Is It A War On Islam?

#97 by arjun_m

``And they are not doing that now? You obviously aren`t part of the 0.001 percentage of pakis who know that ``moral and diplomatic support`` is a joke and pakiland sends terrorists into India every chance it gets.... ``

That is my point. If according to Indians, a small number of ``Jihadis`` entering into India has brought such a havoc there then just imagine what an unrestrained flow of such people can do under no state authority. Btw, I grew up in the NWFP. I know the destructive power of the Mullah lead ``islamist``. On one call of the Mullah, they will be more than willing to tie up explosives on their bodies and unleash a very `Unconventional war on India``. I hope you get the message.

That is one reason, I would request the Indian leadership to grab this opportunity, get into dialouge with the moderate leadership of Pakistan under a moderate PM from Balochistan, and negotiate all the differences to give all of us Sub-Conties a fair chance to live a better life.

But perhaps this is too much to expect from the current fundamentalist and extremist Government in India.

Reference #101 by harimau

``Civilized countries do not declare they were ready to nuke their neighbors. Civilized countries do not cry, ``Restrain me before I use my nukes.`` Civilized countries do not poke their noses in other people`s affairs as in Chechnya, Bosnia or Kosovo. Or, Kashmir. Anytime any Indian thinks he needs to heed the advice of a Pakistani on talks with Pakistan, he needs to lie down until the thought goes away. Persistent symptoms need medical intervention. ``

I regret using the phrase ``civilized societies``. Admittedly, it was uncalled for. However, I would like harimau to look at why a person from outside of India would term it an uncivilized society.

1. India is a nuclear power, yet its belligerence knows no bounds. As a nuclear power it was totally uncivilized and irrisponsible on part of its leadership to depoly its armed forces in a combative posture against another nuclear power. Furthermore, the if India was a civilized society, pro-peace citizens would not have been marginalized during that confrontation.

2. Indian leadership is continuously talking about wiping out Pakistan from surface of the earth. Again, highly uncivilized and tribal in essence.

3. As an act of gross human rights violations, Indian army has killed 70,000 innocent Kashmiris during the last 10 years, about 200,000 Christians in its northeastern states, mostly in custody and fake encounters. Furthermore, they killed about 40,000 Sikhs in the 1980s. All these crimes against minorities are recorded.

4. Very recently an incident like the organized pogrom of Muslims of Gujrat, blamed by human right organizations on the State Government, has not been witnessed anywhere in Pakistan.

5. One more reason is the treatment meted out to the lower caste Hindu population, who are treated as slaves even in this age of education and advancement. The lower castes, known as Dalits took their case to the United Nations Conference on Racism held in Durban in 2001.

6. Another social area is dowry related deaths in India. (However, in Pakistan, we have tried to match this with honor killings).

Due to their preoccupation with WOT, the USA and the West have tended to condone India on these gross human rights violations, which actually have gained momentum.

However, my apologies for any hurt feelings. In retrospection, I think that both India and Pakistan need to act like civilized societies.

re. AmericanExpress #98
``Some more Yada Yada Yada ...writers get paid for writing so they will write even when they are brain dead .... THEN WHY INDIA IS IN LINE FOR REGISTRATION AFTER PAKISTAN IN APRIL _MAY S SOON AS AFTER THE PRESENT BATCH??????``

Not that the question has anything to do with the point the letter-writer (NOT a writer, per se) made, but since you asked, well, I`m guessing it has something to do with India`s having a 14-odd crore Muslim population (with apologies to all right-thinking Muslims).

``To lick the Americas feet they can justify breathing carbon dioxide instead of oxygen EVEN by some twisted imagination.....after all who checks these theories or LIES as i like to think of them so i dont even have to check them & mostly i am right !``

I don`t know what theories (or LIES) you are referring to. Please elaborate.

``The fact is that the world is now afraid of us.``

No?!?!

`` In the 60s and 70s, Pakistan gave its best economists, professors, engineers and scientists to the US.``
Yeah.. I remember the time... Pakistan was churning out world-class professionals in these disciplines from the Karachi and Punjab Universities and offering them oh so selflessly to Uncle Sam to prop up his flagging economy. yeah... those bloody ingrate Yanks!

