Pakistan News and Discussion-8

10-06-2006, 03:17 AM

QUOTEThe Taliban are comingâ¦ 
FT
Ejaz Haider
Taliban have not merely learned more sophisticated military tactics from insurgents in Iraq; they are now part of radical Islamism which moves across boundaries with the same ease as global capitalÂ

Like the Russians, it seems the Taliban are also coming. The British troops in southern Afghanistan are under constant Taliban fire and at least one report says they may have made a secret deal locally in the Helmand province; there are reports that the planning and execution of attacks by a resurgent Taliban have become more sophisticated; Kabul believes they are being supported by Pakistan; so is also the reported assessment of NATO command in Afghanistan, various observers and think tanks in the West.

Pakistan denies these allegations and cites its own sizeable military efforts in the tribal agencies as proof that it is serious in curbing extremist militancy. However, recently, General Musharraf told a US TV channel that while there is no official support for the Taliban by Pakistan, some former ISI officials might be helping them. General Pervez Musharraf has been quick to point out the number of âAl Qaedaâ operatives Pakistan has captured since Islamabad was co-opted in the ongoing conflict five years ago. Islamabad has also advised Kabul to extend its writ over areas which remain outside of central control.

What is going on?
Here are two possibilities: Pakistan is supporting the Taliban and it is not .

If it is supporting the Taliban, then the question is: why has it been going hammer and tongs at the Al Qaeda operatives? In other words, how can it square its anti-Al Qaeda policy with its, supposedly, pro-Taliban policy?

Letâs begin with a hypothesis, going back to the US reaction after 9/11. What did the US want when President Bush sent his ultimatum to the Taliban? Did he ask them to relinquish power, get out of Kabul and make space for the Northern Alliance or any other motley group the US might have wanted to install in Kabul? No. The message was simple: deliver Osama bin Laden or face the music.

Now letâs go about the obvious somewhat tortuously. What would have happened if Mullah Omar had buckled under and handed over Bin Laden to the US? Would the US have attacked Afghanistan and destroyed the Taliban? The answer then, as now, is no. The Taliban would still have been there.

The US has lived with scores of regressive regimes â until they become a threat. The military junta in Myanmar is a good example, among many. Washington was never enamoured of the Talibanâs literalist Islam blended with an extremely regressive Pashtun tribalism. But it did business with them (Unocal episode is a case in point) and could have continued to do so if the Taliban had not become a threat through Al Qaeda.

This is precisely why the Bush administration agreed with Islamabadâs request that the latter be given time to coax Mullah Omar to surrender Bin Laden. The mission failed and the US attacked.

Pakistan ditched the Taliban. The danger of siding with them at the time was greater than any benefits that could be had from associating with them. And what was Pakistanâs compulsion in supporting the Taliban until they fell foul of America? The alternative was anti-Pakistan elements, supported by Russia, Iran, some Central Asian Republics and, yes, India.

Taliban were a Hobsonâs choice for Pakistan within the paradigm in which Pakistan perceives its security and through which it also relates to India.

The scene changes: the US attacks Afghanistan, ousts the Taliban, brings in the Northern Alliance, and begins to reconstruct the country. That was five years ago. The initial US policy thrust was military and its major component was capturing Bin Laden. Local warlords were co-opted even as the US was trying to create effective government in Kabul. It had also to begin grappling with the Afghanâs age-old tactics of grouping, attacking, melting away and re-grouping.

Then came Iraq.

The US suddenly lost the world support it had earned for attacking Afghanistan. Attention was largely diverted. The initial thrust to rebuild Afghanistan decelerated for a host of reasons, all of which, in combination, have brought despondency to that country. The forms of modernity, of which affluent areas of Kabul are the only manifestation, have not exceeded beyond the capital. The countryside remains what it was.

The last time Afghanistan threw out reformers, the effort was called the great battle for the free world. Disagreement with the PDPA ideology aside, what was the PDPA trying to do if not reform Afghanistan? Now the shoe is on the other foot. The reactionaries of yesterday, called the Mujahideen, are todayâs Taliban, though arguably a whole lot more reactionary. Yesterday they wanted none of the leftâs cultural liberalism; today, they want none of the free worldâs liberalism. In essence, nothing has changed on that count.

