Will Pakistanis Listen and Act?

Morarji Desai was a wonderful Indian PM, who like many pacifist co-religionists of the ilk we have on our hands here, used to drink urine daily. I don’t say that there is anything wrong with the partaking of that beverage if your heart so desires, but it seems from their gloating, and Paki/Muslim bashings, that maybe some of our Indi friends here have let the inebriating toxics from drinking those bodily fluid discharges go to their heads a little too much. Maybe they use stuff laced a little too heavily with brain numbing venom. Either that or maybe they are drunk with jobs like the destruction of Babri Mosque or the Gujrat blood letting. Be that as it may, it would behoove everyone if we stop spewing poisonous vitriol against one another. There already is enough hatred in the world as it is. As we know, Pakistan is not a perfect nation, but than neither is India such a wonderful bastion of angels. Remember, every time you point a finger at someone, three of your own fingers are pointing at you. After all, it was not so long ago when the Indians were so hard on the run that if someone would even murmur the word “Chinese!” they would forget putting on even their pants before scampering for dear life. But times change. Usually the bigger and more powerful nations condescend to offer assurance to the less powerful and fortunate, like China recently did in the case of India. As opposed to this, India is vying for a Security Council seat and posturing with the pomposity of a nation on the threshold of becoming some sort of a power, yet no Indi just can seem to get out of the rut of bashing Pakistan anywhere he can. A recent example being Jagmohan’s dig against Pakistan, while on trip to the US, and people like Arjun etc here. The US is being all hunky dory with the Hindis these days because they wish to use them against the Chinese, but probably they have not heard the saying we know since ages here, that a hundred crackers are worth a single blow from a truncheon.

(Its laughable to suggest that with your Indian looks you could escape racial profiling!).

Capt Clueless: If you`re lurking, Der Spiegel has Ahmed Rashid interview

``Pakistan Remains the Global Center for Terrorism and al-Qaida``

The investigation into the July 7 London bombings quickly revealed ties to Pakistan. But just what role did the country run by Gen. Pervez Musharraf play in the terror attacks? SPIEGEL ONLINE spoke with Ahmed Rashid about the country`s reliance on extremist groups, radical religious schools and the reason Osama bin Laden remains at large, very likely in Pakistan.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Mr. Rashid, after the London bombings, police quickly revealed that most of the bombers were British citizens of Pakistani origin and that they might have traveled to Pakistan to receive instructions and training prior to the July 7 attacks. Was this a surprise to you?

Rashid: People in Pakistan were very apprehensive after the bombing, but the connection with Pakistan did not come as a surprise. It was clear there was a great danger that the Pakistani community in London would carry out such an attack. It is well known that the Muslim community there is very radical -- at least some of them. People also knew many of them had connections in Pakistan.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: There have been a number of arrests in Pakistan in recent days. Were the roots of the London attacks in Britain or were they in Pakistan?

Rashid: The roots of the attack were in England. There has been an enormous radicalization of British Muslims in the last few years and especially since the Sept. 11 attacks in the United States. There are radical preachers, there are radical mosques. There are lots of schools there which have been teaching students the Koran on Friday afternoons and at the same time radicalizing them. There is no dearth of ideological training in England.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: So how great a role does Pakistan play in international terrorism?

Rashid: Pakistan remains the global center for terrorism and for the remnants of al-Qaida, which is still very strong here. The fact is, after Sept. 11, despite the many crackdowns made by the military regime of Gen. Pervez Musharraf, we haven`t effectively shut down the Pakistani militant groups. The reason for that is that these groups are very closely tied into the military`s foreign policy, especially with respect to Kashmir and Afghanistan. The militant groups here have not been crushed and if the madrassas they control -- they all control a certain number of such religious schools -- are not shut down, we`re not going to see an end to militancy here.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: So in other words, despite Musharraf`s claims to be combating terrorism -- claims that he repeated in his speech to Pakistan on Thursday evening -- he is not doing enough. Is that what you are saying?

