Surviving Musharraf\'s Exit? tahmed yaar, you said that the gov't has declared this is "our war"..can you clarify , how would they deal with the jihadi menace differently than how the army has dealt with it so far...some food for thought
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Army Chief in Pakistan Wins Honor From U.S.
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By ERIC SCHMITT
Published: April 2, 2008
WASHINGTON — Since Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani took command of Pakistan’s Army last November, a parade of top American officers and spymasters has trooped to Islamabad to urge him to wage an aggressive campaign against Al Qaeda and other militants in the country’s restive tribal areas.

The American officials have come away gushing about the Pakistani general’s military prowess and his commitment to disentangle the army from domestic politics. General Kayani’s predecessor, Pervez Musharraf, resigned last year to become a civilian president.

So perhaps it was just a coincidence when a letter from the United States Embassy in Islamabad arrived in General Kayani’s mailbox last week, congratulating him on being selected for the United States Army Command and General Staff College’s International Hall of Fame.

The hall “honors those officers of United States allies’ militaries who have attained the highest command positions in their national service component or within their nation’s armed forces,” Maj. Gen. James R. Helmly, the embassy’s defense representative, wrote in a letter to General Kayani on March 20.

Asked whether General Kayani’s selection was an attempt to curry favor with the officer, one American military official said Tuesday, “Absolutely not.”

General Kayani is a 1988 graduate of the Army college, which is at Fort Leavenworth, Kan., and provides advanced training to the Army’s most promising officers and to some foreign officers.

Lt. Gen. William B. Caldwell IV, the commander of the Army’s Combined Arms Center, which includes the college, said that General Kayani was the fourth Pakistani officer named to the hall, and met the requirements that he was a graduate and the chief of his service. The Army has admitted 227 officers from more than 60 countries since the hall was established in 1973. (Mr. Musharraf, who did not attend the college, is not among them.)

New US Strategy Needed in Afghanistan and Pakistan you guys are out of your skull if you think that the allocation methodologies of the arab soverign funds would tilt towards pakistan in this decade or next.

PE might be able to take some minimal risks based on some smart pakistanis family connections in pakistan. But SWF's are not PE types. They are more like FoF's but more conservative. They will put money into institutions with track record of providng historical returns. It might hurt you even more to hear this...but SWF's woudl rather put money into Hinjew India than muslim pakistan, any day of the week.

New US Strategy Needed in Afghanistan and Pakistan I don't know what the hubub is but the US policy of having the jihadis fight their co-religionists is working quite well.. Even the strategy for carving up islamic nations into smaller piece is also working quite well. This is good shit..people. Happy muharram to everyone.

Pakistan: The War of Drones jihadis are easily impressed...whether it is commonplace words like "vacuous"...or whether it is bare hairy forearm sticking out of the bukha of their cousin.

Pakistan: The War of Drones ajeya, from the partition fiasco to communal riots to violence against ethinic, caste based and other minorities, Modern India doesn't really have a sellar reputation in "ahimsa" non-sense....

there is a misconception among the jihadis that non-muslims would still idly by and watch their livlihood ururped by allah's warriors. non-muslims, as I have been saying, are smarter, richer, stronger, more in number, and have institutional backing to fight islamists.

One suicide bomb in a mall in the US, would mean, the end of Iran as we know it. When the nuclear winter wears off in Mecca, jewish kids will go ice skating on Lake Mecca with kaaba as the local Hot Dog stand.

islamists should have fought the battle with the other muslims first, get insitutionalized and then taken on the non-muslims...they done fk'ed up. they went in the reverse order and are now getting spanked from philippines to amreeka.

Pakistan: The War of Drones Urstruly, secularism doesn;t mean "lack of religion"...it means non-primacy of one.

