Pakistan: A Downward Spiral?

Re: # 41
Even a drowning man clutches at straws ! Zeemax, what is the matter with you.... quoting Rush in your defence ?

I thought you had said go ahead "Make my day ... we will gather ulema and teach these yanks a lesson"

Funny !!!

we are on the same side viq ! i wasnt kidding about the affection chowkies have for their tormentors, if you stay tuned you will soon agree with me.

Cliftonbridge - I am thrilled to know that people in this forum are deeply in love with each other. I apologize for any misunderstanding; I certainly do not suggest that it is Chowk's fault that there is banaspati hostility between certain posters.

You are ight. The discussion here does establish our identity. Back to regularly scheduled perfectly intelligent conversation.

viqram - such is the power of the individual that many people will still have perfectly intelligent and rational conversations with people they disagree with.

This site is dedicated to the identity of india and pakistan. Its not chowks fault that there is so much real or pretend hostility for each other in both identities.

BTW the abuse on this site is actually flirting, most of the people here have known each other for years and like each other quite a bit.

This is indeed one of the most thought provoking articles for Pakistanis that I have seen in this forum.

What baffles me, though, is how do you expect to have any serious discussion about the issues it raises, in this forum, given as it is to petty name calling between Indians and Pakistanis?

Please don't tell me you wrote it to just get some money from Chowk, for I don't see what else you'll get out of it.

Tribals and weapons

All talk about waziristan and the tal;iban. The tribals are one of the poorest lots in pakistan and one might wonder how they are able to get weapon. Well well, now the secret is out, they are provided by the pak army, and a major part was supplied during kargill operations as it was carried out by the tribals.

The waziristan people were provided the weapons as part of the deal to take them to kargill.

#46 Posted by zeemax on August 2, 2007 5:55:08 am
#42/43

Did it ever occur to hindooo idiots who do nothing but c/p news reports that Pakistanis have already read the newspapers?

Really..Is this a capability statement or a capacity statement, moron...

#44

You make Pakistani Biryani sound like it's an institution, like the burqa. Maybe we ought to bomb all the bawarchis making biryani. I wonder how many beautiful women in burqas make excellent biryani?

#42/43

Did it ever occur to hindooo idiots who do nothing but c/p news reports that Pakistanis have already read the newspapers?

Re: # 43
Barak Obama is shooting hot gas from both sides of his mouth. He honestly believes he is the 21st century Jack Kennedy. People say lots of these BS during election time.
Kamath
01837Hrs

Re: # 42 and Anjum Altaf:

Sirs: The statement,"..Pakistan is not on a downward spiral. for the first time in the history of islam..." is highly exaggerated. You people give a false impression that 'the sky is falling kind of doomsday scnario. These troubled times will be over and may turn out to be only footnotes of history.

BTW I stull think Pkistani Biriyani is still one of the best. Women when out of Burkha can still be very beautiful. What else do you need in life?

Kamath
0833HRs

Pakiland's way of drumming support from the Democrats ...

Pakistan slams 'ignorant' Obama threat Article

August 02, 2007 08:57pm
PAKISTAN accused Democratic US presidential candidate Barack Obama of "sheer ignorance" today for threatening to launch US military strikes against al-Qaeda on Pakistani soil.

Mr Obama warned today that if he is elected president, he would order US forces to hit extremist targets on Pakistan's frontier with Afghanistan if embattled military ruler President Pervez Musharraf failed to act.

"Such statements are being made out of sheer ignorance," Pakistan's Minister of State for Information, Tariq Azeem, said.

"They are not fully apprised about the ground realities and not aware of the efforts by Pakistan."

Islamabad has bristled against a string of similar threats in recent weeks by the administration of US President George W. Bush, whose top counter-terror official in July refused to rule out US strikes in Pakistan.

Mr Musharraf, struggling to contain a wave of Islamist violence unleashed by the army's bloody storming of the radical Red Mosque in Islamabad three weeks ago, himself firmly rejected any US action last week.

"We have said before that we will not allow anyone to infringe our sovereignty," Mr Azeem said.

"If there is any actionable intelligence they should tell us and only our forces will take action on it and they are quite capable of it."

The minister suggested that Mr Obama's comments were prompted by Washington's inability to curb the ongoing Taliban insurgency in neighbouring Afghanistan, where US-led forces toppled the hardline regime in late 2001.

"This seems to be a reaction to their own failure in Afghanistan to control the US casualties and instead of addressing the situation there, they are finding scapegoats and damaging their own cause," Mr Azeem added.

Pakistan foreign ministry spokeswoman Tasnim Aslam today warned against "point-scoring" by US presidential candidates on vital security issues.

Mr Musharraf abandoned Islamabad's support for the Taliban in the wake of the 9/11 attacks on the US.

He has said that a top US official warned that Pakistan would be bombed back to the "stone age" if it failed to join Washington's "war on terror".

Pakistan is not on a downward spiral. for the first time in the history of islam, the jihadis have become an assdet for pakistan. They collected billions from the americans to create the jihadis.

Now they are collecting billions to kill them off. The latest is helicopter gun ship attack on their own citizens, termed militants and the americans are going to pay for that. Even 100 dollars per jihadi is a good money there are millions to be killed.

They have even caught a few al quida guys in quetta. When the pressure on pakistan goes up, they kill a few of their own and collect the bounty money.

It is easy money for the pakistanis, at the givernment level killing is a paying job. In the streets of karachi people are being killed to rob mobile phones.

The only good news is the demand for new state called Afghania, it is a combination of india and afghanistan. The five consulates that india has got in afghanistan seem to be doing good work.

Pakistan as a nation appear to be in terminal state, people seem to eb preparing for its partition.

#38 Posted by zeemax on August 2, 2007 12:50:01 am


Haha


barry hussein wants to talk to iran and syria and attack pakiland

hardcore islamist like you is quoting Rush Limbaugh...RUSH LIMBAUGH!!

It's a bizzaro world..

Idiot ...

Haha ...

