Black Tuesday: The View From Islamabad

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Rsaxena

{RE: semi-something-me

……can’t help it, can you?}

”No, I`m immature”



…..far be it for me to dispute that….

{….so the lack of democracy in cuba and their not-so-sterling record on human rights doesn’t bother you ?}

”But Cuba is secular. Human rights problems in Cuba? Yeah, OK, Fidel is not a saint but it is nothing compared to shariat law.”

….yeah, well, make sure that if you don’t like something about fidel, like the length of his beard, you keep it to yourself….just ask his daughter….and shariat law?…yes, but I thought we were talking about pakistan.

heyyy getting back to Enid B - I once landed up in boarding school because I was so taken in by those books. It was all so exciting till the first meal of pepper water & yellow rice, and the first meeting with the matron - yrs later it came to me how msch she resembled a T-rex, and there was some sort of water scarcity - we had to shiver in line for ages to haul a measly bucket of cold water up a flight of stairs to the common bathrooms - o misery! Bunk beds were the final nail. Begged and cried to be taken home till my grandfather intervened. But all was not lost - broke the old family record. The new one still stands at 3 weeks. All those books should come with a strict warning NOT to attempt this in real life!!!

anNy - mrs phool reminds me of SOS - Son Of the Soil (usually they are either motu`s or minnu`s depending). Anyways he was the fattest&most lovable of the 11 cats we had. Tehn one fine day no rhyme nor reason he just disappeared. One year later he came back limping, all scratched up, with his bones sticking out - all the attitude gone!! ayyaashi`ness obviously didnt agree! Lapped up an entire dish of milk abd ever left the comforts of home again.

aicha

http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/front/la-000078758oct02.story?coll=la%2Dheadlines%2Dfrontpage

Crisis Fuels Dreams That Could Unravel Pakistan

Asia: Ethnic hopes may once again put nation`s existence as a unified state in jeopardy.

Crisis Fuels Dreams That Could Unravel Pakistan



By TYLER MARSHALL, TIMES STAFF WRITER

QUETTA, Pakistan -- Before war came, when times were good in Afghanistan, Abdul Hamid was a tailor in the capital, Kabul, crafting suits for foreigners, including an American he remembers now only as ``Mr. John.``

But 22 years of conflict have left Hamid a near-permanent refugee here in neighboring Pakistan. He is the patriarch of a growing extended family that has fled turmoil at home for the safety and squalor of a tiny courtyard squeezed between the dusty, narrow alleys of Quetta`s Pushtun quarter.

Last week, Hamid`s family, already 10 strong, grew by two more with the arrival of a nephew, 21-year-old Sher Ahmed, and his wife, Bibi Qariya, who fled the southeastern Afghan city of Kandahar in panic at the prospect of an American military attack. Hamid`s saga and thousands like it over the years have strained the social fabric in this remote but strategically vital part of the world, feeding long-simmering ethnic resentments that have plagued Pakistan since its inception.

As the United States zeros in on Afghanistan as a den of international terrorism, the impact of fast-unfolding events on the stability of its rediscovered ally is readily apparent here amid the stark, barren mountains of Baluchistan province.

The global terrorism crisis has refueled dreams of greater autonomy among two of Pakistan`s largest minorities, the Baluchis and the Pushtuns. And those dreams contain the seeds of trouble for Pakistan`s very existence as a unified nation.

Worries about Pakistan`s viability are nothing new. They have been around since it was carved out of British India as an independent state more than half a century ago with a diverse population bound together by the common thread of religion--Islam. In the current crisis, it is extreme voices from the mosques that lead a chorus of vitriol against the country`s leaders.

Pakistan has already split up once: It lost its eastern region in 1971 during the short, bitter war of independence waged by its Bengali population that gave birth to Bangladesh.

That war left Pakistan a collection of ethnic minorities chafing under the dominance of those from the rich and fertile Punjab region. Years of military rule punctuated by corrupt, out-of-touch civilian governments and the social upheaval in neighboring Afghanistan have merely added to the discontent of these minorities.

Now the war on international terrorism is stoking old tensions. A dizzying reversal of global loyalties has transformed Pakistan from sanctioned outcast to America`s crucial regional ally, placing its military government at odds with the strong anti-American mood of its people--all at a time of newly awakened minority aspirations.

In Baluchistan, political leaders of the two largest ethnic groups exude a contempt for federal authority, and they talk with growing urgency of gaining their own autonomous regions--albeit within the framework of Pakistan.