But what about Pakistan?

Kabul, today, maynât be as unfriendly as it was then, but neither is it friendly. The only time there was no Indian diplomatic presence in Afghanistan was from the period 1996 (Taliban takeover of Kabul) through the ouster of the Taliban in 2001. New Delhiâs blindness and helplessness is well recorded in Jaswant Singhâs call to honour in handling the IC814 hijacking. In equal measure was Pakistanâs schadenfreude .

Letâs try and put the pieces of the hypothesis together. If Kabul is unfriendly; if Pakistan can deliver Al Qaeda activists; if the Indians are making mischief through Afghanistan; if the US is under pressure and stretched; if it still needs Pakistan to track down Al Qaeda, then what would X in Islamabad do in relation to the Taliban as opposed to Al Qaeda?

He would support them: Kabul would remain under pressure; so would the Indians. Pakistan will remain relevant to the internal security of that country and, if it can get Kabul to make peace with the Taliban, even to its politics and internal decision-making. As for the US, let Washington choose between Pakistanâs support for the Taliban or its campaign against Al Qaeda.

If the US were absolutely sure that after it left Afghanistan, the Al Qaeda would not re-group there or become a threat for it, what would it do? It would leave.

It has to, at some point. In some ways by putting the Brits in the line of fire, it already has. One American analyst recently said the Taliban think that âGod and time are on their sideâ. I donât know about God because both sides invoke Him, but time is definitely on the side of the Taliban; so it is on Pakistanâs.

Pakistan has made a deal in North Waziristan; it has asked Karzai to do the same. It has even got Britain on its side. If Kabul makes a deal with the Taliban through which the latter enter the political fray, Islamabad would have won the first round.

Of course, all this is hypothetical, though I use known facts to build this framework and apply it.

The second possibility is that Pakistan is not supporting the Taliban. To this end one can argue that the federal governmentâs deal in North Waziristan is actually a sign of weakness, begotten of the inability to control the area for various reasons, not least the spread of the movement across tribal affiliations. Having failed through force to achieve what it wanted, Islamabad now wants to rest content with confining trouble to the tribal badlands. Its argument that Kabul do the same is born of its own failure to control such elements.

In this scenario Pakistan is as much a victim as Kabul or even the NATO troops dug in and keeping their heads low in southern Afghanistan.

But while both scenarios are diametrically opposed to each other, there is a common strand, nonetheless: the region will be exposed to the obscurantist ideology of the Taliban. The movement is unlikely to remain a simple manifestation of Pashtun tribalism wedded to religious literalism. It will be naÃ¯ve to think that the Taliban have only learned more sophisticated military tactics from insurgents in Iraq; they are now part of radical Islamism which moves across boundaries with the same ease as global capital. This has also been admitted by General Musharraf.

He is right. But then both courses of action we have discussed earlier are disastrous

Naresh · (This post was last modified: 10-06-2006, 03:38 AM by Naresh.)

After the Rice mit mice schidt mixt it is DÃ©jÃ Vu all over again for Pakistani Rice

[center]Iran bans Pak rice <img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/Flush.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='Flush.gif' />[/center]

LAHORE â The Iranian government has imposed a complete ban on Pakistani rice Thursday following the substantial increase in customs duties on various products before endorsement of the preferential trade agreement, it is learnt.

However, the officials were unaware of the move but said that the step had almost been neutralising the accord for Pakistani rice.

The Rice Exporters Association of Pakistan officials were not available for the comments, however, the secretary of the association, Taimur Gill confirmed reports by saying that he would be in a position to give details after contacting the Iranian officials.

However, sources said that the Iranian government had earlier enhanced the tariff on import of rice through border area cooperatives to about 70 per cent from 4 per cent, making Pakistani rice more expensive in Iranian market as most of Pakistani rice is exported to Iran through border area co-operatives.