Obama: I'll Invade Pakistan



RUSH: Boy, I'll tell you, I would not want to be Pakistan's president today, Musharraf. This guy is hanging by a thread anyway. He is just barely holding on. He's at loggerheads; he's got a whole terrorist population; he's got a moderate population; he's got the United States as an ally; we need to fly over Pakistan to get into Afghanistan, folks. We cannot fly over Iran's airspace. I found this out when I went to Dubai to stop for a couple days and rest up for the trip into Afghanistan two and a half years ago or so. You can't fly over Iranian airspace, so what would normally be, I don't know, an hour, hour and a half, is a three and a half hour flight because you gotta go around Iran. You gotta go up and through Pakistan. We have flyover rights. It's the simplest and fastest way that we can get supplies to the troops, whatever is necessary in there.

So poor Musharraf, he wakes up today, and he learns that Barack Obama wants to invade his country. He wants to take the troops out of Iran and invade Pakistan. Then, after he hears Obama say that, he gets a video from some Al-Qaeda hack who is suggesting that Al-Qaeda conduct a coup against Musharraf and his government. I think the biggest fear that Musharraf probably faces, or has, of these two, is Obama. If it weren't for the fact that he's running for president, it would be laughable. What it is, is horribly naïve, and he's just given Mrs. Clinton a hanging curve ball. We have two sound bites from a speech he gave this morning in Washington at the Woodrow Wilson Center for, you know, hopeful presidential candidates to come make big-time speeches on foreign policy. Here's cut one.

OBAMA: We went off to fight on the wrong battlefield, with no appreciation of how many enemies we would create and no plan for how to get out. Because of a war in Iraq that should have never been authorized and should have never been waged, we are now less safe than we were before 9/11. Six years after 9/11 we are again in the midst of a summer of threat with bin Laden and many more terrorists determined to strike in the United States. What's more, in the dark halls of Abu Ghraib and the detention cells of Guantanamo, we have compromised our most precious values.

RUSH: Yada yada yada, same old,same old, same old playbook song: we are destroying our image around the world. We are making them mad at us for all this imaginary torture that goes on at Abu Ghraib and Club Gitmo. Here is another portion, a second bite of the Obama workout this morning. He had to give this big foreign policy speech, gotta go out there and shore up his credentials and show the world he's a serious guy.

OBAMA: The president would have us believe that every bomb in Baghdad is part of Al-Qaeda's war against us, not an Iraqi civil war. He elevates Al-Qaeda in Iraq, which didn't exist before our invasion, and overlooks the people who hit us on 9/11, who are training new recruits in Pakistan right now. He is fighting the war that the terrorists want us to fight, a misguided invasion of a Muslim country that sparks new insurgencies, ties down our military, busts our budgets, increases the pool of terrorist recruits, alienates America, gives democracy a bad name, and prompts the American people to question our engagement in the world.

RUSH: Wow. In this speech, he also said that if Musharraf doesn't do the right thing over there and clean out these terrorists in the mountainous regions, he's going to go in there and do it himself. He would invade Pakistan. Now, the military futility of that is crazy. They have a 39 million-man army in Pakistan. They have nuclear weapons. They play a vital role for us. If you look at the map of that region, you find that there's no suitable replacement for Pakistan if we alienate them in order to base ourselves for staging operations to re-supply troops in Iraq and so forth. Just from that sense, this is a nonsensical thing. It shows exactly what Mrs. Clinton claimed Barack Obama is, and that's naïve. This has so much naïveté. He's just trying to bulk up here, he's trying to flex his muscles to demonstrate to everybody just how serious he can be, and also make a play for the anti-war left. What's interesting about this whole spat is the way the media plays this. Obama says he wants to invade Pakistan. Well, not really all of Pakistan, he just wants to go into northwestern Pakistan.

Have you checked to see how that could be done? You would have to go in from the Arabian Sea. You need lines of communication -- it's been said today -- you need lines of communication to muster such a massive military force. Pakistan is what provides that now with our flyover rights, staging base operations, all that would come to a screeching halt if we just invade this sovereign country, which for the most part, is an ally. Almost170 million people live in Pakistan. It's a wobbly government. They got nuclear weapons. The peace candidate wants to send in troops. Isn't it amazing how these guys want to lose in Iraq, make up stories about how Al-Qaeda was not there. We know for a fact that the Al-Qaeda that is there came in from Pakistan; they're coming in from Syria; they're coming in from Iran. Al-Qaeda is Al-Qaeda. We know that this Al-Qaeda in Iraq was a phony front group created to make it look like there was a civil war going on there, when it's not.

Look, without all the details here, the Obama plan is irrational.

Name Change........

Islamists want Pakistan province called Afghania
ISLAMABAD: An Islamic alliance ruling Pakistan's North West Frontier Province bordering Afghanistan has proposed changing the region's name to "Afghania", a provincial minister said yesterday.

The NWFP government's request to the federal government in Islamabad is likely to rekindle an old debate over the name of the region dominated by ethnic Pashtuns, who live on both sides of the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan.

"Constitutionally there is no bar on us to rename the province on our own but we want to resolve this issue in an amicable manner," Malik Zafar Azam, NWFP's law minister said.

He said the provincial government had conducted a survey to find an alternative name for the region, designated NWFP since the days of the British Raj in pre-partition India, and most people favoured "Afghania".

"We have firmed up our proposal and plan to put it before the federal government's inter-provincial co-ordination committee in its next meeting." Central government officials were unavailable for comment.

Pashtun nationalists have long demanded the old colonial name be changed as it only indicates a geographical location rather than the ethnicity of its inhabitants, as in the other three Pakistan provinces - Punjab for Punjabis, Sindh for Sindhis and Baluchistan for Baluchis.

The nationalists had proposed "Pakhtunkhwa" as the new name for the province after its Pashtun, or Pakhtun population, but the central government is fearful it would revive old differences with Afghanistan over the Pashtun territory, known as Pashtoonistan, straddling both sides of the border.

Afghanistan has never recognised the 2,640km frontier, known as the Durand Line after the British colonialist who drew it. Afghans say the border robbed Afghanistan of land it traditionally held and it unfairly divides Pashtuns.

The Pashtoonistan issue strained relations between the two neighbours in the 1950s and 1960s, although it faded after Islamists gained influence in the border areas in the 1970s.

