The Great Game for Central Asian Oil

T.Rehman, great article, but to further polish your genius you must read this book:

TROUBLED WATER: TGE GEOPOLITICS OF THE CASPIAN REGION
BY R. HRAIR DEKMEJIAN & HOVANN H. SIMONIAN

However, the oild and gas reserves we are talking about are only 5% of total world
deposits, unlike the Iranian, Saudi Iraqi and Kuwaiti reserves, which are much much more than that.

``The Dutch have fortified Manaar, and make use of it for a Prison for Indian Princes, whom they can overpower or circumvene, when they are suspected of making Treaties contrary to their Interest, or to such as would willingly reassume their lost Freedom, by breaking the unjust Yoke of the Company`s Tyranny, perhaps, drawn on themselves by too much Faith or Incredulity; for that honest Company has always had a Maxim, first to foment Quarrels between Indian Kings and Princes, and then piously pretend to be Mediators, or Arbitrators of their Differences, and always cast in something into the Scale of Justice to those whose Countries produve the best Commodities for the Company`s Use, and lend the Assistance of their Arms to him who is so qualified by the Product above mentioned, and, at the Conclusion of the War, make the poor conquered Prince pay their Charges for assisting the Conqueror; and, when all is made up, and Treaties of Peace ready to be signed, then the Conqueror, their dear Ally and Friend, must suffer them to possess the best Sea-ports, and fortify the most proper and convenient Places of his Country, and must forbid all Nations Traffick but their dear Dutch Friends, under Pain of having the Company`s Arms turned against them, in Conjunction with some other potent Enemy to the deluded Conqueror.

The King of Charta Souri, on the Island of Java, is a fresh Instance of the Truth of what I relate. In Anno 1704, I saw him at Samarang, a Sea-port on the said Island, in great Splendor, and in high Esteem with the Dutch Commodore; but in Anno 1707 he fell under the Displeasure of the General and Council of Batavia, and in 1708 falling into their Hands, he was brought their Prisoner to Manaar, and cooped up on that small Island, there to spend the Remainder of his Days in Contemplation or Comments on the Deceit of worldly Grandeur, and of the Power and Pleasure of Sovereignty, or in humble Thoughts on Confinement, Exile and Poverty.``

From ``A New Account of the East-Indies, Being the Observations and Remarks of Capt. Alexander Hamilton from the Year 1688-1723``.

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For all the Indians
I guess this explains your WORLD CUP performance.

22 Indian athletes caught in doping net



NEW DELHI: Twenty two athletes at India`s National Games in December, including 13 medal winners, have failed dope tests, the country`s Olympic committee announced yesterday.

``Twenty two have tested positive from 464 tests held,`` Randhir Singh, secretary-general of the Indian Olympic Association, told a news conference.

``Doping has become a major menace in this country.``

Nine tested positive for the banned anabolic steroid nandrolone. Bronze medal-winning rower Lakshman Singh has been banned after his urine samples confirmed the presence of nandrolone, a rowing official said.

Singh said other names would be announced only after the individual federations gave their responses to the IOA. These will be considered at its April 23 meeting.

The announcement is the latest in a series of doping incidents. Distance runner Sunita Rani had medals she won at last year`s Pusan Asian Games restored to her after being cleared of doping charges, following an earlier positive test for nandrolone.

Male weightlifters Krishnan Madasamy and Satheesha Rai were stripped of their medals at the Commonwealth Games in Manchester for doping.

``We can only advise the federations. It is up to them to take action,`` he added.

Nandrolone, which builds muscles and strengthens bones, has contributed to hundreds of positive doping cases across the sporting spectrum since the late 1990s.

Among the high-profile athletes who`ve tested positive for the steroid are former 100 metres Olympic champion Linford Christie, American shot-putter C J Hunter and Jamaican sprinter Merlene Ottey.

In most cases, athletes have protested their innocence and pleaded that the nandrolone must have been contained in diet supplements.

