Pakistan-Afghan Relations in Murky Waters

rsribhar #25

`` This means a lot to me. Personally, I feel so much better by the 24,400 years compared to the 710 million years. I mean, babu, this is a huge difference - no wonder I dislike those damned Pakis so much. They are such extremists. ``

All radioactive stuff are not good. it is like a necessary evil.

Government of Pakistan`s brotherly policy to (Islamic) brotherly afghanistan exposed...

Government trying to hoodwink US: Fazl

LAHORE: The Pakistani government is deceiving the US and the West by helping militants freely enter Afghanistan from Waziristan, Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA) Secretary General Maulana Fazlur Rehman said on Sunday.

He told a press conference that the government should give the identity of the infiltrators and its (government’s) motives for helping them enter Afghanistan.

“They must also give the nation the identities of the men being moved from Waziristan to militant camps in Mansehra. This is hypocrisy. The rulers are not only trying to deceive the US and the West, but also hoodwinking the entire nation,” he added.

Earlier, Fazl had said that if pressured he would reveal facts that would open a Pandora’s box.

“We ask the rulers to reveal the identity of the people being transported to Afghanistan from Waziristan via Kaali Sarak in private vehicles, reveal who is supervising their trouble-free entry into Afghanistan and reasons for their infiltration,” he said.

The government would have to decide whether it wanted to support jihadis or close down their camps, he said, adding, “We will have to openly tell the world whether we want to support jihadis or crack down on them. We can’t afford to be hypocritical anymore,” he said. Fazl also accused Information Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed of running a jihadi camp for Kashmiri fighters near Islamabad. He said the government was accusing clerics of promoting religious extremism and militancy although they (clerics) were playing an active role in restoring peace in the tribal areas.

Fazl, who is also the leader of the opposition in the National Assembly, warned of nationwide protests over the government’s crackdown against religious seminaries and a decision to expel their foreign students. He said action against madrassas was against human rights and that the MMA would protest against it in the entire country. He did not specify when the protests would start. Fazl’s comments came two days after Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz said a decision by President Pervez Musharraf to expel foreigners studying at madrassas was irrevocable.

Musharraf took the decision last month amid concern that Pakistan had not done enough to curb Islamic extremism in madrassas. The move also came after investigators said two suspects in the deadly July 7 bombings in London might have been to madrassas in Pakistan.

Fazl said the government had taken the decision under international pressure. “The entire world knows that this action is being taken after pressure by foreign countries,” he added. Interior Ministry officials said over the weekend that visas of all foreign Islamic students would be cancelled, but it was not yet clear when the first students would leave the country.

Fazl also criticised the Lahore High Court for barring people with degrees from seminaries from contesting the local council elections.

Fazl said the Election Commission of Pakistan had told him that there was no such ban on candidates with madrassa degrees.

#27 by Simon_Templar on August 6, 2005 3:03pm PT


India is the number one terrorist in the neighbourhood.


In your eyes perhaps...the rest of the world doesn`t see it that way....which is why Pakiland is in the news for it`s support to jihadi terrorists...


Indians are shameless people who assign terrorism to legitimate freedom struggles by oppressed people


And you are gutless people who don`t have the testicular fortitude to change anything.....

babu #24, Praful Bidwai says {``Radioactive poisons persist and remain dangerous for years, some for tens of thousands of years. For instance, the half-life of plutonium-239, which India uses in its bombs, is 24,400 years. And the half-life of uranium-235, which Pakistan uses in its bombs, is 710 million years!``}

This means a lot to me. Personally, I feel so much better by the 24,400 years compared to the 710 million years. I mean, babu, this is a huge difference - no wonder I dislike those damned Pakis so much. They are such extremists.

Salim

It is amazing the Pakistani media likes to patronize leftists from India and Nepal.
They have no qualms repressing their own liberals.

On a side note I am not sure how many Pakistanis would want the Japanese Imperial Army to be on their soil. 50% of the population of Andaman Islands were history in a couple of years.

---

The world`s worst terrorist act

Praful Bidwai

As the clock struck 8:15 a.m. in Japan this very day exactly 60 years ago, the world witnessed a wholly new kind and scale of brutality, leading to mass death. The entire city of Hiroshima was flattened by a single bomb, made with just 60 kg of uranium, and dropped from a B-29 United States Air Force warplane.