Sources further said that Pakistan and Iran had notified reduction in customs duty on 772 items to be imported under the PTA, which became effective from September 1, 2006. The two countries had already finalised and ratified the rules of origin and other instruments of the agreement.

The sources said that Iran had raised the tariff without informing the contracting partnerâPakistan. It would substantially reduce the margin of preferences for Pakistani products like kinno and rice etc under the PTA.
According to a comparison of revised import tariffs of Iran on main items of Pakistanâs interest till March 2007, the duty is for import of rice by private sector.

Iranian total rice imports amount to only 650,000 tons per annum and over 350,000 tons has already entered the country since the Iranian New Year. Iran has inked an agreement with Pakistan for buying 40,000 tons of rice from Pakistan has also floated a tender for buying 30,000 tons of Basmati rice, sources further added.

Earlier, the Mexican government to withdraw, the ban was imposed on import of all kinds of rice from Pakistan around six years ago.

The Mexican government had imposed a ban on import of all kinds of rice on the plea that the Pakistani rice carried a fungus named Kapra Beetle, which was not suitable for consumption on health reasons.

The officials, however, said the fungus is only carried in grains and not in rice but again it led to complete suspension of export of rice to the Mexican market.

The Pakistani government has earmarked to export total rice to the tune of US$ 1,224 million for the year 2006-07.

Cheers <img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/cheers.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='cheers.gif' />

10-07-2006, 02:21 AM

NATO wants West to expose Musharraf's Taliban connection
http://in.news.yahoo.com/061006/139/6899v.html

10-07-2006, 03:09 AM

As if that Chavez pumping that Choamsky book at UN wasn't enough since it really scuttled Pakistani CEOs book tour, this time Simon Schuster deliver's a blow to H & D :
Typos galore in 'Line of Fire'
QUOTEPakistan President Pervez Musharraf's much-discussed book In the Line of Fire is full of typos with the Pakistani capital spelt as "Islam Bad" and the Indian prime minister as "Manmo Ham Singh"....

The publishers have not spared the Pakistan prime minister either. Shaukat Aziz has been spelt variously as "Shuakat" and "Shaukut", published twice on the cover jacket.
....
Pakistan's great friend and neighbour China, that is spelt with a small "c"
............
Pakistan's great friend Prince Karim Aga Khan has been renamed Prince Kasim Aga Khan
......
On page 32 while the definite article is missing before "most muscular physique", on page 285 the phrase "the world holds its breath at our every confrontation" or on page 336 the line "The Drug trade is an international ill", or on page 337 the words "international comity of nations" do not make good reading. There is an international community or a comity of nations.

Naresh · 10-07-2006, 05:07 AM

[center]Pakistan admits âhelpingâ Kashmir militancy <img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/liar.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='liar.gif' />[/center]

LAHORE : Pakistan has admitted that it might have âhelpedâ insurgency in Jammu and Kashmir at âsome timeâ, but claimed it was now trying its best to prevent militant infiltrations into India, according to a report in the Press Trust of India.

âJihad, insurgency or whatever you want to call it in Kashmir ... yes, Pakistan may have helped the jihad at some time, but it was not started by us, and now we are trying our best to stop people from crossing,â the report quoted Pakistani Ambassador to the US Mahmud Ali Durrani as saying. Asked what Pakistan was doing to stop terrorist outfits like the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) from crossing into Jammu and Kashmir, he said, âTo the best of my knowledge LeT is a banned organisation. They are no more in Pakistan.â

He, however, said that the LeT had money collection boxes in markets of Rawalpindi even two years ago. âThere were these hundreds and thousands of these boxes. That is finished and LeT does not have the luxury of those funds,â he said in the report.

âWe are trying our very best. There is no serious cross-border movement today in Kashmir,â Durrani claimed.

