Empty Vessels And All That Jazz

Harimau,

More twisting of facts, more lies, more fallacies, you can`t stick to an argument can you. Try to read it in context. Whether or not tribals invaded is besides the point.

Let us even forget that Pakistan Army regulars could have liberated Kashmir given the precarious position that the Indian Army was at Srinagar Airport, but the fact is that Gen.Gracy the Commandar in Chief of Pakistan`s Army refused to obey the orders of the Governor General of the dominion. Was this the power that Jinnah was so hungry for?

So why the hell r u jumping arguments?

zeemax # 75 (and other posts)

i like your style of interacting..dignified yet in your face..very classy

Re: Feroz

Are you sure that Tara Masih was shot dead the same day that Bhutto was buried in Larkana? This (http://www.dawn.com/2000/10/10/nat7.htm) Dawn story has him giving evidence against Mark Tully months after Bhutto`s death....

I can`t find his obituary online but I am almost willing to swear that he died a natural death several years after Bhutto was hung.

Regards.

tahmed321 #83
``After nationalization, the entrepreneurs left Pakistan, and the staff left behind became bureaucrats who made the small depositer look like he was doing him a favor by accepting his money, and gave money to large borrowers who applied political pressure to get their loans ``ma`aaf`` ed.``

Islamisation of banking (which Zeemax surely means by going 100% Islamic) will go one step further than nationalization. All large defaulters namely large borrowers will be `ma`aafed` and all small depositers will lose the interests on their deposits.

Such Islamisation would be very convenient for rich Muslims and very debilitating for poor Muslims.

Re: Zeemax Reply #5

Ok. Chowk is an intersection. A cross roads where people can meet can exchange views. It has no agendas other than that. I realise that can be hard to visualize. But say you were driving a car and stopped at a chowraha. What would you see? a few little kids selling toys, coconuts, other people in other cars? You might wave, talk, buy and share. Chowk is exactly like that, except that what is exchanged are ideas. It has no credo other than the exchange of ideas, opinions. It may be a novel idea for South Asia, where politicization attacks the entire culture but there are places in the world, where people can be free--where the quest to exchange ideas is more important than where the person comes from. Where things are as they seem. As for side-lined--Chowk prints articles that it receives. It prints replies that it receives. If people write and submit articles they get published. Yes, Chowk has grown and receives more submissions than before--it is the difference between a bigger house vs. a smaller one. Good writers are always welcomed by the Chowkwalas. People with original ideas are always welcome.

Zeemax # 56

Would you like to share the reason for this metamorphoses with us.

Fuzair:

Thank you for your reply. I think even the mistakes by the money managers (a braod term that include bankers, portfolio manager and whole managerie) who handle our money is unforgivable; Even if they commit a victimless crime.

I have another technical question. Can an international bank operate between a set a limited number of countries where only a mutually agreed charter and local regulatory authorties regulate its working. Or is there an international treaty between countries under UN so that an International regulatory commission regulates international banking.

Zeemax,

Thanx for asking me to participate here (I`ve long being away from the Chowk), but much as I`d like to, I find it almost impossible to support most of your points of view.

I thought you had given it up, but I see that you haven`t.

Brother, I just have to shake my head and say that you`re really full of it. How much time did you spend with your old friend Mr. Johnny Walker before writing this piece? Is he still wearing his black label or have hard times forced the Red one instead? :) I hope we`re not down to Vat No. 1 yet, if that ever happens we`ll send the Jack of Danniels to go visit you. ;)

Others have already pointed out the flaws in your political heroes so I won`t get into that, but Idi Amin? Please, give me a break... And the Greeks want to be muslims? Commone... Next thing you`ll say is that Cassanova wanted to become sexually impotent!!

And where do you go about lamenting the Ottomens? Get real dude... The Ottomens were a spent force long, long before Mustafa Kamal came along. Remember, the invasion of Vienna was delayed by three months after the Sultan returned home from Belgrad and left Kara Pasha in charge. The cause of this delay was the slow wagon trains that carried Pasha`s harem of 1500. Yes, one thousand five hundred!! The wagon train slowed down the whole army, and allowed enough time for fortification of city walls and for reinforcements to arrive from Poland and Spain in the mean time. (Thank God for that, or we may not have had a Mozart or Freud.) Are these the `great` and `glorious` that you lament. I admire the charms of the opposite sex just as much as the next person, but 1500 at a time??? Even the Holy Prophet, Abu Bakr and Ali had ONLY 13 wives each.