#32 by arjun_m on April 8, 2003 7:43am PT
Hey Arjun, I know Pakis are having problems here in US but
aren`t you guys getting hasseled all around the world right now.
In Malaysia when the 270 Indians were held along with a few Pakistanis
I believe the PAkistanis were offered food and water while the Indians were treated like the dogs, this is according to your own Hindu papers.

The Ugly Indian

April 05, 2003


Disregarding the invasion of Iraq, an Indian Singaporean friend with interests in Malaysia is hopping mad about the fracas over Indian information technology professionals in Indonesia and Malaysia, to say nothing about the contretemps in The Netherlands.

Three incidents in a row. You might think that Indians are being got at. Not so, says my friend. His complaint is that Ugly Indians, stalking the world as if they own it, give India a bad name.

By trying to introduce trade union blackmailing tactics into a dyed-in-the-wool capitalist society, they are also making it difficult for honest-to-goodness ethnic Indians like him to make a living.

Paying handsome tribute to India`s high commissioner in Kuala Lumpur, Veena Sikri, for standing up to police highhandedness, and to Malaysia`s acting prime minister, Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, for the magnanimity of his apology, my friend warns that it would be unfair and counter-productive for India to think of reprisals.

``The story behind the Kuala Lumpur fracas is that the IT hands came on contracts negotiated in good times,`` he e-mails. ``When the Asian financial crisis erupted, many Malaysian IT firms went under or just could not pay salaries.``

``Many offered lower salaries, a very common and legal practice in Malaysia and Singapore. The Ramus and Shamus (my friend`s term for Indian nationals) ganged up and retaliated by forming an expatriate cartel. They withheld labour, not realising that this automatically cancelled their work permits.``

``ASEAN is not India. No ASEAN employer will tolerate lip from an employee, local or foreign. There are no real trade unions here. Even the Port of Singapore Authority workers, the torchbearers of the bold 1946 labour movement, caved in with a whimper.``

``So when the IT boys got bolshie, their employer or employers retaliated by tipping off the Immigration Department. Things unfortunately got out of hand.(If the Malaysian police can get away with beating up their own deputy prime minister -- Anwar Ibrahim, languishing in jail --the Ramus and Shamus are lucky none of them got even a black eye).``

My friend says that complaints by local residents of the Palm Court Condominium, where the Indians lived, were just the pretext for what was essentially a labour dispute. But he does warn that social behaviour such as theirs is not tolerated anywhere, not even in free and easy America.

``Why didn`t the Indian government threaten economic sanctions against the US when IT hands were rounded up by the Los Angeles police?`` he asks.

``Perhaps some lessons can be drawn from this incident for India`s footloose high-tech manpower, now travelling all over the world, with their laptops and smart briefcases (it used to be lotas, Icmic cookers and bedding rolls not so long ago).``

``These wild-eyed young men bring with them conspicuous social habits that the culturally diverse peoples of ASEAN find offensive.``

``They litter, drink, and are very argumentative in societies that brook no argument from even their own nationals, let alone foreigners. Above all they are undisciplined and reflect the recent growing malaise of student indiscipline in all Indian universities. India`s laissez faire democracy will tolerate such social aberrations. Other countries and societies will not.``

He rightly accuses Indian expatriates of being abysmally ignorant of the region`s complex history, cultures and value systems, in spite of its historical links with ancient India.

I once met an IFS officer seconded to the Singapore foreign ministry who thought Lee Kuan Yew was the deputy prime minister!

``It is their total inability to communicate with other societies that sets Indians apart from the thousands of foreign nationals working in ASEAN. Is it that difficult for Indian universities and colleges to offer short courses in Indonesian, Malay and Thai languages? Do former colonial European languages still have a stranglehold on the Indian mind?``

The conduct of some NRIs put off others too. An Indian Malaysian journalist wrote in a Malaysian paper that Andhra Pradesh IT professionals look down on local Telugus. An ethnic Indian editor in Singapore once spoke of Indian nationals here `with their baggage of caste and class.`

A university lecturer in Singapore says that Indian students who are here on Singapore scholarships soon become `cocky.` Another word that the locals apply to visiting Indian nationals is `arrogant.`

Of course, many locally-born Indians, whether in Singapore or Malaysia, have chips on their shoulder the size and weight of the Qutab Minar but that is another matter.