âBoth parties (India and Pakistan) have responsibilities. If we canât hypothetically stop every guy from crossing over, the other side has a responsibility too, therefore it is a joint issue. It has been addressed,â he said. Durrani brushed aside as âgrossly overstatedâ the notion that in the event of another military coup, jihadists and extremists would come to the fore

Cheers <img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/cheers.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='cheers.gif' />

Naresh · 10-08-2006, 12:11 AM

[center]India and Pakistan[/center]

[center]Bomb-blast diplomacy[/center]

Cross-border terrorism still undermines a shaky peace process

<img src='http://www.economist.com/images/20061007/4006AS1.jpg' border='0' alt='user posted image' />
AFP

IT IS hard to be on good terms with the neighbours when they keep blowing up your house. Yet, since 2003, India has sought to make friends with Pakistan while continuing to accuse it of abetting hideous bomb attacks in its cities. Pakistan brushes these accusations aside, while at the same time promising not to allow its soil to be used as a base for terrorism. This attitude makes the bombings seem an insuperable obstacle to peace. They may yet prove so. But they have at least become central to a peace process often marked by bickering over more trivial matters.

When a co-ordinated bomb attack killed more than 180 people in Mumbai on July 11th, Indian officials and politicians were swift to blame it on the Pakistan-based militant groups Lashkar-e-Toiba (LET) and Jaish-e-Muhammad (JEM). Last month Manmohan Singh, India's prime minister, gently fretted that the Pakistani government âhas not done enough to control these elements.â On September 30th the Mumbai police went much further. They said the attack had been âplannedâ by the Inter-Services Intelligence agency (ISI), Pakistan's military-intelligence outfit, and carried out by LET and JEM. Far from merely turning a blind eye to cross-border terrorism, the Pakistani government, in the police's view, was the instigator.

This is an immediate test for an agreement reached in Havana last month between Mr Singh and General Pervez Musharraf, Pakistan's president. The official âdialogueâ between their countries had been stalled since the Mumbai bombing. To provide a pretext for resuming it, the two leaders decided to form a vaguely-defined joint âanti-terrorism institutional mechanismâ. This, in a sense, will call both sides' bluffs: India will have to produce evidence of Pakistani guilt; Pakistan will have to refute itâor act on it.

But the precedents for such co-operation are not good. In the past few weeks an Indian court has been delivering its long-delayed verdicts on the defendants accused of an earlier co-ordinated bombing in Mumbai, in 1993, in which more than 200 people were killed. It was blamed on an alliance of the ISI and leading dons in the Mumbai mafia, who are believed to have since taken refuge in Pakistan. India has demanded their extradition. Pakistan has ignored this request, and fibs about the gangsters' whereabouts.

Death by hanging

A third bomb attack, similarly blamed by India on Pakistan, has also returned to haunt efforts at reconciliation, especially over Kashmir, the core of the two countries' dispute. This is the suicide attack in December 2001 on India 's parliament in Delhi, in which 14 people were killed. The attack did more than any other act of terrorism to bring the two countries to the brink of war. The five attackers were all killed at the time. But others involved in the conspiracy have been tried. On September 26th one of them, Afzal Guru, was sentenced to death, and the date of execution set for October 20th.

He is a Kashmiri, from Sopore in the Indian-controlled part of the divided territory. In Kashmir the death sentence has been greeted by big protests. Many Kashmiris believe he is innocent, and are incensed by the (very rare) imposition of the death penalty and by the date fixed for its execution : the last Friday of the holy month of Ramadan.

Kashmir, India's only Muslim-majority state, has endured 17 years of brutal insurgency and repression. Many there see the ruling on Mr Guru as a deliberate affront not just to their secessionist hopesâmany separatist politicians having championed his causeâbut also to their religion. With Kashmiris weary of the war and Pakistan trying to make peace with India, separatist politicos had been squabbling among themselves and losing popularity. The issue has been a godsend for them, and even mainstream politicians have sought to have the death penalty overturned.

Mr Guru's family has appealed to India's president for mercy. That may avert the immediate crisis because the hanging will be delayed so long as he is considering their petition. But with the government already under fire from the opposition for being âsoftâ on terrorism, it would be unhappy if the president spared Mr Guru.

