The Naval War College Bomb Blasts

It doesn't matter that all 160 million pakis think they have a legitimate right to kashmir..what matters is the fact that they can't do anything about it...

Zardari is right on Kashmir


Najam Sethi's
E d i t o r i a l

A coterie of vested interests is up in arms against Asif Zardari for his policy statement on Pakistan-India relations and Kashmir given to an Indian channel. The chorus of protest springs from diminishing militant groups in Kashmir and Pakistan who have tried to resolve the Kashmir dispute by force and failed to do so for sixty years, in the process militarising Pakistan as a failing National Security State, losing half the country, and suing embarrassingly for peace in Tashkent in 1965 and Kargil in 1999. Even some high profile Jihadi-Taliban supporters in the media, like the provocative host of a talk-show in the capitol who once edited a fiercely pro-jihad newspaper, have jumped the gun and tried to haul Mr Zardari over the coals. So what did Mr Zardari say that has provoked them to accuse him of “a great betrayal”?

Mr Zardari said that if his party came to power good relations with India would not be held hostage to the Kashmir issue and the two countries would wait for future generations to resolve the issue in an atmosphere of trust. He did not agree with the notion that the Kashmir issue could best be sorted out while the army was in power in Pakistan. He insisted that people-to-people contacts and inter-dependence in trade could help negate the “fear factor” in both countries and lead them on the path of conflict resolution.

Actually, this is a realistic summing up of the situation. It reflects the spirit of accumulated wisdom in the wake of a failed foreign policy via a vis India for sixty years. Significantly, however, it is not a unique or unprecedented position taken by a national political leader in Pakistan.

Ms Benazir Bhutto came to this conclusion in 1989 when she parleyed with the Indian prime minister, Rajiv Gandhi, in Islamabad. But remnants of the Zia-ist military establishment accused her of being a “national security risk” and she was ousted from power by the “midnight jackals”, some of whom are among the great spokesmen of the democracy movement today. Later, the jihad in Kashmir was intensified by the military establishment.

The force of the argument and the failure of the jihadi policy to wrest Kashmir from India by force, however, compelled Nawaz Sharif to adopt the same pragmatic position in 1999 when he invited the Indian prime minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee, to a prime ministerial summit in Lahore. Three formal communiqués were issued. However, not one mentioned Kashmir as the “core dispute” or the UN Resolutions. But Mr Sharif’s peace initiative with India was sabotaged by General Pervez Musharraf’s military misadventure in Kargil in May. Following the debacle, differences cropped up between the two and Mr Sharif was ousted in a coup in October 1999. In interviews shortly after he became chief executive, General Musharraf castigated Mr Sharif for “abandoning the cause of Kashmir” and pledged to maintain hostilities with India until the “core dispute of Kashmir” was resolved to the satisfaction of Pakistan as per the UN Resolutions. So in 2001 General Musharraf went to Agra to discuss the core dispute of Kashmir with India. But when India countered with its version of the core dispute with Pakistan – export of terrorism from Pakistan to Indian-held Kashmir – he left in a huff, with a coterie of hawkish Pakistani journalists in tow.

However, power brings responsibility with it. In 2002, after the militants attacked the parliament in Srinagar and then the one in New Delhi, compelling India to move its army to the border with Pakistan and threaten hot pursuit and even war, General Musharraf formally pledged not to allow Pakistani territory to be used for the export of terrorism. By 2003, he was ready to extend the olive branch to Mr Vajpayee in pursuit of “building trust”; by 2004 he was ready to put the lid on the militants in Pakistan; by 2005 he had closed down their training camps in Pakistan and Afghanistan, and by 2006 he was reiterating the most flexible and creative “out-of-the-box-solutions” to a resolution of the Kashmir dispute which had nothing to do with the “outdated” UN Resolutions. Indeed, the more popular he became among ordinary people in Indian-held Kashmir for his realistic peace policies enabling them to rebuild their shattered lives, the more unpopular he became with the militant organizations and their sympathizers and supporters in the Pakistani media. The terrorist attacks on General Musharraf from 2003 onwards, as well as the ones on Benazir Bhutto and her PPP, all have the footprints of the military’s erstwhile friends and allies.

Like Benazir Bhutto, Nawaz Sharif and General Musharraf on the issue of relations with India, the wisdom of the age has fortunately dawned on Mr Zardari as he prepares to don the mantle of power. More than anything else, we Pakistanis need to quickly heal the wounds within and without and rebuild our lives and our polity. Creating relations of peaceful co-existence, trust and trade unconditionally with our neighbours is no less critical than cobbling coalition governments with former foes at home in the national interest. Mr Asif Zardari should be applauded for his pragmatism instead of being castigated for it.

#219 Hamidm2 miaN,

Let me phrase the Kashmir situation in possibly the only type of language that most Pakistanis appear to be able to understand!

Kashmir is not only India’a atoot ang – it is its baam bhaag as – in wife, the forever companion!

That marriage was solemnized sixty years ago! And nobody cares whether you recognize the writing on the marriage certificate – or whether the dame is fickle-minded!

That Kashmiri dame chose to marry us – the Indians – and it is a husband and wife relationship now.

