US Commando Strike in Waziristan One thing that is especially dangerous for Pakistan is the fact that it is Democrats who consider Pakistan to be the "just war" rather than Republicans.

When a Republican government goes to war, the opposing force has a built in 5th column - assorted Blame America Firsters, Peaceniks, Democrats in general.

OTOH, when a Dem government goes to power, even when it is absolutely in the wrong (Kosovo and lack of international legitimacy comes to mind) the Republicans end up falling in line and the Dems consider themselves to be the last people to go to war, hence when they do, they tend to be damn self righteous about the whole thing.

US Commando Strike in Waziristan "They have decided that the centre of gravity of all the trouble is Pakistan.Right or wrong this appears to be the central US perception now."

Pavo - Rightly or Wrongly is a copout. You tell us your opinion - is the US right or wrong in assuming that the center of gravity lies in the US?

Save Me From Charismatic Leaders! I find Romair's comments very insightful.

Musharraf and Me TAhmed: Musharraf took power in a coup - he should never have been entitled to any sort of welcome. If Nawaz Sharif was a bad ruler, he should have been voted out, not kicked out by the 111 Brigade. This was not the first coup in Pak - what made the Paksitani people think that this time was different? It was their dependence on a individual savior rather than faith in process.

Musharraf and Me Besides myself, the three people who were consistently against Musharraf were SameerJB, Zeemax and Sobia. Rest all Pakistanis were doing Bhangra when Musharraf came in.

It\'s Politics Uber Alles In Kashmir ..... And India Dost Mittar: This is one of the most useless articles you have written. Look, even if Kashmir Valley is to be given to Pakistan, it should be done at our choosing. Not under blackmail. It should be done after the Kashmiris have been decimated to the extent that their coming generations remember Indian Army just as we Hindus remember Nadir Shah and Abdali. The first stage is also to inflict pain on sympathizers of Kashmiri Muslims (even if they are Hindu) as they should suffer in the same way that the Kashmiri Hindus have suffered.

Aafia Siddiqui to Appear in Court Masadi: I am really enjoying the TNI Masadi. I had no idea you had such a sense of humor.

America\'s Opportunity in Pakistan\'s Tribal Belt Arjun: Adam Khan makes a valid point. The only difference - and it is a KEY difference, is that India never redicalized its own population to fight foreign wars. Had Pakistan encouraged Jihad only in Kashmir and Aghanistan - only for Kashmiris and Afghans to fight, the blow back against Pakistan would be much reduced. Reduced, not eliminated, because India did face blowback from Sri Lanka, be it Rajeev Gandhi, or the loss of thousands of troops of the IPKF. If Pakistan had restricted itself to training Afghans only, far from publicity or large scale indoctrination, blowback would have been some pissed of Mujahideen killing a couple of politicians / generals. No big loss, and certainly no loss of actual territory to a mass movement.

The Indian Mujahideen – The Answer to BJP’s Pseudo-Secularist Fascism or a New Method to Spread Unrest? http://www.som.yale.edu/faculty/ehk1/Interfaces_sb_shot_noise_published.pdf

e xcerpt:

Discussion
We fit a parsimonious shot-noise model that appears
to be consistent with observed suicide-bombing
attacks over time in Israel. This model tells a simple
story. Initially, Israel employed targeted hits of
terror operatives and leaders in response to suicide
terrorism after September 2000. However, these hits
appeared to be associated with increased rather than
decreased suicide-bombing-attack rates, and thus the
number of suicide-bombing attacks continued to grow.
After Israel launched Operation Defensive Shield and
began arresting terror suspects in the West Bank on a
large scale, suicide-bombing rates began to fall. Thus,
it seems to us that preventive arrests, and not targeted
killings, were more responsible for the decline in
suicide-bombing attacks in Israel between March 2002
and April 2004.

On March 22,
2004, Israel assassinated Ahmed Yassin, the founder
of the Hamas terror group responsible for the majority
of suicide bombings in Israel. Less than one month
later, Yassin’s successor, Abdel Aziz Rantissi, was also
killed. These hits provoked tremendous rage among
Palestinians, and terror organizations swore to retaliate.
Although attempted suicide bombings in Israel
increased, Israel thwarted virtually all of these by
making preventive arrests before suspected bombers
could launch an attack or by intercepting would-be
bombers en route.

Muslims in America Oye BJ yaar, tu Chowk sey kuch maheeney ka furlough kyon nahi ley leta? U seem to be the one person uniting Indians and Pakistanis these days..Saala Atif 2 sey ley key Chaltahai gives you gaalis. Take a break, dude.

A Journey Interrupted: Being Indian in Pakistan by Farzana Versey "I must clarify that in Pakistani mind, Kashmir basically means the valley, not Jammu. What runs in the blood is the valley - Jammu is for strategic reasons added into the fray."

Yes, exactly as I thought, it comes down to the valley. I knew that but wanted to clarify.

"The Kashmiris in Pakistan (and I mean the Punjabi Kashmiris PLUS the Mirpuris in settled Pakistan) are ALL from the valley. I haven't seen anyone from Jammu. I may be wrong and I would stand corrected."

OK, since you know that they are Kashmiris, can you tell me where in the valley they are from? What are their Kashmiri clan names? None of them speak Kashmiri, so I would assume there is something more than just a spoken attachment to some pretty hills.

