To Die For.....the War at Wana

Urstruly #59/62: ``Dear Pakistanis the mortal combat with the neo-colonial thugs and their proxies among us have begun. It is their last battle but for us it is just the beggining.....I resent the fact that everytime there is election in America, this morally bankrupt and lawless nation starts killing innocent people somewhere in the globe. The people of the third world pay with their blood to send another bigott to white house for this nation. ``

If this is true, then why are you sitting comfortably in the USA? Is the namaaz-e-janaaza of hypocrites haram in Islam also? I do not recall any Muslims sitting comfortably amongst the Quraish of Mecca, paying taxes there ot help the military machine, and living off the luxuries, while their Muslim brethren were struggling in Medina.

Each penny of tax that you pay to the USA is going into the military equipment that is being used in Iraq. Yet you have no intention to leave the country. I couldn`t stand the double standard of doing that and criticising the USA, so I left. Why don`t you have the courage to leave. It is, after all, your tax money that is being used to kill innocent Iraqis.

You and hamidm are the two most shrill individuals on this site, when it comes to pushing your agendas. Yet all both of you do is talk and talk and blow hot air, while simultaneously announcing your commitment to your respective causes.

Why is it that the people who are the most vocal supporters of their causes, always rely on the children of others to do their dirty work. I would have expected you to go back to Pakistan and join the fighters in Kashmir or in Wana. And I would have expected hamidm to join the Army in taking out his religious nemesis.

Participating in a few student demonstrations on Mall road and getting arrested now and then, is a piece of cake. Real guts is only shown when one volunteers for military conflict (like many of us did) in our 20s. In all honesty, have you ever really volunteered any kind of military, ``jihad`` to help your fellow Muslim. If not, then why are you such an avid supporter of it?

Why is it that those in Sacremento and LA and San Jose are the most vocal Pakistani revolutionaries. If you cannot walk the walk, and have never even attempted to do so, why talk the talk?

Hypocrisy is, after all, against the Shariah. Or is it not against your Shariah? You, as a resident of the USA, are responsible for the crimes against humanity that you accuse the USA of. Yet your material greed does not allow you to leave the USA.

Huma-mir # 34

Interestingly enough (or should I say disgustingly enough) it was Americans who incited violence in East Pakistan thru this morally bankrupt Na Pak Fauj to control the influx of communist ideology from West Bengal. The Na Pak fauj failed of course to deliver, despite rape and genocide; and then shiekh mujib became the next best option for Americans. And who paid for the crimes of these nerrownided morons - us Pakistanis.

I resent the fact that everytime there is election in America, this morally bankrupt and lawless nation starts killing innocent people somewhere in the globe. The people of the third world pay with their blood to send another bigott to white house for this nation.

ahmadzai # 46

I am not sure if i completely understand your point. All I said in my post (#34) was that it makes no sense to use this kind of overwhelming force. Just because use of force as a first resort is in fashion, thanks to Bush, does not mean that we adopt it in our own country against our own people. yes, there may be 400 or so chechens and other foriegners in that region, but the thousands who have been displaced were pakistanis. and so were the dozens of soldiers who were killed. There is no ``hidden agenda`` in my post. I am simply stating what i see. I hope was more clear this time.

Regards

ferozk #41 - Your commentry was an interesting read. I agree with most of your points. There is one sticking point:

It almost sounds as if you are saying ``lets give feudal lords some time, even 50 years, and eventually they will die out``.

Are you suggesting that we should enact a few half hearted measures and let the nature take its course? Unless we tackle feudalism head-on (maybe not as violently as we are tackling tribals), in 50 years feudalism will morph into some other form of elitism and we will have another menace to deal with. Feudalism in my humble opinion is a state of mind, and does not necessarily depend on land to survive.

It is time that the lawless tribal areas be brought under Pakistan control

This is the mantra of the anti-Muslim slave class in Paksitan who try to whitewash their own and their army`s crimes against humanity and lawlessness with the big words like ``law`` and ``control``. If guns could bring law and order among the people then Kashmir would have been the most law abiding place in the universe. But the fact is that even with 700,000 strong army and a with a lean mean genocidal machine these wusses could not bring control over few hundered freedom lovers. If guns were the answer then American sponsored Israeli genocidal machine would have brought law and order in Palestine by now.

How about bringing law and order into the country through a fair, just, and equitable social contract. A constitution that is respected and honored by these gun totting mafiosi called Na Pak Fauj. Any Na Pak fauji who dies while not protecting his constitution is worth no more than the carcass of a pye dog. His namaz-e-janaza is haraam. He died wiggling his tail obeying his foreign masters. he is not one of us. The constitution of Paksitan guarantees protection of life from state apparatus and these gun totting petty criminals and thugs called Na Pak fauj commit genocides and rapes of their own citizens while peeing on the constitution.

