A Case for Moderation

Jibbe

Thank you for equating forces that are working towards democracy with suicide bombers. I can only feel pitty for you. You prove echo`s case about your jihalat by your own words. There is no use playing trumpet in front of this bhainse.

innalillahe wa inna elihe rajeoon.

Echboom says
``Just do a quick reality check you jahil and see if the heroes everywhere in all nations meet most of these criteria or not: LincolN? Churchill? Mao? Lenin? Ho chi Minh? Castro? Imam Khomeini? Jinnah? Gandhi?: even if one DISAGREES with their philosophies , one can`t just help but admire their INABILITY to compromise and put their own person above the cause.````

Very good boom boom. Though we may admire the above for their `inability to compromise` a few of their hard stances have done much harm to their people. Imam Khomeini and Castro - dictators who hold on to power even more stringently than the man you hate - Musharraf. Iran - 2 million refugess, asylum seekers in America, even more in Europe/Turkey. I may be illiterate, but if being literate means having to agree with everything you say - well hell, I rather remain in ignorant bliss. Though I maybe an illiterate, I have had the chance to go to Iran, and meet Iranians in England and the States, its their coutnry - so let me put it to you straight - they dont like their government either. And though they do not need America to overthrow the govt. for them - change should come from within either by the ballot or the bullet. As for Castro - his inability to compromise has led to similiar conditions in Cuba, do you know how many people try to flea to the United states every year, the number is in the tens of thousands.
Though Jinnah and Gandhi held fast to their belief, they resorted to tactics which maybe you should apply. Being educated (in the West may I remind you) - they succeeded without bombs or bullets. Maybe we can all learn something from them as they too were facing a beligerant superpower.
As for Churchill and Ho Chi Minh, great men who did not compromise as you say - however, when the time came, they asked others for help. Churchill the U.S. and Ho Chi Minh turned to Russia.

Leaders are not black and white. Since you yourself are Muslim, the Quran talks about things being done in stages. Am i right? My friend, lets put our bickering aside, and talk like men. The problem with you kind of people is that whenver someone dares suggest anything outside the box you live in - you people go crazy. ``HE IS A JEW, HE IS A CHRISTIAN, HE IS A NON MUSLIM, HE IS A TRAITOR. BLAH BLAH BLAH.``
Your friend urstruly argues for democracy - you are the case in point that it just cant work in Pakistan, because though I am not asking you to agree with what I say , you just cant accept it. Then you people wonder why no one listens to you - except for the ignorant or other disillusioned people who are impressionable and whose answer to problems is always militant and revolutionary. It is you kind of `so called Muslims` that the rest of us are wary off. Religion dosent make you a political genius or a good leader. Education might, but it also helps you become a tolerant and understanding human being without tunnel vision.

So echoboom I put a challenge to you right now. You have called me illiterate, and called my article a goraa influenced work. Fine. Now I want you in about 200-500 words to write your own article (or just post it here) - about how ECHOBOOM proposes we change the country.
For the rest of chowk, let me tell you what this joker is going to do, instead of focusing on the issue - he will rant on about how Muslims have been left behind and how the big bad white man has done this and that to us. Hate and anger has filled his mind.

Urstruly: again you make some good points, however, the consencus in Pakistan remains in favor of Musharraf. There are grumblings about his foreign policy sure, and then again things are not perfect in this country either - but they never were in the first place. Your cause is to take back the govt from the army and give it to the people - and I agree with you in this regard. However, our methods are what differentiates us. By suicide bombings and more insurgency we will embroil ourselves in civil war, destabilize the country and the consequences will be dire especially when Pakitan finally seems to be coming to some sort of a grip. So I support a gradual process, a moderate process (which many seem to believe an illiterate route) - but that is my conviction. You people love to cite Gandhi, Jinnah and Martin Luther King - their methods worked.
As for Hamas, Al qaeda - not ONE of their purposes have been realized, because any autocracy or power will not bow to a military challenge. WE have been down this route before, lets learn from history and try something different.
Cheers.

=== Interact Filtered ===
view this users filtered interacts

A Waste of Blood
by Charley Reese

When you look at the Vietnam War Memorial, with those 57,000 names of dead Americans on it, you should feel anger.