A further worsening of anti-Indian sentiment in Kashmir is another reason for pessimism about the Indian-Pakistani peace process. It will encourage those in Pakistan who have been stoking the insurgency, as both a Kashmiri âfreedom struggleâ and a low-cost proxy war against India. Certainly, hardliners in India, convinced that Pakistan is irredeemably wedded to the Kashmir insurgency and to causing terror in Indian cities, think the peace process is doomed.

Yet there are a few optimists. They say that, at least in part because of Pakistan's efforts to restrain the terrorists, the violence in Kashmir, has abatedâdespite a suicide attack in Srinagar, the capital, on October 4th. Fewer than 900 people have died so far this year, compared with twice that number in both 2005 and 2004. General Musharraf, they argue, is, despite his self-congratulatory new memoirs (see article), isolated politically and under pressure from insurgents in Baluchistan. He needs peace with India for the kudos it would confer and to free his army for domestic conflicts. Reining in the terrorists is so much in his interests that he may even make a serious stab at it.

Cheers <img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/cheers.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='cheers.gif' />

10-08-2006, 01:40 AM

Mushy is very comfortable, same was Zia. Something is going on in wonderland. FT etc are singing Mushy tune.
Any thought???

Naresh · 10-08-2006, 01:26 PM

QUOTE(Mudy @ Oct 8 2006, 01:40 AM)Mushy is very comfortable, same was Zia. Something is going on in wonderland. FT etc are singing Mushy tune.
Any thought???
[right][snapback]58717[/snapback][/right]

Mudy Ji :

The Posts of President and Prime Minister of Pakistan are controlled in Washington D.C.

As such Mush will have his Tush in the Seat as long as the Viceroy in Islamabad keeps on sending good reports to Washington.

Friday Times, or for that matter Financial Times, singing Mushâs Tune is neither here nor there!

The Financial Times considers Mush, NOT PAKISTAN a key US ally in its war on Terrorism

There you have it!

Cheers <img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/cheers.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='cheers.gif' />

Bharatvarsh · 10-09-2006, 03:23 AM

QUOTENato's top brass accuse Pakistan over Taliban aid
By Ahmed Rashid in Kabul
(Filed: 06/10/2006)

Commanders from five Nato countries whose troops have just fought the bloodiest battle with the Taliban in five years, are demanding their governments get tough with Pakistan over the support and sanctuary its security services provide to the Taliban.

Nato's report on Operation Medusa, an intense battle that lasted from September 4-17 in the Panjwai district, demonstrates the extent of the Taliban's military capability and states clearly that Pakistan's Interservices Intelligence (ISI) is involved in supplying it.

Commanders from Britain, the US, Denmark, Canada and Holland are frustrated that even after Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf met George W Bush and Tony Blair last week, Western leaders are declining to call Mr Musharraf's bluff.

"It is time for an 'either you are with us or against us' delivered bluntly to Musharraf at the highest political level," said one Nato commander.

After the September 11 attacks in 2001 America gave Mr Musharraf a similar ultimatum to co-operate against the Taliban, who were then harbouring Osama bin Laden.

"Our boys in southern Afghanistan are hurting because of what is coming out of Quetta," he added.

The Taliban use the southern province of Balochistan to co-ordinate their insurgency and to recuperate after military action.

The cushion Pakistan is providing the Taliban is undermining the operation in Afghanistan, where 31,000 Nato troops are now based. The Canadians were most involved in Operation Medusa, two weeks of heavy fighting in a lush vineyard region, defeating 1,500 well entrenched Taliban, who had planned to attack Kandahar city, the capital of the south.

Nato officials now say they killed 1,100 Taliban fighters, not the 500 originally claimed. Hundreds of Taliban reinforcements in pick-up trucks who crossed over from Quetta â waved on by Pakistani border guards â were destroyed by Nato air and artillery strikes.

Nato captured 160 Taliban, many of them Pakistanis who described in detail the ISI's support to the Taliban.

Nato is now mapping the entire Taliban support structure in Balochistan, from ISI- run training camps near Quetta to huge ammunition dumps, arrival points for Taliban's new weapons and meeting places of the shura, or leadership council, in Quetta, which is headed by Mullah Mohammed Omar, the group's leader since its creation a dozen years ago.