``There is prosperity in Punjab, but here in Baluchistan, there is no prosperity, no progress, no education and no industry,`` said Sarwar Kakar, a Pushtun and the former speaker of Baluchistan`s provincial assembly. ``Our people are so poor. . . . Right now, they are in the Stone Age.``

For Pushtuns, the arrival of Hamid, his family and an estimated 3.5 million mainly Pushtun refugees from Afghanistan over the last two decades has boosted long-held aspirations for a greater say in their own affairs.

Although Pakistan has officially closed its borders to Afghan refugees, many find their way through rugged unguarded passes to relatives in Quetta. Peter Kessler, a spokesman for the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, told reporters Friday in the capital, Islamabad, of a local man housing 25 newly arrived refugees. Another, he said, is sheltering 16.

``Most are women and children,`` he said. ``The men have stayed behind to watch over the families` property.``

Members of the nationalist Pushtun Motherland Party talk of a Pushtun autonomous region carved out of three of Pakistan`s four provinces in addition to tribal areas along the frontier with Afghanistan.

They say the region would include Pakistan`s North-West Frontier province, where Pushtuns already are a majority. Although the party managed to seat just two members in Baluchistan`s 41-member provincial assembly during the last civilian government, party members are confident that events--and sentiments--are moving in their direction.

``We want to unite these parts of the country into a single Pushtun province,`` said Manaf Dotani, a party activist. ``We want our own assembly, which should be autonomous within the framework of Pakistan.``

But the increasing number of Pushtuns in Baluchistan has alarmed the leaders of the province`s indigenous Baluchi population. Their own desires for greater political power have increased as they have found themselves becoming a minority in their own province and have been watching their capital, Quetta, fast becoming an Afghan city.

With barely 4% of Pakistan`s population of 141 million inhabiting an area covering two-thirds of the country`s landmass, the ethnic balance is easily tipped.

Baluchi political figures talk of a demographic conspiracy to sabotage their dreams of an autonomous province, free of Islamabad`s control on all issues but currency and foreign policy.

Relations between the two ethnic groups have deteriorated in recent years as they have jostled for the meager political spoils in the province. Among the clutter that covers the desk of prominent Baluchistan National Party leader Habib Jalib are sheaves of legal challenges to what he regards as the illegal addition of Afghan refugees to local voting rolls.

But the suspicion that divides the two groups shrinks in comparison to their shared rejection of federal authority in Islamabad, an authority they see as dominated by the majority Punjabis.

``They took us all as their colonials,`` said Abdur Rahim Mandokhel, the Pushtun Motherland Party`s deputy leader. ``Pakistan was and is a Punjabi colonial state.``

Using more passionate, strident language, Jalib made the same point during a late-evening interview last week at his home near Quetta. He sketched a contrast between what he sees as Baluchistan`s great potential, its rich mineral resources and long coastline, and the stunted development that has left it the poorest of Pakistan`s four provinces. The blame, he said, rests with Islamabad.

``Politically, we`re a colony,`` Jalib said. ``Our situation is worse than East Timor [the former Portuguese colony that Indonesia invaded in 1975 and annexed in 1976]. We have the right to have our colonial question on the international agenda, and we will use all means of struggle but terrorism to break this chain.``

Creation of the autonomous Baluchistan envisioned by Jalib would mean taking land from the three other provinces, including Punjab, where large Baluchi communities now live. Although his ideas might seem radical, Jalib`s Baluchistan National Party had roughly a quarter of the seats in the last provincial government. Jalib himself was the floor leader of his party`s delegation to the federal parliament before Gen. Pervez Musharraf seized power in a 1999 coup.

Three years ago, Pushtun and Baluchi political groups here joined forces, forming an organization called the Pakistan Oppressed Nations Movement as a way to strengthen their political muscle against Islamabad. Pushtun deputy leader Mandokhel notes that, in addition to their struggle for greater autonomy, both parties have long opposed both the Taliban government in Afghanistan and the work of Osama bin Laden.

``As far as Osama is concerned, Baluchis and Pushtuns have a common cause in stopping the murderous government in Afghanistan,`` Mandokhel said.

As the shock waves of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the United States continue to roll through southwestern Asia, the extent of their impact remains unclear. But political figures in Baluchistan agree that conditions have suddenly become more fluid.

``It`s a very critical situation,`` said Kakar, the former assembly speaker. ``There`s no law, no justice, no prosperity. It`s a situation that breeds extremists.``

Although more than two decades of war have loosened Afghan refugees` ties to their homeland, the links haven`t broken completely. Serving the extended family around him, Hamid admitted that he is worried about the future and the new clouds of war he sees. But he also allowed himself to ponder his actions if, by some miracle, peace should one day come again to his star-crossed land.