All of those young lives were sacrificed by blundering civilian politicians and bureaucrats who made their deaths meaningless. They died because of the posturing and ineptness of politicians in Washington who sent them to war for no logical reason and with no grand strategy for winning.

Then, after so many deaths, the American politicians lost their nerve and pulled out, leaving the South Vietnamese government as easy prey for the North.

Vietnam today is a communist country. It could have become a communist country without 57,000 Americans dying in its jungles, mountains and rice paddies. At no time were the communists in Vietnam a threat to the United States.

Now we have Americans dying in another country that was not and never could have been a threat to the United States.

Iraq had a bad dictator. Lots of countries have or have had bad dictators. Some of the dictators were installed by the United States, and others were aided by it. Merely toppling a foreign dictator is not a legitimate use of the U.S. military.

Nor is the world safer for the absence of Saddam Hussein, as the present administration keeps saying.

That`s because Saddam was never a threat to the world in the first place. American politicians so demonized Saddam, you would think that he was a genius in charge of a large industrial country.

He is not a genius.

Iraq is not a large country. The only war Saddam ever won was against Kuwait, which is the geographical equivalent of a postage stamp. Saddam was a ruthless, but not overly bright, thug who held power in a small country with a divided population. He was a threat only to his own people.

Militarily, he was nothing but a straw man.

Defeating Iraq in both wars was the equivalent of a heavyweight boxer beating up a 3-year-old. There was no contest. There was never any chance of a contest.

Iraq never recovered from its unsuccessful war with Iran and was growing weaker and weaker under sanctions and bombing. It had no air force. It had no air defenses worthy of the name. Its equipment was obsolete; the discipline of the forces was weak to nonexistent.

Americans should not be deluded by the fact that the American news media made it seem like the defeat of Hannibal or a second Normandy invasion. It was barely more than a live-fire exercise.

The majority of the American casualties are from the resistance, not from the war.

And you tell me: What is being accomplished by these young Americans dying in Iraq? It`s not saving Americans from weapons of mass destruction. There aren`t any.

It`s not saving America from al-Qaeda. Saddam and Osama bin Laden hated each other and never cooperated.

Are these young people dying just to do a favor for the Iraqis?

The Iraqis don`t want us in their country. It`s pretty hard to justify the claim that Iraqis are grateful when they are busy killing their so-called liberators.

It might not be on the same scale, but it`s Vietnam all over again. A war in a foreign country that was no threat to the United States. No strategy for victory. A complete misreading of both the country and its people.

In the end, the Americans who die in Iraq will, like their brothers who died in Vietnam, have died for nothing. We`ll end up installing a replacement dictator. But even if the Iraqis have elections, those elections should not be purchased with American blood.

I would hope that the American people would be (expletive deleted) tired of politicians (expletive deleted) away the lives of our sons and daughters for stupid or hidden reasons. No American soldier should ever die, except in defense of his or her own country. Period. End of story.

And every politician who wastes American blood should be thrown out of office.

=== Interact Filtered ===
view this users filtered interacts

Let us not loose our identity in the name of moderation, Jehad is not only of the militant type. To live and die by upholding moral principles is also jehad. To be able to do that you need to you have to develop the moral courage that all the great people had as mentioned in no 93. Who can dispute that our identity is Muslim: only we seem to be unsure. The rest of world is fairly certain and clear and all their policies and actions and wars are guided by the ultimate threat : A resurgent Islam. Terrosist acts are not sanctioned by Islam. We need to unify and inculcate a self regulatory regime whereby each individual is capable of performing his/her duty without being mislead in the labyrinth of confusion. Only then can we begin to prosper as a nation. In the meantime let us at least say both with deeds and words what is right and not support Musharraf and SA .

#97 by hamidm2
.//....... as much as i dislike the goons in khaki for making a mess of the political process, they seem to be a much lesser evil compared to the wild-eyed jihadis..//

Jihadis in pakiland are product of various wet dreams conjured up by Khakis e.g. strategic depth, thousand-cut death ...blah blah.

Khakis and Jihadis go hand-in-hand even though lately there have been a few fatricidal battles. If you neutralize Khakis, jihadis swamp won`t be too much of trouble to drain out.