Within seconds, temperatures in the city centre soared to 4,0000C, more than 2,5000 higher than the melting point of iron. Savage firestorms raged through Hiroshima as buildings were reduced to rubble. Giant shock-waves releasing blast energy ripped through the city, wreaking more destruction.

Within seconds, 80,000 people were killed. Within hours, over 100,000 died, most of them crushed under the impact of blast-waves and falling buildings, or severely burnt by firestorms. Not just people, the body and soul of Hiroshima had died.

Then came waves of radiation, invisible and intangible, but nevertheless lethal. These took their toll slowly, painfully and cruelly. Those who didn`t die within days from radiation sickness produced by exposure to high doses of gamma-rays or poisonous radio-nuclides, perished over years from cancers and leukaemias. The suffering was excruciating and prolonged. Often, the living envied the dead. Hiroshima`s death toll climbed to 140,000.

This was a new kind of weapon, besides which even deadly chemical armaments like mustard gas pale into insignificance. You could defend yourself against conventional-explosive bombs by hiding in an air-raid shelter or sandbagging your home. To protect yourself from a chemical attack, you could wear a gas mask and a special plastic suit. But against the nuclear bombs, there could be no defence --military, civil or medical.

Nuclear weapons are unique for yet another reason. They are, typically, not meant to be used against soldiers, but are earmarked for use against unarmed non-combatant civilians. But it is illegitimate and illegal to attack non-combatant civilians. Attacking them is commonly called terrorism. Hence, Hiroshima remains the world`s worst terrorist act.

Hiroshima`s bombing was followed three days later by an atomic attack on Nagasaki, this time with a bomb using a different material, plutonium. The effects were equally devastating. More than 70,000 people perished in agonising ways.

US President Harry S. Truman was jubilant. Six days later, Japan surrendered. The US cynically exploited this coincidence. It claimed that the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki had saved thousands of lives by bringing the war to an early end. This was a lie. Japan was preparing to surrender anyway and was only waiting to negotiate the details of the terms. That entire country has been reduced to a wasteland. Most of its soldiers had stopped fighting. Schoolgirls were being drafted to perform emergency services in Japanese cities.

American leaders knew this. Historians Peter Kuznick and Mark Selden have just disclosed in the British New Scientist magazine that three days before Hiroshima, Truman agreed Japan was ``looking for peace``. General Dwight Eisenhower said in a 1963 Newsweek interview that ``the Japanese were ready to surrender and it wasn`t necessary to hit them with that awful thing``. Truman`s chief of staff, Admiral William Leahy, also said that ``the use of this barbarous weapon at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was of no material assistance in our war against Japan. The Japanese were already defeated and ready to surrender``.

The real function of the two bombs was not military, but political. It was to establish the US`s superiority and pre-eminence within the Alliance that defeated the Axis powers, and thus to shift the terms of the ensuing new power struggle in Washington`s favour.

The Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings inaugurated another rivalry: the Cold War, which was to last for four decades. They also triggered fierce competition among the other victors of the World War to acquire nuclear weapons. The insane arms race this launched but hasn`t ended yet.

From a few dozen bombs in the early 1950s, the world`s nuclear arsenals swelled to several hundred warheads in a decade, and then several thousand by the 1970s. At the Cold War`s peak, the world had amassed 70,000 nukes, with explosive power equivalent to one million Hiroshimas, enough to destroy Planet Earth 50 times over. One-and-a-half decades after the Cold War ended, the world still has 36,000 nuclear weapons. Nothing could be a greater disgrace!

Nuclear weapons are uniquely destructive and have never ceased to horrify people and hurt the public conscience. The damage they cause is hard to limit in space --thanks to the wind-transporting radioactivity over thousands of miles --or in time. Radioactive poisons persist and remain dangerous for years, some for tens of thousands of years. For instance, the half-life of plutonium-239, which India uses in its bombs, is 24,400 years. And the half-life of uranium-235, which Pakistan uses in its bombs, is 710 million years!

Nuclear weapons violate every rule of warfare and every convention governing the conduct of armed conflict, they target non-combatant civilians. They kill indiscriminately and massively. They cause death in cruel, inhumane and degrading ways. And the destruction gets transmitted to future generations through genetic defects. That`s why nuclear weapons have been held to be incompatible with international law by the International Court of Justice.