These short sighted pygmies who tow the line of their masters and their army mindlessly among us must be guilotined. There is no other way to our freedom. Dear Pakistanis the mortal combat with the neo-colonial thugs and their proxies among us have begun. It is their last battle but for us it is just the beggining.

Ferozek #41: A couple of comments in your reply, I agree with. Following are the ones, I disagree with:

1) Nearly every Chief of the Army and PAF has been from the middle class or lower-middle or upper-middle class (at most). I assume the Navy is the same. Ayub, Musa, Zia, Mehdi, Jamal Khan etc. I know (or know of) a couple of these guys. And they are generally all self-made middle class people. One can like them or dislike them, but one cannot doubt their self-made-ness or middle-class-ness.

There kids then may join the upper-middle class or upper-class like the rest of us Chowk guys and gals. But they themselves were quite middle-class. You will be surprised to find many Generals who actually did their initial schooling in villages.

The guy who got the Sword of Honor in my parallel course in the Army is a son of an enslisted Army man, and had never driven a car, since his family only owned bicycles. He would be lost in the Chowk crowd, since he speaks, ``paindu`` English. But I am quite sure he will be a General (maybe even COAS) in fifteen years time.

Air Marshall P.Q. Mehdi (the Chief of PAF, a few years ago) was not married. He had a mentally handicapped brother, and he looked after him his whole life, and thus decided not to get married. He used to live in the Officers` Mess. Air Marshall Jamal Khan`s brother works for an insurance company abroad, and one can regularly see Jamal Khan driving around to bookstores in Islamabad in his old Honda Accord.

In fact, Musharraf is the only one from the, ``Chowk crowd````, that I can think of. He is the son of a diplomat. So upper-middle class, but hardly upper-class.

There is royalty in the military, but it is a minority. For example Jamali`s son is in the military. I would have had a very middle class existense had I stayed in the military. Now I am rich by Pakistani standards. NazarHayatKhan would have been the same (though his generation was much higher paid than mine). But he became rich only after leaving the military and joining PIA.

The military is extremely middle-class and getting even more so. Which is how it should be. And which is how all institutions should be, i.e. non-elitist. Very early on, feudals and big businessmen used to send one brother into the military and one into the civil services. Now they only go into the civil services. Generals do try hard to marry their kids into big business houses and into feudal families, and sometimes succeed. But the powerful elite now does not send its kids into the military directly.

So the military-feudal or military-business nexus no longer exists. Other than in the form of Ejaz-ul-Haq and Gohar Ayub joining PML.

2) There is a myth that Muhajirs are not represented in the military. They are not represented at the enlisted ranks of Army and PAF, but they dominate the officer ranks (in comparison to their population). Not only that, Karachi dominates the complete military budget of the country.

More COAS have come from Karachi than from any other city in Pakistan. Aslam Beg and Musharraf being two. The Navy high command is filled with Karachiites. The recent coup was carried out by Muhajir generals.

If the military budget gets cut, Karachi will be the city most affected. Hence all the cries of Altaf Hussain about military budgets etc., are actually quite self-destructive. Consider the following:

The whole Navy is in Karachi. Other than an HQ Islamabad (with no ships) and a Staff College in Lahore, the whole Naval budget (probably 90%+) goes to Karachi. PAF has four major bases in Karachi in Shah-rahe-Faisal, Mauripur, Malir and Korangi. Two of these are huge, second only to Sargodha. The Army has a corps headquarters in Karachi.

Hence the military budget that goes to Muhajir-land in just Karachi, is greater than the military budget that goes to all of rural Sind, all of Baluchistan and all of NWFP combined. Yes, combined.

Muhajirs are, thus, easily the biggest beneficiaries of the military budget and the related civilian job creation. Karachi`s military budget must be at least ten times (probably much more) than the next largest city (probably Pindi).

Having said that, I still don`t think a middle class military can take out feudals. Feudalism, all over the world, is a very strong and resilient concept. It has taken civial wars, like the US Civil war, to reduce the power of the plantation owner. Or it has taken centuries.

Ironically, the only group, in my opinion, who may be able to be successful against feudals in Pakistan, are the maulvis.

Naipaul is an anti-Muslim bigot - a characteristic that all hindus share by default. I wouldn`t expect anything better from a hindu.

Naipaul is an anti-Muslim bigot - a characteristic that all hindus share by default. I wouldn`t expect anything better from a hindu.