What is of concern is that the combined effect of these reports is to queer the pitch for analysts like Michael Backman, author of Big in Asia, who believe that in the long run our NRIs will outstrip, outrun and outsmart the Overseas Chinese.

Mrs Sikri, says my friend, handled the affair with finesse. Given Malay cultural norms, Mr Badawi`s apology was a tremendous gesture. That should be the end of the matter.

``Malaysia was the only non-aligned country to stand solidly behind India in the 1962 debacle with China, at a time when the Soviet Union, India`s closest ally, decided to back its Communist ally.`` He does not mention that Pakistan snapped diplomatic relations with Malaysia in 1965 for supporting India at the United Nations, as Noordin Sopiee, the Malaysian writer and analyst reminded me once.

``Malaysia does not deserve economic sanctions for what was clearly an isolated act of police high-handedness,`` he says.

Then, the kicker: ``Indians may want to reflect on their own police standards as well.``

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ali87 #25

The Turkish military has been a beneficary of US military and economic assistance. But is has not prevented them for defending Turkish national interests. They have intervened in Cyprus in 1974 over the objections of most of the world. Of course it will be interesting to see the kind of force they would unleash if Iraqi Kurds declared independence.

#19 by arjun_m
My Dear Hindu Boy, I was born here.

dost-mittar:
It is no secret that PDPA governments were better than anybody who came before or all the beardos who came after them. Noor Mohammad Tarakai was the best within PDPA. He had started many wide ranging reforms that would have threatened the tribal chiefs and mullahs power in the society.

Had they allowed to stay in power, Afghanistan would have improved society based on many of the social indicators. In my order of system of gvernments, capitalist liberal deomcracy comes on the top and Islamic model at the bottom with communist model somewhere in betwen. However, communist models vary, and Afghanistan - not yet tasted industrial rvolution - was more suitable for socialist type post-Mao chinese model.

It is wrong to assume among Muslim majority countries that loss of communism is gain for capitalism or democracy. The reality is far from it. It gives teeth to Islamic fundamentalists and authoritarian rulers among Muslims much more than liberal democracy. The obscurantists and authoritarian thugs can not be removed easily by popular uprisisng in Muslim countries due to many factors - one being Muslims are extreme in feelings, very soft towards obscurantists and other retrogressive Muslim fundamentalist power and hard against foreign non-Muslim powers. Therefore, USA might act as catalyst even if the actions of USA are illegitimate in the eyes of Europeans and antiwar crowd.

Take for example changing the name of Saddam Airport to Baghdad Airport by USA. It would have been impossible without foreign invasion. Same can be said about changing Faisalabad back to Lyallpur. Not that I am supporting an invasion but merely pointing out the complacency towards useless Islamic identity of Arab origin. Had Saddam chosen, Khalid Bin Walid, Ali, Mohammad or even Gilgamesh or Hammurabi names for airport, even USA would not have dared changing the name.

On second thought, Faisal is more acceptable to Pakistanis than Khalid Bin Walid or Mr. Lyall because Faisal was at least circumcized. Hahaha........

lets see those pakis whose eyes swell up every time they hear their kids recite the pledge of allegiance (probably at breakfast table every morning) defend this one:

http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/politics/politics-mideast-usa-pipes.html

``Bush Annoys U.S. Muslim Group with Pipes Nomination

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Bush has named controversial Middle East commentator Daniel Pipes to the board of the U.S. Institute of Peace to the dismay of a major American Muslim organization, which described Pipes on Monday as a ``Muslim-basher`` with bigoted views.

