Hotel Babylon: The Marriot Hotel Explosion

hamidm mian #: "do you think the 'globe' will allow pakistan - which it has labelled as the most dangerous place on earth - to get out of the war and then continue to prop up its economy and let its citizens come for hajj ? ....."

it's easy making such comments, sitting in detroit...try moving to islamabad and then find out the situation...

the globe will not have too much problem with pakistan moving out on its own and handling this problem; as long pakistan does try to handle it....the us strategy in gwot has little credibility left...take a look at surveys of the globe....they consider the usa a bigger threat to world peace than obl.....

.....the globe is all fed up of usa and gwot and are dumping it...the usa will have a problem with pakistan moving out as its logistical lifeline......because usa's own soldiers will have to take more casualities.....

however, it is of secondary importance to me what happens to american soldiers......i am more concerned about what is happening to pakistanis......

.....i have been out of pakistan for the past month....however, i was to return shortly for a project.....and there is a good chance that i would have been staying in this exact marriott.....and may be dead today.....

.....the organization that has claimed this attack, has said it has carried it to get pakistan to stop supporting the usa.....

....even if their is an iota of truth in this, a microscopic fraction, i think it is enough to cut the cord on being usa's logistical supply lines.....

not a single pakistan should die for any other reason that to protect other pakistanis.....that is it....if in the process, nato loses more people, so be it...they came from half way around the world to fight this war......obviously they will lose soldiers......france has lost only 24 since 2002, and is close to getting out......only 24!

......as for the rest of the world......trust me it was ok with pakistan, till these suicide bombings started......they are not threatened by pakistan....

you need to work with the rest of the world to find out.....businessmen and consultants from all over the world were ready to come to pakistan, and were coming, regardless of what pakistan's policy on afghanistan happened to be......arabs alone were putting in billions....even indians were ready to come and had started coming.....i know because i accompanied many of them.....foreign banks were ready to put in billions.....as were middle east telcos......

what has stopped them.......not pakistan's policies.....but the suicide bombings.....now no one is coming......not even pakistanis......

pakistan should do what turkey did....get out of gwot and tackle the extremism locally.........but under no circumstance should any pakistani become a victim of suicide bombings or collateral damage.......even if pakistan has to make a deal with the devil to stop this....

pakistan wasn't the most dangerous place on the earth prior to 9/11....even after 9/11......it is now......much like iraq wasn't and is now....

however, i can understand your frustration.....you are thinking like an american.....and what you are saying is good for the usa......it will minimize us casualties, while destroying pakistan.....as long as pakistan is on the good side of usa, you are safe in the usa......the moment it is on the bad side, your life becomes more difficult in an the usa....

i am however, more concerned about what is happening to pakistanis......if these suicide bombings stop in pakistan, trust me, billions will come into pakistan, even if taliban are sitting in swat.......as long as their are no suicide bombings in lahore, karachi and islamabad......

there is absolutely no way pakistan will win its war on extremism (which has totally different motivations and objectives than the usa's war to secure itself), if it remains hooked onto america......

there weren't too many people out their vying to destroy pakistan......there are many who were vying to destroy the usa......pakistan could have controlled its internal situation.......however, now all those vying to destroy usa and vying to destroy pakistan also.......and this is somethign which is out of pakistan's control......

so let's agree to disagree.....you are presenting a point of view which will limit us casualities in a war it has undertaken, however, it will totally radicalize and destroy pakistan.....i am presenting a point of view, which will save pakistan and will assist pakistan in controlling extremism inside pakistan.....

Re: # 177

urstruly,

.... you are incorrigible ! .......... i hope your cave along the afghan-pakistan border is nice and warm this winter

Re: # 176

No, not really, I don't believe that there exists anything like terrorism; I only used the terminology to communicate with you. The sooner we realize that the the paradigm of war as we knew it since humanity began to fight has changed the better. In the global world, wars are happening no more between armies anymore - if the spectacle of the biggest and most technically advanced army that mankind has ever seen is not enough to convince you then nothing can. See how they are made monkey out of themselves. This army along with armies of 38 other countries, including napak fouj, the world's fourth largest army cannot control a few thousand in 8 years then what can.

The paradigm of weaponary has also changed. For every remote controlled laser guided superhightech weaponary there is a suicide bomber that is equally precise and effective. So what we do in this paradigm shift?

The life of Holy Prophet (pbuh) has lesson for us. I do not want to go in detail, but a negotiated peace and establishment of an equitable international law is the answer. We will not have these wars anymore if all the citizens of the global village are deemed equal in the eyes of this law and treated fairly and equitably. The sooner the US snaps out of the colonial era, the better it will be for all.

Re: # 174

urstruly,

.... it is good to see that like muammar gaddafi you too are finally coming around ...... accepting the fact that the "terrorist network" exists is a good start ..... at least you are wiling to acept that all these bombings are not being carried out by cia/raw/mossad agents .....

Such a shame, and a horrible event, and one that bought me back to Chowk for more info on what was going as the gora press is usually one sided or reporting from an outside mentality.