``Generally, Pakistanis were respected by Americans then.``

Sonny... get yourself enrolled in a Realpolitik 101 course, will ya!

``But in the 80s, we started exporting Ramzis, Kansis, Abu Zubaydas and Abu Hamzas. ``

So you`re agreeing with the letter-writer after all, eh? Good, then. Let`s move on...

rgds,
PM

re. GhalibZaman #92:
I`d be interested to know what you foudn so ``fascinating`` in the paragraph beloiw, which IMO is the gist of the article you posted. Sounds to me like you`re advocating prosletyzing-by-prostitution:

``Well, it is happening again. Since the early 1970s, population explosion has increased the stress on the land and the misery of the people in Chiapas. After the assault of missionaries beginning with Dominican monks 500 years ago, there has been a succession of Presbyterians, Pentecostals, evangelical preachers, left-wing Roman Catholic priests (Liberation Theology) and Mormons. Now there are Muslim missionaries from Spain, gaining converts from among the thousands of evangelical Christians who were converted 45 years ago. There has been such competition among the rival sects that people convert and reconvert, looking for the best deal. Now Islam is coming in with a message and with money.``

Ref Donkey Express #98

[THEN WHY INDIA IS IN LINE FOR REGISTRATION AFTER PAKISTAN IN APRIL _MAY S SOON AS AFTER THE PRESENT BATCH??????

To lick the Americas feet they can justify breathing carbon dioxide instead of oxygen EVEN by some twisted imagination.....after all who checks these theories or LIES as i like to think of them so i dont even have to check them & mostly i am right !]

Are we to understand that you are selling your Studebaker and moving to the Belly of the Beast (India) or do you plan to continue licking the Americas feet they can justify breathing carbon dioxide instead of oxygen EVEN by some twisted imagination?

Such a complete Namak Haram I haven`t seen in my life.

If you have so much contempt for the US (and India), what prevents you from moving to al-Arabia as-Saudia?

Ref ahmadzai #96

[Americans need moderate and democratic Islamic countries like Pakistan to be role models for other Muslim countries. Hence, Mr. Haas’ advice to Indians to start the process of dialogue with Pakistan without any pre-conditions. This is an advice that India would be better off heeding to in order to be part of the civilized societies.]

Civilized countries do not declare they were ready to nuke their neighbors. Civilized countries do not cry, ``Restrain me before I use my nukes.`` Civilized countries do not poke their noses in other people`s affairs as in Chechnya, Bosnia or Kosovo. Or, Kashmir.

Anytime any Indian thinks he needs to heed the advice of a Pakistani on talks with Pakistan, he needs to lie down until the thought goes away. Persistent symptoms need medical intervention.

I would consider the Illegal Indians, Pakistanis, and all thirdwolders at par with the ``Poineers`` of America a hundred years and earlier. :)

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In response to # 94 Veeresh`s article in response to an article, I have to say the following:

1. He should recall that after 9/11 the joint front of 29 parties supporting Talibans was not able to gather more than 20,000 protestors at the peak of emotionalism and only 4,000 protestors turned up towards the latter part. The front was in such a weak state subsequently that the Government was arresting its leaders at will and putting them behind bars for indulging in violence, vandalism and inciting the feelings of people through emotional speeches. The small number of protestors were also aided by Western media unintentionally. CNN and BBC continuously reported curtailed protests using close-ranged videoizing, which is a camera trick to project small crowds as massive ones. However, this fuel on the fire attempt was thwarted by Pakistanis too.


2. He should also recall the recent protest rallies by the MMA. Khaleej Time’s issue of 9th January (3rd column and 3rd paragraph from top) reports, “Nationwide rallies against US policies on Friday were sparsely attended by Pakistani standards; just 400 gathered in the capital, while 3,000 took to streets in Peshawar”. He has to understand that after Friday prayers protests are easiest to hold and give wrong information as to the size of the same. I would say that much more massive anti-American protests have been held in Europe and in other countries than in Pakistan.

3. He should understand that long before him, many a journalists like Robert Kaplan and Jessica Stern had forecasted that NWFP would go anti-military and anti-Pakistani and will destabilize Pakistan due to its conservative nature and support of Talibans. However, the province did not become unstable under the most trying circumstances of American assault of Talibans in 2001-02.