The world public overwhelmingly wants nuclear weapons to be abolished. The pro-abolition sentiment is strong and endorsed by 70 to 90 percent of the population even in the nuclear weapons-states (NWSs), according to opinion polls. More than 180 nations have forsworn nuclear weapons by signing the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). But a handful of states remain addicted to their ``nuclear fix``. Led by the US, five NWSs refuse to honour their obligation under the NPT to disarm their nuclear weapons. And three of them, India, Pakistan and Israel, haven`t even signed the treaty.

India and Pakistan occupy a special position within the group of NWSs. They are its most recent members. They are regional rivals too, with a half-century-long hot-cold war, which has made South Asia the world`s ``most dangerous place``. There is an imperative need for India and Pakistan, rooted in self-preservation, to negotiate nuclear restraint and abolition of nuclear weapons. But the chances of this seem rather dim.

Even dimmer is the possibility of the five major NWSs embracing nuclear disarmament. Their reluctance to do so largely springs from their faith in nuclear deterrence. This is a dangerously flawed doctrine. It makes hopelessly unrealistic assumptions about unfailingly rational and perfect behaviour on the part of governments and military leaders and rules out strategic miscalculation as well as accidents. The real world is far messier, and full of follies, misperceptions and mishaps. Yet, the deterrence juggernaut rolls on.

Today, the system of restraint in the global nuclear order is on the verge of being weakened. The US-India nuclear deal (discussed here last week) is a bad precedent. But even worse are US plans to develop nukes both downwards (deep-earth penetrators or bunker-busters) and upwards (``Star Wars``-style space-based Ballistic Missile Defence). If the US conducts nuclear tests in pursuit of this, that will impel others to follow suit, and encourage some non-nuclear states to go overtly nuclear, raising the spectre of another Hiroshima.

Sixty years on, that would be a disgrace without parallel. Humankind surely deserves better.



The writer is a Delhi-based researcher, peace and human rights activist,and former newspaper editor.

Email: prafulbidwai1@yahoo.co.in

Ayaz Amir agrees: Pakistan is treated like a condom...


Strategic this and that


By Ayaz Amir


SARDAR Manmohan Singh of Gah’s visit to Washington and the purported upgradation of Indo-American ties it points to — nuclear deal hot on the heels of a ten-year defence arrangement — has the Pakistani establishment shell-shocked, its think-tankers — the sorry figures who pass for strategic experts — desperate to figure out what this flowering of passion means for Pakistan.

There are few flakier things on the planet than the Pakistani establishment. Long on exaggerated hope, short on considered judgment, building castles in the air at the slightest hint of interest from Washington, confidence completely shattered if a cold breeze blows from that quarter, this is less a relationship than an on/off sickness lasting now for 58 years.

Why should Pakistan get a cold sweat if Delhi and Washington are moving closer to each other? If we have our wits about us, this is cause for rejoicing not despair, the best news for Pakistan in years.

The Washington connection has done more harm than good to Pakistan. Far from being a source of strength it is partly responsible for the foolish adventures Pakistan has indulged in over the years. There was no compelling reason why we should have been members of SEATO and Cento, none for lending Badaber to the Americans as a spying base against the erstwhile Soviet Union, none for being such a ready instrument of American policy in Afghanistan in the 1980s.

True, the post-September 11 situation demanded that we be accommodating to American wishes — the call of wisdom, so to speak. Had we missed our cue, the great republic of India, panting in the wings to clamber aboard America’s wagon, would have been only too happy to take our place. But to say yes on the basis of a single telephone call and without negotiating any details with the Americans? This was carrying accommodativeness too far, our alacrity in jumping to attention taking even our American friends by surprise.

There should be a law forbidding the use of the word ‘strategic’ in Pakistan, its indiscriminate use causing much avoidable harm. There is nothing strategic — never was — in Pakistan’s ties with the US. Whatever exaggerated hopes we might have invested in them, for the US it was always a short-term arrangement geared to specific goals. Those goals achieved, the US, quite rightly, moved on whereas we remained rooted to the same spot, muttering dark words about betrayal. America has never betrayed Pakistan. It has acted in its self-interest. If we haven’t done that always, if our perception of the national interest has often been blinkered, how is America to blame?