A huge weakness of islam is that it is illequipped to battle forces outside the religious spectrum. believers might feel superior and might feel they are doing allah's bidding and can possibly even offer salvation to adherents of otehr religions on a comparable basis. But when it comes to secular thought or atheism, which basically either puts islam in parity with other religions or spiritual belief or frankly, and rightfully so, laughs it off as some fantastical bedouin tale..islam and islamists haven't a chance. they will always lose. as we are seeing across the world now. this is the natural order of things..it is time for islamists to accept that Jesus will not come back to defeat a one eyed monster (which I have in my pants by the way)..it is over kids...what the prophet did in 621 AD has little relevance to what Kaal does in 2008.

Pakistan: The War of Drones well there you have it. We have the Zeemax types offering memoirs of islamic glory and tenets from a millenia ago...meanwhile the hinjews and chinkoos are filing patents on nano technology for what is to come in 50 yrs. this is the reality..and no amount of understanding that brother kaal has of the "one true god" and his adherents can encapsulate it better.

Pakistan: The War of Drones IM, this is no strength of islam..it is infact a weakness. If it was strength than those with resources to propogate Zee's brand would be falling over themselves trying to have a direct pipeline with the divine. the days of kings coverting and having their convert enmass are over. this shyte works for a type of group of people, like those in prison, the uneducated, the economically marginalized...but that is not due to some cathartic change in dialogue with self and god, it is simply a case of rigidity of islam offering advice to simpletons in mathods and language that they can relate to. It is never a universally accepted phenomenon and numbers in this scenario don;t mean anything.

Pakistan: The War of Drones kaal, which part of prior to 9/11 US presence in the muslim world and post 9/11 us presence in the muslim world escapes you? look around..the battle now where it should have been in the first place, within the muslim world. palestine, pakistan, greater middle east..the confrontation between the muslim world and the rest is abating because from phillippines to the US, islamists have been spanked. though legal means to control the local islamic fervor in UK for example..to US special ops working with the filipino army to smash teh Moro Lib front..Abu Sayyaf basically begging to be termed a political party. Jihaid coming into the open in pakistan..(whether pakistanis have the zeal and stomach 9which I think they do) to fight this scourge)..the battle fields are quite clear. Chechans have been bought..kashimir jihadis are talking about BPO industry in srinagar.

Muslims like Zee, while making good specimen for your social and lab experiment, do not have the staying power when facing the west or the rest of the world.

A while back I posted for yours and your benefit alone the essay titled "32' by Jarred diamond. therein lies the crux of the battle, religion is mere a sliver of the motivation...for every Zee there are 10 abduls driving around in delhi with ganesh bobblehead dolls on their dash.

zee's are losing this battle..a suicide bombing by islamists here and there is no different from fascist movements that has plagued humanity in diferent forms since time immemorial. last century alone with communism and nazism. all these movements are contrary to human needs and their very being. that is why they always fall apart...islamism is no different and it too will die a natural death, only exacerbated by violent confrontation by 5/6th of humantiy even if muslims themselves don't fight it.

Pakistan: The War of Drones Kaal, do you thnk that the west, and US in particular, is stupid or that they won't tweak their system should they see islamists co-opting the system to their advantage? Since 9/11, US has changed the paradigm of engagement...the rallying cry for islamists was US presence in muslim countries...guess what..since 9/11 US is in more muslims countries, killing more islamists than ever before. All the while changing the laws to protect liberties inside america while not-offering the same to others.

this is the most innovative, smartest, richest, and flexible people in teh world who are not bound by dogma from a millenia ago to govern a rule of conduct..they have a disctince advantage over islamists.

All this self-masturbation around hypothetical and intangible perceived advantages you and the islamists are into mean nothing when you look at who you are up against. It is not just US, China, India, Russia, EU, Japan need the model in place as projected by the US for their growth. The islamists haven't a snowball's chance in hell.

The Naval War College Bomb Blasts You guys talk like Pakistan has a choice? without US aid, pakistan would have days of currency to finance basic goods and services. You have no choice yaaron...