[#92 by arjun_m on August 29, 2004 9:59am PT
* * *
One of the bombers was later identified as a member of a breakaway faction of Jaish-e-Mohammed, one of the main militant groups battling Indian forces in Kashmir. The group was founded with the government`s blessing in 2000 by Masood Azhar, a radical cleric. ]

Under pressure from US Masood Azhar is not being allowed to do ``freedom fighting`` in Kashmir. Somebody called Zargar (?sp) is given that role because he is Kashmiri and Masood is not. So that Musharraf can turn back and declare that it is freedom fighting not terrorism. What goes around comes back around to haunt you. After Bangladesh war Bangladeshi freedom fighters had refused to give up arms. Same thing will happen in Pakistan. What kind of people will do senseless indiscrimate killing? Criminals. Sooner Pakistan realises this better they will be. This is nothing. If one of these groups gains access to their nukes it will be Pakistan`s number after Iraq. After all US has already promised to use the doctrine of dealing with any ``gathering threat`` before it becomes real.

Re: jibbe #87

“For now, our fight is not to overthrow or further destabalize the `govt.` it is too bring reforms, slowly they might come, but gradually we will win.”

How long it will take? Any guess …..

Regards,


Faruk

........ as much as i dislike the goons in khaki for making a mess of the political process, they seem to be a much lesser evil compared to the wild-eyed jihadis and their leaders who have ``issued a fatwa that any Na Pak fauji who dies while killing his own citizen must be refused his namaz-e-janaza``............... these are the same people who before 9/11 were praying to their moon god for a taleban style government in pakistan ........ they ducked down into their spider holes for a while and now they are back, foaming at the mouth and bent upon creating hell on earth so that they can have their seventy houris in heaven ................. i think it is time to whack them again!....... absolute evil must be absolutely destroyed and, let us not forget, it is much easier to get rid of a general than a pope or ayatollah ...............

[Wake up call dude. Every time you talk of Ummah you talk of a civilizational conflict. Every time you talk of a MUSLIM identity, brotherhood, whatever you talk of a civilizational conflict.]

B.S. Only to those who think that this Muslim identity is a threat to them. Show me once where I threatened anyone else on basis of being non-Muslim. Your preceptions are bigoted if this is the case, not my sense of Muslim-ness.

[He did. And where was the Muslim mass movement telling him he was wrong????]

You are not new to chowk, so this question is certainly more or less a red herring. You very well know who these people are. The term I used was `bait`, the implication being that you were snagged by a flame-baiter. You also very well know that if either you or I had to jump in everytime someone was spweing hate, that would be a 9-5 job. We only ever jump in if there is a greater point to be made...

[ But I have seen enough of your posts on Muslim identity etc to reject any feeling of accomodation. This is nothing to do with partition, India and Pakistan. It has to do with identity politics and I don`t buy into yours.]

Dude, I ain`t selling anything. Go shopping if you really want to buy something...

Vertex:

``Slip-ups like his admit to at best a hostile attitude towards a ``tolerated`` (like a toothache) community. Let`s put it this way. If a Muslim decided to join the anti-Hindu dingbat wagon (a pakistani one no less), and started talking about wiping out Hindus from India he would be lynched on the spot. Yet, when the opposite is true, it`s merely ``venting``? ``

That is true. Look, you are right on this arguement I will give you that. It is also true that I took a Pakistani`s bait on Hinduism and talked of retaliation on Islam. In that sense I immediately bought into the Pakistani worldview rather than the Indian one. So you were right in your original point to me. And by nature I would have apologized.

But I have seen enough of your posts on Muslim identity etc to reject any feeling of accomodation. This is nothing to do with partition, India and Pakistan. It has to do with identity politics and I don`t buy into yours.

Vertex:

``you stand with the idiots who talk about ``civilizational`` conflicts. ``

Wake up call dude. Every time you talk of Ummah you talk of a civilizational conflict. Every time you talk of a MUSLIM identity, brotherhood, whatever you talk of a civilizational conflict.


``Hey, Jinnah was an idiot. He left you to our mercy didn`t he.]

Nope. We simply didn`t follow the piper...in fact, the tune he sung was that of warning of exactly what you just ``promised`` Urstruly... ``

He did. And where was the Muslim mass movement telling him he was wrong????