America didn’t say it would help with our Kashmir policy when we signed up with it after September 11. That was the meaning we chose to read into our hop-step-and-jump, for good measure Gen Musharraf brandishing a fist in India’s direction and saying, “Lay off”. Brave words soon to be eaten when India, a few months later, massed troops on the border and America pressured Pakistan to get serious about “religious extremism” and “cross-border terrorism”. Far from protecting Kashmir policy, the American alliance was helping unravel it.

That a rethink on Kashmir might have been a good thing in itself is beside the point. This is not what Musharraf and coterie expected when they pledged faith with America.

America was very clear about what it wanted: over-flight rights, military bases, logistics support for the attack on Afghanistan. Less clear-headed, our military bosses substituted wishfulness for realism. Or perhaps they calculated that American support for the Musharraf regime was enough recompense for the pains Pakistan was taking in the first of George Bush’s ‘terror wars’. Pakistan’s old problem: self-interest overriding other considerations.

The path since taken — friendship with India, “enlightened moderation” et al — is not something our generals chose for themselves. Circumstances — above all, the logic of the American connection — steered them in this direction.

It can be argued that a good thing is a good thing no matter whence it comes. Yes and no. Because this rapprochement was American-inspired instead of being homegrown, it hasn’t taken us very far. While Pakistan has shown all the flexibility on matters of substance, India has shown none. Buoyed by his Washington trip, the Indian prime minister has even reverted to some familiar charges against Pakistan — cross-border terrorism, the danger of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons falling in the wrong hands, etc. Against the backdrop of these developments, the euphoria generated by Musharraf’s trip to India earlier this year already seems a distant memory.

The Americans wanted the guns to fall silent along the Line of Control. They remain silent. Beyond that they aren’t about to lose much sleep if things aren’t moving the way Pakistan expected.

A psychology of dependence is what the American connection has fostered above all. This explains the high profile the American embassy has always enjoyed in Pakistan and also the deeply-held belief cherished by Pakistani politicos that the road to Islamabad runs through Washington.

Powell or Rice picking up the telephone and talking not to their counterparts in the foreign office but directly to the president, an assistant secretary of state getting amazing VVIP treatment here, Centcom chiefs visiting Pakistan and being received like overlords, are examples of the same syndrome.

The latest is America announcing the dispatch of two aging F-16s to Pakistan and Pakistani authorities reacting as if manna has dropped from heaven. This is not even funny, it’s beyond ridicule. There’s not much strategic about two first-generation F-16s. Sure, more are set to follow but the deal will be a noose round our neck, putting us in hock to the US for years to come.

Are we preparing for war with India? Doesn’t the bomb and the ability to deliver it give us enough of a deterrent? Vietnam doesn’t have F-16s, yet it is able to face China, its traditional enemy. China doesn’t have F-16s, yet it is able to face the world. Why are we intent on bleeding national resources in order to afford a luxury which is not likely to be used and is probably destined for the scrapheap in 20 years’ time? Let’s plough the same money into health and education and see what a difference that makes.

Time the PAF outgrew its infantile delusions and learnt to do more with less. With a huge army, bigger than is good for us, and nuclear capability, what more do we want for national defence? Commissions from arms deals? A reasonable desire — but a point must come when self-interest is balanced against what the country can afford.

We must be good friends with America, no doubt about this, with American-bashing no part of our rhetorical armour. But to behave as if security and life depend upon America is to misrepresent America and insult ourselves.

Barring religious firebrands fed on a diet of Al Qaeda-inspired anti-Americanism, Pakistanis in the mass are not anti-American. They are just Americo-sceptic, finding little to cheer in what America is up to in Iraq and Palestine.

Even so, having long dined at the table of American approval, and with nothing much to show for it, let us not be frightened if, in a reversal of roles, India, the parvenu power of the subcontinent, counts it as a blessing to follow where we once led. Inasmuch as this enables us to get out of the old ruts of national thinking and explore fresh options, looking to our neighbourhood and China and distant Russia, this should be counted a blessing, not a curse.

Only question is: are our generals and defence mandarins at all capable of entering this brave new world? Are they capable of fresh thinking? The signs are not propitious. If these guys can’t get a simple thing like the Mukhtaran Mai case straight, it takes an effort of the will to imagine them mastering anything more complicated.

Ranjit #19,
Everything you said is true and I agree with you - except the part about nuking Pakiland. I think that India is in a fortunate position, even better than 1971, to rectify matters. Pakistan, a stupid mistake to begin with, is coming apart at the seams, internally. Now is the time to show compassion to the unfortunate people of that country. If I could advise India, I would recommend that India help Pakiland by slowly and gradually reintegrating this once happy area of northwestern India back into the motherland.