Secondly, this military-mullah alliance now being hailed as some revelation is just a switching of oartners. there is no real democratic movement here. between the feudals, the military and mullahs, it is the feudels turn to continue with the paki clusterfk. then the army will come back and the feudels and mullahs will go to the wayside.

haven't you seen this before?

Reinterpretation of Islam in Turkey Oh crap..islam is getting diluted, muddled, un-jihadified..kaal..inko bachao

Al-Qaeda is losing the war of minds
By Peter Wehner

Published: March 4 2008 18:39 | Last updated: March 4 2008 18:39

The US “surge” in Iraq has been so manifestly successful that no serious person can deny that gains have been made. Even Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama have (grudgingly) conceded progress. Yet both Mrs Clinton and Mr Obama are quick to add that progress has been purely on the military side and that those gains are ephemeral. This fits with their broader narrative – that the war has been a disaster on every front.

During a recent Democratic debate, for example, Mr Obama declared: “We are seeing al-Qaeda stronger now than at any time since 2001.” Mrs Clinton says President George W. Bush’s policies in Iraq have “emboldened our enemies”. We should leave Iraq, she says, so we can better focus on the threat of al-Qaeda.

In fact, in large measure because of what is unfolding in Iraq, the tide within the Islamic world is beginning to run strongly against al-Qaeda – and this, in turn, may be the single most important ideological development in recent years.

In November 2007 Sayyid Imam al-Sharif (“Dr Fadl”) published his book, Rationalizations on Jihad in Egypt and the World, in serialised form. Mr Sharif, who is Egyptian, argues that the use of violence to overthrow Islamic governments is religiously unlawful and practically harmful. He also recommends the formation of a special Islamic court to try Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri, al-Qaeda’s number two and its ideological leader, and calls the attacks on September 11 2001 a “catastrophe for all Muslims”.

Mr Sharif’s words are significant because he was once a mentor to Mr Zawahiri. Mr Sharif, who wrote the book in a Cairo prison, is “a living legend within the global jihadist movement”, according to Jarret Brachman, a terrorism expert.

Another important event occurred in October 2007, when Sheikh Abd Al-‘Aziz bin Abdallah Aal Al-Sheikh, the highest religious authority in Saudi Arabia, issued a fatwa prohibiting Saudi youth from engaging in jihad abroad. It states: “I urge my brothers the ulama [the top class of Muslim clergy] to clarify the truth to the public . . . to warn [youth] of the consequences of being drawn to arbitrary opinions and [religious] zeal that is not based on religious knowledge.” The target of the fatwa is obvious: Mr bin Laden.

A month earlier Sheikh Salman al-Awdah, an influential Saudi cleric whom Mr bin Laden once lionised, wrote an “open letter” condemning Mr bin Laden. “Brother Osama, how much blood has been spilt? How many innocents among children, elderly, the weak, and women have been killed and made homeless in the name of al-Qaeda?” Sheikh Awdah wrote. “The ruin of an entire people, as is happening in Afghanistan and Iraq ... cannot make Muslims happy.”

These criticisms by prominent voices within the jihadist movement should be seen in the context of an even more significant development: the “Anbar Awakening” now spreading throughout Iraq. Just 18 months ago Anbar province was the stronghold of al-Qaeda in Iraq; today it is known as the birthplace of an Iraqi and Islamic grass-roots uprising against al-Qaeda as an organisation and bin Ladenism as an ideology. It is an extraordinary transformation: Iraqis en masse siding with America, the “infidel” and a western “occupying power”, to defeat Islamic militants.

Not surprisingly, al-Qaeda’s stock is falling in much of the Arab and Islamic world. A recent survey found that in January less than a quarter of Pakistanis approved of Mr bin Laden, compared with 46 per cent last August, while backing for al-Qaeda fell from 33 per cent to 18 per cent.