Institute spokesman John Brinkley said on Monday that Bush had nominated Pipes to replace Zalmay Khalilzad, who left the institute in 2001 to work in the White House.``

some of mr. pipe`s more interesting observations:

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/religionandethics/week509/cover.html

``I worry very much from the Jewish point of view that the presence,
and increased stature, and affluence, and enfranchisement of American
Muslims...will present true dangers to American Jews.``
(Daniel Pipes speaking before the convention of the American Jewish``
Congress, 10/21/2001)

http://www.danielpipes.org/article/198

``All immigrants bring exotic customs and attitudes, but Muslim customs are more troublesome than most. Also, they appear most resistant to assimilation. Elements among the Pakistanis in Britain, Algerians in France, and Turks in Germany seek to turn the host country into a Islamic society by compelling it to adapt to their way of life.

_ _ _ West European societies are unprepared for the massive immigration of brown-skinned peoples cooking strange foods and not exactly maintaining Germanic standards of hygiene.``

http://www.wrmea.com/archives/july01/0107057.html

“The Palestinians are a miserable people,” he added, “and they deserve to be.

At the conclusion of his talk, Pipes received a standing ovation from a large group in the audience``.

Taimur:
Some interesting info. on the PDPA reforms - presuming the information is accurate. Other than that, it is a typical sophomoric Marxist interpretation of the events in Afghanistan and the rest of the world.
BTW it looks like that this article was written sometime ago, otherwise the Iraq war would have found a mention in this conspiracy.

ali78 #25
Yes, agreed. But when 90%+ of the Turkish population was against the Turkish involvement, members of Parliament(and the generals) could ignore this while voting, at the cost of losing their seats or major civil unrest.

Thus the government had to follow public will or risk losing office. Without a Parliament, this reflection of Turkish public opinion wouldnot have such a significant effect on Turkish government policy, and could have easily been dismissed by the US and Turkish generals as illegitimate and emotional.

Jay in case you missede these posts

#26 by pardaisi on April 7, 2003 1:25pm PT
Jay-Gay,

You will love this.. Jagjit talks like you man! maybe you two can hookup for a drink or something wink! wink! (are you gooing to be a tight-end or wide receiver in this relationship...just curious) He`s got the money and fame. Go Gay Go! I mean Go Jay GO!

hmmm...I like it GOJAYGO! I may start calling you that.

http://www.hindustantimes.com/news/919_229213,001800010001.htm




--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


#25 by pardaisi on April 7, 2003 12:04pm PT
#19 This will SOUND FAMILIAR to you JAY-gay?

Like the Iraqis, a day will come for the ``Indians`` to be liberated by their hate filled leaders.

It is sad, the way things are, it has to get a lot worse before it can get any better.

It is like aviation, a lot of people have to be killed, before regulations are changed to increase safety. A lot more ``Indians Muslims`` will have to be killed by Hindu fundamentalists, a lot more ``Achoots`` (untouchables - literally...) will have to be killed, Babri masjid demolished before the world realizes that India in nothing but a sham democracy.

Pakistan will need a front from Afghanistan, other from Iran, then you will know ``JAY - GAY`` ,

By the way, is it possible to build a mosque in India? lets say ...never mind it will hurt you from below and will go all the way up.

#12 by sadna on April 6, 2003 9:40am PT

Right.
Except you failed to note that the Turkish military backed (some say controlled by US) put in enough pressure to get nearly half the votes in the parliment. It was touch and go.

Turkey can hardly be called a shining example of democracy. Where the Military has a constitutonal role, Elected govts have been pulled down by the military earlier including the one before this govt. The will of the people operates in the narrow confines imposed by the military which decides if the Prime Ministers wife can sport a scarf or not.
All with the praise by the west particularly the USA who call on the Secular Military one of the best institutions of Turkey, Not the parliment or any other instutuion.