By the way, here is an example of the viciousness of some Pakis. It is just more than the Paki establishment, even some individual Pakis are adamant on alienating others, including their own former allies. This is from the ``Losing ...Religion`` forum:


#97 by Saminasha on August 4, 2005 11:51am PT
{``Ah...the ``husband`` of the Turkish whore speaks..Romair, you must ask Salim Chuhan to post pics of his wife servicing other men...for some reason, chuhan found it necessary to advertise the extent of his cuckolded condition.....and of course, no pics of himself...undoubtably he is as physically lacking as he is creatively and er...well....lets leave it there....``}

and #108 by Romair {``I almost started singing, ``Pak Sar Zameen`` after reading the, ``Turkish whore`` comment........ ``}


Saminasha, Romair
I showed my wife your kind comments about her. She is a very religious young Turkish Muslim woman and was obviously disappointed with such language emanating from fellow Muslims and brotherly/sisterly Pakis. Actually, I showed her Saminasha`s picture (the famous one of her at Lehmann College in the Bronx!). When my wife stopped laughing, I informed her that this ``lady`` is a leading spokesperson for women`s rights and that Brother Romair is a valiant jihadi battling the enemies of Islam and Pakistan.

My wife wants you to know that she will pray for a cure for whatever is afflicting Saminasha to give her such a rotten mouth. She will also pray that Romair does not end up as a crude delivery module for one of AlKayda`s mass transit bombs.

It is amazing how some Pakis go out of their way to alienate others, even those who would be their normal allies. Pretty soon, Indians and Israelis will have to get in line behind the Turks, Arabs, Afghans, British, and Americans in expressing their disgust at Pakis and Pakiland.

Salim

August 5, 2005
Afghanistan`s Forgotten War

Afghanistan is out of the headlines, but its war against the Taliban goes on. These days, it is not going well. One of the most important reasons for that is the ambivalence of Pakistan, the nation that originally helped create, nurture and train the Taliban. Even now, Pakistan`s military ruler, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, seems to invest far more energy in explaining his government`s tolerance of Taliban activities than he does in trying to shut them down.

General Musharraf has provided logistical help to Pentagon operations and cooperation to American law enforcement agencies trying to track down Al Qaeda leaders. But his aid has been frustratingly selective. He has been an intermittent collaborator in the fight against international terrorism rather than a fully committed ally. Washington has been understandably reluctant to push him for more consistency, not wanting to risk losing the help he does offer.

Pakistan`s passive enabling of the Taliban, however, is too important and dangerous for Washington to overlook. The current Taliban offensive is killing American soldiers - at least 38 have died in action so far this year, as well as hundreds of Afghans. It also endangers next month`s parliamentary elections.

Successful elections are crucial to extending the geographical reach of Afghanistan`s new national institutions. And they can provide needed political accountability for President Hamid Karzai, who now rules without an elected Parliament. Afghanistan will be a functioning democracy only when citizens can take their grievances against the central government to elected local representatives instead of to armed local warlords. Those grievances are real. Some governors and police chiefs Mr. Karzai has appointed are thuggish and corrupt. Antidrug efforts go after poor farmers while traffickers thrive. Alternative development lags. A lack of judges stymies the rule of law.

Earlier this year, there were reasons to be hopeful about Afghanistan`s future. The presidential election had gone off remarkably smoothly, and the absence of major attacks on polling places suggested that Pakistan was at last responding to Washington`s pleas to rein in the Taliban. Mr. Karzai had begun easing notorious warlords out of cabinet ministries and provincial governorships. More money was being directed at antinarcotics efforts.

But once the snows began to melt this March, Taliban fighters started showing up in greater numbers and with suspiciously sophisticated gear in regions of Afghanistan that border Pakistan. Afghan military and intelligence officers are convinced that they are coming from Pakistani training camps.

General Musharraf says that he has sent tens of thousands of troops to police border areas. Yet well-supplied Taliban fighters keep showing up to battle American troops in Afghanistan. He insists that the training camps are still shut down and that he is committed to thwarting the Taliban, but says he must proceed cautiously so he doesn`t inflame militant groups in Pakistan. That would be more persuasive had the general not spent close to six years marginalizing mainstream parties and cutting deals with Islamic extremists to reinforce his rule.

