to get to the core of the human rights issues (many of which the maulvi brigade has a correct stance - like the Palestinian issue).

marshall romair,

............stop putting a fauji spin on everything ............... it is silly to compare what happens in pakistan, bali, yemen an bangladesh to what is happening in france and germany ....... the fact of the matter is that resurgent islam is philosophically at odds with the rest of the civilized world, whereas the germans and the french disgree with the americans on matters of foreign policy and haute cuisine ............ five billion of the six billion folks on earth generally agree on the standards of a modern civilized society - the one billion muslims are the exception .......... rock stars and capri pants are in, from shanghai to mumbai to pago-apgo ....... only in the islmic world are they seen as symbols of a hedonistic life style that must be destroyed ................

.............. so don`t confuse the two issues - the people who voted for MMA voted for allah as much as they voted against bush .............. and therein lies the rub ................ unfortunately ``philtanthrapists`` zubaida whatshername and nawabzada imran will not be able to fight the tide - sooner or later they will join forces with the jihadic forces to destroy the infidels led by brittney spears and keith richards............ but he is indestructible - on the day of judgement only He and the cockroaches will still be standing (or crawiling) .................

# 62 No such Islamic law exist in Paksitan (yet). I think only one insecure here is you.

Option I: Best option for USA right now is to force Musharraf to allow BB, NS and Altaf Hussain back to Pakistani politics to counter the rising influence of religious fundamentalists.
Option II: Musharraf would like USA to consider him even more indispensable and backing him to have permanent constitutional role for military in politics (Turkey model) keeping him at the top of the helm, short of resorting to Algerian example.
Option III: Another less likely option is to dismiss the election results through Supreme Court on the request of some losing candidates or party in the election.
Right now BB, NS and Altaf Hussain must be lobbying hard in USA for option I while Musharraf would naturally be trying to convince USA of option II. The Iraq offensive around the corner, option I is much more appropriate for US interests in Pakistan than relying on one man, Musharraf, but with Bush in the White House both option are equally probable. Let us see what and how the second most important player in Pakistani affairs after USA, the Saudis, would use their influence in current situation.

bina ji--not that it is relevant to this issue whether i come back to pakistan or not, but to answer your question the answer is that i was planning on returning to pakistan anyway within the next 4 years insha Allah and the performance of the MMA has only strengthened my resolve to return. I am going to pak this december and then plan to go every year now until my kids (insha Allah!) are about 4 after which i will pack up shop and return to settle in Pakistan. That is the plan insha Allah.
So yes. I want my future kids insha Allah to grow up in an Islamic country and Pakistan is ideal for me as i am a pakistani and love it from the heart. I also feel with my doctorate in bioengineering finished by then i can also help pakistan...

***
Sameerj--i would love it if Maulana Noorani sahib of the Ahle Sunnat was the PM!
Prediction: in the next general elections the MMA will sweep the board throughout the country and win by a large majority. This current election is just a taster of what is to come.

**
:)

HamidM:
Just saw the news about the french oil tanker blasts. The Yemenese now agree that it was a terrorist attack and have rounded up 20 suspects.
You can add this to your list for the week.