The marriage has been consummated – sometimes tenderly and sometimes a bit forcefully – nevertheless, it is a done deal.

We Indians do not buy the “talak, talak, talak!” style of divorce – and in any case, wives cry and make trouble and henpeck their husbands all the time! No big deal – as I am sure you are aware!

And yes, we – the Indians – may have screwed her a bit, for sure, but she is ours – even more so because of that very act! We are forever bonded!

You – the Pakistani majnoo, the one who tried to sneak in and do a bit of hanky-panky till we whipped your butts and kicked you out crying “baap re baap” – you are welcome to look from afar and take thundee aaah, but you ain’t gonna get her!

She sleeps with us because that is the bed she made way back then. She is ours! We paid for her in cold cash and we paid for her in blood and we intend to keep her forever!

You can yearn – but she ain’t coming to you!

So you can yearn for her and you can keep screwing your Sindh-wali, or your NWFP-wali, or whichever else wife of yours that still remains in that rapidly shrinking harem of yours!

You ain’t getting her!

And if I were you, I would pay better attention to the remaining wives before they run away – like that Bengali one did! (Remember her?!)

Hey , a lot of action has taken place since I went missing- the usual end of year business.

Are we Hindu idolators safe with the new Mard-e-Momeen on the helm of Pakistani Islamic state?? I liked the excerpts of Zardari's interview beamed on the indian channel.

I think he would do something about the Paki Jehadi mullahs who killed BB. That would effectively plug in the Jehad.

But Paki army is playing tricks in Bangladesh. We need to look out for that!!

#186 Posted by tahmed32 on March 6, 2008 1:36:52 pm


the Indian government (changing the constitution to allow non-kashmiris to invest in kashmir)?


prophet tahmed(peace be unto your selfrighteous left butt cheek): I only wish that this were true..that the indian govt had changed the constitution to allow indians to buy property in india..

Re: # 222

Hamid Sahib,

I didn't realise you felt SO strongly about Kashmir!

Well; we live and learn I guess.

Re: #222

Ah! So you are saying that if India doesn't accept Pakistan's position that it's possession of Sindh is 99% of Law, then suddenly Sindh would become a legitimate territorial dispute?

If you keep insisting on giving boneheaded arguments, then there really IS no point in asking you any questions.

#222 Posted by hamidm2 on March 6, 2008 5:26:36 pm


because we don't accept the position that posession is 99% of the law


you don't accept it!!! OMG!! Now India will surely have to give up Kashmir...

Re: # 221

why?... because we don't accept the position that posession is 99% of the law ... it is that simple .... now, no more questions !

#219 hamidm2

[ kashmir is a legitimate terroritial dispute..]

Really? Why?

#216 stuka

[Abay Gadhey Nutcase Hindu Jehadi: Yes, it is based on religious identoty. The ethnic reference was to differentiate between Kashmiris and Punjabis. Idiot. ]

My English Reading comprehension is better than about 99.9% of people (that's an objective fact that I didn't cook up). If it was based on RELIGIOUS identity, then what is the reason not to mention it at least ONCE? Fukchead? Instead, gibbering on incoherently and endlessly about ETHNIC minorties wanting separation from India.

Next time, make it abundantly clear for everyone that you are just another boneheaded idiot with Islamo-Fascist sympathies.

raw-dust,

....sorry, i didn't realize you were from karachi .... never the less, my statement still stands ..... kashmir is a legitimate terroritial dispute and pakistan should reserve the right to solve it militarily if necssary, when and if it can ........ it is really that simple ..... as for the jihadis, they are scum and if we can drive them over the loc to rattle the occupation forces and then make sure they don't come back, it would be a good thing for all ......

.... once again i aplogize for mistaking you for a horrible hindoo, but with all the comings and goings it is hard to keep track of who is who, which side is up and what is where .... sometimes i don't even know which side i am on .....

Ajeya, why don't u go to Unplugged and discuss issues with Neembu. Chalo, chop, chop!!

"Most of us have little knowledge of how these elections and rigging in them were (shockingly) worse than what has happened in many parts of India and Pakistan since 1947."

Across an entire state?? Not in India at least. I think the difference lies in the scale of rigging. Even Chautala / Devi Lal combine had to limit their rigging to the Meham Chubisi and not rig the election for the entire state of Haryana :)

"Therefore it was NOT a demand for separation based on ETHNICITY - it was a demand for separation based on RELIGIOUS IDENTITY.
"

Abay Gadhey Nutcase Hindu Jehadi: Yes, it is based on religious identoty. The ethnic reference was to differentiate between Kashmiris and Punjabis. Idiot.

Re: # 210

Kaal:

No where, other than Kashmir, the outcome had been known before elections. If my memory serves right, that was the funniest election, Congress alliance won in that pre-determined election. Only that congress lost the VP Singh etc. in the center. The alliance did not know what to do.

Re: # 209

Stuka:

"It is green-energy Kashmir has. Latest National Geographic has an article how hydro-electricity there is bring the cleanest energy aluminum plant to that remote part on the Earth."

Iceland is that remote place on the Earth that National Geographic talks about.