Jibbe:
O moderate. Listen again.

It is not yet entering your thick skull that it is YOU and YOUR kind who are illiterates in Pakistan.

Illitercy has NOTHING whatsover to do with words or numbers you jahil. It has everything to do with honour, dignity, rigidity & stubborness for principles [ remember Quaid-e-Azam?], unbendability, non-compromisabilty, in NOT being pragmatic, having honesty [ & NOT integrity as the western thugs teach now], in being EXTREMIST for FUNDAMENTALS [like following & enforcing the ten commandments of Injeel]

Just do a quick reality check you jahil and see if the heroes everywhere in all nations meet most of these criteria or not: LincolN? Churchill? Mao? Lenin? Ho chi Minh? Castro? Imam Khomeini? Jinnah? Gandhi?: even if one DISAGREES with their philosophies , one can`t just help but admire their INABILITY to compromise and put their own person above the cause.

And here the illiterate and jaahil does not feel secure at home, and insists that without the vardi he cannot protect the nation. What a baighairat. Does he not know that no human can escape death. It is DEATH which shadows every human & no amount of security is sufficient. Does he not know that Pakistan and Islam are not dependent on whether he lives or dies? No wonder that the illiterate have no sense of his own mortal , temporal, and ephemeral limitations.

And this makes him and anyone of his type a Jahil,an illiterate? Understand illiterate?

By moderate some Pakis are looking for a loop-holes to Halaal their sharaab, juaa, and Haraam-khorees. Their zeal and extremism in being the pointers, poachers,and predators
of ``terrorists`` as defined by their Masters is there for all to see.

Illiterate of Pakistan:- adj.
Il-li-t-er-ate:- one who thinks that Islam is secondary to Pakistan.and/also ( sometimes) one whose mind, heart, and arse operate 5 to11 hours
behind Pakistani Standard Time, while residing in Pakistan. also ( sometimes) : those who nurse a desire to get screwed by the Western thugs & also be considered heroes & saviours.

In short any Pakistani who refuses to learn from the neighbors to the east and west: ( IRAN or INDIA): Look how these intelligent, bright, non-illiterates Leaders Walk, talk, and conduct themselves.

Then pay a close attention to the uniformed or suited-booted monkeys on their road-show on a leash several time-zones away.

Musharraf, Shaukat Aziz, and anyone who prefers Pakistan (geography) over Islam (belief) is illiterate.

I know that is very difficult for westernised scum like yourself to grasp all this with that anglo totaa-mainaa ``accent``, duck-ass waddling, gesturing like ( `` I went faarin, got education there``). The village idiot also acts similarly when one talks of physics; but he admits his awareness about the reason for not understanding. You on the other hand as a jahil insist on teaching and reforming.

If you neither wear, walk, talk, or behave like a learned person but are desperately trying to be your masters clone to bring your DNAs in sync with ``ground`` realities--you ARE an illiterate, a jaahil, an ignoramus.

Or simply a moderate, a westernised moderate.

Jibbe
I appreciate your comments at 87. I had decided not to interact anymore because of the various comments being posted.
In thew past I agree that we as Pakistanis have not been following the correct way to govern but that does not mean that we should not strive for right. To be noseled through the current lot of jokers is not my idea of good governance and I am sure glad to see that I am not alone.
Cheers

``We must either classify General Musharraf as a visionary or an impotent leader; I personally think he is a visionary and question most people deeply on the performance of the government, and they will admit there has been vast improvements.

The Government needs to encourage people participation in other things besides government.``(the author)

How about `classifying` General Mushrraf as a Criminal Highjacker -- of a civilian government?

....as far as being visionary -- how about a visionary like General Suharto?

-- indeed the Government needs to encourage people participation in `other things` besides government -- and leave the Government for the Generals...to feast upon....

..did you hear General Kramat is coming to Washington DC as the Pakistan Ambassador to US.... some feasting...as they say: Halwai ki dukan pe dada jan ke nam fateha.....

I agree with Sameer: ``There is nothing more to Musharraf than US help improving the financial balance sheet. Both NS and BB would have supported USA on war on terror too, ``