4. I would also like to know if at all Pakistan becomes unstable at the hands of fundamentalists, how would it help India? Without any state authority to control them, the ‘Fundamentalists” would have a free hand into entering India and to destabilize it. Veeresh should learn from Israeli method of crushing the extremists and the cycle of violence that it is leading to.

5. That America keeps Pakistan in its folds on WOT is in the mutual favor of both. Americans need moderate and democratic Islamic countries like Pakistan to be role models for other Muslim countries. Hence, Mr. Haas’ advice to Indians to start the process of dialogue with Pakistan without any pre-conditions. This is an advice that India would be better off heeding to in order to be part of the civilized societies.

Illegal Pakistanis in perspective

http://www.dawn.com/2003/01/22/letted.htm#1

I failed to understand why there is this uproar from the media and politicians in Pakistan about the checking of documents of Pakistanis illegally staying in the US. Every country has the right to safeguard its territory and population from suspected elements. Thus, we are not justified both legally and morally in forcing the US to pay heed to our desires/ demands simply because Pakistan is a front-line state in the America-led war on terror.

The question is, why are we criticizing the US government for taking on illegal Pakistani immigrants while we have not objected to the recent deportation of hundreds of thousands of Pakistanis by the Gulf countries?

The Indian government is also considering deporting about 12,000 Pakistanis illegally staying in the country. East Asian and South East Asian countries, too, have deported our nationals in thousands. I fear that if this process continues, Pakistani professionals may face similar treatment.

The fact is that the world is now afraid of us. In the 60s and 70s, Pakistan gave its best economists, professors, engineers and scientists to the US. Generally, Pakistanis were respected by Americans then. But in the 80s, we started exporting Ramzis, Kansis, Abu Zubaydas and Abu Hamzas.

Now whom should we blame for this change of heart? Our past policies, which were ostensibly discarded after the 9/11 incidents, caused an irreparable loss to Pakistani expatriates.

Besides, investigations by American intelligence agencies have disclosed that some of those involved in the 9/11 attacks were somehow connected in their training and travelling in Afghanistan via Pakistan, and entered the US in the garb of students. Small wonder that Americans do not trust us any more.

Their intelligence personnel, after interrogating Al Qaeda members, have reached the conclusion that there is a presence of almost two to three scores of sleepers (terrorists presently under hibernation), who may operate in the future.

Today, we are being overwhelmed by the tribal and mediaeval philosophy preached by those who are not aware of the real world. They brainwash millions and millions of uneducated lot and create a siege mentality amongst them.

Our independent writers know where the country is heading to, but either they are confused or are not willing to risk their lives to write on such issues boldly. The bottom line is: unless we put our own house in order, we will be doomed.

KUNWAR KHALID YUNUS

Karachi

From today`s HBL by Rasheeda Bhagat . . . http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/stories/2003012200060800.htm

Are Musharraf`s fears for real?
Rasheeda Bhagat



We like to think — or rather we comfort ourselves with the thought — that the West, especially the United States, is caught in a frenzy of Muslim-bashing. We try not to realise that our own condition, a mixture of ineptitude and backwardness, is an invitation to bashing. We are not the victims of a cosmic conspiracy. We are responsible for our backwardness ourselves.

SO WROTE the Pakistani columnist Ayaz Amir in his weekly column in the Pakistani daily Dawn dated January 17, a full 48 hours before the Pakistan President, Gen Pervez Musharraf, made the rather startling — for his countrymen, that is — — statement that after the US had done with Iraq and its President Saddam Hussein, there was ``impending danger`` of Pakistan being the next target of the ``Western forces.``

Addressing a distinguished group of Pakistani businessmen and industrialists in Lahore on Sunday, he painted the doomsday scenario that when this happened ``we`ll have to work on our own to stave off the danger. Nobody will come to our rescue, not even the Islamic world.``

Once again, Gen Musharraf used the occasion to urge Pakistanis to strive to make their nation a ``modern country, not with a confrontationist approach but with a liberal mind.``

We Indians can accuse the Pakistan President of being an India-baiter and carrying on, like other Pakistani leaders before him, the song and dance about the ``freedom struggle in Kashmir.`` But at least he is not cut in the fundamentalist Islamic mode and, in this aspect, is very different from the last general who ruled Pakistan — Zia-ul-Haq.

