Myths about the Golden Age of Islam #178

the inferiority complex of all indians rears its ugly head again!! hahaha. i dont need to have sexual fantasies of less than beautiful indians walking around naked while its government plots against minorities, its army rapes kashmiris, its crazed priests ravage holy sites, and criminals like narendra modi are swept back into office. `knock, knock. who`s there? inferiority complex. come in, i`m indian!! `

Myths about the Golden Age of Islam #155

i wasnt referring to your nonsense either in my last post. also a typical bhindian response, full of cowshit (oh i`m sorry, did i hurt your religious sentiment). the fact on siachen is that its an issue that could have been resolved many years ago, but india refuses to solve it, for some odd reason. its been a nightmare for india to even consider solving this issue, despite the fact that millions of indians go naked on the streets of calcutta and in other cities (`india shining` huh). if anything, indian policy has backfired strategically. india spends the same amount in one day that pakistan spends in one month in siachen. so back off it. india has aped out in trying to solve this issue. you know it and i do.

Myths about the Golden Age of Islam #141

i am glad you had the balls to be a man and admit the wrongdoings of your nation. calling me a joker will not change the fact that for many years now organized terror among the kashmirs, including rape, has been official indian army policy. this has never been refuted, and kashmiris have always charged this against your soldiers. so i suggest that you fix your own house before calling other people names. belittling me will do you no good. i can assure you of that.

Myths about the Golden Age of Islam #144

ouch!! i see i got you where it hurts!! bitter?? hurt to realize a small part of your country is occupied by pakistan?? hahaha!!

Can an American Student Survive in Pakistan?
i am not really sure what the point of writing this article was. the premise of it is seems pretty clear to anyone. there would not be and could not be any doubt that the educational system in the US is pretty much unrivaled. having said that, the author for some reason feels it necessary to point out the biased texts that pakistani students have to learn from. though this is a legitimate concern (and musharrafs government seems to be taking this seriously, albeit at the behest of the US) the readers should not forget that the US too has its own brainwashing and racism loaded in its texts. how many american students can name four countries in africa? why is that that the conquering of the US continent by lewis and clark is labelled `manifest destiny?` does anyone really believe that? why is that the brutal techniques of the white man against the native americans are never taught? the systematic rape of the land, the genocide of the people? where is that textbook? i sure as hell never learned about that. american students are made to believe the american indians happily obliged to give up the land they had toiled on for years to this new white european race and live happily in reservation camps. how many black heroes do children learn about, except during the token african american history month, which comes only once a year (and i`m sure if it was up to people like ashcroft and dick cheney, the US would skip right by february and go straight to march). i can say with confidence that a pakistani student who attended a decent private school in pakistan can academically whoop a US student in a regular high school, who has access to better facilities than his pakistani counterpart. the educational system in the US is good, but may not be what the author has hyped it out to be. and this is reflected in the declining marks US students get every year in math and science.

Myths about the Golden Age of Islam #110

hahaha. you can think what you want about siachen. the pak army will never let that go. i dare you to find one partial source that says that siachen is under direct control of the indian army. every time they`ve tried to pull a stunt, the SSG commandos have whooped your `commandos` back to their respective positions. plus, we already have control of kargil, so you know what little boy, if it makes you happier and more proud to be an indian then go ahead, you can have siachen!! read this and weep. hahahah!!

Fact and fiction on Point 5353

The defence establishment`s response to the controversy over Point 5353 plumbs new depths.

PRAVEEN SWAMI

IN August, news broke that Pakistan holds one of the most important mountain features in the Drass Sector, Point 5353-metres. Since then, there has been a welter of fresh revelations, the most important of them being lawyer and Rajya Sabha MP R.K. Anand` s disclosure that five other positions on the Indian side of the Line of Control (LoC) are held by Pakistan. Anand also made public Army`s internal correspondence on the causes of the debacle over Point 5353. The revelations did not lead to a considered rebuttal, but generated a wave of hostile official polemic, often through pro-establishment journalists. One so-called security affairs expert charged that the revelations were part of a Pakistani intelligence plot to generate a ``divisive debate`` in India. (The ``Blame the ISI game`` again BVICTORY.GIF )

Addressing an audience of businessmen in Mumbai in early August, Union Defence Minister George Fernandes put forward the sole cogent official response to the revelations about Point 5353. ``5353,`` he said, ``is the point over which the LoC goes. The fact i s, our troops had never occupied that. The normal practice among them has been that where the line goes over a peak, then nobody occupies it.`` The Minister then proceeded to assault what he perceived to be irresponsible media organisations, much to the d elight of the assembled Mumbai businesspersons, many of whom have had their own skirmishes with reporters. But an analysis of Fernandes` statement shows not only little concern for fact, but an alarming willingness to use falsehood to ensure that his cho sen team in the defence establishment can continue to be incompetent with impunity.