Observers say the new proposal by the Islamic Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal alliance, which rose to power by exploiting anti-American sentiments in the region in 2002 after US intervention in Afghanistan, could be a move to win sympathies of Pashtun tribes ahead of elections due later this year or in early 2008.

l US Democratic presidential candidate Senator Barack Obama said yesterday the US must be willing to strike Al Qaeda targets in Pakistan with or without the approval of the Pakistani government.

He warned President Pervez Musharraf that he must do more to shut down terrorist operations in his country and evict foreign fighters under his presidency, or Pakistan will risk a US troop invasion and losing hundreds of millions of dollars in US military aid.

#35 Posted by HP on August 1, 2007 11:20:55 pm

you're clutching at straws...hellfires and fighter/bombers = military itnervention without ground forces...i.e. less messy..for the US at least..

Crazy number one wrotes,
"Umm...the repeated hellfire attacks, the repeated incursions and the repeated abduction of pakis by US special forces doesn't count as military intervention?"

NO!
You are so stupid that you don't even know what military intervention is. Try Iraq and Vietnam. Idiot!

I don’t know how many people have read this article and understood the argument behind it but is this something coming our way: Be Afraid: A "Green Curtain" Is Descending...

U.S. vs. Iran: Cold War, Too
By Robin Wright
Sunday, July 29, 2007; B01
After three decades of festering tensions, the United States and Iran are now facing off in a full-fledged cold war.
When the first Cold War began, in 1946, Winston Churchill famously spoke of an Iron Curtain that had divided Europe. As Cold War II begins half a century later, the Bush administration is trying to drape a kind of Green Curtain dividing the Middle East between Iran's friends and foes. The new showdown may well prove to be the most enduring legacy of the Iraq conflict. The outcome will certainly shape the future of the Middle East -- not least because the administration's strategy seems so unlikely to work.
The new Cold War will take center stage this week, as President Bush dispatches Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates to the Middle East for a last-ditch appeal to recalcitrant U.S. allies on Iraq. Their pitch to Sunni Arab regimes spooked by the bloc of countries and movements led by Shiite Persian Iran will be simple: Support Iraq as a buffer against Iran or face living under Tehran's growing shadow.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/
27/AR200 7072701694_pf.html

“I don't know precisely when or how a middle-ranking power like Iran--rivaled in its immediate neighborhood alone by the likes of Turkey, Israel, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan--has somehow metamorphosed into America's mega-foe thereby presenting us with a full-blown "Cold War II"

Is Iran the same type of threat to the US, the Soviet Union was? I doubt that. But we will see more of this in the US media. After all the US needs to keep inventing the enemies to keep the wars going for generations.

#32 Posted by HP on August 1, 2007 10:58:27 pm


Is there any credible scope for a unilateral US military intervention in Pakistan? Not in a dog`s ass.


Umm...the repeated hellfire attacks, the repeated incursions and the repeated abduction of pakis by US special forces doesn't count as military intervention?


mmmmkay...

Here is my post on the same issue. US attacking Pakistan…hehehehe
http://www.chowk.com/interacts/12131/1/0/472#331474
More on what the US can do in Pakistan...

``And how and in what way could the United States project force into Pakistan successfully?

Keep in mind that Pakistan`s nuclear weapons will probably at all material times be under maximum security, their specific locations will be both secret and tightly guarded, and they`re not nearly as portable or as easily filched as say, the Hope Diamond.

Put it another way: Pakistan`s nuclear facilities will be staffed, guarded and maintained by the most highly trained, highly motivated, most disciplined and well equipped Pakistanis.

They will probably be located in hardened complexes, in buried and concrete reinforced silos and bunkers, and defended by a variety of missile batteries, artillery, machine guns, small arms, and weapon placements, together with such things as barbed wire and traffic barricades.

Are we getting the picture?

The odds of a successful assault aimed at capturing or neutralizing Pakistan`s nuclear weapons is less than nil. Only a shivering moron would think its feasible.

The Raid at Entebbe makes it into the history books because it and actions like it are historical flukes. Their success comes from luck at so many levels its not even funny.

The odds of a successful assault, via missiles or air strikes aimed at neutralizing or destroying Pakistan`s nuclear weapons is somewhat better.

However, there are certain problems with this scenario. One is massive issues of contamination of the environment, particularly if one of those nukes blows.

The real risks are that if Pakistan or its remaining command structure interprets an attack on nuclear facilities as an Indian first strike... in which case, they`ll loose whatever remaining first, and possibly second strike capacity at India.

Or they`ll interpret it as an American attack, in which case... Well, we`ll find out how good the Pakistani targeting systems are against the American navy or American cities.

But assuming that dealing with Pakistan`s nukes is not the objective of an American military action. What is?

An occupation/peacekeeping force in Pakistan?

Don`t make me laugh. First, the United States military has repeatedly demonstrated its not particularly good at peacekeeping missions. Consider Somalia and Lebanon.

Second, there`s about 150 million Pakistani`s. The United States isn`t able to hold 24 million Iraqi`s. How are they going to do it in a country 6 times as populous and three times as big, with much tougher, rougher countryside?

Is there any credible scope for a unilateral US military intervention in Pakistan? Not in a dog`s ass.

And let`s think about what a unilateral action into Pakistan might provoke from India, China, Russia. What would be the reaction from the Muslim world.

Even a multilateral action would be difficult to organize (and none of this bullshit `Coalition of the Willing`). A true multilateral response would be difficult and the United States would be a partner, perhaps a minor partner, not a leader.``

HAHA...pakis have their chaddis in a knot...hussein obama, shrillary and rudy all think pakiland is the problem...

so the hellfires regularly whacking pakis in pakiland and the repeated incursions into paki territory have bipartisan support...

Sorry posted this on the wrong thread!

Now the reality check time.

I posted this on “Lal Masjid: Lessons Learnt” thread
http://www.chowk.com/interacts/12388/1/0/48#333851

“I would like to emphasis that Benazir, if made PM of Pakistan, will not be able to control the islamist without the army’s help and army’s help to her would not be forthcoming due to several historical reasons. Which to me suggests that she will be the one who would seek the US help inside Pakistan I think she has agreed to be another Malaiki in Pakistan.”

This above represent the only scenario where the US army would enter Pakistan. And I think this situation would occur in Pakistan within six to 12 months of Benazir taking over Pakistan. The Pak army will not cooperate with Benazir no matter how hard she tries and despite ironclad guarantees from the US for the Pak army support. Even if she appoints Bilawal Zardari as the Chief of the Army., she will not get the cooperation from the Pak army That is the nature of the Pak army.