Nato and Afghan officers say two training camps for the Taliban are located just outside Quetta, while the group is using hundreds of madrassas where the fighters are housed and fired up ideologically before being sent to the front.

Many madrassas now being listed are run by the Jamiat-e-Ullema Islam, a political party that governs Balochistan and the North West Frontier Province. The party helped spawn the Taliban in 1994.

"Taliban decision-making and its logistics are all inside Pakistan," said the Afghan defense minister, General Rahim Wardak.

A post-battle intelligence report compiled by Nato and Afghan forces involved in Operation Medusa demonstrates the logistical capability of the Taliban.

During the battle the Taliban fired an estimated 400,000 rounds of ammunition, 2,000 rocket-propelled grenades and 1,000 mortar shells, which slowly arrived in Panjwai from Quetta over the spring months. Ammunition dumps unearthed after the battle showed that the Taliban had stocked over one million rounds in Panjwai.

In Panjwai the Taliban had also established a training camp to teach guerrillas how to penetrate Kandahar, a separate camp to train suicide bombers and a full surgical field hospital. Nato estimated the cost of Taliban ammunition stocks at around Â£2.6 million. "The Taliban could not have done this on their own without the ISI," said a senior Nato officer.

Gen Musharraf this week admitted that "retired" ISI officers might be involved in aiding the Taliban, the closest he has come to admitting the agency's role.

fpress@telegraph.co.uk

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml...6/wafghan06.xml

Bharatvarsh · 10-09-2006, 03:45 AM

QUOTEPakistan is no ally
Â
National Post

Saturday, October 07, 2006

NATO generals in southern Afghanistan have called on their governments to take a tougher stance with Pakistan over its active support for insurgents fighting Canadian troops, and those of Britain, the United States, Denmark and the Netherlands. It's about time. Pakistan's support for radical Islamic jihadis has been the elephant in the room that everyone has tried to ignore in the war on terror. Iran may be the principal underwriter of terrorism against Israel, and Saudi Arabia the biggest supporter of the insurgency in Iraq, but Pakistan has emerged as the main source of terrorists and terror supplies in Afghanistan, and against the Western world as well. Until Western countries force Pakistan to stop its quiet, but pervasive, encouragement of global jihad -- or at least to get tough with the terrorists who operate with impunity from within its borders -- the war on terror cannot be won.

In their official report on Operation Medusa last month, the NATO generals were blunt about the extent of Pakistan's involvement in training and arming our enemies. The largest, most intense campaign against the Taliban since the initial invasion of Afghanistan in late 2001, Medusa pitted NATO forces, led by Canada, against 1,500 entrenched Taliban forces in the southern district of Panjwai. Commanders report that during the two-week battle, Taliban fighters fired an estimated 400,000 rounds of ammunition, 2,000 rocket-propelled grenades and 1,000 mortar shells. And following their defeat, nearly one million more rounds were seized. All this ordnance could only have come from one place, the generals conclude: Pakistan.

During the operation, troops watched as Pakistani border guards waved trucks full of Taliban reinforcements and ammunition over the border into Afghanistan. Militiamen captured by our troops also revealed in great detail the training, safe haven and resupply afforded them by Pakistan.

The principal source of the aid is the ISI, Pakistan's Inter-Service Intelligence Directorate. Like much of the Pakistani government, the ISI is split between radical Muslim hardliners and more moderate factions. The Taliban were a mid-1990s creation of the ISI's hardliners, who organized and trained them, then sent them into Afghanistan to seize power in the vacuum left by the Soviet withdrawal in 1989.

The ISI still supports the Taliban, reportedly helping recruit new fighters, training and arming them and giving them safe passage back and forth over the Afghan frontier. The problem with the moderates in the Pakistan government, including President Pervez Musharraf, is that they refuse to do anything to rein in the extremists in their midst. Instead, they deny the hardliner-terrorism connection and pretend their country is a trustworthy ally in the war against global Islamofascism.

Nothing could be more untrue.