...SR

(Like the Dabhol/Enron episode has effected foreign investor confidence in India, did the BCCI collapse effect foreign investment confidence in Pakistan or in Pakistani banks?

bong dongs #57 here is the beginning of the executive summary of i found on the internet:

titled ``The BCCI Affair`` in a ``Report to the Committee on Foreign Relations United States Senate`` by Senator John Kerry and Senator Hank Brown in December 1992. The summary is as follows:

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

1. BCCI CONSTITUTED INTERNATIONAL FINANCIAL CRIME ON A MASSIVE AND GLOBAL SCALE.

BCCI`s unique criminal structure -- an elaborate corporate spider-web with BCCI`s founder, Agha Hasan Abedi and his assistant, Swaleh Naqvi, in the middle -- was an essential component of its spectacular growth, and a guarantee of its eventual collapse. The structure was conceived by Abedi and managed by Naqvi for the specific purpose of evading regulation or control by governments. It functioned to frustrate the full understanding of BCCI`s operations by anyone.

Unlike any ordinary bank, BCCI was from its earliest days made up of multiplying layers of entities, related to one another through an impenetrable series of holding companies, affiliates, subsidiaries, banks-within-banks, insider dealings and nominee relationships. By fracturing corporate structure, record keeping, regulatory review, and audits, the complex BCCI family of entities created by Abedi was able to evade ordinary legal restrictions on the movement of capital and goods as a matter of daily practice and routine. In creating BCCI as a vehicle fundamentally free of government control, Abedi developed in BCCI an ideal mechanism for facilitating illicit activity by others, including such activity by officials of many of the governments whose laws BCCI was breaking.

BCCI`s criminality included fraud by BCCI and BCCI customers involving billions of dollars; money laundering in Europe, Africa, Asia, and the Americas; BCCI`s bribery of officials in most of those locations; support of terrorism, arms trafficking, and the sale of nuclear technologies; management of prostitution; the commission and facilitation of income tax evasion, smuggling, and illegal immigration; illicit purchases of banks and real estate; and a panoply of financial crimes limited only by the imagination of its officers and customers.

Among BCCI`s principal mechanisms for committing crimes were its use of shell corporations and bank confidentiality and secrecy havens; layering of its corporate structure; its use of front-men and nominees, guarantees and buy-back arrangements; back-to-back financial documentation among BCCI controlled entities, kick-backs and bribes, the intimidation of witnesses, and the retention of well-placed insiders to discourage governmental action.

2. BCCI SYSTEMATICALLY BRIBED WORLD LEADERS AND POLITICAL FIGURES THROUGHOUT THE WORLD.

BCCI`s systematically relied on relationships with, and as necessary, payments to, prominent political figures in most of the 73 countries in which BCCI operated. BCCI records and testimony from former BCCI officials together document BCCI`s systematic securing of Central Bank deposits of Third World countries; its provision of favors to political figures; and its reliance on those figures to provide BCCI itself with favors in times of need.

These relationships were systematically turned to BCCI`s use to generate cash needed to prop up its books. BCCI would obtain an important figure`s agreement to give BCCI deposits from a country`s Central Bank, exclusive handling of a country`s use of U.S. commodity credits, preferential treatment on the processing of money coming in and out of the country where monetary controls were in place, the right to own a bank, secretly if necessary, in countries where foreign banks were not legal, or other questionable means of securing assets or profits. In return, BCCI would pay bribes to the figure, or otherwise give him other things he wanted in a simple quid-pro-quo.

The result was that BCCI had relationships that ranged from the questionable, to the improper, to the fully corrupt with officials from countries all over the world, including Argentina, Bangladesh, Botswana, Brazil, Cameroon, China, Colombia, the Congo, Ghana, Guatemala, the Ivory Coast, India, Jamaica, Kuwait, Lebanon, Mauritius, Morocco, Nigeria, Pakistan, Panama, Peru, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Suriname, Tunisia, the United Arab Emirates, the United States, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.

``

and it goes on like that. Also there was a book on the subject titled ``Bank of Crooks and Criminals``.

Zeemax: One more thing. I found your comment (uttered in seriousness!!) that ``Only I know the truth`` to be appalling in it`s hubris, even by the standards of the Paki elite which seems to think that the entire universe is conspiring against them, that they invented the universe, and what they dont know is not knowledge. Even your hero Abdi didnt know everything, otherwise he would have thought twice before trying to play games with the US banking regulations, whereby he lost it all.

Zeemax #51 Thanks for your response to my post. I dont totally agree with your response, as follows:

You quote my post: ``The managers of this Bank lived a lifestyle of kings`` and your response is as follows: ``I was one of them. BCCI took good care of it`s people. It only demanded two things; Complete dedication & loyalty.``

My comment: So does any criminal gang, including the Mafia. This doesnt prove a thing. Thanks for ``truth in disclosure`` in indicating you were one of these Bank managers. You should ask yourself if you are being totally unbiased in your views on BCCI as a result, though (even honest, intelligent men can be biased by their subjective experience).

