Stop Indian Atrocities in Kashmir

The Wages of Obedience
by Pervez Hoodbhoy

``It is therefore important to seriously reflect on Eqbal Ahmad’s words on Kashmir. He warns that although New Delhi`s moral isolation from the Kashmiri people is total and irreversible, yet it will be foolish of Pakistani leaders to believe that India`s chronicle of failures can ever translate into Pakistan`s gain. ......... Over the years, Pakistan’s policy has been reduced to bleeding India, and India`s to bleeding the Kashmiris, and to hit out at Pakistan whenever a wound can be inflicted. Indian intransigence and bloody-minded determination to crush the Kashmiris has increased, not decreased, as a result of covert Pakistani involvement. Tens of thousands of Kashmiris have died yet the liberation of Kashmir from the Indian yoke is further away today than at any time in the past.
While the General Aslam Begs and General Hamid Guls fantasize about bleeding India to death, it is now Pakistan that teeters on the brink of a precipice. Internationally, Pakistan stands isolated – countries that support Pakistan’s stand on Kashmir can be counted on the fingers of one hand. Today India and Pakistan must realize that a military solution of the Kashmir dispute is simply not possible. The solution must be political, may take decades, and must be left for the Kashmiris to handle. The people of Pakistan will support General Musharraf if he takes this wise course.``

dear bbabu:

Your post 163 ``Of course they can use India to keep military pressure on Pakistan. ``

i agree with you - ofcourse, india can be used.

Your Post 164 ``I really don`t care. I don`t think most middle class Indians care. The abdul is a bigger threat to the people who finances and arms them. ``

If you really don`t care, and you can also pass such broad based blanket judgements about the `middle class indians` - and If i were to go by your words about what idnian middle class cares about, let me admit that it is a pretty sorry picture of the indian middle class.

Fortunately, i have some first hand exposure myself - and my opinion about the middle class indian is strikingly different from yours, and i have a lot of respect for them. There is a difference between the real middle class and middle class wanna bes.

Think about life, in India and Pakistan, minus Kashmir problem!! Right now, what we are thinking is how to win the rat race. But as somebody said, even if you win the rat race, you are still a rat...

You said you don`t care? OK. But are you happy? honest?

dialogue # 161

US will not take over Pakistan unless something extreme happens like Pakistani nuke is transferred to Al Qaida and New York gets wiped out. It would require too many troops and too much money. Occupation of Bosnia costs $5 billion and 15000 troops. Pakistan is 30 times larger. Calculate the math.

It is easier to mount economic and diplomatic pressure on Pakistan and get things done. It is a lot messier and clumsy. Of course they can use India to keep military pressure on Pakistan.

dialogue # 161

``Unless that happens, it is `abdul with a rocket launcher, eager to die and almost as eager to kill`` ``

I really don`t care. I don`t think most middle class Indians care. The abdul is a bigger threat to the people who finances and arms them.

There is a lot of concern about Jihad. What bbabu says is not new or origina. Let me say not all of it is misplaced. Not all of it is ral. But even if it is perception, isnt that what every thing is, including reality? What happened to all the wisdom?

``Do you suppose Buddha and Krishna and Mohamed and Christ and Moses and Zoroaster and Confucius and Lao-Tse would have given us the advice, ``This [fill-in the doctrine] is the way it is. If someone or group of someones don`t agree with you - then kill them.`` I don`t think so. Yet, we do this all the time. If we are not killing people physically, we kill them off in other ways. We denigrate them, we persecute them, we sue them, we prosecute them. We make them pariahs, damage their reputations, and ruin their lives and the lives of their families. We morally destroy them. All in the name of Righteousness `` - Dianne Collins

Hi bbabu:

It seems you are suggesting US takeover Pakistan? your post # 157 - ``If Iran or Iraq were guilty of a similar transgression they would have been occupied by US troops by now. `` What part of indian agenda is supported by Paki Land becoming a state of US?

Pakistan and India will have to share this nook of the planet - why not do it cordially? Sometimes, I wonder what `you` think. When you start having an opinion of your own, that will be alternative opinion as opposed to the lines taught to us by our state and status quo. Unless that happens, it is `abdul with a rocket launcher, eager to die and almost as eager to kill``

Hi bbabu:

It seems you are suggesting US takeover Pakistan? your post # 157 - ``If Iran or Iraq were guilty of a similar transgression they would have been occupied by US troops by now. `` What part of indian agenda is supported by Paki Land becoming a state of US?

Pakistan and India will have to share this nook of the planet - why not do it cordially? Sometimes, I wonder what `you` think. When you start having an opinion of your own, that will be alternative opinion as opposed to the lines taught to us by our state and status quo. Unless that happens, it is `abdul with a rocket launcher, eager to die and almost as eager to kill``

tayyab rashid

This is another article with a similar theme to the Washington Times article.