Taimu Rahman,
Could you please tell me where did you get the information about PDPA reforms during 70`s such as Decree number 6 and other information.
I would really appreciate if you could share with me.
Thanks,
Kashif

#21 by shinyangel.
They say that you should believe in God, but should tie your camel first.

The pipeline has to come in contact with holiest of the holy places of god and god-chosen people in order for arab oil to be blessed and miraculously change into light sweet crude. Once it passes through Mecca, Jerusalem, Rome and Washington, the crude will be blessed and no longer require refining. God almighty is not a big fan of downstream business. Jet fuel high, octane gasoline and LPG for first world, diesel for the second world and coal-tar for third world are mentioned in code words in old testament, new testament and koran alongwith JFK assassination, ZyklonB, holocaust and swimsuit trends for 2003.

Aye iman walo, iman ki rassi ko coal-tar maiN dabou ker mazbooti say thamay (chipkay) raho.

yes you rightly said taht paki govt only the gove is puppet in usa hand but the PEOPLES OF PKISTAN ARE NOT .TYEY BLIEVE ONLY IN GOD ALMIGHTY THE ONLY SUPER POWER NO AMERICA AND OTHER ,
OK
UNDERSTAND
We are agaist the war agaist iraq but what we can do we only protest against the war nothing else

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Oil, Central Asian Republics, India, pipelines, Pakistan, Iran, turmoil, greed, lies, laughter in marble halls, secret hand shakes, space imagery, puppets on a string, wars, un-numbered bank accounts, nacro-terrorism, religion, corruption...and the dream never ends...

...the movie ends, and the doors open and the world of the fantasy is exchanged for a surreal apathy and the cool air conditioned air of the dark theater is greeted and scared away by the humidity, outside, that hangs over me like a dripping shourd and the mulberry night tells me that I never really liked the songs...what a waste...can I get my money back???

Ciao

8 by arjun_m
Why are you so BITTER?
Did some PAki steal your girlfriend or
your wife?

hamidm2 #15 Regarding this pipeline ``from Iraq to Syria via Israel`` that Mr. Kashaziz says is the grand plan (sorry, the Great Game). You helpfully note would that this pipeline would also need to go through Jordan in order to reach Israel. I may add that in order to reach Syria from Israel it would need to go back via Jordan again. And I suppose the purpose of the Great Game is to get oil from Iraq to Syria.

And then we have this second pipeline that Kashaziz sees coming from Afghanistan to the warm waters of Pakistan. And I suppose they will be sending naswar from Afghanistan to the Arabian sea in this pipeline.

I suppose I should laugh at all this. But for some reason I wish I had a pipeline right now against which to bang my head in frustration at the kinds of idiotic posts one comes across on chowk. ;-)

kashaziz

``There will be a pipeline from the CARs (Central Asian Republic) via Afghanistan to the warm waters in Pakistan and another one from Iraq to Syria via Israel. ``

......... now why would anyone want to build a pipeline going west from iraq through jordan and then back up through israel to syria????? ...... how about building a pipeline from iran to india through germany ? ....... makes sense to me .......... and why do muslims dream about oil instead of semi-conductors or steel ? .... it is a rhetorical question, so don`t bother to answer.......... somehow i believe that god is punishing the ayrabs by putting oil under their sand ......... if it hadn`t been for the oil, the bedouins would have been about as relevant as the bushmen, the eskimos and the dodo birds ............. one of these days the white man will figure out how to make these darn hydrogen fuel cells work and the arabs and the arab-wannabes can go back to pounding sand, raiding caravans between mecca and jerusalem, and collecting entertainment tax during hajj ............

............ buy hybrid cars and make ayrabs and ayranians irrelevant ! ....... i wish we could move pakistan south of australia - away from the corrupting influence of the arabs and far away from the horrible heeng-eaters next door ................

Good work Taimur.

There will be a pipeline from the CARs (Central Asian Republic) via Afghanistan to the warm waters in Pakistan and another one from Iraq to Syria via Israel.