``5353 is the point over which the LoC goes``

Assertions that the LoC is imprecisely defined on the ground, and that the territorial status of Point 5353 is therefore unclear, have formed the central component of official discourse on the controversy. A few hours spent poring over old newspapers are all that it takes to set the record straight. Sadly, few of the many commentators who have engaged with the revelations made in Frontline and other publications on the status of Point 5353 have seen it fit to make the effort.

During the Kargil war, Pakistan had put forward claims that the LoC was undefined on the ground, and that its territorial contours were imprecise. An irate spokesman of the Union Ministry of External Affairs responded on June 19, 1999. ``The LoC is well d efined and delineated,`` he said, ``and is the very cornerstone of Indo-Pakistan relations.`` Pointing out that detailed co-ordinates of the LoC were given in 19 annexures to the agreement of December 11, 1972, arrived at between Lieutenant-General Abdul Ha mid Khan and Lieutenant-General P.S. Bhagat, the spokesman added that ``so far as the de jure position is concerned, there are no doubts.``

Speaking in New Delhi on June 23, 1999, his first press conference after military operations began in Kargil, Chief of the Army Staff V.P. Malik was even more explicit. ``In today`s display,`` he said after a formal presentation, ``we have also given you details of the LoC; its delineation; how it was delineated.`` ``With marked maps, a military man without a GPS (Global Positioning System) can make an error of a few hundred metres on the ground, but an error of 8 to 9 kilometres is unimaginable.``

No one appeared to be in any doubt about just where Point 5353 was during the Kargil war itself. The Press Trust of India (PTI) put out official responses to Pakistan claims that Point 5353 was on its side of the LoC on July 28, 1999. ``The maps signed by the Indian and Pakistani DGMOs (Directors General of Military Operations) in 1972 clearly indicate that it belongs to India,`` the PTI despatch noted. On July 30, a PTI depatch repeated the assertion in a report on fighting around Point 5353: ``In this sector, Pakistan claims some mountains to be a part of this territory whereas the maps signed between the Directors General of Military Operations in December 1972, are contrary to this claim.``

Maps published in Frontline, and also separate documents made available to the press by Anand, both make clear that Point 5353 is at an aerial distance of almost a kilometre from the LoC on the Indian side. On the ground, that would mean a trek of several kilometres, given the terrain`s savage contours. How what was ``well defined`` and ``well delineated`` only a year ago has now become so confused is a question only the defence establishment`s apologists can answer.

``Where the line goes over a peak, nobody occupies it``

Leaving aside the so far undenied fact that Pakistan is indeed in occupation of Point 5353, this second element of Fernandes` argument raises more than a few interesting issues. Right through the Kargil war, Indian officials made clear that the fight for Point 5353 had been joined. But that fight would have served little purpose had the strategically located peak not fallen inside Indian territory.

Northern Command chief H.M. Khanna announced in Srinagar on July 21, 1999 that while the bulk of the Pakistan intrusion had been vacated, ``some 50 to 70 intruders still held three positions along the LoC in Kargil``. Two days later, The Tribune, citing official reports, noted that ``fierce fighting was on in Batalik and Kaksar sub-sectors as the Indian troops launched operations to evict the intruders from the three pockets they were holding.`` ``Fighting,`` the report noted, ``was under way at Point 5 353 in Drass, Muntho Dhalo and Shangruti Ridge in Batalik, and also at a position in Kaksar.`` These are much the same areas as Anand referred to in his press conference.

Nothing much changed over the next few days. On July 24, The Tribune again reported that ``Pakistani intruders continued to hold their position in the small pockets of intrusion``. The same day, the Asian Age`s special correspondents in New Delhi and Srinagar quoted Union Defence Minister George Fernandes as saying that ``a very few Pakistani soldiers are occupying one point each in Drass. Batalik and Mushkoh.`` ``These points,`` he insisted, ``will be cleared at any time.`` Officials did their best to prove their Minister right, announcing both on July 25 and July 26, 1999 that the last of the intrusions had been cleared.