When questioned about why he has repeatedly violated his promises to restore civilian democracy, General Musharraf argues that he must retain power because Pakistan needs his strong and effective hand. Washington needs to ask him why that strong hand seems so helpless against the Taliban.

Re:rsribhar#14

Salim,

I respect your sentiments. My extreme anger and frustration against Pakistan stems from the pig-headedness of your establishment that just does not get it. The Pakistani establishment is a rogue entity that is obsessed with jihad, militancy, a weird, twisted and absurd interpretation of Islam and is a negative force threatening everyone in the world. Is it a coincidence that every terrorist action is getting traced to Pakistan? Is everyone in the world biased or is there something seriously wrong with your country?

Why not just live in peace and develop your country? If there is no Kashmir militancy or Taliban, neither India nor Afghanistan would have anything against Pakistan. Nor would the west bother Pakistan. But no, your establishment spends 5% time on Pakistan and 95% time on Kashmir and Afghanistan. Their satanic policy is to take impressionable kids from poor families, brainwash them into becoming religious lunatics, give them weapons and push them towards certain death by pointing them towards Kashmir and Afghanistan. This is war crimes against everyone including your own people. Can you see why people feel like nuking Pakistan?

Re: # 19

India is the number one terrorist in the neighbourhood. Indians are shameless
people who assign terrorism to legitimate freedom struggles by oppressed
people whose countries were hijacked by common chores like Nehru & Gandhi.

Aik tu chori, oper sey seena zori. Subhaan`allah.

Re:faizanhafeez

Lets do an objective comparison on poverty, shall we? If you look at the HDI rankings which is the measure of a country`s development, Pakistan is the worst, yes WORST, in the entire subcontinent. Even Bangladesh is ahead of you in development. You may not like to hear this, but this is the objective truth. Go online, google ``HDI rankings`` and take a look for yourself. You know quite well that your country is a beggar nation that goes around with a begging bowl to every country for money.

As far as anecdotal evidence is concerned, people in Pakistan are committing suicide because they cannot feed their families. How can they? There are no jobs. If you have some contacts, you can get in somewhere. There is no concept of merit. There are no industries except those supporting jihad.

You want to compare wealth, forget about Calcutta. Lets talk about Delhi, Bombay and Bangalore. Your upper class against our upper class. We can buy and sell all of you in Pakistan 10 times over with the money we have in these places. So dont try to show-off affluence.

As far as ruling India is concerned, that was done by Turks and Mughals, not dirty Pakistanis. You dont even rule yourselves, let alone rule India. The USA rules you via a tinpot dictator. If George Bush sneezes, half of Islamabad catches a cold. You have literally won the gold medal in extreme corruption as a society, which means you have no morals. You treat your minorities like garbage with extreme persecution of Ahmedis, Hindus, Christians and now, even Shias.

In summary, you have zero self-respect, zero tolerance, zero morals and zero integrity. The only thing you can do is train and supply illiterate jihadies, who die like animals.

1. ``At some point in the future India might have to expend its resources on a potentially nuclear war to destroy the Pakistani establishment for good.``

2. It does not have the means to do so and Pakistan as a country is little more than a pile of junk

3. Stop being selfish! Please, just reunify these four provinces back into a united India.

My response to the above statements..
Despite all the odds and the negative reporting Pakistan has done much better than India in so many regards.
Pakistan is a beautiful country..brick by brick and street by street much ` much `` cleaner and better organized than neighbouring India.
Nowhere in Pakistan one sees the `Extreme povery`` that is visible through out India.
I remember recently in Calcutta, when we finished a meal the restaurant waiter took our plates and threw out the left over peices of bread and what ever was left by us on to the street...I could not believe what I saw...there were ugly, half naked and to the bones people who jumped on the remains of our food.. fighting for the left over peices.
So dear east Indians...
India has a lot to achieve before it can start bombing out other nations.
After ruling the Indian Subcontinent for over a 1000 years..
We the Pakistanis feel extremely lucky to be independent and our own masters.

As far as Afghanistan goes...the great game continues.

Re: # 17

Well said. They do not call Calcutta ``The Dark Hole``, for nothing. They were
showing an indian documentary today titled ``War And Peace`` about the foo-
lishness of indian nuclear ambitions while more than half of that country does
not have a pot to pi** in.