Zia had some of the most obscure and orthodox ideas and, as far as the gender scene in Pakistan is concerned, took the country backward several decades by bringing in the Hudood Ordinance, with its absurdities such as one man`s testimony in a court of law being equal to two women`s in certain disputes.

But, today, Gen Musharraf, who made it to the covers of almost all the top magazines of the western world, including Time and Newsweek, more than once, has himself to blame for the despondence evident in his Lahore speech.

Any visitor to Pakistan knows only too well the derision with which the average, educated and discerning Pakistani looks at his/her country`s relationship with the US. It is with the utmost contempt that they talk about successive Pakistan governments, either civilian or military, having sold the country to the Americans.

In most interviews, when questions are asked about the future direction of the country and its economy, people will say, and most of the time not even off-the-record, that this would depend on ``what the Americans want us to do.``

Hence, after 9/11, when Gen Musharraf thought he was scoring a brownie point by offering the Americans unstinted support in their fight against the Al Qaeda and the Taliban regime in Afghanistan, there was outrage in Pakistan. That is why he had to go before the people and try to convince them on PTV, through a well-written speech, on how he had taken this decision in Pakistan`s self-interest.

More important, he told the nation that, had he not done this, the Indians were waiting to offer their territory to the US. If that happened, they could bid goodbye to their dream of helping the ``freedom struggle`` in Kashmir, was the not-so-understated burden of his song.

Surely, it must have been a heady feeling for the general to find, a few months after September 11, and during the thick of the strikes on Afghanistan, magazines like Time and Newsweek describing his job as ``the most difficult in the world``.

In trying to prove what a brave soul he was, the correspondents had interviewed his childhood buddies, his military comrades and others who were prepared to say a few kind words about the general`s extraordinary courage. Surely, such people would not be difficult to find when the subject in question is the president of their country!

Anyway, it`s been quite a downhill journey for President Musharraf since those heady days. The US President, Mr George W. Bush`s task in Afghanistan is long over. The Taliban has been replaced and Hameed Karzai anointed the new chief and left to struggle with a host of warlords.

Mr Bush has moved on to the next target on his list in his self-proclaimed and rather pompously titled ``war against terrorism``. When he has no time for Mr Karzai, he has even less, or none at all, for Gen Musharraf, who is at present reduced to the status of an American ally only on paper. In fact, he and his nation have become more than a bit of an irritant for the Americans.

First, Gen Musharraf could not even prevent the electoral triumph of the anti-American Islamic coalition of political parties. They were somehow denied the throne in Islamabad — with help from the US, of course — but they continue to rule in the provincial areas of the north-west. It is no great secret that the Taliban and Al Qaeda militants are holed up in this region of Pakistan. So we had the skirmish between the Pakistan and US governments last fortnight over the Americans` right to enter Pakistani soil in ``hot pursuit`` of these militants.

It is evident that Gen Musharraf`s cosying up to the US post-9/11 has helped neither himself nor his country. But that hardly gives us, the neighbour most troubled by Pakistan in terms of frequent attacks from jehadis of various hues, cause for rejoicing. True, the Pakistan President has cut a sorry figure before his own people, especially the Islamic hardliners. But that is not going to help us.

Gen Musharraf`s latest admission that his country could be next on the US` hit list after Iraq will only give more power to the fundamentalist forces in Pakistan which, in turn, will only increase our headache over the continuing terrorism in Kashmir.

Dawn`s Ayaz Amir sees the fundamentalists notching up more support in Pakistan when, comparing the progress of Israel as a modern nation to the rest of the Islamic world, he says: ``We like to say that we have been bad Muslims and have not kept faith with the true tenets of Islam. So towards a self-defined purity of Islam many of us have tried to return in the conviction that this journey back in time holds the key to all our problems. This journey into the past took no cruder form than the emergence of the Taliban. It has taken no cruder form than the ideas firing the zeal of Osama bin Laden and his followers.