Fernandes and Lieutenant-General Nirmal Vij, the Director-General of Military Operations (DGMO), were, in fact, being economical with the truth. On July 28, PTI reported that fighting continued in several areas. One soldier was killed in shelling in the Batalik area while another died in the Muntho Dalo area. The Pakistan Army, PTI recorded, ``also launched a counter-attack on Sando Top and Zulu Spur.`` The Zulu Spur forms the junction of ridges from the Mushkoh Valley and the Marpo La area. Most important of all, PTI noted that ``in Mushkoh sub-sector of Drass both sides exchanged small arms fire around Point 5353``. What Indian troops were doing there if the peak is not on the Indian side of the LoC remains a mystery - particularly if, as the Army`s public relations staff insist, the peak is of little strategic significance and poses no real threat to National Highway 1A.

Pakistan, which now denies that it holds any territory on the Indian side of the LoC, clearly understood the gains it had made. On July 26, even as officials in New Delhi announced that the last Pakistani intruder had been evicted from the Indian side of the LoC, the Pakistan Army`s Brigadier Rashid Qureshi made a significant, but little noticed, statement. The Pakistani newspaper Dawn reported that ``contrary to Indian claims, the Pakistan Army is still holding some strategic heights along the Line of Control and can effectively tackle any Indian attack.`` ``We are in a position to target Indian vehicles on the Kargil-Drass road,`` it quoted Qureshi as saying.

But in the triumphal glow provoked by the end of Operation Vijay, news regarding Point 5353 disappeared from the press. No reportage on the fighting in the area appeared after the PTI report of July 28. A similar fate befell operations in the Batalik are a. On July 9, Army spokesperson Bikram Singh announced that ``valiant Gorkha Rifles soldiers, who had recaptured Khalobar and Point 5287, regained point 4821 and Kukerthang``. ``The gallant Bihar regiment,`` he continued, ``took control of the Tharu hills in an overnight operation.`` ``Now,`` he concluded, ``only one or two pockets where the intruders are giving resistance are left to be recaptured.`` Nothing about those pockets, which included the Shangruti feature on the LoC, was heard of again.

``Fact is, our troops had never occupied that``

The argument that Point 5353 was never held by India has been regularly used by the Army public relations apparatus to rebut the charge that operational incompetence and strategic errors led to its occupation by Pakistan during the Kargil war. The claim is, in fact, true. India did not hold Point 5353 before the war broke out. What has not been reported widely is that this statement of fact rebuts nothing, for no one ever claimed that the peak was physically held by India before the war. Indeed, reports that appeared in Frontline and Business Line made quite clear that the peak was not held by either side in the build-up to the conflict.

Point 5353, along with the features around it, was occupied by the Pakistani troops at the start of the Kargil war. When the hostilities ended, the Indian troops had succeeded only in taking back Charlie 6 and Charlier 7, two secondary positions on the M arpo La ridgeline. The Indian troops had also been unable to evict Pakistani soldiers from Point 5240, some 1,200 metres from Point 5353 as the crow flies. Amar Aul, the 56 Brigade Commander in charge of the operations to secure Point 5353, responded by occupying two heights on the Pakistani side of the LoC, 4875 and 4251, just before the ceasefire came into force.

Aul later tried to use these two heights to bring about a territorial exchange. In mid-August 1999, his efforts bore fruit, and both sides committed themselves to leave Points 5353, 5240, 4251 and 4875 unoccupied. Indian and Pakistani troops pulled back to their pre-Kargil position as part of a larger agreement between their respective DGMOs. In October that year, however, the deal broke down. Aul tasked the 16 Grenadiers to take Point 5240 and the 1/3 Gorkha Rifles to occupy Point 5353, choosing to violate the August agreement rather than risk a Pakistani reoccupation of these positions. The operation was mishandled, and when the Pakistani troops detected the Indian presence on 5240, they promptly launched a counter-assault on Point 5353.