Btw, At that time all the Islamist here will support the Army a 100%. wanna Bet?

Is it a downward spiral or the upward swing? Depends on how you look it the reality on the ground.
Pakistan is inching closer to a respite from the wardi rule. I say respite because we don't know at this time how long that would last. However, it is still a positive. Possibly Pakistan would have its first free and fair elections after 1970. (77 was pretty close to fair it but not entirely)Isn't that a positive again?

But to top this all look at this situation:
If Pakistani had a vote now, and the vote was respected, we'd probably get a quasi-secular democracy not unlike Turkey.

Musharraf had two opposition groups to deal with in the last few weeks: the Lal Mosque Diwane, and the Lawyers and others all over the Punjab cities demonstrating in the name of constitutional democracy against his dismissal of the Chief Justice.

Mushy’s response was to send in the gendarmes to take out the Lal Maseet crew, and to back down on the judicial dismissal. I submit that's likely to be a fair indication of where you perceive the most powerful popular opposition to lie. Not with the jihadists.

I think it is an upward swing because the Jihadist got what they asked for…hehehe… and the Lawyers got what they asked for peacefully…..You decide!

Obama says he is going to invade Pakistan,hehehe. This guy appeared sane just a few weeks ago now after being 22 points behind Hillary he is unhinged.

Here is what John Podhoretz said but there is really more to it...This is a response from a conservative. Who would regularly support bombing Iran and other country but what he says about invading Pakistan is eye opening in fact for Channa(below) that is eye poping...

"This country(US) is never — never — going to stage a major military action against Pakistan.....Every serious person knows the United States won't invade Pakistan, even with Special Forces — since the reason we cancelled the proposed action against Al Qaeda in 2005 is that it was going to take many hundreds of American troops to do it. This isn't 15 people dropping like ninjas in the darkness. It's an invasion, with helicopters and supply lines and routes of ingress and escape. It would have had unforseen and unforeseeable consequences, but it would have been reasonable to assume the Pakistanis would have turned violently against the United States and hurtled toward Islamic fundamentalist control."

#24 Obama will have a hard time adjusting back to his job of lining trash cans at McDonalds, after Hillary steam rolls over this bimbo in the primaries.

The state of a nation is reflected in sport like it is in any sphere of social life.
For Pakistan it has been a slide for sure. There was a time when Pakistani per capita income was higher than India's, the Pakistani Rupee was stronger than India's, Pakistan was considered more prosperous than India. Today India has taken a lead which Pakistan cannot close for decades.
The Pakistani nation has been unfortunate to have been led by incompetent civilian leaders who have not been able to put the army in its place. It is really a shame to see senior leaders elected by the people jee huzooring the General Sa'abs, whereas the generals should stick to protecting the borders. Nobody knows who is the Army C-in-C in democracies like USA, UK, Canada, France, but when it comes to Pakistan, the whole world knows who is in command because either he is in power as a dictator or he is planning the next coup, therefore a man to watch.
The people must throw away the army yoke and usher in true federal democracy and Pakistan can find its moorings.

THe problem of Pakistan is in its name itself.

The pretense of purity . And finally ISLAM.

The problem of Pakistan is in ISLAM itself. How can a nation be based upon the priciples of genocide to hindu idolators?? Such a nation has to be a belligerent and murderous nation in its character.

The only way to get Pakistan out of the mess is by abolishing this pretense of Islamic nation.

It looks like Pakilands # 1 export is being targeted....

Obama fires terrorism warning to Pakistan


Agencies
Wednesday August 1, 2007
Guardian Unlimited

The US presidential hopeful Barack Obama will today say he is prepared to send troops into Pakistan to hunt down terrorists if he is elected to the White House.
The remarks, from a speech to be delivered later today, appear to be an attempt to show strength after Hillary Clinton, his chief rival for the Democratic nomination, described his foreign policy approach as naive.
Mr Obama will warn the Pakistani president, Pervez Musharraf, that he must do more to shut down terrorist operations in his country and evict foreign fighters.
________________________________________
He will say failure to do so could mean a US troop invasion and the loss of hundreds of millions of dollars in US military aid under an Obama presidency.
"There are terrorists holed up in those mountains who murdered 3,000 Americans," he will add, according to an advance copy of the speech supplied by his campaign team.
"They are plotting to strike again. It was a terrible mistake to fail to act when we had a chance to take out an al-Qaida leadership meeting in 2005. If we have actionable intelligence about high-value terrorist targets and President Musharraf won't act, we will."
Ms Clinton has widened her lead over Mr Obama, according to a new poll published today.
The Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll put support for the New York senator at 43% among Democrats, while Illinois senator Mr Obama slipped from 25% in June to 22% in July. Ms Clinton's support stood at 39% in June.
The poll also revealed that if the presidential election was held today, either Ms Clinton or Mr Obama would beat the former New York mayor Rudolph Giuliani, the current favourite for the Republican nomination.
Ms Clinton and Mr Obama have sparred in recent weeks, trading accusations over foreign policy positions.
Mr Obama said he would be willing to meet the leaders of Cuba, North Korea and Iran without conditions - an idea Ms Clinton said was irresponsible and naive.
He responded by using the same words to describe her vote to authorise the Iraq war, calling her "Bush-Cheney lite". Today's speech is also intended as a condemnation of George Bush's Iraq policies.
Mr Obama said the focus on Iraq had left the US in more danger than before the September 11 2001 attacks, adding that Mr Bush had misrepresented the enemy as Iraqis fighting a civil war instead of the terrorists responsible for the attacks six years ago.
He said that, as US commander in chief, he would remove troops from Iraq and put them "on the right battlefield in Afghanistan and Pakistan", adding that he would send at least two more brigades to Afghanistan and increase non-military aid to the country by $1bn (£492m).
Mr Obama also said he would create a three-year, $5bn programme to share intelligence with allies worldwide to take out terrorist networks from Indonesia to Africa.