He didn`t hesitate.

``If there is peace,`` he said, ``we`ll all go.``

http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nyt/20011002/ts/in_pakistan_a_shaky_ally_1.html



Tuesday October 02 08:56 AM EDT

In Pakistan, a Shaky Ally

By BARRY BEARAK The New York Times

With its shelved democracy, epic corruption and crushing poverty, Pakistan may seem a strange choice as America`s indispensable ally in the hunt for Osama bin Laden (news - web sites).

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, Oct. 1 For years, Pakistan has seemed a place about to blow. Bankruptcy is at the door; angry mullahs are at the gate. The corruption of the powerful is epic, the poverty of the masses crushing. The army has taken charge, again putting democracy on the shelf. More people own guns than refrigerators.

This country, then, may seem a strange choice as America`s indispensable ally in the hunt for Osama bin Laden. Islamic guerrillas many would call them terrorists openly operate inside Pakistan`s borders, with government support.

But for the Bush administration, Pakistan it is a rediscovered crony from America`s cold war days, forced back into friendship at gunpoint to fight terrorism. In his Sept. 19 speech to the nation, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, Pakistan`s military ruler for the last two years, explained that he was facing an American ultimatum join us or fight us and that he felt that the country`s very survival was at risk.

In many ways, it is. The country is polarized. On one side stand sympathizers with the West who have felt increasingly marginalized in recent years and believe that the current turmoil may be a rare stroke of fortune that halts the ``Talibanization`` of Pakistan, a drift toward the fundamentalist Islam of neighboring Afghanistan. On the other stand the holy warriors, the hope of the country`s myriad dispossessed.

Pakistan, with a population between 140 million and 150 million, is the world`s seventh most populous country. Like many nations in the third world, it seems to be simultaneously moving ahead and falling behind at frantic speeds. It is this dichotomy that explains some of the violence of the country`s conflicts.

Today, someone claiming to be from one of the best-known of Pakistan`s radical Islamic guerrilla groups, Jaish-e-Muhammad, took responsibility for a suicide bombing at the state legislature in Srinagar, in Indian-administered Kashmir. The attack killed at least 26 people.

One of this region`s many open secrets is that the Pakistani government itself has armed Islamic militants, sending them off to fight the Indian authorities in Kashmir in an attempt to wrest the contested Himalayan territory, which is primarily Muslim, from Hindu control.

A Pakistani Foreign Ministry spokesman, in a statement today, condemned the Srinagar attack. ``Pakistan condemns terrorism in all its forms and manifestations,`` he said.

But whatever the government`s past relationship to Jaish-e-Muhammad, it seems clear that the United States, in its new determination to combat terrorism, has sided with a military government that has not been averse to backing insurgency in Kashmir.

Radical Muslim political parties, historically weak at the polls, are traditionally potent in the streets, where the number of poor and the number of refugees grow. Kalashnikovs are everywhere, as are men who know how to use them. Twin jihads one in Afghanistan, one in Kashmir save many from the idle hours of joblessness and fill them with lethal, self-righteous purpose.

But the radical Islamists drawn to holy war, however grateful for their supply of guns and grenades, very often despise the national leaders who provide them. The more those Pakistani leaders look like American cronies working to oust the Taliban government in Afghanistan, the more the hate may grow.

By drafting this fragile and fractious nation into a central role in the ``war on terrorism,`` America runs the danger of setting off a cataclysm in a place where civil violence is a likely bet and nuclear weapons exist.

Pakistan has long been the speculated locale for one of the world`s worst nightmare scenario, in which Islamic terrorists, in league with rogue elements of the military, seize control of the government and wield the vengeful sword of jihad with a nuclear tip.

Islam is a growing force here. Hundreds of religious schools, known as madrassahs, have eagerly sent their students to fight at the Taliban`s side. Pakistani border guards wish them well as they head to the front lines.

Last Friday, in a drama repeated in hundreds of towns and cities across the country, mullahs at the Red Mosque in Islamabad followed the gentle chanting of afternoon prayers with frenzied threats of violence: Death to America! Let Americans come here to be buried!

A plea went out for 50,000 volunteers to defend Afghanistan against ``the infidels.`` The entreaty was made with the desperate ardor of merchants at a going-out-of-business sale. Many of Pakistan`s fundamentalist clerics endorse the Taliban`s formula for a pure Islamic state. Without the Taliban, these mullahs would be without their rallying point.

