Another Attempt on Musharraf

#409 by fuzair

The only real difference between us and North Indians (since our looks, food, language, culture is very similar) is that we proclaim very loudly that we are not the same!

Who are these ``us``, panjabis? I respect your feelings Sir but please whenever you compare panjabis with them then say panjabis and not ``us`` ( my panjabi brothers use this ``us`` as if they`re representing the whole pakistan here). People living to the west of Indus don`t share your thought.

Tahmed,

Yes, a friendly India would indeed be very good for Pakistan. Similarly, increased trade with India would be good for the Pakistani economy in the long-run but short-run disruptions would probably be very great (most of our extremely inefficient industries, e.g., automobiles, would go under v. quickly).

You`re of course correct that mullahs/jihadis/khakis are the biggest danger we face but I am not as sanguine as you about our ability to have an entente cordiale with India. Yes, after fighting three wars, the French and the Germans kissed and made up but with us its very different. We have defined ourselves as being ``not Indians.`` So, how can we be best friends with Indians? The only real difference between us and North Indians (since our looks, food, language, culture is very similar) is that we proclaim very loudly that we are not the same!

I`m not sure any real rapprochment is possible, at least not while the current generation is in power in Pakistan. Maybe it might be possible after 30-40 years of no overt tension/fighting and some solution to Kashmir but I won`t hold my breath waiting for it.

Regards.

Tauheed at # 32:

Wow! Now this is some increase in our vocablury. Recall that earlier we only knew about Maha-atma.

:-)

#392 MaheshG2

If you go through my old posts, you will see that I have already admitted the (many) mistakes made by Pakistan in Kashmir and Bangladesh/East Pakistan. I have minimal qualms qua policy about the Pakistanis bleeding India from a thousand cuts in Kashmir (basically a replay of what you did in E. Pakistan) but its clear that the blowback from it has hurt Pakistan more than it has India. So, its a bad, if not criminally stupid, policy. In that way, its similar to what the US did in Afghanistan: supporting the most retrograde elements in Afghani society just for the short-term `benefit` of hurting the USSR. And that too came back to bite them on the ass with a vengeance.

Sadna:
Point taken about the Indian volte-face on the LTTE and Sri Lanka BUT that wasn`t my point actually.... I was trying to point out the hypocrisy of Indians in blaming Pakistan for things they have also done in the past. Some years ago, I had a brief cocktail-party discussion with a highish ranking former US Foreign Service Officer who said that Pakistan had a built in lobby in the US government. Intrigued, I asked him to expand on this. He said that virtually every US official who has ever had extended dealings with Indians learns to despise them very quickly because they are always getting on this moral high horse and lecturing every-body in sight. Having had a couple of drinks, he was probably more indiscreet than he normally would be and basically said that he considered Indians to be self-righteous, hypocritical bastards, almost as bad as the French!, and that he was pro-Pakistani just to piss off the Indians.

Finally, considering how badly the IPKF got its ass kicked by the LTTE, there is nothing `principled` about the current Indian reluctance to get involved. I agree that Pakistani policy is criminally stupid but I was only pointing out that we aren`t the only ones who have done this and its really too much to see the Indians get themselves worked up to such a level of righteous indignation about ``cross border terrorism`` since they were the premier practitioner of it in the 1980s.

TTFN

re: Cross border terrorism
There was a time when some Pakis (including Ahmadzai) would cry foul whenever Indians on Chowk talked about cross border terrorism. ``Where are those terrorists? Why are they never caught alive?`` would be their argument.
Sometimes back, a teenage suicide bomber was caught alive. His story is truely an eye opener.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,1113385,00.html
``Now in an Indian jail in Srinagar, the 18-year-old illiterate rues the day this summer he fell under the spell of a preacher from the radical Islamic group, Lashkar-e-Toiba, at a mosque. ``He gave a very emotional speech about the atrocities carried out against Muslims in Kashmir,`` he says. ``About how women were being mistreated and raped and how the Indian army entered mosques with their shoes on.``

With few opportunities open to an uneducated boy, waging a holy war against India could be justified spiritually and financially.