The US presidential hopeful Barack Obama will today say he is prepared to send troops into Pakistan to hunt down terrorists if he is elected to the White House.
The remarks, from a speech to be delivered later today, appear to be an attempt to show strength after Hillary Clinton, his chief rival for the Democratic nomination, described his foreign policy approach as naive.
Mr Obama will warn the Pakistani president, Pervez Musharraf, that he must do more to shut down terrorist operations in his country and evict foreign fighters.

He will say failure to do so could mean a US troop invasion and the loss of hundreds of millions of dollars in US military aid under an Obama presidency.
"There are terrorists holed up in those mountains who murdered 3,000 Americans," he will add, according to an advance copy of the speech supplied by his campaign team.
"They are plotting to strike again. It was a terrible mistake to fail to act when we had a chance to take out an al-Qaida leadership meeting in 2005. If we have actionable intelligence about high-value terrorist targets and President Musharraf won't act, we will."
Ms Clinton has widened her lead over Mr Obama, according to a new poll published today.
The Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll put support for the New York senator at 43% among Democrats, while Illinois senator Mr Obama slipped from 25% in June to 22% in July. Ms Clinton's support stood at 39% in June.
The poll also revealed that if the presidential election was held today, either Ms Clinton or Mr Obama would beat the former New York mayor Rudolph Giuliani, the current favourite for the Republican nomination.
Ms Clinton and Mr Obama have sparred in recent weeks, trading accusations over foreign policy positions.
Mr Obama said he would be willing to meet the leaders of Cuba, North Korea and Iran without conditions - an idea Ms Clinton said was irresponsible and naive.
He responded by using the same words to describe her vote to authorise the Iraq war, calling her "Bush-Cheney lite". Today's speech is also intended as a condemnation of George Bush's Iraq policies.
Mr Obama said the focus on Iraq had left the US in more danger than before the September 11 2001 attacks, adding that Mr Bush had misrepresented the enemy as Iraqis fighting a civil war instead of the terrorists responsible for the attacks six years ago.
He said that, as US commander in chief, he would remove troops from Iraq and put them "on the right battlefield in Afghanistan and Pakistan", adding that he would send at least two more brigades to Afghanistan and increase non-military aid to the country by $1bn (£492m).
Mr Obama also said he would create a three-year, $5bn programme to share intelligence with allies worldwide to take out terrorist networks from Indonesia to Africa.

The problem with Pakistanis is that they are transforming from good looking warriors to ugly banias:

"Longtime rivals India and Pakistan agreed Wednesday to boost two-way trade by more than five times to US$10 billion (€7.3 billion) by 2010 as they defused a dispute over the export of a variety of basmati rice."

#21 Posted by GT on August 1, 2007 8:35:02 am

Did they use their own numbers or the numbers doctored by the paki government?

Oh? you hadn't heard? apparently telecom has provided a big boost to Pakiland's GDP..

link

How bad is Pakistan doing?

Arjun, Manto, Tahmed etc (all those interested in crosscountry comparison):

"According to the Asian Development Bank’s (ADB) ‘International Programme (ICP) in Asia and the Pacific: Purchasing Power Parity Preliminary Report’, Pakistan at 14th place was ahead of China and India which were at 15th and 17th positions respectively when economies were compared based on per capita ‘actual final consumption of households (AFCH)’, a measure of economic wellbeing of the population"

Let the games begin ..... :)

Maulana Zeemax (RA),

Re#15

Don't have to look as far as South India just look in your own backyard- the NWFP. Bannu, the cradle of the jehad was described by one of your oooooooon friends (Manto Mian) as San Fransisco of the East.

Regards

Some more reasons for the Spiral or is it Meltdown....???

The militants are roaming the streets of Karachi, Lahore and other major cities of Pakistan raising the slogans of 'jihad' as if 'jihad' is their mental and spiritual diet. It is, to be honest, is a dangerous state of affairs for the Pakistani society and its health. There are number of reasons why Pakistan is passing through the jihad mode today.

Pakistan was conceived as a homeland for the Muslims. There were so many contradictions in this concept of Muslim homeland which were totally ignored at the time. The heat of partition melted all such contradiction. But these contradictions are surfacing with all intensity. The concept of Muslim homeland implied that all Muslims are united merely on the basis of religion and there are, among them, neither ethnic differences, nor class or sectarian differences. And that all Muslims will equally benefit from this homeland.

Religion is very vital force in human life but it is so on spiritual plane. There are several factors on the secular plane which motivate human behaviour. Human behaviour, it must be remembered, is not determined by religious beliefs alone; rarely it so happens. Human behaviour more often is determined by worldly interests. Muslim homeland itself was product of worldly interests rather than spiritual homogeneity. It was thought by Mohammad Ali Jinnah and his Muslim League colleagues that Muslim political and economic interests would not be taken care of in the 'Hindu India' and that a separate homeland for Muslims is needed.

The underlying assumption was that if a community of people who follow same religion will automatically have uniform interests. But this has been totally belied today as it ought to have been. Religion can never ensure unity of interests. In a democratic society various divisions surface which also become political fault lines. No truly democratic society can suppress these divisions which also ensure formation of identities. Diversity, in other words, is the lifeline of democracy and genuine national unity can emerge only from respect for this diversity.

But in an authoritarian society these diversities are considered as sign of danger and is sought to be suppressed. The authoritarian society seeks uniformity and confuses uniformity with unity. In all authoritarian societies all other identities - ethnic, linguistic or sectarian, is sought to be suppressed and only one identity - be it national identity or racial or religious identity is enforced from above to ensure unity. But as soon as authoritarian structure is demolished and replaced by democratic or even proto-democratic structure, these identities emerge to the surface and tend to assume more volatile form after a prolonged period of suppression.

Pakistani society has undergone similar process. It was for long under military dictatorship which tried to suppress all other identities except either overarching Pakistani identity or Islamic identity. But ethnic identities exploded the moment first general elections were held in 1969. The Bengali identity was feeling suffocated and the first election itself provided an opportunity for it to break loose from the overarching Pakistani identity. The Pakistan went through great crisis during seventies when a kind of proto democratic structures were surfacing in that country. It was a period of semi-democracy for Pakistan.