It is very apparent now that these militants/terrorist/jihadis/whatever are no longer in the control of Pakistan and its govt or ISI or Army.

The western press and countries seem to be going all super perishan about this whole thing and suggesting aid or this or that or some soultion or the other, there seems to be a lot more discussion and worry about this situation.

What words to we get from our Didi Bharat next door? A well meaning condolence by the Uchit Pradhan Mantri and some analysis etc in the Indian media (many telling us the obvious - that the ISI/ARMY etc need to adopt another strategy and dump their old mindsets)

The country most at risk after Pakistan, would be India with all the homegrown terrorist etc and this Kashmir stuff going on.

(As i have said many times before) If India has big ambitions (and why shouldn't she!) then her people need to think big and out of the box (one of my major frustrations of dealing with Indians is their small mindedness/pettiness/tu tu mein mein/hai hai victimhood yet big ambitions!)

This is a chance for India to be the Didi of SAARC and step up to the mark a bit. Instead of most offers of 'help' from countries situated thousands of miles away would it not make more sense for countries closer by to offer help in dealing with this situation? (if your neighbours house is on fire how long before the fire jumps?)

India cant stand these jihadis and its the biggest complaint it has against Pakistan - well maybe now is the time to be active and help Pak counter this and deal with this annoyance once and for all. Actively being a part of any solution and being in the forefront of this will show a maturity that is door andesh instead of chotapan. I just hope some person in Delhi is able to be door andesh and realise that Bharats behtari is in stable trouble free sisters, not psycho ones to drain the family energy and resources!

Khair one of the major issues that this has highlighted for me is the fact Pakistaniyet does not have a definition - even loosely. Now most ppl in Pak cant stand the Amreekis AND the Taleban, they know what they dont want. We are still fighting and debating the fact whether we are an Islamic country or a country whose population is majority Muslim. Until we define who and what we are, we will always be someone else's bitch!

In the meantime Baji Bharat can do her sisterly bit!

Re: # 172

It is absolutely useless to try to argue with you with any rhyme or reason but let me try. No one is getting out of GWOT, what bulleya is trying to say is that there is more than one way to fight this war and Americas war of genocide is absolutely not the way. Americans with their method have not only failed both in Iraq and Afghanistan but they in fact caused the strengthening and spreading of terrorist network. As a matter of fact Americas total disregard of international law and common human decency has given credence to those whom the former label as terrorists. Now this getting to the level of insanity where they keep on doing things that have not worked in past 8 years.

Pakistan must adopt a policy, separate from US, to put an end to this problem.

there seems to be a consensus that pakistan must fight this war against extremism and win it......there seems to be an added corollary that to do this, pakistan must stick with t gwot......

i agree with the first part, but totally disagree with the second part....in fact, i think disengaging from gwot is a pre-requisite to achieving the first part....

however, let's assume that being hooked into gwot is necessary......exactly what should pakistan do to win this war.......what strategy changes should it make......how can it control these suicide bombings, which are getting bigger and bigger.......how much more bombings can pakistan carry out in the tribal areas?......should pakistan give carte blanche to the usa to invade and bomb anything it wants......is all this collateral damage furthering extremism or reducing it......

so far no one has highlighted any practical steps.....other than me......

- i think pakistan should disengage from a central role in gwot....primarily getting out of being the logistical center....this will, certainly, reduce the suicide bombings....there were none in pakistan, until pakistan become this logistical supply line......

- after this, pakistan govt. needs to sell this war against extremism to the public as its own war........there is no way it can do that as long as we are tied to the hip with the usa....

- this will also make it easier to get religious fatwas against the taliban etc......

- after that pakistan should totally reorient its policies with india.....allow free trade, free movement of people etc....unilaterally if needed.....this will reduce the pressure on the east side......

- during this time, pakistan should stop all aerial bombings in the tribal areas.....

- it should move from a policy of military bombings to a policy of intelligence, policing, bribing etc.....this is the proven and recommended policy by any counterinsurgency expert.....in fact, it is only when usa has adapted this policy, where it has, now, had some success in iraq......

- then it should prepare for the long haul, for an ira type struggle......however, in this case, i don't think the populace will be with al-qaeda and taliban.......and pakistan should be able to isolate them......

on the other hand, as long as any policy is hooked with the usa, it will be a no-sell in pakistan......and will give the extremists the fuel they need to keep winning this war.....this, plus the collateral damage during the bombings by pakistan and usa....

in fact, it is quite possible that once pakistan gets out of being the logistical line of usa, suicide bombings may go back to the pre 9/11 days, i.e. zero......even if they don't they are bound to reduce......

if pakistan doesn't discontinue with gwot, suicide bombings are bound to go up...and so far no one has presented any mechanism of controlling them.......

Re: # 170

romair mian,

.... why don't you take you take your water pistol and your toy soldiers and get out of the global war on terror ! .....fool! .... what is there about the word 'global' that you don't understand? .... do you think the 'globe' will allow pakistan - which it has labelled as the most dangerous place on earth - to get out of the war and then continue to prop up its economy and let its citizens come for hajj ? ..... somalia is out of the the gwot .....