Pakistan rapidly consolidated its position on 5353 after the abortive Indian offensive. Concrete bunkers came up on the peak, and a road was constructed to the base of the peak of Benazir Post. And with Point 5353 and its adjoining area now linked by road to Pakistan`s rear headquarters at Gultari, any attack will lead to a full-blown resumption of hostilities. No official from the Army or the Defence Ministry has, until the third week of September, denied this sequence of events.

Nor has a denial been made of significant new revelations made by Anand. Anand made available the correspondence between Captain Navneet Mehta, who led an unsuccessful attack on Peak 5353 in May 1999. The correspondence outlines the errors that led to this debacle. Aul has not been called to account for his actions. Nor has the Army denied or accepted this highly decorated solider`s part in the debacle. Neither have his superiors seen it fit to explain why Pakistan was left in possession of the peak, an d why the subsequent exchange-deal was terminated to India`s evident disadvantage. Most significant, Anand`s claim that Point 5353 was indeed held by India in 1992-1993, successfully cutting off Pakistani supply routes, has not been rebutted.

In the wake of Anand`s intervention on the 5353 debate, General Malik has chosen to distance himself from the entire controversy. At an August 31 press conference, held to inaugurate the Army Wives Welfare Association`s website, Malik said the issue had now entered the ``political domain.`` ``We are going through his statement,`` Malik said. ``We have the answer, but let the government react.`` Coming from an Army chief who allowed his officers to brief the Bharatiya Janata Party on the conduct of the Kargil war, and permitted his soldiers to host a Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh-organised religious function in Leh, the new disdain for politics is interesting.

The worrying lack of answers about Point 5353 is not the only problematical aspect of the affair. Many of the Army`s responses to Point 5353 stories were put out not through attributable statements, for which officials could later be held accountable, but through off-the-record briefings held behind closed doors. In effect, a section of the media allowed itself to be used as the public relations wing of an incompetent defence apparatus. One Calcutta-based daily even apologised for the unpardonable sin o f having failed to censor Anand`s press conference on behalf of the defence establishment.

India`s defence establishment and much of the press have chosen to hide from uncomfortable truth. But the silence does no one any favours, least of all the soldiers who could one day have to pay again with their lives for the failures of the Kargil war.




http://www.frontlineonnet.com/fl1720/17200340.htm

Myths about the Golden Age of Islam #97

yasser, ignore people like that. you have done a service by clarifying that muslims too are humans very capable of making mistakes. yes, islam and muslims once ruled an empire that was unrivaled in history. but i think you did a good job of showing that even within that set up there was bound to be some friction and inequity.

Myths about the Golden Age of Islam #85

yes you are right. but as long as those doing jihad out of the madrassas are stopping ugly bhindian soldiers from raping young kashmiri women by massacring them and fighting india in order to prevent it from fake encounters in siachen then its all good!!

Proud to be a Pakistani?
saint-
i did not claim that pakistan is a country thats becoming a superpower. pakistan has its fair share of problems, but to think, as some people here (ahem ahem rsridhar) that india is the next dubai (hahaha) then they can wake up and smell the desai cola (yuck!). i give credit where credit is due. i am not some indian hater. india has performed well economically over the past several years, and its starting to get somewhere. but china is leagues ahead of india, and pakistan loves this dynamic factor. a pakistan under shaukat aziz can easily take giant strides in the economic disparity region. the IMF and WB have both forecasted pakistan to clock 8% annual growth rate by 2006. not bad for a country that is `terrorist-ridden`. how ignorant.
bbabu-
sounds like another bhindian response to musharraf grabbing india by the balls! you`ve basically acknowledged that india is getting it up the rear diplomatically by pakistan. if you think manmohan singh and your thick politicians can outgun and out-strategize musharraf, you need to stop yourself from having wet dreams. mahathir muhammad too was a dictator, albeit one liked by his fellow countrymen. malaysia`s GDP is equal to india`s and its population is probably 1/10!! hail to the sacred cow!!