Different identities began to emerge and ethnic identities began to submerge the overarching identity after a long period of suppression. While all people of Pakistan are proud of their Islamic identity they are not prepared to barter their regional or ethnic identity for the Islamic identity as the Punjabi ruling classes would like them to do. The ethnic identities become quite explosive even if they are sought to be hegemonised by one particular ethnic identity, the Punjabi identity in case of Pakistan. The Sindhis, the Baluchis, the Pathans and the Urdu speaking Muhajirs who, ironically are also referred to as Sindhis by domicile, are sought to be dominated by the Punjabis. Even within the Punjab the Saraiki speakers are resenting Punjabi domination. The Saraiki speakers claim to be 60% of the Punjab province.

The ultra rightist party of Pakistan - the Jamat-e-Islami is almost exclusively Punjab based party now and it is the Jamat which wants to bulldoze all other identities in the name of Islamic identity. It is the Jamat which is raising the slogan of jihad, jihad to save not the Pakistan but the Punjabi domination. And there is silent collusion of the Punjabi ruling classes with the Jamat and its attempt to bulldoze all other identities in the name of Islam.

It is also to be noted that the word 'jihad' is being utterly misused by the Pakistani religious fanatics. It is interesting to note that one does not find in the Qur'an the word 'jihad' in the sense in which it is being popularly used i.e. 'holy war'. The word in the Qur'an for war is 'qitaal' and not jihad. The word 'jihad' is used in its literal sense i.e. to strive, to assert or to make efforts. Thus jihad in the Qur'anic terminology means to assert oneself or to make efforts to promote what is right and to prohibit what is evil.

And in Qur'an qitaal is also permitted against persecution and to establish justice, not for territorial aggrandisement. Even if the word 'jihad' is used, it is also for defense of faith and not for annexation of territory or to solve territorial dispute. Also to kill innocent civilians as the extremists are doing in Jammu and other parts of J & K cannot be jihad. It is against all principles of Islam. Thus to wage 'jihad' in Kashmir is a total misnomer. Kashmir is a territorial dispute between India and Pakistan which has to be resolved between the two countries. There is no question of religious persecution as far as the Kashmir question is concerned. The Muslims of Kashmir under Shaikh Abdulla had clearly supported the National Conference and its programme of alliance with India. In fact the Kashmiris from the valley fought against the raiders from Pakistan and checked their further advance. It was a purely political move in order to annex territory and could not be construed as jihad by any stretch of imagination.

Similarly, the intrusion in Kargil is also part of territorial dispute and cannot be called 'jihad' at all. It is real irony that the intruders are described as 'mujahidins' (i.e. those waging jihad). Are these 'mujahidin' defending the faith of Islam in any sense in Kargil? On the other hand, the most affected people by their 'jihad' are the Muslims of Kargil. Their homes and hearths have been destroyed by the relentless shelling in Kargil. The Kargil Muslims have resented the Pakistani intrusion most. Who would, any way, like their homes being destroyed and their normal life completely disrupted? To disrupt the lives of fellow Muslims cannot be a part of jihad anyway.

The Pakistani society is undergoing violent phase. There are several factors responsible for this. The Taliban factor is one among them. Many sagacious thinkers, writers and journalists from Pakistan, the noted anthropologist and scholar Akbar Ahmad being one among them, had pointed out that supporting highly orthodox religious students who have undergone rigorous and rigid religious training in Madrasas in the North West Frontier province, to fight a partisan war in Afghanistan, would not be in the best interest of Pakistan.

The Taliban have not only tested the gun, they have tested the power of religious orthodoxy also. And religious orthodoxy and power of the gun is a heady mix. The Taliban after finishing their job in Afghanistan are returning to Pakistan and wish to recreate Afghan society there. It must be said that compared to many Islamic countries Pakistan is far more 'secular' and 'modern'. The military dictators, after all, were not religious fanatics with the exception of Zia. In fact Ayub resisted the influence of orthodox 'ulama and introduced many modern laws. Yahya Khan too, by and large, refrained from invoking religious orthodoxy for legitimising his rule.

It was General Zia who, for the first time, invoked religious orthodoxy to perpetuate his rule and to legitimise it. He also welcomed the Afghan war as a godsend and got much help from CIA which was interested in defeating Soviet Russia. The Afghan mujahidin too had to invoke Islamic orthodoxy to fight against the atheistic Russians. All the training to them was imparted on the territory of Pakistan adjacent to Afghanistan. Thus it was General Zia who systematically injected religious orthodoxy in Pakistani politics.

The Taliban phenomenon was its natural outcome. And the madrasas then set up in the North West Province are churning out large number of 'Taliban' every year. These religious students are being injected with the heavy dose of jihad and what is worse, along with the religious training, they are also being imparted military training in these madrasas. Thus the emphasis is more on jihadist mind set rather than on truly religious mind set. These madrasas have acquired vested interest of their own as they receive funds from various sources, including some Islamic countries.

It is, to say the least, not in the interest of Pakistani civil society. It amounts to spreading cult of violence in Pakistan. The ruling classes want to use these 'mujahidin' to suppress ethnic unrest and to maintain the Punjabi hegemony. But so far there is no sign of success. The cult of violence is spreading fast in the civil society without there being any sign of ethnic unrest vanishing. The ethnic groups have their own legitimate aspirations and no amount of jihadist mind set, being promoted by powerful vested interests, can suppress these aspirations. The suppressed ethnic groups, particularly the Sindhis, the Baluchis and the Muhajirs, have acute political consciousness and they will not barter away their legitimate aspirations for an illusionary Islamic identity. However, this does not mean that they are not good Muslims. In fact they are much better Muslims that those selling 'Islamic' identity to them.

In Pakistan unfortunately the military is not under civilian control and has autonomy of its own. It is also thus interested in keeping the Jihadist mind set alive and spreading the cult of violence. It is only through this strategy that the civil society will remain under its thumb. The civil society will have to wage many a struggle to liberate itself from the hegemony of the armed forces.

Yaar Zeemax, looks like you've well and truly lost it.

Also from bhangilauru (is it chennai now?)...what morons ...