The plotters in this summer's scheme to explode 10 airliners over the Atlantic had extensive connections with radicals inside Pakistan. So did the previous summer's 7/7 bombers of London's underground and commuter buses. The madrassas that exist by the hundreds in Pakistan's militant border provinces were the primary source of foot soldiers for al-Qaeda before and after 9/11.

Some of the most violent riots earlier this year against the Danish cartoons were in Quetta and other Pakistani cities, where many Western businesses were burned or ransacked. The Pakistani "street" erupted again last month when remarks by Pope Benedict XVI about Islam were wildly misconstrued.

Iran's nuclear know-how came initially from A.Q. Khan, a radical Islamic scientist at the head of Pakistan's nuclear program. And Pakistan is suspected by nearly every Western intelligence service of sheltering Mullah Omar, the Taliban chief, and, very likely, Osama bin Laden himself.

To call Pakistan an ally in the war on terror is a joke. And it is high time Western leaders stopped doing so.

It may be that President Musharraf and the moderates are reluctant to take on their hardline colleagues, who have, admittedly, tried at least twice to assassinate Mr. Musharraf. Perhaps what he needs from the West is support, as much as backbone. But whatever he requires to take on the Pakistani Islamists -- whether threats or assistance -- must be forthcoming from Western governments. Otherwise the mission in Afghanistan and the wider war on terror will go on endlessly, without resolution.

Â© National Post 2006

http://www.canada.com/components/print.asp...7d-fd8f9758a959
haha, the West is still confused, Musharraf and moderate, now that's an oxymoron.

10-09-2006, 07:19 AM

QUOTEThe Posts of President and Prime Minister of Pakistan are controlled in Washington D.C.

Nareshji,

Head hunters are very active. Now NATO is mad and Mushy comments in Londonistan was very embarrassing for Tony and other friends.
I think around Nov. election we may hear some policy change towards porkistan.

Naresh · 10-09-2006, 01:50 PM

QUOTE(Mudy @ Oct 9 2006, 07:19 AM)
Nareshji,

Head hunters are very active. Now NATO is mad and Mushy comments in Londonistan was very embarrassing for Tony and other friends.
I think around Nov. election we may hear some policy change towards porkistan.
[right][snapback]58783[/snapback][/right]

Mudy Ji :

Mush the Tushâs successor will be even more of a Religious Fanatic and Islamic Terrorist Total Open Supporter of the Taleban and Al Qaida

IMO there is no easy solution in sight.

Cheers <img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/cheers.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='cheers.gif' />

Naresh · 10-09-2006, 03:03 PM

Mudy Ji :

Befitting response for 'evil eye' casters: PM Shaukat Aziz

Shortcut As Is reminds me of Nawaz Sharifâs Mouth Breaking Response â some Extracts from the following Article :

The Kargil Crisis: An Overview - Abdus Sabur

QUOTEPakistan has developed a habit of being severely humiliated. The Kargil episode that initially appeared to be a victory ultimately came to be seen in Pakistan as "an ill-thought-out adventure" . The Pakistanis consider the withdrawal humiliating for the country, though Nawaz Sharif is trying his best to play down the consequences of the blunder. His assertion that Pakistan had succeeded in internationalising the Kashmir issue is far from impressing the populace. Khalid Qayyum, chief reporter, The Nation newspaper, assessed the outcome of Kargil episode as "Pakistan's worst-ever defeat on the diplomatic, political and media fronts". Fundamentalist forces in Pakistan are trying to portray Sharif as having betrayed Kashmir and develop a Pakistani sense of being defeated by India. Public ire is so hot that Sharif may face a battle for his political survival. In the event, he will have to rely on cultivating nationalist passion directed against India in order to gain popular legitimacy. Sharif's recent assertion in Lahore that Pakistan is capable of giving a "mouth-breaking" response to any aggressor is indicative of such a trend. In the circumstances, the situation in both the countries is working, at least for the time being, against the resumption of any meaningful dialogue between the two countries on the issues of mutual discord.