``The West feels threatened by Al Qaeda terrorism. But perhaps we may consider that bin Ladenism is a greater threat to the world of Islam than it is to the West. For the West it is but a physical threat in the form of terrorism. For the world of Islam it is a threat more grave and sinister for it to be trapped in bin Ladenism, to travel back in time to the dark ages of Muslim obscurantism. It means to be stuck in the mire which has held the Islamic world back.``

So much for Pakistan`s woes. Clearly, its President`s dream of being ``a valued ally in the fight against terrorism`` has gone sour. Instead of trying to score brownie points over India by snuggling up to Mr Bush, had Gen Musharraf bothered to sincerely respond to India`s gesture in inviting him to Agra, and prior to that had he not sabotaged the Prime Minister, Mr Atal Bihari Vajpayee`s bus journey to Lahore through the Kargil intrusions, his position today would not have been as pitiable. Right now, the tough-talking general has fallen between two stools.

True, any desire to make genuine peace with India too would have created problems from the fundamentalist lobby at home. But a hand of friendship towards India would have prevented the massive build-up of troops on the border and all the rhetoric of a nuclear war.

Anyway, there is no immediate danger of the general and his government changing policy towards India, and this is evident from the latest bout of harassment to which the Indian Charge d`Affaires, Mr Sudhir Vyas, has been subjected in Islamabad in the last couple of days. This led an exasperated Prime Minister to say, ``What does Islamabad want?``

It is doubtful that the Pakistani establishment itself knows the answer. With the passage of time, as Pakistan`s miseries increase, as they are bound to, with parts of the country having become a safe haven for the Al Qaeda, surely the Kashmir ``freedom struggle`` will become an irrelevant cause for them. Anyway, how long can you flog a dying horse?

Meanwhile, Gen Musharraf`s observations on Pakistan being the next target of the ``western forces``, have an echo in what his former boss and chief of the Pakistani army, Gen Aslam Beg, has to say about the US leadership in his latest communication to ``Friends``, a think-tank he has set up.

He has been quoted by the Washgton Times, in an article, where portraying Mr Bush as a latter-day ``Goebbels`` for reducing Afghanistan to a ``wasteland``, Gen Beg says, ``Protecting their own civilization, by hurling bombs and missiles on other nations — labelled the axis-of-evil, or rogue, states — is based on conceit and delusions of grandeur.``

Meanwhile Mr George T. Abed, IMF Director for Middle East, North Africa and Pakistan, has said in Islamabad that an attack on Iraq by the US-led forces would have a negative economic impact on Pakistan and the region, including further increase in oil prices.

``I must say that the outcome of war will have serious consequences.`` Calling upon the government to reduce fiscal deficit, he said that apart from increasing oil prices it would hamper FDI into Pakistan and discourage tourists from visiting the country.

nazarhayatkhan I am uncomfortable whith that . Persians, Greeks, Arabs, Mughals were all great in the sense that they gave an established order and millions flourished under them. But can we say that they rose up because of Justice? Surely creating an empire involves killing looting and other unjust things. Or like you said that they decayed due to a lack of Justice.

What does Justice mean to you? Are you refering to general things like good mailing system, fine roads, and opportunity. Or do you idealisticaly believe in some great moral character that a nation tends to lose over time, and therefore falls from grace??

O what a fascinating account!
WORTH READING, REPEATING, and BROADCASTING.


In Brazil Muslims are doing even better. There are ONE MILLION recent converts to Islam in Brazil and 30,000 in Argentina. And no, the money is not coming from Osama bin Laden. It is coming from a sufi (mystical) sect whose leader is a Scotsman, a man who doesn`t like democracy and global capitalism, but also doesn`t like terrorism.

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Aptos Times. Thursday, August 15, 2002
A Strange Religious Two-Step: Mayans Convert to Islam by Laina Farhat-Holzman Aptos Times, August 17, 2002

Of late, a favorite theme for papers at our annual International Society for the Comparative Study of Civilization (ISCSC.net) has been the relationship between civilization and religion. We are looking at 5,000 years of human history, and many of us are surprised that what looked like a dead issue only 30 years ago has suddenly climbed out of the grave and is marching out into the street. Religion is alive and kicking, and is sometimes walking backwards.

Even stranger, however, is a phenomenon taking place in Spain. With the rise of literacy and the economic success of modern Spain, Spaniards have begun to look at their history without the censorship of the Catholic Church. In 1492, Columbus was in his armada of ships setting out for Asia (he thought), and other ships loaded with Spanish Jews and Spanish Muslims were setting out for exile to North Africa and the Turkish Ottoman Empire. Their most holy Majesties, Isabella and Ferdinand, had decreed that by sundown, there would be no more Jews or Muslims in that Christian land. Those Jews and Muslims who couldn`t bring themselves to leave their beloved Spain swallowed hard and were converted; the rest left.