(.... *andoos in other words ... )

Haha ... unbelievable ... always knew all these madrasis were ac/dc.



originally uploaded by javeja.

recently all over bangalore… you can come across those ads for lee stores… very interesting campaign i think…. ;)

here is some article about MSM and WSM in Bangalore in the supplement of the Deccan Herald due to the lee campaigning…

http://www.deccanherald.com/Content/May212007/metromon20070520 2778.asp

an update (30.Juni 07): i had a talk with a colleague of mine, who told me that the effects of this campaign were rather differently received in delhi and mumbai. in mumbai the shiv sena made it possible that all the ads and posters had to be removed within a couple of days after the beginning of the campaign. he told me that in delhi on the other hand it was no big deal at all. they came, stayed and went again without people reacting violently about them… he said that in delhi people are more open-minded about this topic…

Some reasons for this spiral......
Inside the booming madressah economy


By M Ismail Khan

Take this with a pinch of salt, but let us admit that two weeks from its 60th birthday, Pakistan is ticking at a point where the question of who runs the country means little in relation to how it can be run. The gender of the next prime minister is of little importance, nor does it make a difference if the next president puts on a shirwani or a burqa, what really matters for the people is that they have a leader who is wise enough to understand the difficult challenges and strong enough to overcome them. One such impossible task at hand is to put the genie of the madressahs back into its original bottle.

Neutrally speaking, President Musharraf's eight-year rule, like the earlier two military governments of the 60s and 80s, turned out to be a period of decent economic growth. I do not mean to say that military governments are better economic managers and therefore there is no need for the country to return to 'true democracy'. But since 'growth' is all about data and figures there is hardly anything one can do to prove it otherwise. But one inherent dilemma which cuts across all military led governments has been the tremendous social and political pressures it leaves behind for the precarious civilian set ups to deal with, that ultimately proves to be the main reason for demise of civilian dispensation and the country's return to military rule. The phenomenal rise of madressahs during the recent years can be seen in the light of this vicious cycle in store for the next government, if there is one coming.

Like the growth in real estate and services, Pakistan is witnessing a massive boom in the madressah sector; according to researchers during the last eight years there has been over 150 per cent increase in the number of madressahs in and around Islamabad alone, a trend following the rise of real estate value in the capital.

At the time of independence, Pakistan inherited a meagre 200 odd madressahs, which as per government's conservative estimates has now increased to over 17000 (though some analyst put this number at 25-30,000). These religious schools are catering to about 2.5 to 3 million students and employ thousands of mullahs as teachers, mentors and instructors. How has this country managed to trigger and then sustain such a spectacular growth in madressahs is a secret worth sharing with the posterity.

A key driver of growth in the madressah sector, we are informed, is poverty -- an endemic problem of all developing countries -- something successive governments in the last six decades have wowed to eliminate but end failing to even reduce it to a manageable level. Interestingly on the one hand the country has struggled to improve enrolment in formal schools and has been grappling with issues of large scale drop outs at primary and secondary levels, on the other hand there is a stiff competition going on in the rural areas, where Pakistan's majority of poor live, to enrol their kids in madressahs mainly situated in cosmopolitan cities and sub-urban areas.

Perhaps there is more to it then the so-called poverty; it is indeed easy to blame the poor. But this could also be because of other reasons including failure of formal education system, social safety nets, and simply madressahs outperforming the formal education sector through better packages e.g. free education, food, boarding and almost free educational material. One cannot write off the growing religiosity, again not just in Pakistan, but all over the world, and not among Muslims but also amidst people adhering to other faiths.

There is also a need to analyse the source of funding of these madaris against the theological inclinations. Compared to Barelvis and Jam'at Islami driven schools, a number of Ahle-Hadith and Deobandi madaris have seen a big jump in numbers. The number of Shia madressahs has also grown sharply. But the biggest gain has been made by the Deobandi religious schools that have reportedly crossed the figure of 10 thousand. Taliban, including the ones in Islamabad, are products of Deobandi madressahs, while credit for introducing the likes of Lashkar-e-Taiba has been claimed by some Ahle-Hadith madaris in the past; hopefully President Musharraf might have broached these worrying trends to his interlocutors during the recent visit to Saudi Arabia. Philanthropists in brotherly countries including Iran must find overt, transparent and legal ways to collaborate and support a better madressah system, so that the government, media and more importantly public can play their role in the public interest.

Traditionally, madressahs have played a good role in imparting religious education and promoting literacy among downtrodden segments. It is also correct that only a small portion of the country's madaris can be branded as truly radical, but there is no guarantee that the moderate ones will stick to the right path or will not change their course at some point. What happened in the Lal Masjid / Madressah Hafsa and its aftermath has sent shivers down the spine of the ordinary souls. There is a need to strategically revisit the so-called madressah reforms. Conducting registration, teaching science, English and computer or equating the madaris' degree with the formal system will not work unless the institutions are cleansed from dangerously biased teachers, money and ideologies sowing the seeds of hatred and prejudices.

Many politicians and civil society activists openly raise fingers at certain quarters in the government for indoctrinating religious schools, first for the purpose of curving a strategic depth to Afghanistan and later for jihad in Kashmir; even if this is true, politicians and the civil society cannot absolve themselves from their responsibilities. What have we done to arrest this dangerous drift, except for organising a cultural extravaganza at Trafalgar Square in London? There is no reason why the public cannot and should not stand up to save the country from threats of anarchy and self-destruction which the growing number of suicide bombings have started to present.



The writer is based in Islamabad; he has a background in media, public policy and development. Email: ismail.k2@gmail.com

Damn google ...

Spiral? Islamophobic morons ...

Atlaf,

Downward spiral, my foot, It all depends on what spiral you are taliking about. Medals in sports has nothing to do with anything other than medals. Did you forget East germany, it was second in olymics for a long time. How about north Korea. The artcile only confirms the irrelevance of pak mind set, they only focus on the irrelevant simply because nobody told them to think for themselves, it is all in the book.

Here is some good news for you.

Pakistan is a nuclear power, even the americans are afraid. They have long range missiles to boot.

The number of madrassas are the maximum in the world, the suicide bombers are in their thousands.

People from the world over comes to pakistan for jihadic training. Meeting of the opposition political parties are held in London, what a great colonial tradition, which other third world country can afford that.

Atlaf, look at the positive. Look at the options available for pakistan to corner a clear segment of high tech work.

The jihadis can be used as crash test dummies.

One can put a picture of geoge bush and ask the jihadis to walk through the mine fields of cambodia to clear the mines.