All these pseudo-intellectuals be damned

Taimur:

You have given adequate references to support your theory. So I do not agree with contributors that it is a paranoic conspiracy theory. If they believe that it is then they should give references to that effect.

I believe that USA`s presence in Afghanistan will be beneficial to its people and to Pakistanis only and only if they do not over-project former communist Tajiks, Uzbeks and Royalists at the cost of Pushtoons and Iran backed Shias.

Afghanistan will only become stable when it is allowed to be govern in accordance with the requirements of Loya Jirga. Keeping Pushtoons away from power and needlessly supporting NA and handpicked war lords will only encourage resentment and resurgence of a popular revolt.

While it is in the interest of USA to pump out as much oil as possible. Oil cost $$$ to produce. Production cost is $2 in Saudi Arabia, $15 in North Sea/Siberia/Texas. So oil prices cannot go below a certain point. Otherwise a lot of world`s oil producers would lose money producing petroluem. I am sure the cost of production and transport in Central Asia is in the $10-15 range. USA pays a lot of money to foreign oil producers. The real issue is what do the elites in oil producing states do with those dollars.

When the proletariat refuses to vote, all you will get by overthrowing the the ruling classes is a Communist dictatorship.

The same with reviving the Ottomans like another genius suggested, without an aware public and proper institutions, all you will get in return is a Saudi-style rigid monarchy.

Sitting at home refusing to build ones national insitutions but ranting against US imperialism doesnot make sense.

US imperialism didnot work with Turkey in this conflict, Turkey IS determining its own destiny instead of simply asserting its right to determine its own destiny in endless oped pieces. Perhaps the author ought to look into what Marxist theory says about this or the other guy can suggest why God is so meherban on them?

The Soviet Union was an anti-imperial force?

I only thank God every day that that evil empire is gone from the Earth. Certainly, America`s actions are bad. But honestly speaking, American forces are nowhere near as brutal or disgusting as previous colonizing forces. Our own fellow Talibs, Islamists, and so on, treat people just as bad -- if not worse -- than American armies. The difference? They have more technology so they do it on a larger scale.

But the Soviet Union was pure evil, a darkness and a hole. Eliminating whole nationalities. Deporting whole peoples. Eradicating environments. Wiping out cultures and civilizations. Killing millions upon millions for the sake of stupid collectivization.

And what did it accomplish? A pitiful Russian army that took eight years to establish a tenuous hold over Chechnya, whose population is under 1 million and whose territory is 1/10 of 1 percent of Russia`s.

There will always be imperialism and there will always be war. You cannot change human nature. You can only try to create institutions to mediate and ameliorate -- much as democracies try to capture the worst aspects of human nature and reduce their influence. It`s not perfect. But what is?

Certainly NOT anything to do with Communism.

GREAT MUSLIM SUCCESS,

The only great thing that ever happene to the muslims is that allah seem to have left oil under the ground they tread. After reading the the book and learning it by rort, all that is left is the conspiract theiries. All of the bloody damn iraqui oil, at the peak of its current production will amont to only 16 billion dollars, a small peanut in global economis terms, noting that it is 20 percet of Ge revenue and less than 2 percent of the bloody indian GDP.

The wretched jihadists can burn as well in their oil and get to the 72 houris, for all that I care.

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The mankind is just one.

And everyone wears on top a thin layer of nationality, belief or race.

The moment these layesrs get peeled off, it is same person underneath everywhere. And we get down to the basic values of good and bad as perceived by the human conciousness.

I agree with tahmed32.

Mr. Taimur: You could have been excused if you had written this article at least 30 years ago. At that time there were indeed many people like you (many could be found in Lahore campuses, chain smoking bagla cigarettes which they carried inside Gold Leaf packets and carrying some book full of big Leninist words like the ones you use). So you would have been excused as being a member of that club of pseudo-intellectual weirdos.