According to a July 2007 report from the Pew Global Attitudes Project, “large and growing numbers of Muslims in the Middle East and elsewhere [are] rejecting Islamic extremism”. The percentage of Muslims saying suicide bombing is justified in the defence of Islam has declined in seven of the eight Arab countries where trend data are available. In Lebanon, for example, 34 per cent of Muslims say such suicide bombings are often or sometimes justified; in 2002, 74 per cent expressed this view. We are also seeing large drops in support for Mr bin Laden. These have occurred since the Iraq war began.

Since General David Petraeus put in place his counter-insurgency strategy early last year, al-Qaeda has been dealt punishing military blows. Iraqis continue to turn against al-Qaeda and so does more of the Arab and Muslim world. In the past half-year an important new front, led by prominent Islamic clerics, has been opened. Militarily, ideologically and in terms of popular support, these are bad days for Mr bin Laden and his jihadist jackals.

If we continue to build on these developments, the Iraq war, once thought to be a colossal failure, could turn out be a positive and even a pivotal event in our struggle against militant Islam. Having paid a high cost in blood and treasure and having embraced the wrong strategy for far too long, we stayed in the fight, proving that America was not the “weak horse” Mr bin Laden believed it to be. Having stayed in the fight, we may prevail in it. The best way to subvert the appeal of bin Ladenism is to defeat those who take up the sword in its name.

We are a long way from winning in Iraq. It remains a traumatised nation and the progress made can be lost. But the trajectory of events is at last in our favour and a good outcome is within our grasp. If we succeed it will have enormously positive effects beyond Iraq.


The writer, formerly deputy assistant to President George W. Bush, is a senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2008

Reinterpretation of Islam in Turkey GT, that is because Mushy ain't going nowhere. Nawaz's vitriol against him has no takers in PPP and thus the partnership professed has been doomed to fail from the git-go. (different from Gitmo for the jihadi choots reading)

RF: yo umentioned grass roots. If you look at this election, this is was a victory of feudals over mullahs and Military in name only. AAThe mullahs sat home to plan the suicicde attacks, and the military still has an ex-boss up top. The optics might have change but the common abdul is still nowhere closer to reaping the benefits of democracy than before the election.

Reinterpretation of Islam in Turkey rf, grass roots doesn't work in the muslim world. The concept is antithetical to islam. how can an ordinary abdul question god?

Reinterpretation of Islam in Turkey rf: Bingo...

Nothing will change because when you are mandated to wait for a messiah, only a dictator comes close. everything else is uncivilized

Reinterpretation of Islam in Turkey there is no hope

Worshippers of Death
By ALAN M. DERSHOWITZ
March 3, 2008; Page A17

Zahra Maladan is an educated woman who edits a women's magazine in Lebanon. She is also a mother, who undoubtedly loves her son. She has ambitions for him, but they are different from those of most mothers in the West. She wants her son to become a suicide bomber.

At the recent funeral for the assassinated Hezbollah terrorist Imad Moughnaya -- the mass murderer responsible for killing 241 marines in 1983 and more than 100 women, children and men in Buenos Aires in 1992 and 1994 -- Ms. Maladan was quoted in the New York Times giving the following warning to her son: "if you're not going to follow the steps of the Islamic resistance martyrs, then I don't want you."


Zahra Maladan represents a dramatic shift in the way we must fight to protect our citizens against enemies who are sworn to kill them by killing themselves. The traditional paradigm was that mothers who love their children want them to live in peace, marry and produce grandchildren. Women in general, and mothers in particular, were seen as a counterweight to male belligerence. The picture of the mother weeping as her son is led off to battle -- even a just battle -- has been a constant and powerful image.