Rashid: When crackdowns do occur, they aren`t effective. Three hundred, or even 2,000, people are picked up, they`re held for 90 days and then they are freed as soon as the attention and pressure from the West has stopped. There has never been an organized campaign to combat it. It has never taken place.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: In his speech, Musharraf spoke quite a bit about the July 7 bombings in London. What was the main message he was trying to communicate to his nation?
Rashid: His main message was a very positive one. He said we must combat extremism and launch a jihad against radicalism. He asked that people mobilize and not vote for extremists and so on. But there has been no shortage of such speeches. The main question is whether they will be followed by any meaningful action.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Musharraf also emphasized that the London bombers were born and raised in England as though he were trying to take the blame off of Pakistan. What was he trying to say?

Rashid: The message was that you don`t need to come to Pakistan to become a fanatic. You can become a fanatic in Yorkshire, in Leeds or anywhere in England because there`s enough extremism there too. That`s what he was alluding to.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: You mentioned before that there is a lot of work to do in Pakistan when it comes to cracking down on extremism. But what can the West do to keep up pressure on the country and on Musharraf to energetically combat fanaticism and terrorism?


Rashid: The biggest mistake the West has made with Pakistan since 9/11 has been the pursuit of private diplomacy. It hasn`t been made public. The West should spell out exactly what is expected of Pakistan and the regime. US President George W. Bush, British Prime Minister Tony Blair, German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, they keep praising Pakistan and saying it is doing a great job hunting down al-Qaida and the Taliban, but behind the scenes they are whistling a completely different tune.(Now you know why the t-shirt thing doesn`t work...) The West needs to have one policy which should be in the public domain. Then the Pakistani public would insist that Musharraf fulfil these demands.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: But Musharraf is already under great pressure as he tries to walk the fine line between being allied with the West in the war on terror while at the same time having powerful factions in his society that are radicalized and extreme.

Rashid: But that has been the argument for the last four years. The fact is, Musharraf is still here, he is still very much in power and absolutely nothing has been done about extremism. It is clear that Musharraf has a very political agenda. He wants to be re-elected in 2007 and he wants to remain in office until 2012. And for that, he needs votes. At the same time, though, he has been trying to be a good partner with the West. But his political agenda takes precedence over any commitments to combating extremism and terrorism. An army general cannot have a political agenda while he is trying to crack down on terror.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: One of the reasons the West is not putting too much pressure on Musharraf is that it is afraid of what would happen if he were no longer there. He has been targeted by assassination attempts twice in his own country. What would happen if his government were toppled or if he were killed?

Rashid: I have no doubt that the army would take over again. People are afraid because the country has nuclear weapons and they think the country would fall apart. I don`t believe any of that would happen. There would be continuity.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Since the July 7 bombings, there has been lots of focus on the madrassas as a breeding ground for terrorism and radicalism. What role do these religious schools play in Pakistan?

Pakistani leader Gen. Pervez Musharraf. Many think he is not doing enough to combat terrorism in his country.
REUTERS
Pakistani leader Gen. Pervez Musharraf. Many think he is not doing enough to combat terrorism in his country.
Rashid: The London bombers came to Pakistan, but don`t think they came to attend a madrassa. I think they came here to make contacts with militant groups and possibly to get training. The majority of madrassas in Pakistan -- I would say around 80 percent -- play a traditional role. That means they teach the Koran and then produce mullahs or religious leaders -- just like religious schools in any religion. But in Pakistan, a number of madrassas have been taken over by militant groups and it has become a sort of badge of honor for the extremists. These madrassas have become recruiting platforms for these extremist groups. But it is difficult to close them down because they are run by the militant groups Musharraf needs for other aspects of his foreign policy.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: It is suspected that Osama bin Laden is on the run or hiding somewhere in Pakistan. What role does he still play in international terrorism?

Rashid: He is on the run. His main priority at the moment is to stay alive. At the most, he may be able to provide some strategic directives through his support group. But he`s not in a position to run day-to-day operations.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Some say that he is in Pakistan and that the Pakistani secret services know where he is and could catch him, but they are not willing to.

Rashid: He is certainly in Pakistan because Pakistan has traditionally had the best infrastructure for al-Qaida. I don`t think the Pakistani military knows where he is, but they aren`t looking very hard either because they fear the military support they get from the United States would disappear as soon as bin Laden is caught.