Mohammed was paid 5,000 rupees (about £70) to sign up as a fedayeen whose only mission in life is death. ``
With the joint statement between ABV and Mushy acknowledging that cross border terrorism does exist and needs to be tackled, i see Pak chowkies silent on this issue today.
As the saying goes ``der aye par durust aye``. I hope we are seeing an end to jehad and increasing co-operation between the 2 countries.
Sridhar

A gloomy assessment from Asia Times

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/FA10Df05.html

Down in the Valley, the mood is somber

Excerpts:

A Srinagar-based Kashmiri businessman said that unlike the Kashmiri militants who were responsive to local sentiments and demands, the jihadis (mainly Pakistanis and Afghans) are not bothered about Kashmiri concerns. ``They have their goals and they will pursue them come what may,`` he says. Nobody believes that the jihadis will lay down arms simply because the Indians and Pakistanis are in a mood to talk now.
...
But it is the situation in rural Kashmir that is particularly worrying. People living in villages say that there has been a marked increase in the number of jihadis operating here, especially in southern Kashmir. According to Kashmiris living near Tral, unlike in the past when militants were infiltrated from Pakistan into India across the LoC in districts like Kupwara in the Valley, in recent years it is through the districts of Rajouri and Poonch in the Jammu region of the state that most infiltration takes place. The Pakistan-trained militants transit through Doda, a Muslim-majority district in Jammu, into the Valley. Shopian, Pulwama, Tral and Anantnag are being described as the new ``hotbeds of militancy``, especially jihadi militancy.

But the influence of the jihadis extends to urban Kashmir as well. A Kashmiri journalist pointed out that they have a formidable intelligence network in Srinagar. Describing the way they pressure the media, he said that it is the jihadis who decide who will write an editorial and the line to be taken. The jihadis are not keen that issues such as peace, development and the political process are discussed or written about. ``They expect people to write and think only about religion,`` he said, adding that any anti-Pakistan articles are simply not published. Journalists who write on development issues have been threatened.

The anti-Pakistani mood in the Valley is widespread. While this does not mean that people are pro-India - most Kashmiris are in favor of azadi (independence) from Indian and Pakistani control - many realize that their economic future is brighter with India. They admit that they are better off with India, but only with a secular-democratic India.
...
The Indian security forces are of the view that Pakistan might crack down on only those militant groups that threaten Musharraf. ``But we expect terror camps based in Pakistan Occupied Kashmir to continue functioning,`` a senior officer of the Indian Border Security Force told Asia Times Online.

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ahmadzai, tahmed32 and other fly-by-night peaceniks.

//...atma hathya, atma droha and other assorted words..//

Now what - the motley crew of chowk pakis have taken to write in Sanskrit!! I mean it is one thing to hug horrible hindoos for photo up but using Sanskrit words..... come on - you guys really don`t have to do this.

#397 by ahmadzai
//...Nobel Peace Prize for Musharraf and Vajpai? ...//

What`s up Mian! Overight we have become ambassdor peace, haven`t we? Suddenly, India is a great country..... BJP`s leader is worthy of Nobel Prize...... Horrible Hindoos are our brothers. And... did you say Kashmir? ..... where is that? We don`t want it!! It never flowed in our blood! Not anymore!

What about freedom figthing in Kashmir.... Hindoos doing state terrorism .... Kashmiri muslim brothers being oppressed by Indian Army? All washed down the drain. Nothing matters anymore. We just want ``Pakistan First``.

Never mind our vast infrastructure for Jihad we still have intact (just in case we changed our mind - you can never fully trust these hindoos - wink, wink).

We are all A-OK.....It is just that these hate mongering extremists hindoos are spoiling everything.

Mian, you are great! We are all convinced!!

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ahmadzai #397 i agree that at least some of the individuals you mention are beyond redemption and may very well, as you suggest, have to carry out atma-hadhya. They are mired in atma droha (self-torment, i.e. torment to their higher soul). Their atma is crying out for help on chowk, but nothing comes out other than ``pakis this`` and ``pakis that``). these atmadrohaad (tormented) soulds need to conduct atma-suddhi (self purification) by thinking good thoughts (not cheap ones). And then they will find atma shanthi (peace) and perhaps even atma rama (eternal bliss).