An 18-year-old spectator, Tai Muhammad, said he had pledged his life to the anti-American jihad, enlisting at the mosque`s sign-up table. ``People like me will be the Americans` reception committee,`` he said, grinning in satisfaction.

Lambasted along with President Bush was General Musharraf, called a traitor to his country, his religion and 1,400 years of Islamic history.

Afghanistan, Mr. bin Laden`s sanctuary, is not merely Pakistan`s neighbor. Pakistani intelligence agents have been the Taliban`s godfathers, turning a throng of self- righteous religious students into a militia of self-assured soldiers.

Until recently, the Taliban have been useful to Pakistan, providing an ally on its western flank as rival India lurks to the east, and a breeding ground for Islamic militancy that could be redirected toward Kashmir.

So to many at the Red Mosque, Pakistan`s cooperation with America seems like a sellout.

American money, of course, is not an insignificant inducement, especially to a nation $37 billion in debt with virtually no prospects of climbing out of the hole.

So far, a windfall has yet to appear, though America suddenly forgiving of the testing of nuclear weapons and the eschewing of democracy has removed many economic sanctions against Pakistan. Together with the Japanese, the United States has rescheduled nearly $1 billion in debt and authorized $90 million in aid.

Indeed, renewed solvency is the hope of many Pakistanis who believe that a decisive battle has at last been joined.

``It`s a wonderful thing,`` said a retired general, speaking on condition of anonymity. ``We were in a state of drift. The silent majority was being dragged in a terrible direction by a very vocal minority. This is God-sent. We`re saved.``

That optimistic view is shared by much of a Westernized elite that would see the Taliban`s overthrow as the logical halt to the onrushing fundamentalism in their own midst.

Many have long assumed that an upheaval was inevitable, with moderate Islam battling the religion`s extremist, intolerant version.

That confrontation is better fought now than later, they say. ``If there is a silver lining in this, it`s that the radicals, the jihadists, will be de- fanged now instead of 10 years later when they`d be stronger,`` said Pervez Hoodbhoy, a physicist and peace activist.

But radicalism has deep social roots here. In the cities, the turn of a street corner can seem to be time travel between centuries. Wide boulevards clogged with expensive cars become narrow lanes where shrouded women carry jugs of water on their heads.

About 75 percent of all Pakistanis reside in rural areas. Most are sharecroppers, eking out a subsistence. In some areas, feudal families still hold sway, making private laws and operating private jails.

While the wealthy send their children to college in America or Britain, many of the poor are deprived of even an elementary education. The literacy rate is below 40 percent. A fifth of Pakistan`s government schools are ``ghosts,`` with buildings but no students or teachers, General Musharraf himself admitted. This void increasingly has been filled by thousands of madrassahs. Considered a godsend by the destitute, they feed and house their pupils while teaching them the wisdom of the Koran and the moral requirement to fight in holy wars.

Islam is the great refuge of Pakistan`s masses. In mosques, in the fields, on the roadsides, men drop to their knees and perform their daily prayers. However empty their pockets, they are equal in these genuflections before God.

But it is not a simple picture. Fundamentalist Muslims, like secular ones, are minorities. Between them are a multitude of gradations in the practices of faith one reason why recent polls suggest layers of ambivalence about the current crisis,

Before General Musharraf`s address to the nation on Friday, the pollster asked people whom they would support in a war between America and Afghanistan. Seven percent said America and 67 percent Afghanistan, with about 26 percent neutral. Four days after the speech, those who said they would side with the United States remained the same, though 20 percent shifted from Afghanistan to neutrality.

Some of this sentiment reflects a general doubt that America has enough proof against Mr. bin Laden to warrant a punishing attack on Afghanistan. At the same time, many Pakistanis are merely wary of America, regarded as a companion of shallow sincerity.

``Unfortunately, America seems to be Pakistan`s friend only when it suits America`s needs,`` said Zahid Mahmood, a bank manager. ``When the need is over, America deserts you.``

In the 1980`s, America had great needs in the region. In late 1979, the Soviet Union sent its troops into Afghanistan, getting itself closer to a warm-water port. Using Pakistan as a pipeline, the United States and other nations then financed the Afghan resistance. The Soviets soon found themselves bogged down in a crippling war against guerrillas adept at mountain combat. The cold war`s end swiftly followed the Soviets` humbling retreat in 1989.