Osama bin Laden is likely in the mountains of Pakistan.
AP
Osama bin Laden is likely in the mountains of Pakistan.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was recently in Washington and Bush promised closer cooperation -- even support for India`s civil nuclear program. What does that mean for Pakistan?

Rashid: The biggest fear of the Pakistani military is the new American relationship with India. The fact that the Americans are even willing to work with India`s nuclear program now -- something they would never do with Pakistan -- makes the military very nervous. They want to keep the Americans on board, but the Pakistanis know that the long term interests of the United States lie with India. The goal of the Pakistani military is to keep the Americans on its side for as long as possible.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Where do you see Pakistan in 10 years?

Rashid: The country has a lot of potential and there is a democratic force here. But the main powers in the country at the moment are without a doubt the military and the fundamentalists.

Sometimes, I find the arrogance of Anglo-American terrorists mind boggling or mind numbing even. In the past two years, since they destroyed two countries and killed hundereds and thousands of inncocent human beings there, there have been several instances where intelligence officers entered into Queen`s chambers pretending to be perverts and ona couple of times even entered into pareliament pretending to be citizens only to give their poplation false impression that all was well, and the attrocities they are committed elsewhere in the world is mere Islamists propaganda. Anyone with an Iq of ten knew that there was a disaster waiting to happen. And now when the inevitable has happened, they are shooting innocent human beings just because theyhave a certain skin color.

#111 by ZahraJ on July 24, 2005 7:31am PT


Now, this in unfair. Obviously, your previous post alluded to the focus on Chowk.


It`s not about chowk or some other website..Pakistanis on the internet and in real life live in this bubble of self-delusion...Pakiworld, if you will...In Pakiworld, a posting with 5 references to Modi exonerates pakis..say modi 5 times and the brit police will stop looking for brit-paki jihadis...

Re: # 118

Who and what is Modi?

Re: # 121
...hahahahha...zahra! that would have baffled the buffoon...;)

arjun

For two reasons, it may be more useful to focus on the bare bones of the terrorist ideology, rather than (the whole of) Islam.

(1) Many good people who are Muslims are trying their best to (re)define Islam into a practically peaceful religion. Whatever my often and strongly expressed personal opinions, I just want to recognize their attempts, and wait at least a little more to see if anything will actually come of those efforts. IMHO they have even the smallest chance of success only if they actually took far more unpleasant steps than they have been hitherto willing to, but that may be just my ignorance.

(2) But consider an even more important issue. By focusing merely on `Islam` we will overlook an insidious fact: that the cruel cancer of terrorist ideology afflicts non Muslim liberals even more destructively than, and almost as often as it does many Muslims.

Without buying into the very slippery, basic premises of the terrorist ideology, these liberal cowards and nitwits would never make the offensive claim that they `understand` terrorism, and that the world award terrorists and their supporters with lollipops.

Were one to pick the one greatest `enemy` in mankind`s current war against terrorism, it is without doubt this latter group - a gang without insight, without courage, and without moral compass.

Muslim or non Muslim, a terrorist is a person who buys into the terrorist ideology, not just the young/poor fellow who is trained to believe in, and blow himself up for some cooked-up cause.

Re: # 117 Kaalchakra: Interesting views especially no. 2). Could you please elaborate that one?

There are terrorists and there are their sympathisers/supporters. We need to fight terrorists and wean away (give lollipops if u like) their sympathisers. One way is to counter the terrorist/jehadi propaganda with propaganda of your own. English language and cyberspace is a poor medium for that. I am afraid gagging the liberal opinion is not one of the good options. Don`t try to understand terrorism for it is calculated madness. Their public support is what we need to cut off. Democracy does help. As you pointed out in point 1) there is introspection going on and we should wait for the results. Difficult road this one.

In this case, the eye witnesses were equally stupid. To them, everyone looks like an Asian.

Here is eye witness account

Mark Whitby said: ``I was sitting on the train... I heard a load of noise, people saying, `Get out, get down`.