The jihadis can be put to great economic benefit for pakistan, if only the likes of you can think properly, look at the positive side of an inherent pak predilection to be a jihadi due to the influence of jinnah islam.

Anjum Sahib,

I disagree with the premise of your article. Pakistan is not in any downward spiral. One can say that it is in a mess but there a lot indicators that are positive -

1. The people of Pakistan have basically rejected wahabiism. The fairly mature response of the people to the Lal Masjid incident, except by the taliban types in NWFP, is quite encouraging.

2. The religious parties are in no way popular with the people.

3. Attitude towards India and hindus/sikhs has changed significantly. Recently Katas Raj temple has been opened. Sikh and hindu pilgrims are welcomed from India. In general, relations with India are thawing out.

4. The identity crisis in Pakistan after partition is finally resolving itself. The ordinary masses in Pakistan have rejected the typical jingoistic brainwashing spearheaded by the Urdu speaking mohajir elites who migrated from India. The latter wanted Pakistanis to believe that they were all arabs/central-asians/mughals with religion as their only identity to unify them etc. That sort of delusional absurd thinking seems have disappeared with Pakistanis getting quite comfortable with an ethnic identity that is tied to the soil i.e. they are mostly son of the soil desis who happen to be muslims. Even the mohajirs themselves seem to have snapped out of their delusiuons as well. As a result, we see a big change among Punjabis and Sindhis who are beginning to reach out to sikh/hindu counterparts in India.

Why has this happened? I believe it is because muslim countries themselves have kept Pakistan at an arms length except for the Saudis who have tried to spread wahabiism there. Iran, Afghanistan, Central Asia have all firmly rejected kinship with Pakistan based on religion, a fact that is evident when Pakistanis travel to those countries and from the fact that there is no military or economic alliance with Pakistan. They do not even have a free trade agreement with Pakistan. Arab countries do not hesitate to treat Pakistanis as second class people, islam or no islam. The treatment Pakistanis get there is sometimes worse than what Indians get.

As compared to that, Pakistanis are treated very warmly by India. India's constant overtures for trade and economic relations as well as people to people contacts, contrast with the cold, careless manner in which the Islamic world treats Pakistan. The cultural affinity with India is undeniable and the role played by Bollywood is evident to all. Pakistanis cannot deny that in spite of all the iron curtains, they are naturally drawn towards Indian culture as compared to the culture of the countries to their west. Finally the strong encouragement from the US to patch things up with India is playing a huge role as well to modify Pakistan's erstwhile identity crisis.

5. The war on terror and its after-effects seems to have finally convinced Pakistanis on two things - a) It is terrible to mix religion with politics b) It is terrible to let the military become an all-powerful mafia like institution. As a result, we see that secular forces in Pakistan are winning ground. In addition, people are absolutely fed up with the army as evidenced by the latest saga of the Chief Justice.

Basically Pakistan is moving towards its natural state - the state in which people lived there for a 1000 years before 1947. Essentially it has always been a region of peace loving, secular desi people who happen to be muslims. The absurdities that crept in due to the event of partition are slowly shaking out. The future direction depends on the ability of the pakistani people to build some institutions and curb the power of the army by instituting proper checks and balances. The chief justice saga is particularly encouraging. Hopefully more reforms will happen in the near future.

Why only Asian games, look at squash, hockey, cricket games where Pakistan once ruled the day but has since lost its glory days and now ranks in the bottom tier. Having said that, peak in these sports ranged from the late eighties to the mid nineties, just about the time when we discovered talibanism ie new born muslimhood.

Re: # 5
The fact that you found this article depressing is a good sign. Looking at the world through a pair of rose colured glasses is a disease, self-delusion, deception.
Once in a while, it is healthy to take in the facts as they stand, no matter how unpalatable. There is no denying the fact that in Paistan, the bad outweighs the good.So yeah, being depressed by the truth is good, very good.

Re: # 5
The fact that you found this article depressing is a good sign. Looking at the world through a pair of rose colured glasses is a disease, self-delusion, deception.
Once in a while, it is healthy to take in the facts as they stand, no matter how unpalatable. There is no denying the fact that in Paistan, the bad outweighs the good.So yeah, being depressed by the truth is good, very good.

Re: # 1
Pakistan as a nation is nore cerebral than athletic , more thinker with profond thoughts than just players.

Re: # 2
spiral has pitch and and time bound same moving down with respect to time. He wants to stress the repeativeness of spiral . Person seems mathematically minded. Wheel, lever and screw are basic machines and he wants to give mechanical model to emphasize downward prectable descend .
Just my feeling.

Depressiong article for sure. Why the writer does not look to positive points like stock market, real estate, foreign currency best relationship with usa, getting F-15 airmachines , Big G port envy of south asians becoming major energy transit point, Gas coming from Iran, free trade agreement between China and Pakistan, building of new nuclear power plants with help of China, construction of Submarines , India hoping to get whaet and cement from pakistan to stem shortage of cement and wheat for poor people of India. Recent capture of terrorist organization and useing mosque and improving relationship with Iran and A.Stan and development going favourable on ground ib held Kashmir and slowly indian govt getting read to leave Kashmir out of its influence, insergent and gravity defying stock market, real estate, recent launch of nuclear capable missile , growth in export and import and great interest of foreign companies in running electricity business and great amout of dollars/ billions flowing in oil and gas sector. Two years ago stck exchange performance top gains in wordl. Let us please look at positive asprects, sageous acceptance of president of CJ case judgement acceptance. Which south asian can match this record, no comparison.

yes, we are indeed n a downward spiral. The reasons for this are many and varied, but I would say that perhapps the most important one is our collective antipathy. We are numb, distanced from what goes on in our country. Unless the people of Pakistan "wake up", so to speak, nothing can be done.

Just curiously nit-picking, why did you choose the word
spiral? Why not slope or fall or descent?

Pakistan: A Downward Spiral?

...the answer is quite simple, "Yes."

.....the asian games example is inadequate....neither here nor there......pakistan will never do well in such games, and pakistani women do not participate, or barely participate.....hence pakistan is only in half the events...and pakistan has been world champion in various other events.....

.......a good way to check is the human development index....pakistan is significantly better off, today, then it was in 1947.......however it reached its peak in late 60s, early 70s, as a country.......and is now in a downward spiral.....