Proud to be a Pakistani?
how eloquent!! you must have attended harvard? this is the typical bhindu response these days to pakistans prominence on the world stage, where president musharraf gets feted by leaders from around the world, and manmohan singh goes to russia with kneepads and mouthwash begging for nuclear reactor fuel and gets turned down!! spare everyone on this forum the charge of militant `rogue` pakistan. this is an old indian eyewash, and no one in the world falls for it anymore. and that pisses off every indian in the world. the truth is the indians have met their match in musharraf, and you guys are finding it difficult to digest the US and pakistans new cozy relationship. meanwhile, the worlds largest democracy still lives with an ancient caste system, and crazy old hindu priests burn christian monastaries, kill dalits and adivasis, butcher and rape muslim women. bring me, oh intelligent one, incidents in pakistan of mass organized militancy against the state on the scale of gujrat, where thousands of people were displaced and murdered. extremism in pakistan is hardly the issue that sectarianism is in india, so quit this `all is fine` in the worlds biggest democracy. the secular democracy where UN resolutions are flaunted, and minorities fear for their lives. read arundhati roy more my friend. dont worry about pakistan. its citizens know how to handle themselves. worry about the mess in your own house.

Proud to be a Pakistani?
its pathetic how indians still can claim that they are superior to the chinese when india has not accomplished half of what the chinese do. and its so easy to say that bhindia comes out ahead of pakistan in most aspects of civil society. lets not forget that this is a country where the masses still sleep on the street in calcutta and where there is a degrading caste system still in place. how advanced. your IIT`s are of no use if they cannot compete with china. after all thats the country you guys should compare yourself to. your populations are the same. rationally speaking, its insane to think that pakistan can compete with india in every matter. the fact remains that the chinese could economically, and militarily (hehe), whoop india back to the stone age. manmohan singh would go begging russia, with his trusty mouthwash and kneepads!!
i have not defended the actions of the pakistani army in bangladesh. what happened there was reprehensible. but lets not turn the attention away from what the original issue was. if pakistan suffers from so called `militancy` as someone so wisely claimed, then india suffers from communal strife. the muslims were systematically this time around swept from their homes and the government was complicit in it. the police was complicit. the system was complicit. gujrat reeked of an official genocide. hip hip hurray for `secular` india!

Proud to be a Pakistani?
such a great tactic to point the finger back this way. the situation in east pakistan was that of an internal uprising. read up on the activities of the awami league, and though nothing justifies what happened, that was official government action. what happened in gujrat, which by the way i was responding in reply to a comment about terrorists running around in pakistan as a problem by some imbecile fundo, was the action of a group of drunken hindu priests who with the help of the eunach known at narendra modi and the idealogues within the BJP, systematically destroyed the economic base of the muslim population. but hey, lets not get into that, because yeah `india shining.` that bogus platform that even the BJP admitted was an exaggeration of the highest order. this is a country that thinks it can compete with global superpowers, meanwhile has been unable to `indigenously` produce its horrible mess of a `fighter jet` the LCA. the chinese meanwhile, whom india thinks it has some superiority over, are already done with their indigenous production. but hey, india shining!

Proud to be a Pakistani?
yeah and india suffers from chronic communal strife where human beings are chopped up into pieces and unborn babies are ripped out of their mothers bellies and butchered, and the government acts as if nothing has happened. hush, hush. they were only muslims.

Still in Love
kudos shehlah!!! kudos!!

Proud to be a Pakistani?
i agree with your post mr. shergill. however, you forget that india is still a third world country with a poverty rate of roughly 25% of its population. thats an incredible 200 million people who are miserably poor. anyone who`s ever been to calcutta, where people have to resort to living on the street would know this. and though india may have better developed insitutions than pakistan, partly because as you noted its Army has been intelligent enough to stay out something no army could master, to compare Indian insitutions to those of the West is ludicrous. you should read arundhati roy more. in regard to law and order, read her comments on the indian governments treatment of the poor adivasis and dalits in the narmada valley. where is the law and order there? where was the law and order in gujrat when muslims were massacred in front of policemen? i hate to pull that card out but i`m making a point. also, a country`s foreign reserves have very little to do with the well being of its citizens. japan has greater foreign reserves than the US, and china is a close second. i would doubt that the average chinese is better off than the average american.

Dystopia: After the cliché
NFP:

no educated muslim longs for the the caliphate of the four first caliphs. the reason they are referred to as the four rightly guided caliphs are because those four rulers were the closest to the Prophet, peace be upon him, and therefore knew his decisions best. they ruled effectively for the most part. that sort of administration will not be seen in the muslim world again. and by the way, baaghiraja, before you believe all the bull crap you watch on CNN and fox news (two of the worst networks in the world, they actually make PTV look good!) consider the experiences of yvonne ridley, in her own words. google her name. just a thought....