America`s attention span, as well its affection, did not last much longer. That was a shock to Pakistan.

Money had seemed a token of friendship, and in 1990 the United States aid package to Pakistan was $564 million; only Israel and Egypt received more. But then the largesse was suddenly withdrawn, the penalty for Pakistan`s continuing program to develop nuclear weapons in pace with its archenemy India.

``Looking out for No. 1, that`s the American way, isn`t it?`` snickered Ajab Gul, a barber in Peshawar. ``That is what Americans are proud of. We`re different.``

But the loyalties of Pakistanis are no simple matter, either.

In 1947, after a flurry of cartography, Pakistan and India were mapped out of the British Empire. Pakistan was devised with religious cohesion as a Muslim state. But it, rather than India, has been the one struggling for a national identity.

The country is split among several ethnicities and languages. Mr. Gul, the barber, is Pashtun and admits to feeling a greater affinity for the Pashtuns of Afghanistan than the Sindis of Karachi or the Punjabis of Lahore in his native land.

Democracy has never taken a firm foothold. The military has remained the dominant institution, and while it has failed in its three wars with India, it has had repeated success in overthrowing its own democratically elected governments.

During the 1990`s, however, it was civilian governments that generally maintained control. The indefatigably corrupt governments of Prime Ministers Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif as well the stopped-up American spigot helped plunge the economy into the red while at the same time discrediting democracy in the eyes of the people.

Both Ms. Bhutto and Mr. Sharif now live in exile. Their political parties, the Pakistan Peoples Party and the Pakistan Muslim League, are in disarray. For now, public assembly is forbidden.

By order of the Supreme Court, a return to civilian government is supposed to occur by next October. General Musharraf, who recently assumed the title of president, has promised to abide by the timetable.

But his future, like his country`s, is now linked to matters that could not have been foreseen a month ago: the number of American soldiers who will touch Pakistani soil, the amount of blood spilled in reflexive outrage, the havoc caused by the coming onrush of refugees and the furtive ability of a Saudi-born multimillionaire named Osama bin Laden.

Re: semisomethingme

{“RE: semi-something-me”

……can’t help it, can you?}

No, I`m immature.

{….so the lack of democracy in cuba and their not-so-sterling record on human rights doesn’t bother you ?}

But Cuba is secular. Human rights problems in Cuba? Yeah, OK, Fidel is not a saint but it is nothing compared to shariat law.

progressive #39 I thought that the gibberish you post on chowk were merely the meaningless mutterings of a nutcase. In this post it appears that there is perhaps another explanation: When you write ``Jinnah nicked and robbed India of its language... n left us 2 be baboons for good...``, you are clearly trying to tell the world that you and someone else (``us 2``, with the second person being your cellmate obviously) were turned into baboons. And by none other than Jinnah himself!! Something like ``The Island of Dr. Moreau`` where the evil doctor turns humans into all sorts of animals!! How strange and how sad at the same time.

Moderates poised as Pakistan plans coup to unseat Taliban leader

By Jonathan Steele in Tehran and Christopher Kremmer in Islamabad

Pakistan is trying to organise a coup in Afghanistan that will either kill or depose the Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar and allow moderates to take control of the movement, according to highly placed sources in Iran.

The moderates would then be expected to join talks with the Northern Alliance on forming a coalition government for Afghanistan.

After years of civil war and the increasingly fanatical leadership of the reclusive Muslim cleric Mullah Omar, this would return the country to a milder form of Islam in place of the Taliban`s fierce repression and the exclusion of women from work and girls from school.

Iran and Pakistan are key players in the Afghan crisis. Both have massive borders with Afghanistan, and fear the instability that could be triggered by United States military action.

The prospect of imminent US military strikes on Afghanistan has increased sharply in the past 24 hours following the admission by the Taliban regime that it knows the location of the chief US terror suspect Osama bin Laden and was protecting him.

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In Turkey, NTV television said yesterday that authorities had detained a man said to be a brother of bin Laden. However, a spokesman for the Interior Minister later said the man, Abdullah bin Laden, was not a brother but may be a relative. Police continued to question him last night.

In Islamabad, senior diplomatic sources said Pakistan risked a complete loss of influence in Afghanistan unless it withdrew support from hardline elements in the ruling Taliban militia.

The warning came as Pakistan`s military ruler, General Pervez Musharraf, conceded that hopes for a compromise in the dispute over bin Laden were very dim.

Officials in Islamabad were unavailable for comment on the reports of a Pakistan-backed coup plan, but diplomats said the reports made sense given the threat posed to Pakistan`s stability by the Taliban`s instransigence.