Re: # 17

Faisanhafeez.....If this isn`t the worst interact i have seen on this site then someone bite me.``Ugly , half-naked`` people??.Please, if you have to make something up , to state your case, be a little more imaginative.And, remember, we did bomb you and bifurcate your land at a time when we had , to quote you,``more ugly and half naked people`` and less amount of armaments than what we have today.Shame on you.

#14 by rsribhar on August 4, 2005 8:06am PT

India and Pakiland need to be like Israel and Turkey....get on with their lives...

babu #11,
After all the chest thumping is completed, both India and Pakistan will come to the realization that it is in the best interests of their nations and citizens to bury the hatchet. Economic cooperation, freedom of movement, and destruction of barriers will ultimately take over and we will all forget these ``bad old days.`` Religion should and will become a personal matter for individuals and no concern of the government. People will group themselves by economic, professional, and cultural affiliations rather than religious ones. Experience is the best teacher. The tolerant environment in the West and the US/Canada is a direct result of the horrors of religious persecutions and wars in Europe from the 15th, 16th, and 17th centuries - these gave rise to the Age of Reason in the 18th century.
Peace,
Salim

#4 by Urstruly

[If Pakistan stops supporting the occupation and the puppet regime, that acts as a front for the occupation, the puppet regime would fall in about 20 minutes or sooner.]

And pray tell us what you are? You are just as much a puppet, living within a system that you loathe, yet paying taxes to the very government that bombs the living daylights out of your Muslim brethren. You, of all people, shouldn`t be talking about puppets and occupation.

Re:bbabu#9

``At some point in the future India might have to expend its resources on a potentially nuclear war to destroy the Pakistani establishment for good.``

Bingo!! That is what we Indians need to understand and prepare for. The Pakistani establishment is obsessed with building an Islamic empire from Oxus to Srinagar. It does not have the means to do so and Pakistan as a country is little more than a pile of junk. Still it has a lethal strategy of using its own young people as jihad fodder to create chaos and havoc for other countries. This barbarism is now affecting countries all over the world. The Pakistani establishment will never back down because life is cheap in Pakistan. Unlike India where there are economic opportunities, people in Pakistan have no career prospects and prefer to die rather than live. Hence young people are in plentiful supply to be trained and sent as homicidal killers to other countries.

Thus a final war with Pakistan is inevitable. We have to have the fourth battle of Panipat to settle the communal question once and for all. The good thing is that world opinion will be on our side, because no one likes Pakistan. Even muslims countries like Iran and Afghanistan hate Pakistan.

Re: # 12
[We have to have the fourth battle of Panipat ]

...nananana na na...any place but panipat....;)...shall we say it has never been auspicious for indians... :-)

rsribhar #10

`` babu,
Stop being selfish! Please, just reunify these four provinces back into a united India. This single act will solve so many problems:
1. Kashmir impasse
2. Cross-border terrorism
3. Sectarian violence in Pakistan
4. Runaway defense expenditures
5. Communal strife
6. Threat of nuclear war

and the list goes on.

Salim ``

I am not a war monger. Given the attitudes in the Pakistani establishment, trajectories of the Indian and Pakistani states, prevailing geo-political trends it is almost a given that there will be a showdown between India and Pakistan. The only way for it not to happen is for the Pakistani elite to back off. If Pakistani elite is convinced that they will not get external help against India they will start negotiating. It is possible China, Iran, Russia, Saudi Arabia and America might persuade Pakistan to abandon their confrontation with India. I will believe it when I see it.

#9, bbabu {``Pakistan needs to be broken up into 3-4 small countries that have totally different policies from the present. That is the only way to have peace in this region. `` }

babu,
Stop being selfish! Please, just reunify these four provinces back into a united India. This single act will solve so many problems:
1. Kashmir impasse
2. Cross-border terrorism
3. Sectarian violence in Pakistan
4. Runaway defense expenditures
5. Communal strife
6. Threat of nuclear war

and the list goes on.

Salim

ranjit #1

`` When will the world realize that the real problem is Pakistan? That is where the US and UK in parternship with India has to go in and clean house. It may mean a swift nuclear war to take out the Pakistani establishment and then cleaning the place up. Pakistan needs to be broken up into 3-4 small countries that have totally different policies from the present. That is the only way to have peace in this region. ``

At some point in the future India might have to expend its resources on a potentially nuclear war to destroy the Pakistani establishment for good.