In Spain today, quite a few Catholic Spaniards have delved into their family histories and are reconverting to Judaism and Islam. I have also heard that some people who live in New Mexico (of Spanish ancestry) have discovered their Jewish roots and are coming out after 400 years of fear.

This is something new in history. Up to now, when people are converted to a new religion, they stay converted. It is also a given that most of us are the religion that we profess because somewhere back in history a prince was converted and his people were expected to convert with him. Religious choice was only the option of certain princes. Even in Old Testament Judaism, when Moses adopted what has since become Judaism, his people had no choice. Dissenters were slaughtered.

The same is true for the Christian conversion of Pagans; the chiefs and nobility accepted the new faith and their people were part of the package. Islam, too, operated the same way. The Prophet Mohammad fought for ten years to bring the entire Arabian peninsula, including his reluctant home town of Mecca, into the fold. Dissenters were killed. When Islam spread out across the world, particularly in such places as Central Asia, it was the princes who made the decision and the people had no choice but to follow.

Now we are living in an era of designer religions. People are choosing their faiths and their sects. The latest are the desperately poor Mayans who live in southernmost Mexico, Chiapas State. We first heard of them a few years ago when there was a rebellion against the Mexican government that had previously ignored or oppressed them. I have since been fascinated to note that these Mayans are tossing out Catholicism, a religion forced on them by their Spanish conquerors in 1600. Protestant evangelicals have made great inroads in this community, and now Islam is entering the arena. Financing is coming from abroad to support both the Protestant and the Muslim missionary efforts, and they are having success--the Muslims more so.

The poor Mayans, once the cultural wonder of the ancient Mexican world, have lost everything--their religion, their culture, and their economy. They are poor, neglected, and downtrodden--and they refuse to take it any more.

Much fuss has been made about the Catholic forced conversions of the Mayans, but in all truth, there have been times in native Mexican history, even before that, when the gods failed to perform and the people dumped them. The great ghost-city of Teotijuacan is providing archeologists with a picture of a city of one million that went through a very long drought, where young adults were dying in droves from hunger, disease, and warfare, and where the statues of the gods were finally hacked into pieces by the enraged population. I am sure that the Spanish conquest looked to most native Mexicans like the failure of their gods. Time for a new religion had come.

Well, it is happening again. Since the early 1970s, population explosion has increased the stress on the land and the misery of the people in Chiapas. After the assault of missionaries beginning with Dominican monks 500 years ago, there has been a succession of Presbyterians, Pentecostals, evangelical preachers, left-wing Roman Catholic priests (Liberation Theology) and Mormons. Now there are Muslim missionaries from Spain, gaining converts from among the thousands of evangelical Christians who were converted 45 years ago. There has been such competition among the rival sects that people convert and reconvert, looking for the best deal. Now Islam is coming in with a message and with money.

In Brazil Muslims are doing even better. There are one million recent converts to Islam in Brazil and 300,000 in Argentina. And no, the money is not coming from Osama bin Laden. It is coming from a sufi (mystical) sect whose leader is a Scotsman, a man who doesn`t like democracy and global capitalism, but also doesn`t like terrorism. Stay tuned as this weird story unfolds. ------ 878 words

Dr. Laina Farhat-Holzman is a historian, writer, and lecturer. Her newest book, God`s Law or Man`s Law, will be available in September. You may contact her at Lfarhat102@aol.com or www.globalthink.net.

#87 Minhaj

``History shows us that all great powers began to decay when they became unjust and unreasonable. ``

The Ottomans, The Mughals, The Mongols, The Soviets,

urstruly sahib:

i respectfully beg to disagree. i think war is going ahead because someone has to pay for the cost of stationing those troops. also money will be made from infrastructure reconstruction after the war. fat contracts will be routed to gop backers as a reward for the hundreds of millions of dollars in campaign contributions.

#82 by nazarhayatkhan :
``History shows us that all great powers began to decay when they became unjust and unreasonable. ``

Can you expand on that with some examples?