Surviving Musharraf\'s Exit? #296 Posted by chaltahai:

" GT, you mean something like GITMO no?"

If Pakistani courts decide so.

"..they can be put far far away so that their death cult mentaility doesn't corrupt beautiful paki minds..."

I agree that this should be done. Unlike us, letting Modi and group run around foaming.

"But that would mean, you will have to get them."

Yes. Let the govt. propose how and let the courts decide. All in the open. Unlike Bush subverting his legal system and housing guys in Gitmo. If this takes time and the govt. needs to deal with the situation urgently then: (a) initiate talks; and/or (b) go about with procedures which are presently legal.

"...who has a history of surrendering is well...the pakistani army.."

OK then, what about the police? Seriously!

Surviving Musharraf\'s Exit? #290 Posted by chaltahai:

Chalta,

"Hellfires in NWFP ....". Seriously, does it make you feel happy? Or, do you think it works? If not, then please do refrain from "sounding" happy about it and repeating it again and again. This is just a request boss.

Surviving Musharraf\'s Exit? #284 Posted by chaltahai:

These are not high-browed methods, these are the only methods for an entity called a "country" to be taken seriously and to be civilized. If the US does not like it, so be it. The govt. of Pakistan should stand up (create international noise). Pakistan will be supported by at least China and Russia and according to me even by India. This entire non-sense of bombing parts of Pakistan is neither here nor there. They only increase the chatter of some Indians, here in Chowk.

Surviving Musharraf\'s Exit? Dear tahmed,

I would have addressed this to Hamid as well, but he is no better than the Indians here going "Paki, paki ... bomb, bomb". More about him later, but first let us get back to simple and clear facts.

A civilized democratic government of a country does not have to FIGHT with its citizens ar groups of citizens. India does, but then I never claimed that India is civilized. You and I can agree/disagree whether a suicide bomber is a criminal and his group is a criminal group. And I concede that it is the duty of a state to go against criminals. However, the courts should ultimately decide whether an individual or a group is criminal or not. I would not agree with HP here that tribals per se are criminals. But that is a more civilized debate. Bombing areas, or allowing others to bomb areas is Pakistan, should be an absolute NO NO. We should stop talking about a WAR on terror. Let Bush talk about it and even he is being marginalized by the US electorate.

The present government did indeed say it is a FIGHT (not a war). Hopefully, they meant it like a fight against poverty, hunger, lawnessness etc. For this FIGHT, the govt. should:
EITHER: (i) initiate talks within the parameters set by the Pakistani constitution; OR (ii) build cases against individuals/groups and get serious about "arresting" them along guidelines set by the courts (such guidelines can be sought within two months say). Let the "methods" for "arrests" be legally determined. Not by you, hamid or zeemax. There are no ther ways. And this is all very simple.

As far as Hamid is concerned .... he is either a Hindian or an islamofascist.

Surviving Musharraf\'s Exit? The spike in food prices, in Pakistan, started around Oct/Nov last year. It is not clear as to why this spike came about. Therefore, formulating a policy to tackle it is difficult. I would like to be a bit of an optimist here and propose the following thesis.

Around a year and a half back (???) the govt. overestimated the GROWTH of wheat, sugarcane etc. Expecting a fall in inflation, private distributors stored (hoarded if you may) more than what was necessary. Usually such co-ordination in storage is difficult. But the announcements induced this simultaneous co-ordination. Now, given this spike in prices, it is in the incentive of each distributor to let out what has been stored SLOWLY.

If what I hypothesize above is true, then an "annoncement" to import wheat may bring out the stored goods and thus end the spike. In fact, so much so that there is no need to import. However, the 'announcement" has to be credible and it is here that there is a small problem. Global prices (including transportation costs) are high and the one time lump sum subsidy announced by the Saudis (for oil) is not enough to slacken budgetary pressures. Furthermore, India also is facing inflation driven by agri. prices so importing from India (at a lower transportation cost) may not be feasible. These constraints on feasibility may lessen the "credibility" of a govt. import policy. Thereby not improving supplies.

Nevertheless, in my opinion, the govt. should go ahead and announce that it will import "food". Hopefully, it will increase local supplies and the policy need not be carried through.

In my opinion the smuggling of wheat and sugar into Afghanistan is not very big. And it cannot be stopped in the short run.

Surviving Musharraf\'s Exit? #143 Posted by hamidm2:

".. gilani is 'fair' and tall which automatically gives him 50+20 points on the rishta.com scale .."

There you go again. Arre bhai, the hair! The HAIR? It takes everything away. Have you seen Laloo's hair cut? Now there you have style.