Now, you are like a Coelocanth - the fish that everyone thought had been extinct for millions of years but which magically turned up off the coast of madagascar, still breathing bagla smoke and hot air and big words about Monopoly Capitalists, its Running Dogs, and Big Games.

World is full of viruses, bacteria, parasites and blood thisrsty animals. Some do it due to instinct and some smart animals do it to benefit from it. One thing they all share and that is the availability of fertile growth media to multiply and survive.

Afghans are one such growth media who can be fooled by anybody because they consider themselves martial and brave. It is well known fact that sex supression leads to outletting pressure in bizarre, disorderly, agressive, machsismo, risk taking and brave behavior. The sexual supression fortified with virtuous Islamic ehtics turned many tribal societies into haphazardly aggressive and made them vulnerable to the exploitation. This is the tragedy of Afghanistan. Instead of blaming Russia, Zia, America, Britain and Pitcairn Island of south pacific, they must reevealuate their own cultural/ religious practices.

They must come to understand the inherent weaknesses that made them easy pray for all kind of parasitic ideas from outside. Why are they so open to be fooled by communists, capitalists, colonialists, Islamist, wahabist, Sufist, Deobandist, monarchist etc etc. All they remember is the pride in defeating British, defeating this and defeating that. There is more to a people than just obsessed with defeating everything and everybody. Why don`t they realize that in order to inflict a minor defeat on an enemy, they are ready to lose everything -education, healthcare, roads, bridges, colleges, schools.

Afghanistan was not the only country with Russian soldiers on its soil. The Poles, Czeck, Romanians, Bulgarians, East Germans all had Russian troops and they hated them. But none of them was stupid like Afghans to sacrifice everything for kicking them out or service to religion. Plenty of Zia-likes were present in the neighboring west Europe who would have loved to see Poles, Bulgars, Hungarians and others take up arms against the Soviets. The churches would have loved it but guess what: They were not stupid like Afghans and so called ``our brave traditions``.

Despite all the current bloody history, they have not learnt any lesson. A nations/ government that can sacrifice everything just to follow one Islamic ethic - namely once a promise, always steadfast to honor that promise under all circumstances as int he case of giving refuge to Osama Bin Laden. They remained steadfast in not handing OBL to USA and in the process ost their government and brought hardships to Muslims everywhere. But promise is a promise to them. Since they have promised to defend Islam and supress sexulaity and other strict ethics, they are likely to be continue playing the role of cannon fodder for many more years to come.

Therefore, first blame Afghans, then Islam, then Zia, communists, USA, capitalists, colonialists, imperialists and neo-coloialists. The world will always be ready to spread red carpets for stupids who can not distinguish stupidity from bravery.

what sheer nonsense!.......... all these conspiracy theories don`t amount to hill of beans ........ the fact of the matter is that this is a struggle between order and disorder, between civilizaiton and primitivism, between the right to pee standing up and being forced to squat, between night robes and pants with two legs, between tooth paste and twigs, utensils and fingers, camels and bullet trains, cable tv and jumaa sermons, guilt free sex and superstition, single malt whiskey and camel whey, democracy and nepotism............ unfortunately, the white man might be able to liberate us from temporal tyrants but who will rid us of our spiritual demons ...........

Through an attempt at being provocative in rising the neorealist foreign policy of one hegemonic state is really not enough.. The central Asia dimensions of this policy and the Asia flank -- would be conducted by any state given the hegemonic power that it has at the momnet the responsibilities inmho is people power and vesting our interest within a stronger international system which can override such imperial unilateralism. Game Theory - the means and the ends at its best ...however what is lacking is substance from the South as well as the `non aligned` north for an alternative and more just international society...
If milions can be spent on liberating freedom fries then so to can these millions be utilised to eleviate world hunger, famine, disease etc etc...
the macro is a mirror image of the micro,

This is certainly a great game of world domination.

I do not completely agree with your concluding paragraphs but

am willing to accept the negative while thinking positive.


Ras

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