(i googled the meaning of atma hadhya, and as you can see, found a few other atmas listed on the online dictionary as well).

dost-mittar #390
Sorry to have missed your article.

``I have been saying it for a long time that Musharraf is a pragmatic leader who believes in a Pakistan-first policy. This is why he abandoned Pakistan`s support of taleban and half resumed it when the american attention shifted to Saddam. He has now realised that he has to choose between Kashmir first or Pakistan first and he seems to have made the right choice. Whether or not this is a permanent choice or merely another Hudbaiya by him is something only time will tell. ``

Going by the recent Reuters interview of Musharraf, he is not in the `Pakistan first` mode at all, or for him `Pakistan first` corresponds to `Kashmir first`. He is as stuck on Kashmir as he was during Kargil and Agra, his POVs are unchanged nor has his vision for S. Asia broadened. Let me know if you want to hear the audio of the interview, I can mail it to you.

The SAARC summit and this `composite dialogue` declaration have served only to buy Musharraf respite from US pressure(which has been intense lately), and constitute a breather for India, too, to use for further normalization in J&K. Fundamental positions are not changed.

As quoted in Daily Times
http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=story_7-1-2004_pg7_42
``He said while one saw the possibility of agreements being reached, such as on a bus service and the easing of travel restrictions, it was not clear what the basis of a compromise on Kashmir could be.``

#392 Fuzair,
Sure, Indira was behind the training and arming of the tamil tigers, the same group which assassinated her son in the end. One might say she paid for her sins with her and her son`s blood.
The tigers and numerous other insurgent groups were supported by Indira mainly as a reward to the people of tamil nadu who had stood behind her and helped her in her political resurrection after the Emergency. It`s not unlike pakistan`s role in training and arming the kashmiri militants. However, here`s where the similarity ends. By the time the IPKF was deployed, India was firmly in favor of ending the insurgency. There was no logistical support for the tigers from the indian side. The tigers had cannibalized every other insurgent group and had emerged as the de facto power in the tamil areas of Srilanka. Rajiv had kept Prabhakaran under house arrest and forced him to sign the peace accord. Once back in Jaffna, Prabhakaran didn`t feel he had to honor something he had signed under duress. The IPKF which was supposedly there to keep peace became the peace enforcing agency and the Srilankan military was only too glad to let the indians deal with the monster they had created. The IPKF was predominantly made up of non-tamil speaking units who were not trusted by the locals and have been accused of atrocities against the tamils. As a result, the tigers had an easy time defeating the IPKF. When it looked as though Rajiv was going to be elected again, the tigers employed a suicide bomber to kill him which in turn led to the tigers becoming extremely unpopular in Tamil Nadu. With the exception of a handful of politicians, to the rest the tigers are a dirty word. Allying yourself with the tigers is a sure way not to get elected in TN.

Tauheed at # 384:

Nobel Peace Prize for Musharraf and Vajpai? hahaha.

That will at least achieve one thing - hate mongering extremists like arjuns, jays the passive gays, peeing mishras, ballukhans, mumbaikers, mohars and their ilk will disappear from this website - they will commit atma hathya, hopefully.

:-)

Fuzair
When I want to remind myself why I dislike Pakistanis I remember how many thousands of Indians have died to jihadi conflict between the Lahore declaration and the Islamabad declaration. And for what? The Islamabad declaration is more unfavorable to Pakistan wrt Kashmir than the Lahore one.

Pakistan may be the only country in the world which harms itself and others purely for ideology or a stubborn refusal to re-assess policy.

If you want a parallel with the Indian support for LTTE, after the failure of IPKF and the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi, India chose not go ahead inspite of these losses to support LTTE to the extent of threatening itself and the whole polity in TN either by creating a deluge of refugees or by allowing propagation of LTTE ideology on Indian soil. India has followed its best interest in staying away from the conflict to the extent of refusing appeals from all parties, the SL govt, the LTTE and the Norwegians to intercede.

Fuzair #392,

Fuzair, Indians admit the mistakes they made in Sri Lanka.

Are you going to do the same re: Kashmir and Bangladesh?