To Boycott or not to Boycott !

Thanks for this piece, good arguments. Abdul Wahid Baloch of National Party (which is boycotting) told a seminar in Islamabad on Dec 18 "MMA is very happy at the boycott. I met a friend from MMA who offered me a ride the other day, he was all smiles. He said, 'Thank you for having cleared the road for us'.” Here's the link to a piece I wrote for IPS on Dec 10 re the boycott issue - http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=40403

#57 Posted by bulleya on December 17, 2007 8:10:17 am


pakistan, now, is no. 2 on suicide bombing lists


So the jihadis you were threatening to sic on india 5 years ago are now killing you..


why just today i read about a 16 year old suicide bomber who whacked 12 paki army recruits..

good..serves you right..karma is a female of the canine species..

paki protestor aunties get whacked by the cops

#57 hamidm: General Romair agrees with you!! Do I need to convince you any more that you are merely blowing the standard "fauji captain hot air" by proclaiming the natives to be thieves and scoundrels?

hamidm2 mian#....your analyses on this thread about pakistan are, generally, accurate.....we are a nation of thieves, and only a bigger thief can become the president.......

in fact, all of us on chowk are here, because we or our ancestors were the bigger thieves amongst their crowds.....due to this, we have all generally enjoyed ourselves in pakistan.......regardless of who ruled, we were ok......one son in america and one in pakistan......one foot here and one there......business grew for us and we had enough reserves in our personal bank accouts to cater for emergencies.....

however, there is one thing different this time around......it is not just political issues.......now we are vulnerable also....pakistan, now, is no. 2 on suicide bombing lists.......there have been suicide bombs in kamra, sargodha bases, aap para, faizabad....a war in lal masjid, a bomb in marriot......all places that i have visited and so have you, probably......

this is new....and this is what makes the chowk class vulnerable also......it would stay planted in pakistan, regardless of who ruled, because they (we) would be in the vip lounge, regardless.......however, now the vip lounge could get blown up.......

this is the difference, this time around.........

further to #55: and no one buys mush's "its either me or the mullahs" game anymore either:

Questions for Musharraf and Bush
By John F. Tierney and Aitzaz Ahsan
Monday, December 17, 2007

Excerpt:

One of us chairs a House of Representatives subcommittee tasked with oversight of U.S. foreign policy, and one of us languishes under house arrest after transfer from a Pakistani jail for the "heinous" and "seditious" crime of representing, in legal proceedings, the sacked chief justice of Pakistan's Supreme Court.

As members of the political opposition in our respective countries and as lawyers firmly committed to the rule of law, we have a few questions for our heads of state:

...How do you expect to combat the Taliban and al-Qaeda cancer spreading from Pakistan's Federally Administered Tribal Areas into the Northwest Frontier and Balochistan provinces when the military is busy pointing its guns at judges, lawyers, journalists, political opponents and human rights advocates? ...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/12/16/AR2007121 601563.html

Rites_of_Spring #46 Inshallah!! :-) With a growing middle class that understands the importance of the rule of law, time is against dictatorship in Pakistan and in favor of the democracy and the rule of law.

hamidm: modify what you wrote ("no, the pakis don't get it") to "no, pakis like hamidm don't get it" and we are in agreement.

The ones who dont want to get it are those who get their jollies by being able to jump the line by going through the vip lounge (the hamidms), and the arab-wannabes. But thse are a tiny minority - two-thirds of pakis do get it.

Re: # 45

tahmed mian,

....... pakistan already is a country where checks and balances are the most important thing - i.e. your bank balance and your check book ......

sheik rashid zindabad !

Re: # 49

bubba,

... after living in the civilized world for nearly three decades one gets used to standing in line ........ but don't worry, a week in pakistan and i am as pakistani as the other 170 million miserable souls ...... on the way back i always use the vip lounge and even yell at the poor attendant as if i owned the place .... but now they have a vvip lounge .. basta=rds !

Re: # 12

urstruly

We will have to lick the reality. With the amendments made in the constitution by Mush even the parliament has become irrelevant now. No question of taking out the dog with buckets. It is a real Karbala we are facing today wherein peoples' hearts are with 'Hussain' but swords with 'Yazid'. The result to come out is evident. It would need repeating the history of Bangladesh (Our Pakistan in the East) wherein the swords were also with the hearts of the people which made Tiger Niazi to lick dust on this very date. There is no other way to get the dog out, at least either by voting it out in election or by parliament .

No party should boycott this election.

Aitezaz and Imran could be a future party in the making.

Let them wait to participate in the future.

People power had seen its beginnings during ZAB's

time. We may be seeing its remergence here after

several years.

But it is best not to rock the boat at present.

Just my two cents!

Ras

Re: # 39 Posted by hamidm2 on December 16, 2007 10:04:09 am

[.....he shook his head sadly when i told him i was okay with standing in line and waiting my turn .......]

array bhai kiya baat hein aap kee aadutoun kaa. ab hum aap kee eis nayee aadut ko kiyaan maan sukhtey hein? kiya huwa bhai, kaheen ziyaada pee lee thee aap nein?

A pompous person like you standing in line and that too in a country that should be called a "haramistan". Ouper say lay kar neeche tuk saarey kay saarah 170 million pakistani namak haram chor hein, and it starts with the bayshuram military aur ein kay leaderaan, aur saaraey naukar shahee jin kay aap goun gaatey rehteh hein.

sharam kar baeta sharam kar. choroun kee taareef na kiya kar chahein woh army ho ya beigharut civilian politician ho.

#46 Posted by Rites_of_Spring on December 16, 2007 3:14:11 pm


Whether people like it or not that is eventually where Pakistan will steer to in the end- a system of checks and balances.


You already have such a system...

checks written by america to the paki army to bomb it's own people

balances..as in bank balances of the generals of the paki army that are growing and growing..

Re: # 45

tahmed,

.... sigh ! ...... we are not talking about the americans, french, japanese or germans ....... we are not even talking about the horrible hindoos .... we are talking about pakistanis - an arab wannabe people who have inherited the bad genes of the hindoos and the bad habits of the arabs ...... no, the pakis don't get it ..... we need a lot of tough love, as you call it, before we see the light .......

sheikh rashid is the best we can come up with, so lighten up and say

sheikh rashid zindabad !

@ #45

Well said tahmed32.

Whether people like it or not that is eventually where Pakistan will steer to in the end- a system of checks and balances.