``I saw an Asian guy. He ran on to the train, he was hotly pursued by three plain clothes officers, one of them was wielding a black handgun.

``He half tripped... they pushed him to the floor and basically unloaded five shots into him,`` he told BBC News 24.

``As [the suspect] got onto the train I looked at his face, he looked sort of left and right, but he basically looked like a cornered rabbit, a cornered fox.

``He looked absolutely petrified and then he sort of tripped, but they were hotly pursuing him, [they] couldn`t have been any more than two or three feet behind him at this time and he half tripped and was half pushed to the floor and the policeman nearest to me had the black automatic pistol in his left hand.

``He held it down to the guy and unloaded five shots into him


source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4706913.stm

Shoot him in the leg,or somewhere to paralyse, not in the chest as he could be wearing an explosive jacket which when shot might explode , to take a terrorist Prisnor, That I think is supposed to be the standard procedure., and Capturing a Terrorist Alive would have been more beneficial , especially When they had the Chance.

Eye Witness told, He tripped and fell, then two of the police men held him to the ground and the third .... Shot Five shots. close range to Kill HIM.


you can search the story on CNN`s or BBC`s website...

for the EyeWitness`s account...

In order to ease the tension on this board, Chowk Admin should request Mr. Bhatnagar to consolidate his views in one paragraph and resubmit. This article should not sit on Chowk`s front page. It`s silly.

aquaris

So what precisely should the London police do, the next time a similar situation develops in a crowded area?

Re: # 110 kaal
//...what precisely should the London police do, the next time a similar situation develops in a crowded area?....//

That`s what I am waiting to find out - what precisely are the brits going to do to handle the jihadi menace ..... Because, the british f**kers had been pontificating a lot when India was dealing with these jihadi bastar!ds on a daily basis and on much larger scale. I mean - one jihadi attack and the british are already executing suspects in full public view.

Don`t get me wrong - I am on Brit side on this one. But I will also like to kick their self-rigtehous pompous a$$es :)

The Other day.... Police in UK Killed a Man, while on Hot persuit , considering Him
as a terrorist.
Eye wittnesses told , three police men chased Him , He tripped over, they over powered Him, and one of the police man , Shot him 5 Times, and he was killed.

Today it was confirmed , he was a Brazzilian named Jean Charles de Menezes , and the chief of Police , though regretted the incidence, yet said `` some body else could be shot ``

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4712061.stm


1- Why didn`t they captured Him , why kill, when obviously he was overpowered, as he tripped over and fell.....??

2- With statements Like `` some body else could be shot ``..... How secure any one feel..?

#98 by kaalchakra on July 23, 2005 9:51pm PT


Democracy is not an issue at all.


Don`t dance around the issue...Islamism is the cause of the terrorism in London..or this concept of ummah..

pakis whine about why the IRA aren`t called catholic terrorists.. here`s why..If a catholic spaniard or a catholic brazilian bombed a London subway to protest protestant britain`s treatment of the irish, that would be catholic terrorism..The fact that the IRA terrorists are catholics doesn`t make it catholic terrorism.. If a punjabi hindu from India blew himself up in New York to protest US support to the Sri Lankan government, that would be hindu terrorism...same thing if a paki christian blew himself up in Lahore to protest Pakiland`s support to the murderous Sudanese regime...

If the London bombers were Iraqi or Afghan immigrants, you could, perhaps, make the case that the bombing had nothing to do with Islam..The fact is: The bombers were born and brought up in Britain, they had access to a lot of opportunities that billions of people around the world can only dream off..and yet they were ``unhappy``..why? Because their religion tells them to take up the cause of muslims they see as being oppressed in other countries...

During the cold war, the US and the UK governments supported the murderous regime of Saddam that killd hundreds of thousands of muslims Iraqis...How many brit-pakis planned suicide bombings then? ZILCH....

It`s clear that muslims living in the west will remain disenfranchised as long as they don`t get their way in every issue on the Islamist agenda..they could drive a benz and attent LSE but they`ll be persecuted as long as US forces are in Iraq and AFghanistan, India controls Indian Kashmir, the Israelis control PAlestine etc etc..