Exiled Afghan political leaders are working to hold a loya jirga (grand council) at which the country`s ethnic and religious factions can agree on a government of national unity under former King Zahir Shah.

``The Taliban do not represent the people of Afghanistan,`` one leader involved in the process, Mr Hamid Karzai, said. ``We want total change. The government system established by the Taliban must be abolished.``

Pakistan and Iran are key players in the future of Afghanistan because Pakistan is the only country that still has diplomatic relations with the Taliban, while the Northern Alliance is represented by Iran and Russia, its largest arms suppliers.

Pakistan has maintained this link to maintain contact with the regime. This has Washington`s approval.

In a sign of growing panic among their leaders in the face of likely US-led attacks, the Taliban recently made a secret plea to Iran for military aid.

Although Iran gives arms to the Northern Alliance, the Taliban hoped that as a leading champion of Islam, Iran would not allow a fellow Islamic state to be defeated by the US. ``We rejected the request out of hand,`` a source said.

Iran believes the Afghan crisis has strengthened its chances of ending the isolation that the US and, to a lesser extent, Europe have imposed on it for 20 years.

Capitalising on new US interest, Afghanistan`s opposition Northern Alliance is seeking $US50 million ($102 million) a month in aid from the Bush Administration, as well as help in obtaining a wide range of military equipment that includes tanks, helicopters, armoured personnel carriers and artillery, according to the Washington Post.

In exchange, say these representatives - who are soliciting support in Washington - the Northern Alliance is offering joint military operations with its 15,000 fighters to track Osama bin Laden and topple the ruling Taliban.

``What we are saying is deploy [US] special forces in co-ordination with our forces on the ground, make fast moves, secure certain spots and then expand our territories,`` the alliance`s new Washington rep-

resentative, Haron Amin, said.

Combined with air support, he said, ``that would get the job done``. Without the alliance, the US had no chance of finding bin Laden.

The Guardian

http://www.smh.com.au/news/0110/02/world/world1.html

Anil:

Thanks for a very informative post. I had been meaning to write a post with some thoughts on Dilli, but do not have enough time. Still, thanks for the tour :) By the way, I completely forgot that we were talking about Dilli than Dehli or Delhi. Of course, I have read about Dilli in the sad stories of Mir(The Poet), specially after Nadir Shah ruined Dilli. Also, my comment on the people being theek thaak was just a light-hearted one than a serious one. In a way it provoked you to write a lot of myths from the olden days. I thoroughly enjoyed reading them :) Good Ones! Hope to talk to you on this subject in detail some other time and on other board. There are a few points that I am not mentioning right now - kind of leaving some thoughts unsaid. And it`s important that they should be mentioned and understood - I will come back when I have more time to think and write on those.

Regards.

PS: You had some mention of ``astrology`` - I am not sure of that, but ...

later...phir kabhi!

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Fuzair:

Thank you for the details on that crash.

I still do not believe in making him responsible for everything; and I strongly disagree with your take on cursing him after his death. To me, that`s a big no no. It simply is!

Your plea is an escape. I see the same plea again and again from all the political analysts on board:

- as if ``this`` finding will lead us to our very own ``road to eldorado``?

- as if we will never repeat the mistakes from the past after cursing ``him`` again and again?

?
?
?

Would we find something?

( *_ *)?


Tahmed:

By the way, I never knew that he was from Jullunder(as you wrote without an h) - still you do not gain anything from saying bad things to a dead person. It is in poor taste. OK!

You ought to request the ones who are alive to mend their ways and manage the country responsibly.

You ought to ask the current or future leaders to avoid repeating the mistakes from the past. Going beyond that is simply a ``bae`wa`qoo`fi.`` Yes, it is indeed, buhat bhayanuk qisam kee bae`wa` qoo`fi. OK?

How can you ``keep on`` laying the blame on a dead person, expecting him to rise from his grave and respond to you, in person[oh, with an aswer that will resolve all the issues of Pakistan]?

If that`s your take then I will reserve my very harsh comments on your take!

:(

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anarayan & rdesikan

Thanks for the input guys. The gist of what you`re saying is - it needs more work before it`s forwarded across the internet ;)

Fuzair #567 Thanks for responding to Zahra for me on ``Some people should be cursed even after they are dead. Zia was one of them. `` Also, interesting details you provide on the remains found at the crash site.

And no, no relation to Azhar Lodhi (never heard his name either). I know your friend Muzaffar Isani though.