A Journey Interrupted: Being Indian in Pakistan by Farzana Versey

"You know very well (having visted Pakistan) Kashmir runs in Pakistani's blood. It is not merely real estate. "

I can tell you, read my article on Pakistan if you wish, Kashmir runs in the blood of a subset of Pakistanis (real estate or otherwise), not the whole.

"AND whom you call East Punjabis, all have more of a Kashmiri identity than a Punjabi one, which in fact is NO identity at all. There is NO identity named 'Punjabi'. Are you surprised? The Punjabi identity is actually Jaat, Rajput, Gakhhar, Awan, Araeen, and so forth ..... "


There is very much a Punjabi identity...broken further into Majha, Malwa and Doaba..specifically in East Punjab. It is further broken down by Jatt (not Jaat - Jaat implies non Punjabi language) Rajput, Kshatriya etc. Some of the castes you mentioned like Araeen etc are exclusively Muslim and Punjabi (linguistically), not existing outside Punjab.

Now, let us discuss "Kashmiri identity". Do you mean Mirpur, Jammu, Ladakh, Baltistan, Gilgit or the Kashmir valley? All are pasrt of larger Kashmir. But the language of the Valley is completly different from the language of Jammu, Baltistan, Mirpur etc. So, tell me, which part of Kashmir are these Amritsaris related to? Nawaz Sharif does not even have a Kashmiri clan name. It is like Romair claiming to be Kashmiri though he is a Punjabi speaker from areas bordering Mirpur or something.

What I find funny is that for Punjab, which is linguistically much more homogenous, you are denying a Punjabi identity. But for Kashmir, which actually is very very heterogenous in both ethnic and linguistic sense, you are applying an ioverarching Kashmiri identity.

BTW, I am all for giving the valley and its people to Kashmir in exchange for ethnic cleansing of Muslims from Jammu and Ladakh. So, no differences with you there.

A Journey Interrupted: Being Indian in Pakistan by Farzana Versey "Samajwadi MP says 7 will vote against UPA

A Ganesh Nadar | July 09, 2008 19:38 IST

Munawwar Hasan, the Samajwadi Party member of Parliament from Muzaffarnagar in Uttar Pradesh is among those from his party who refuse to toe the party line on backing the United Progressive Alliance government on the Indo-US nuclear deal.

Hasan is clear that he will vote against the government, and refuses to change his view even at the cost of losing his party membership.
"

This is why I think we need to do something about the Muslim issue in democratic politics. We should follow the Pakistani example of having nominated Minority (read seperate) electorates. So Muslims are not in a position to subvert India's strategic interests for "Ummah oriented" gains.

A Journey Interrupted: Being Indian in Pakistan by Farzana Versey "The Kashmiri origin people constitute a VERY large, wealthy, and influential/respectable community in Punjab. These are the Kashmiris like the Nawaz Sharif clan and most of his shadow cabinet who came over from Amritsar at partition,"

Yes, they are all East Punjabis. They are as much Kashmiri as I am German.

" Even Sheikh Rashid is from Srinagar."

Yes, maybe his mother's doodhwala was a Kashmiri..from Mirpur.

The Kashmiri tradition /culture / food is part and parcel of the Pakistan Punjab's culture. Fully integrated."

Zeemax, it is obvious you do not have a clue about Kashmir or its culture especially the Valley. There is NOTHING in Pakistani Punjab which even vaguely is similar to Kashmiri culture. Not the language, not the food, nothing. Jammu maybe..and Jammu's Dogri is more similar to the Mirpur language but not Kashmiri at all.

Solving Amarnath: A New Hope in Kashmir "I still fail to see why and who stirred up Muslims against the nuke deal. I was surprised when I first read that the left was using this line. I don’t read Indian papers regularly so I might have missed the motivation but on the face of it there is nothing communal or anti Muslim in the nuke deal, Muslims dislike of Bush notwithstanding. Is it possible that the left encouraged the Muslims community to create another ally or to shift the blame to Muslims? Just a few months ago, the Indian media was outraged against the left but now it is switching to Muslims and citing them as the main opposition to the deal. This may be because everyone senses new elections and whipping up the Hindus against the Muslims is the SOP in India at election time."


HP - On this issue, your thesis is completly correct. Not sure how the Nuke deal and Kashmir discussions got mioxed up but these are two distinct issues. The former is a real crisis, the latter a manufactured one.


" filling that gap in India would require a major effort and the way the political systems are in both countries, some sensible policies to fill that gap wouldn’t be pursued. Brace for some more communal trouble in India."

Look, personally, I don't mind a degree of communalism as long as it is expressed on bread and Butter issues. I would be happy to see Muslims agitate for reservations like the Gujjars did. The problem is the most times I have seen the Muslim community truly excercised is with a vague issue about religion / Islamic identity.

Solving Amarnath: A New Hope in Kashmir HP's thesis is completly wrong on this issue. This was not inspired by leaders for communal gains. It was a spontaneous mass movement where the leaders had to run after the followers. Same thing with the Nuclear deal. It is about time we accept that Muslims in India are inherently a parochial, backward community whi will never take decisions in their self interest, let alone national interest. It is also about time we stop being hypocrites and stop blaming British / Elites / Politicians for what is essentially a genuine communal gap between Hindus and Muslims in India.