Dost-mittar #: "I agree with the rest of your post and would add that the source of all of Pakistan's problems is Kashmir, or rather its obsession with Kashmir...."

...this is accuare, though i would not agree with the how you have pin-pointed it......

pakistan's problem is its perpetual state of enimity with a country eight times its size, i.e. india...it can keep pushing the issue of kashmir on all forums, while simultaneously having trade and other relations with india......

much like india is doing with china, nowdays......

instead of nuking kashmir, letting it go by both sides would be a good idea.....this i think will happen, if trade etc is opened......

ferozek #: "Pakistan's policy with the United States on GWOT and its agreements need to be reconsidered but cannot be disenaged as Romair might wish....."

....this is a very vague statement.....what do you mean by reconsidered...should pakistan allow all us trucks with a michigan license plate through and stop all the ones with a virginia license plate....should pakistan allow all drones to fire inside pakistan on sunday but not on monday?

"The risk of disengagement is to witness the complete meltdown of the Pakistani economy and to see the Rupee go into a death spin of hyper-inflation."

.....this has already happened....after all these suicide bombings, no one is willing to invest in pakistan....the usa has given aid worth 11-12 billion to pakistan since 9/11.....5-6 billion of that has been spent on defence...2-3 billion is unaccounted for....this leaves 2-3 billion for social upkeep.....this is half of what pakistan gets through remittances every year...

just during this year, more than 12 billion has moved out of pakistan's stock exchange....the fall in the ruppee has resulted in a loss of billions....and now the lack of foreign investments will result in further losses of billions......all this due to the violence inside pakistan......

had pakistan not gotten into the gwot, wholeheartedly, the economic conditions today would have been much better.....

"The terms of the agreement need to be reformulated but Pakistan has to fight this war; not for America but for its own political survival....."

....how exactly should pakistan fight this war and where should it fight it.....this is a catch 22.....the first step in fighting any such war is to isolate the enemy, and to deny local support and a moral justification to him....

......in this case, getting out of usa's gwot would be the first step.....without doing that, pakistan will be caught in a perpertual state of war; a war which is unwinnable.....the country will be destroyed.....

so pakistan can do one or the other....fight this war successfully, or keep fighting gwot and lose this war...

getting out of gwot will result in this war being viewed as paksitan's war, instead of america's war......only then can the violence be minimized and only then can it be isolated and tackled.....most of all, only then will the public accept it as its own war, and not america's war....

what you have stated sounds great in theory.....it has a lot of bravodo behind it.....specially for expats......however, it's like saying, if pakistan wants to win a cricket match, all it needs to do is score more runs than the other side......that is obvious.....however, how are those runs to be scored....

do you seriously think pakistan can win this war and is winning this war, right now, when it is joined at the hip with the usa......and do you seriously think pakistan's economy is not already in the first stages of a meltdown...

your analysis of what pakistan did in the past 30 years in afghanistan is accurate......your desire to win this war is quite natural.....however, to simply say pakistan must stick with gwot and must win this war are two things which are either/or's practically speaking.......it is what has gotten pakistan into this downward spiral....

even the terrorists who have claimed that they carried out the marriott explosions have stated that they have done this to get pakistan out of gwot.....kindly highlight exactly whom pakistan can bomb to reduce the phenomenon of such suicide bombers.....

pakistan needs to separate these two wars....get out of gwot.....and then fight the internal war against these extremists, within its borders....the former is feeding the later......it cannot win the later, if it continues with the former......us, itself is losing the war in afghanistan.....why continue with the same failed strategy in pakistan......

unless, of course, you feel, pakistan is actually winning this war against extremism.......in which case you and i have totally different views of what victory happens to be...

Backwash and not BlowBack! I predicted it in 1997 and everyone thought I was crazy.

After becoming nuclear, Pakistan had ample time to moderate its policy options in the region. Benazir tried in 1996, but was shown the door by Leghari. For USA, peace and stability in Afghanistan was not desirable.
She again tried in 2001 to bail out Musharraf from Afghanistan. Again Uncle Sam showed no interest.

The worst was that because status quo was maintained, Jihadi policies were not given up.

The concept of strategic depth relates to Pakistan's elongated shape. Some Thought that if the road from Kabul to Kandhar could be used as a lateral in case of war with India, it will give Pakistan many more options of manouvre. What it means is a friendly Afghanistan in case od war.

ijaz are you just disagreeing with the use of the term "strategic depth" or are you disagreeing with the idea that media/civilians dont want to acknowledge that the state is currently facing blowback from our afghan policy ? or are you disagreeing that this is blowback?

not there yet

hmmm let me try again

from wiki

"the distances between the front lines or battle sectors and the combatants’ industrial core areas, capital cities, heartlands, and other key centers of population or military production"

so in our case trying to move our areas of potential conflict further west from our present western border ...or in other words having a propakistan afghanistan to our west.

well it is not that.

ijaz are you pulling my leg? I meant and im sure Feroz meant our past afghanistan/taliban policy which was amongst other things a cyncial bid to get a leg over the traditionally hostile western border.