Now there is a new image of mothers urging their children to die, and then celebrating the martyrdom of their suicidal sons and daughters by distributing sweets and singing wedding songs. More and more young women -- some married with infant children -- are strapping bombs to their (sometimes pregnant) bellies, because they have been taught to love death rather than life. Look at what is being preached by some influential Islamic leaders:

"We are going to win, because they love life and we love death," said Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah. He has also said: "[E]ach of us lives his days and nights hoping more than anything to be killed for the sake of Allah." Shortly after 9/11, Osama bin Laden told a reporter: "We love death. The U.S. loves life. That is the big difference between us."

"The Americans love Pepsi-Cola, we love death," explained Afghani al Qaeda operative Maulana Inyadullah. Sheik Feiz Mohammed, leader of the Global Islamic Youth Center in Sydney, Australia, preached: "We want to have children and offer them as soldiers defending Islam. Teach them this: There is nothing more beloved to me than wanting to die as a mujahid." Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said in a speech: "It is the zenith of honor for a man, a young person, boy or girl, to be prepared to sacrifice his life in order to serve the interests of his nation and his religion."

How should Western democracies fight against an enemy whose leaders preach a preference for death?

The two basic premises of conventional warfare have long been that soldiers and civilians prefer living to dying and can thus be deterred from killing by the fear of being killed; and that combatants (soldiers) can easily be distinguished from noncombatants (women, children, the elderly, the infirm and other ordinary citizens). These premises are being challenged by women like Zahra Maladan. Neither she nor her son -- if he listens to his mother -- can be deterred from killing by the fear of being killed. They must be prevented from succeeding in their ghoulish quest for martyrdom. Prevention, however, carries a high risk of error. The woman walking toward the group of soldiers or civilians might well be an innocent civilian. A moment's hesitation may cost innocent lives. But a failure to hesitate may also have a price.

Late last month, a young female bomber was shot as she approached some shops in central Baghdad. The Iraqi soldier who drew his gun hesitated as the bomber, hands raised, insisted that she wasn't armed. The soldier and a shop owner finally opened fire as she dashed for the stores; she was knocked to the ground but still managed to detonate the bomb, killing three and wounding eight. Had the soldier and other bystanders not called out a warning to others -- and had they not shot her before she could enter the shops -- the death toll certainly would have been higher. Had he not hesitated, it might have been lower.

As more women and children are recruited by their mothers and their religious leaders to become suicide bombers, more women and children will be shot at -- some mistakenly. That too is part of the grand plan of our enemies. They want us to kill their civilians, who they also consider martyrs, because when we accidentally kill a civilian, they win in the court of public opinion. One Western diplomat called this the "harsh arithmetic of pain," whereby civilian casualties on both sides "play in their favor." Democracies lose, both politically and emotionally, when they kill civilians, even inadvertently. As Golda Meir once put it: "We can perhaps someday forgive you for killing our children, but we cannot forgive you for making us kill your children."

Civilian casualties also increase when terrorists operate from within civilian enclaves and hide behind human shields. This relatively new phenomenon undercuts the second basic premise of conventional warfare: Combatants can easily be distinguished from noncombatants. Has Zahra Maladan become a combatant by urging her son to blow himself up? Have the religious leaders who preach a culture of death lost their status as noncombatants? What about "civilians" who willingly allow themselves to be used as human shields? Or their homes as launching pads for terrorist rockets?

The traditional sharp distinction between soldiers in uniform and civilians in nonmilitary garb has given way to a continuum. At the more civilian end are babies and true noncombatants; at the more military end are the religious leaders who incite mass murder; in the middle are ordinary citizens who facilitate, finance or encourage terrorism. There are no hard and fast lines of demarcation, and mistakes are inevitable -- as the terrorists well understand.

We need new rules, strategies and tactics to deal effectively and fairly with these dangerous new realities. We cannot simply wait until the son of Zahra Maladan -- and the sons and daughters of hundreds of others like her -- decide to follow his mother's demand. We must stop them before they export their sick and dangerous culture of death to our shores.

Mr. Dershowitz teaches law at Harvard University and is the author of "Finding Jefferson" (Wiley, 2007).

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