Urstruly #4

`` If Pakistan stops supporting the occupation and the puppet regime, that acts as a front for the occupation, the puppet regime would fall in about 20 minutes or sooner. It is jsut as simple as that. Period. ``

Nice try !!!

If Pakistan did not support the Taliban it would not exist in the first place. Half of Afghanistan is dominated by Tajiks, Hazaras and Uzbeks. They have no desire to be under Taliban rule.

#4 by Urstruly on August 3, 2005 9:32am PT


If Pakistan stops supporting the occupation and the puppet regime


Well...Pakiland is occupied by the current puppet regime so I don`t see how you have a choice...If the puppet master tells mushy to bomb the paki tribals, he`ll do it...

Salim, I agree with all your comments. They are very well pointed out. But I do not believe that partition was a mistake. Though, I do recognise that others were blunders.

Farooq,
Thank you for your timely and well-written essay about this third most fateful mistake in Pakistan`s history. The first was Partition and the second was alienating East Pakistan. By meddling in Afghanistan right from the late 70s, here is what Pakis have accomplished:

1. Alienated the Tajik, Hazara, and Uzbek people against Pakistan for generations.
2. Played an unappreciated host to millions of Afghan refugees over 25 years.
3. Ruined Pakistan`s peace and tranquility with the introduction of a ``Kalashnikov`` culture
4. Worsened the already delicate Shia/Sunni relationship within Pakistan by importing anti-
Shia attitude of the Tally Bans.
5. Created the worst interpretation of Islamic values since Wahabbism by helping Tally Bans
6. Became identified with 9/11, Tally Ban, AlKayda, and other detested events and groups.

Next time we decide to help our Muslim brethren, let`s make sure that our actions will actually help them AND us. Otherwise, let`s mind our own business and clean our own house. BTW, this advice may also apply to Kashmir.

Thanks,
Salim

If Pakistan stops supporting the occupation and the puppet regime, that acts as a front for the occupation, the puppet regime would fall in about 20 minutes or sooner. It is jsut as simple as that. Period.

Wasn`t this BS published as an op-ed in ``the Nation``?

The taliban is now using pakiland for strategic depth...If they can`t have their way in Afghanistan, they`ll get their buddies to pass taliban like laws in Pakiland...

Fun to see pakis squirming...

While I would not advocate such an extreme position as ranjit in #1 has, the fact of the matter is that Pakistan`s complicity in the continuing strife in Afghanistan and Kashmir is as clear as daylight. When proven murderers like Maulana Masood Azhar of the JeM and Hafiz Mohammed Sayeed of the LeT, not to mention Dawood Ibrahim are enjoying state protection and patronage, any measures taken to clamp down on militancy is at best a cosmetic step and a total farce.

Musharraf`s innocent protestations notwithstanding, the elaborate drama that is staged in Pakistan, where hundreds are rounded up immediately after a major incident in the west in a `crackdown` and then quitely let go when the spotlight is off Pakistan, is not lost on anyone, least of all the cunning Americans. I`m sure when Uncle Sam has decided that enough is enough, he won`t hesitate to do an Iraq-style invasion.

Now most Pakis will say that Pakistan is not Iraq, but then, try telling that to Uncle Sam.

Why dont you admit the obvious? Pakistan is playing a diabolical double game in Afghanistan and Kashmir. Due to US pressure, it takes cosmetic steps against a few people in Pakistan and tries to pretend that it is no longer interested in Afghanistan. Similarly, in Kashmir it pretends that it is having a peace process. Under the surface, the Pakistani establishment is playing a vicious game of fueling militancy in both Aghanistan and Kashmir. Training camps have reopened in PoK and militant infiltration is increasing in Kashmir. Taliban have been given complete refuge in Pakistan and they are infiltrating into Afghanistan to create trouble. The entire process in both places is calibrated and fine tuned by Musharraf. When things are quiet, he turns on the militancy in both places. When things heat up like after the London blasts, he cools it down to take the heat off.

When will the world realize that the real problem is Pakistan? That is where the US and UK in parternship with India has to go in and clean house. It may mean a swift nuclear war to take out the Pakistani establishment and then cleaning the place up. Pakistan needs to be broken up into 3-4 small countries that have totally different policies from the present. That is the only way to have peace in this region.