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Al Qaeda-Pakistani ties deepen
Khalid Sheik Mohammed was nabbed at the home of a parliamentary official.

By Gretchen Peters | Special to The Christian Science Monitor

RAWALPINDI, PAKISTAN - This week`s arrest of Al Qaeda`s third-in-command was at once a tremendous coup for Pakistan`s oft-maligned government and also a stunning embarrassment.

Officials here are quick to brag that local security forces nabbed Khalid Sheik Mohammed, along with another senior Al Qaeda leader, on their own. What they aren`t crowing about is that Mr. Mohammed`s arrest exposes a link between Al Qaeda and Pakistan`s largest Islamic political party, Jamaat-e Islami.

The emerging connection highlights the political risks the Pakistani government faces as it hunts Al Qaeda leaders. It also implies a greater order of difficulty in rooting them out if thousands of Jamaat party members are willing to harbor terrorists in their homes.

Ahmed Abdul Qadoos, a Jamaat party member, was arrested alongside the two Al Qaeda terrorists. They had been holed up in the home of his mother, Farzana Qadoos, who is an elected district counselor for the conservative Islamic party.

Her residence, where the three men were arrested, is just five minutes from Army headquarters in this twin city to the nation`s capital, and tucked in a guarded community that`s home to top military officials. Officials say Mohammed had been coming and going from the home, apparently with little notice.

The party has also been implicated in other recent terror arrests. A Jamaat member was in the Karachi apartment where police found Al Qaeda leader Ramzi Binalshibh, and a doctor arrested in Lahore several months back for Al Qaeda ties was also linked to the party.

That`s an uncomfortable fact for Pakistan, since Jamaat is a leading member in a coalition of hard-line Islamic parties that won control of two of Pakistan`s four provinces in November elections and commands a sizable block in the National Assembly.

Senior Jamaat officials have variously insisted that Ahmed Qadoos was wrongly arrested or not a party member, and even claimed that the arrest actually took place at another location. They say their party is being targeted for political reasons.

``We have never supported violence or terror,`` says Jamaat leader Qazi Hussein Ahmed. ``It is not in the good of the country.``

Some government officials, too, have played down the link in Saturday`s arrest, saying that Mrs. Qadoos and her husband may not have been aware that their houseguest was the chief architect of the Sept. 11 attacks, or even that there were guests staying at their home at all.

Gen. Rashid Quereshi, the spokesman for President Pervez Musharraf, says the couple was not in residence at the time, but adds that all the family members are all being interrogated by security forces here to determine their level of involvement.

But senior officials here are starting to admit that they are finding growing links between the Jamaat and Al Qaeda terrorists on the run. ``All of the activists and terrorists who have been apprehended in recent months have had links to the Jamaat-e-Islami, whether we have arrested them in Lahore or here or Karachi....`` says Pakistan`s Interior Minister Makhdoom Faisel Saleh Hayat. ``They have been harboring them.``

Pakistan`s religious parties themselves are a reflection of official ties to terrorism here - which Mr. Musharraf insists have been severed since Sept. 11, 2001. Past administrations here nurtured and funded extremists groups both to wreak havoc in Kashmir, the neighboring state which both India and Pakistan claim, and also during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, when the CIA and Britain`s MI6 funded the mujahideen to fight a holy war against the communist invaders.

Some of that extremism took root here. Though the fundamentalist parties in the past had more success organizing street protests than getting into Parliament, a five-party coalition of Islamic parties, known as the United Front, made stunning gains in last October`s election, and now commands the third-largest block in the National Assembly.

Jamaat is the largest and most popular party in the group. It had focused most of its attention on Kashmir, not Afghanistan or the Taliban. But yesterday, a spokesman for the party told Reuters that Al Qaeda`s third-in-command was ``a hero to Islam.``

``The Jamaat has never condemned 9/11, and denies that Al Qaeda is a terrorist organization. This is a group that believes 9/11 was carried out by Jews in America,`` says Ahmed Rashid, a Pakistani author on terror issues. ``The really scary thing is that this is also the most moderate Islamic party in Pakistan.``

Members of the coalition have sparked fears they are trying to ``Talibanize`` Pakistan`s frontier states. Among other things, they have moved to ban movie houses, which they deem un-Islamic, and have sent police to raid wedding parties where music was playing.

Some have even more direct links to terror. Many Front leaders run religious schools that sent young Pakistanis to fight alongside the Taliban and Al Qaeda in Afghanistan. The man who owns the Islamic school where so-called ``American Taliban`` John Walker Lindh studied, for example, is now a United Front senator.

As members of Parliament, these fundamentalist leaders enjoy immunity, though experts say they would have little access to sensitive information about the hunt for terrorists here or the political power to change Mr. Musharraf`s policy to support the US war on terror.