You quote my post: ``Pakistan has produced some world class bankers (before your ``leader`` Bhutto chased them out of the country by nationalizing commercial banks`` and your response is as follows:

``ZAB was right in nationalising commercial banks at that point of time. Nationalisations were done in Britain as well.``

The fact that Britain did or did not do something means nothing. And in any case, Britain was the ``sick man of Europe`` in the 1960`s due to such nationalizations, and was rejuvenated only after Margaret Thatcher . You have to ask yourself what has been achieved as a result - before nationalization, Pakistani banks were leading the world (yes!) in the adoption of computer technology and provided excellent customer service. After nationalization, the entrepreneurs left Pakistan, and the staff left behind became bureaucrats who made the small depositer look like he was doing him a favor by accepting his money, and gave money to large borrowers who applied political pressure to get their loans ``ma`aaf`` ed.

When you make such statements, and continue ``The cycle of nationalisation and de-nationalisation has to be completed. ZAB was not given the time to complete that cycle.`` - we are talking 35 years my friend. Wake up. (You complain about lack of civility in debate on chowk - when you make such statements I feel ready to lead a Parisian style mob and put all the rotten Paki elite like you behind bars.)

Waleeullah Musharraf on GOD, GUN, and GOVERNMENT:

````This position, this authority has been bestowed by God (upon ME) and as long as I hold this authority, and whatever work I am doing with full responsibility````

And GOD the GREAT -- Gave ME the GUN -- to GRAB -- ``this authority`` -- to GOVERN Pakistan -- Alhumdolillaah

Prais be to Allah -- -- for GIVING -- Gee Huzoor Musharraf Gee -- all the biG G Goodies of the world.

``We have a serious identity problem. I had earlier been of the opinion that Pakistan should have a South-East Asian Identity as we were all born with that. Same as India, Nepal, Bangladesh & Sri Lanka.......Now I do not believe the same. I now believe we are Muslims first, and anything else later.````(Zeemax)

Dear Zeemax you DO have a ``serious identity problem`` -- but I like the plasticity of your idenity -- just hope ``anything else later`` will a little better than the NOW one you have.

````Our Muslim identity is what will guide us through the mess of the subcontinent.````(Zeemax)

I am sure it will -- same way it guided the Afghans through the mess -- inshallah?

From the CHOWK archives...


Saint Or Sinner?

by Ras H. Siddiqui




April 4th. came and went again as the
Gathering at Garhi Khuda Bux was reported
Smaller this year or was it the wishful thinking of
Opposing forces which prevail today as if
The hanged man is finally buried.

Like a meteor no less but possibly
Enveloped in feudal vengeance and hate
Or liberator of the oppressed powerless
Maybe the user of many tools to climb
To the top position of power or the scaffold.


This breaker or re-maker of the pure country
Now lies in the timeless sands of Mehran
Hero or cursed villain, many visitors to his grave
Say prayers, soul of Larkana famous or
Infamous, he was one of ours.

Guilty or innocent who can forget
The actor or the revolutionary hero
True patriot or traitor, freer of slaves
Or hypocrite responsible for all evil
Let loose in a country seeking excuses.

Many riddles, the memory of 1970`s
Defeat, small victories, economic ruin
Decisions badly taken, even criminal
But as this one observer reflects today
This saint or sinner left quite a void.


(To the memory of Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto. A controversy that continues.)

Re: Zeemax

Tara Masih was shot dead the same day ZAB`s corpse was flown to Larkana, where he (ZAB)was buried in a lime pit, with a four man guard posted, in order to prevent the body from being exhumed. It is interesting what you gleam from a discussion and this one was with ZAB`s former military aide...:)

Zeemax, were you in Peshawar during the period of 1960s to early 70s?

Feroz

Why is it that our first instinct is to debunk. Why do we attack each other. Why is it that we all try to pull each other down.

Don`t do it.

Zeemax:

“The aim of terrorism is to terrorize. If the objective is met by killing thirty, or a hundred, or a thousand, that is what these organisations aim for. The numbers are irrelevant.”

….i respectfully disagree….yes, terrorism is meant to terrorize but numbers are very relevant….what do you think plays more on the peoples’ psyche?….30 people killed by terrorists in ireland or the thousands killed by terrorists on 911?…the 1 or 2 that are killed in car bombings in spain or the hundreds killed in kenya?….

“In my personal opinion, the end objective of the tower attacks was not aimless bloodshed, it must have been bringing about economic collapse of US”

…911 was a terrorist attack would you not agree?….and like you stated the main objective of terrorism is to terrorize…..aimless bloodshed does that very well….