Fuzair

``Also, Aslam Beg, former Army Chief, is a Muhajir. He was a real Muhajir, not like Pervez Musharraf who can at least give the choicest gaalis in the ThaaiTest punjabi.``

It appears Fuzair is one of those guys who can tell apart a real muhajir from a fake muhajir, if such a term exists. Over the years, it is people like Fuzair and this general air of ambivalence towards other factions in Pakistan that has caused great divisions in the Pakistani Psyche. So much so that in 2004, you can go to any kid in Pakistan`s urban centres and ask them to draw a list of provincial nationalities of the kids in their class, and he/she will be able to give you full insight into the lineage and provincial identities of those kids with relevant characteristics. This is the Fuzair School of thought shared by the majority... Muhajirs, Punjabis, Sindhis, Pashtoons and Baloch, real and fake, have different characteristics. In his post he praises musharraf in this racist tone, by declaring one of musharraf`s major acheivement as and I quote `` Atleast give the choicest gaalis in the thaaitest punjabi``.

Firstly not only is this derogotory to some of us who do not consider ourselves ``muhajir`` or refugees in a nation that our forefather gave up as much as anyone else`s to see the dream of pakistan to fruition. It also reenforces our fear of the archetypically nationalist mindsets that no amount of education or urbanisation can take out of a person`s character.

Fuzair should really start a school of identifying fake and real muhajirs, which will be very useful for the future generations, as there may always be a ``risk`` that we start looking at each other, mindful of only our individual characterisations and not our national identities.

re: Fuzair # 47

I was more interested in joining the PAF than Pakistan Army.

Ciao

re: Fuzair # 47

Fuzair, the context of my post was that army is a part of feudalism. It requires political support from the feudals to exist in power regardless of its COAS`s family history. The army may be lower middle class, but it certainly does not marry into the lower middle class.

You cannot separate the army from the curse of feudalism in Pakistan, because it is the largest land owner in Pakistan.

Ciao

Sadna at # 32:

Btw, you forgot to mention that MMA is the `B` team of the Government too (wink).

On a more serious note however, I believe that MMA`s stance is logical, because it knows that its only a sub-tribe of Waziristan making all the fuss and it also has Parliament to vent out its emotions. The parliament is currently debating the issue.

Huma Mir at # 34:

Don`t you think that there is simply too much of a hidden agenda in your post to qualify you as a Pakistani or an Indian Muslim or even a moderate Indian Hindu?

;-)

Zakkk at # 38:

khogawrura,
Da yo haqiqat day chey kum pa har cha zahir day chey Amrika pa Afghanistan kay bay zaroruta mudakhalat kawee au pa Pakistan banday dabao achawe chey pa kabailiee alakajaat kay muhim okree. Agarchey day Amrikay da sargarmeyanay bilkul munasib na dee, dey day wakht zarorat da dey chey ihtiyat aw miana-rawee sara kadam wakhlay, aw de waaro mukhalifo partiano sara bagair dey tafarika ziatoolo na yaw dasay kadam wakhlay cha zamung kabailee wrurna sara ikhtilaf payda na she. Dey tolona munasiba liar ba da we chey the kabailee jirgo sara siasee tarz banday kahbaray oshe, aw dey aahgee dey razamandee sara yaw pur amn liar ikhtiar she.

Summary: Let us be moderate and take the political route through participation.

(I was writing an email to an old respected frind of mine in Karachi and I decided to address along the same lines to you. I hope this clarifies my stance.) :-)

RE: FerozK #41

Ummm, just a couple of comments. Ayub was the son of Rissaldar, Musa was a ranker, Tikka Khan was also a ranker, Zia was the son of a non-gazetted officer in MoD India. This is not an Army dominated by grandees, nawabzadas, taluqdars and so on. We`ve certainly had grandee generals (Sher Ali Pataudi, Yaqub Khan, Abbasi, etc) but they have never put their `stamp` on it the same way that the Army Chiefs have.

A feudal dominated army may conceivably have been true up to 1965 but it is not true after 1971. Since then, the bulk of the Army`s officers have been the sons of JCOs/NCOs and lateral transfers from the PAF`s enlisted cadre (e.g., Captain Karnal Sher Khan was a PAF ranker).

Also, Aslam Beg, former Army Chief, is a Muhajir. He was a real Muhajir, not like Pervez Musharraf who can at least give the choicest gaalis in the ThaaiTest punjabi.

With all due respect, Feroz, need to update yourself on the Pakistan Army if you are going to comment on it and be taken seriously by anyone who knows anything. It is a purely lower middle class (at best) force. People like you and me haven`t joined it for a loooooong time. More the pity. A good friend of mine, the son of a retired PAF Air Commodore, joined the Army in 1982 and you should have seen the way his parents tried to talk him out of it. The general consensus was that he was far too smart to waste himself in the Army! When people who are actually middle class and who have had something that looks like a real education are a rarity in the Army, why is anyone surprised at the policies the Army comes up with?

Regards.

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