But government officials still say they are concerned about the pattern of members of these groups harboring terrorist fugitives. ``We certainly are,`` says Interior Minister Hayat. ``Any Pakistani should be.``

He and other analysts add, however, that they do not believe there is an official policy to support Al Qaeda fugitives by the Jamaat or other United Front members.

``Still, it poses a very serious question,`` says Ismael Khan, a senior columnist with the News newspaper in the Northwest Frontier Province. ``The party leadership needs to answer why this is a recurring theme.``

stuka #156 Hey, I am already a prisoner of war of General Aishwarya Rai.

dialogue # 154

I am not accusing Pakistani government or Pakistani citizens of anything.
I have noticed that some Pakistanis think it has to be a lie if it is reported by an Indian or Indian newspaper. They seem to forget that Pakistan and Pakistanis are going to be judged by their own words and actions.

The article is from the Washington Times - a rightwing US newspaper. It is written by a person with a Muslim name. Draw any conclusions you want from it.

I hope you realize the severity of the allegations against the Jamaat Islami. If Iran or Iraq were guilty of a similar transgression they would have been occupied by US troops by now.

Ahmadzai:

While mentioning Kargill, Indians should always be reminded of Siachin, where an integrated sneaky and cowardly safron operation had been perfected ;)


Since it`s possible to actually have a conversation with you, let me give you the Indian perspective.

1. Siachen offensive was conducted by uniformed forces of the Indian Army. In Kargil, Pakistan tried to fob off a Mujahideen story that nobody believed. Not even Pakistanis.

2. In the Siachen operation, the LOC was not crossed. Even Pakistan says that undemarcated areas were taken by India without due process. The Indian operation was a response to Pakistan giving visas to Western mountaineers into hitherto unmerked territory. Kargil OTOH exists on the Indian side of the LOC as per mutually agreed upon maps.

3. The issue in Kargil was also that of timing. If Pakistan had done it before the Lahore process, it would not have smacked of betrayal.

TAhmed:

``perhaps provide us with the Indian version of such a plan). ``

One word: Bollywood.

My Dear bbabu: I have tried, and have no shame in admitting that the point you are trying to make through your post # 152 eludes me. accusing paki land of every thing that is bad under the sun is not original any more - and will not get you too far.

Many posts have tried to do that. Pakistanis have tried to defend. So what is new? What are people trying to prove. As I said elsewhere, even if world accepts Pakistani superiority to india, that does not say much about Pakistan and vice versa.


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Enjoyed what #149 by ajeet said
``If Madani is a hypothetical character, than whosoever has created him has done a very good job.......
.......However if this is what goes for a man from the street in Pakistan, then there is nothing but trouble for Pakistan in future``

Tayyab Rashid

ajeet #149 Relax, brother. The average man on the street in Pakistan (or India) has more important things to do with his time than some of the underemployed folks on chowk who, lacking anything else to talk about, spend their time exchanging insults. If you actually think people in Pakistan seriously spend their time planning ways to do a ``pincer movement`` on India (as madani said), then perhaps you are getting a little bit paranoid, dont you think? So relax and pitch in a few good laughs if you can. We have enough of this big talk about jehadis and pakis and kashmir and so forth from underemployed programmers on both sides who think they represent India or Pakistan, and on whose posts the fate of the world rests.
As dialogue #151 says, what one thinks is determined to which side of the border one is born. Such prejudices affect all of us no doubt, and you and I are no exceptions. However, for some of us such biases are overcome by our ability to think for ourselves. Others are like a bunch of sheep - if you dont believe it, see how closely the india-pakistan arguments merely echo the official line of their respective governments. If tomorrow there is peace between the two governments, these same sheep that were bleating about how India is morally and economically better than Pakistan, or how Pakistan is morally and economcially better than India, will stop bleating.
So, as I said, relax and help Admiral Madani plan out his pincer movement on India (or perhaps provide us with the Indian version of such a plan).

Opinions and stance of so many of us is determined by which side of the border we were born.

Pakistan religious party `faces crackdown`
Anwar Iqbal
UPI South Asian Affairs Analyst