Surviving Musharraf\'s Exit? #131 Posted by hamidm2:

"... just compare our pm gilani and his cabinet to yours ...". Are you nuts? Gilani looks like a constipated version of Mulayam Singh.

War of Another Kind #238 Posted by arjun_5:

"Jacob said Osmani was far away in Sylhet. A helicopter was sent, but he could not reach on time as the helicopter was shot at."

This is true. The helicopter was being flown by a cousin of mine. His arm bone had a metal plate screwed on it. My cousin died some years back. According to him they could have died that day itself.

Small Spies Must be Hanged , While Bigger Ones Prosper #25 continued ...

The biggest challenge to what I posit in #25 is something like the following:

"OK, all that is dandy but the mullahs will come to power and dismantle democracy".

I agree that this is a very strong critique. But let me hasten to point out that EVERYONE, repeat EVERYONE, who comes to power democratically will have an incentive to curb democracy such that OTHERS do not come to power. I cannot rule out this option by proposing a logical mechanism. Here I have to go ahead on the basis of my belief (assumption): "In humans we trust".

Small Spies Must be Hanged , While Bigger Ones Prosper Pavo,
You write:

"The basis of defence and stability of a country is absolute harmony and in consonance with the internal and external fronts."

This scares me and I posit it is the basic cause of turmoil within a country. What is ABSOLUTE HARMONY? What do you do when there is disharmony? Get rid of "the other" who cause this "disharmony". It is very important for people in the sub-continent to understand that there will be disharmony amongst different cultural/ideological groups. The name of the game is to channel this disharmony into a force that leads to grogress, for disharmony is exactly that which disturbs stagnation. How does one do that?

1. Violence and military action, romantic as they may be, simply tries to induce A stable ideology over time. The suppression of other ideas through fear simply means that the ruling ideas get outdated in a changing world till it is very late. So violence is out.

2. Simple democracy, with freedom of expression and non-coercion of alternative ideas, has a similar problem in the sense that the majority constantly suppresses the minority. However, it is slightly better as alternative ideas can at least be freely thrown about. For this, of course, tolerance is essential. Since by nature we are intolerant we have to tie ourselves to the post, like Ulysses faced with sirens, in protecting the RIGHT of others to OPPOSE, be it the suave upper class or members of LMP. We have to tie our hands such that we fail to strike at DISHARMONY.

3. Even the above does not help very much if decision making is CENTRALIZED. For example a 50.1% majority may turn out to universally dominate a 49.9% minority. The situation can be improved slightly if power is decentralized, to start with - at least geographically. Various other methods of decentralization also exist - like secularism, non-interference in cultural norms, the right to "bear arms against the state" etc. These have been extensively debated in chowk.

I end with an example; the Hamid, HP view that "mullahism" should not come to power at any cost, would clearly violate what I put forth above. The basic motto should be "In humans we trust".

Small Spies Must be Hanged , While Bigger Ones Prosper Yes, maneckshaw showed some spine in NEFA .... but then the Chinese had already stopped.

Small Spies Must be Hanged , While Bigger Ones Prosper #1 Posted by arjun_5

Maneckshaw is a racist who looked down on the "darkies". For 71, most of the credit goes to others .... Jacobs, perhaps, being the most important. I wouldn't be surprised if Maneckshaw sold secrets.

An Agenda for the New Government #44 Posted by tahmed32:

tahmed sahib,

Are you calling me a soul-mate of Hamid? Sir, Hamid is a true islamofascist. He has invited Urstruly sahib to the local bar several times (and God knows what they do there together) ... but he has never invited me even once!

An Agenda for the New Government #41 Posted by zeemax:

OK, I will. What do you think of my suggestions in #38. I am serious about them (I do not mind slight variations).

An Agenda for the New Government Arjun,

You are getting old and you may be on the verge of getting stuff wrong. Check out what NS is saying (New York Times):


" “If America wants to see itself clean of terrorists, we also want that our villages and towns should not be bombed,” he said at a news conference here. Mr. Sharif, a former prime minister, added he was unable to give Mr. Negroponte “a commitment” on fighting terrorism.

The statements by Mr. Sharif, and the cool body language in the televised portions of his encounter with Mr. Negroponte, were just part of the sea change in Pakistan’s domestic politics that is likely to impose new limits on how Washington fights militants within Pakistan’s borders.

.......

“If I can use an American expression, there is a new sheriff in town,”"

HAIL THE NEW SHERIFF .... plus all the zindabads etc.

An Agenda for the New Government #38 cont. ....

It seems that the Yanks do not have much of a problem with my suggestion #2.

"However, Negroponte said some hardliners can be "persuaded to participate in the democratic political process."" (Associated Press).

I am betting on this NS guy!