The Pakistani military is privately warning the country`s largest religious party to distance itself from al Qaida by the end of March or face a crackdown, a senior security official told United Press International Wednesday.
Since the beginning of the year, Pakistani intelligence agents have arrested at least four al Qaida suspects from the homes of leaders of Jamaat-i-Islami -- Pakistan`s main religious party, which has dozens of members of parliament and controls a number of ministerial posts in a key regional government.
Most recently, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who is believed to have planned the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in the United States, was seized at the residence of a Jamaat leader at the weekend.
Other officials in Islamabad confirmed by telephone that the ultimatum had been conveyed to Jamaat through what they called ``the usual channels`` -- a reference to the widely known private contacts maintained with religious extremists by Pakistan`s Inter-Services Intelligence, or ISI, the feared spy agency.
``This is a wake-up call for the government, which was hoping to bring religious parties into the political mainstream,`` one senior security official said.
Soon after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf ordered a crackdown on Islamic extremist groups. But this new message is the first time the government has been forced to consider a similar action against a legal -- and popular -- political party.
The military is not alone in urging the Jamaat to stay away from al Qaida. And other messages are being sent in private.
``It is no coincidence that all four suspects were arrested from the homes of Jamaat leaders,`` Interior Minister Faisal Saleh Hayat told police officers at the National Police Academy in Islamabad on Tuesday. ``Jamaat has a lot of explaining to do.``
Addressing the same audience, Prime Minister Zafarullah Khan Jamali urged ``the press and the nation`` to ask Jamaat ``what these people were doing`` in the homes of Jamaat leaders.
``We will not be lenient with those who are associated with terrorists,`` he added.
Political analysts say that such senior officials in the new civilian government -- which needs the support of religious parties in parliament to stay in power -- would not have issued such blunt criticisms of the country`s largest Islamic party had they not been deeply concerned about ties between the Jamaat and al Qaida.
They say that Jamali, who is coming to Washington this month on his first official visit to the United States, wants Jamaat to make clear its position before his scheduled meeting with President George W. Bush on March 28.
They also say statements about a major political party, which has been a force in Pakistani politics for more than 50 years and is known for its expertise in arranging street protests, must have also been cleared by the military patrons of the civilian government.
As much a social movement as a political party, Jamaat is widely regarded as the most organized and powerful force in Pakistani society after the military itself and is believed to have more than 700,000 dedicated followers across the country.
Founded in 1943 in British India, the Jamaat played a key role in the war against the Soviet occupation forces in Afghanistan in the 1980s. It supported warlord Gulbadin Hekmatyar who was last month declared a terrorist by the U.S. State Department -- though during the Soviet-Afghan war, he was a major recipient of U.S. weapons and money.
The war also allowed the Jamaat to train hundreds of militants in Afghanistan, where they developed close ties with other Islamic groups, including al Qaida, while fighting the Soviets.
Jamaat has close links with international Islamic movements and books written by the party`s founder, Maulana Maududi, are considered obligatory reading by Islamists across the globe.
It boasts thousands of students among its workers and in the past has used them to arrange strikes and protests. It is generally believed in Pakistan that the Jamaat has the power to bring the country to a halt within 24 hours and the party has often demonstrated its ability during anti-government protests.
The party has a secretive five-tier structure that has enabled it to beat back previous efforts to control its activities. In the 1950s, the government disbanded Jamaat, but the country`s superior courts later revoked the ban.
Any Pakistani Muslim, male or female, can join the Jamaat as a supporter by filling out a simple form. A supporter is then observed by the Jamaat leaders for a year or two before being invited to become a formal follower, or worker.
It takes another year or two for a worker to become a ``comrade or a friend`` and three or four years to become a ``rukn`` or a full member. A rukn then moves on to become a member of the consultative council, which runs the affairs of the Jamaat.
The party has its own manifesto and flag; while joining the Jamaat every prospective rukn has to take an oath of allegiance that says: ``From today, my prayers, my sleep, my life and my death is dedicated to God, the lord of universe.``
Such close and secretive party structure has also helped keep Jamaat from breaking into smaller factions, like other Pakistani parties.
Analysts say that it won`t be easy to disband the Jamaat. ``If disbanded, the Jamaat will simply go underground and may even become more effective,`` said Rashid Khalid, who teaches politics at Islamabad`s Quaid-e-Azam University. And ``slapping a ban would further increase violent tendencies in Jamaat and other Islamic groups,`` he added.
That`s why the government is reluctant to make any move against Jamaat without first giving it the opportunity to distance itself from al Qaida, analysts assert.
But Jamaat`s chief Qazi Hussain Ahmad insists that his party has no connections with al Qaida. ``No al Qaida suspect was arrested from the homes of our leaders. These are all lies, an international conspiracy to ban Jamaat by linking it to al Qaida,`` he told reporters in Islamabad.
``The government and its patrons,`` he said, ``are afraid of the support the religious parties received from the Pakistani people in the previous elections and want to force us out of the political arena.``
Being the largest political party, enjoying substantial support among the educated urban middle class and with a long history of participation in parliamentary elections, Jamaat-i-Islami was expected to play a key role in Musharraf`s project to bring the Islamic parties into the political mainstream, one official said.
Before the prime minister`s meeting with Bush, ``the Jamaat will have to decide whether it wants to become a part of the mainstream along with other religious parties or associate with groups like al Qaida and face the wrath of the Pakistani military as well as the international community,`` he added.