Cheers <img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/cheers.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='cheers.gif' />

Naresh · 10-10-2006, 09:36 PM

[center]Musharrafâs version of events[/center]

Some pertinent excepts from the Article :

QUOTETo begin with, General Gracey refused to obey the Quaid when he was ordered to move the army into Kashmir (though in his case Gracey merely threatened to resign and to force the resignations of the British officers and not to dismiss the government)
.
.
.
It is a pity that Ayubâs book stops just before the Kashmir war, otherwise we would have had his version, but we do have General Musaâs version, Asghar Khanâs version and Altaf Gauharâs version â all of them agree that the basic concept was wrong. Kargil is a repetition of this basic pattern. <img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/Flush.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='Flush.gif' />

Cheers <img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/cheers.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='cheers.gif' />

10-11-2006, 10:00 AM

QUOTEÂ PIL against India baiters
KS Manojkumar
Aurangabad, October 10, 2006
The Bombay High Court's Aurangabad bench has served a notice on Google for allowing a hate campaign against India on its social-networking site orkut.com.

The order was issued on Monday in response to a public-interest petition filed by Yugant Marlapalle, an advocate in Aurangabad. Google has six weeks to respond. The petition said a community called âWe Hate Indiaâ â full of anti-India propaganda and with a picture of the Tricolour being burnt â has been created on Orkut. It sought the removal of the community from the site.

The âWe Hate Indiaâ group currently has 103 members, almost all of whom are from Pakistan. The siteâs creator calls himself Miraslov Stankovic and claims he is based in Russia. His other Orkut communities include "Israel Must be Destroyed" and "I Hate Himesh Reshammiya".

Googleâs India spokeswoman Roli Aggarwal said she was aware of the case but declined to comment, saying the response would have to come from the US where Orkut was based.

Supreme Court lawyer Pavan Duggal said Google would be treated as a network-service provider under Indian law. If the site could be viewed and used in India, the country had a legitimate interest in its contents, he said.

Orkut also has 10 communities called "We hate Pakistan", most of whose members are Indians. "It is part of the war between India and Pakistan in cyberspace," said cyber security analyst Subimal Bhattacharjee.

Orkutâs terms of service says it may, but shall have no obligation to, remove materials that it determines in its sole discretion are unlawful and objectionable.
(with inputs from

10-12-2006, 01:17 AM

http://www.saag.org/papers20/paper1982.html
SECURITY FOR MUSHARRAF TIGHTENED UP 
by b. Raman
<!--emo& Big Grin

--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif' />

Naresh · (This post was last modified: 10-12-2006, 03:28 AM by Naresh.)

Current account deficit hits USD 1.87Billion

QUOTELA HORE â The country has sustained a huge amount of current account deficit (CAD) of 1.87 billion dollars in just two months of the current financial year.

In comparison with the corresponding period of last fiscal, the current account deficit 650 million dollars or 53 per cent in July and August period of 2006-07.

This had been pointed out in a latest document of the State Bank of Pakistan regarding the balance of payment position of the country in first two months of this fiscal.

The sharp increase in the current account deficit of Pakistan seems the main outcome of 2.1 billion dollars trade deficit during July and August that accelerated the CAD growth by 53 per cent. <img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/Flush.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='Flush.gif' /> 

Cheers <img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/cheers.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='cheers.gif' />

10-12-2006, 03:30 AM

Where money is going now?
Weapons to Taliban in Afghanistan?
Now Mushy will hope for another rain fall from Uncle, lets see how he can achieve.

10-12-2006, 05:48 AM

76 deportees kiss Pakistani soilQUOTE * Claim US authorities treated them âinhumanlyâÂ <!--emo& Big Grin

--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif' />
By Shahzad Malik
ISLAMABAD: Seventy-six Pakistanis on Wednesday returned home after being deported from the US for breaking the law and committing crimes.

A charted plane carrying the deportees landed at the Islamabad International Airport in the afternoon. The majority of the deportees have violated immigration rules.

Officials of the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) told Daily Times that the deportees were handcuffed till the plane landed at the airport. Officials of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and special commandos escorted the deportees in the plane and they also came out to the immigration cell.

Sources said two women were also among the deportees and FIAâs immigration cell interrogated them. Fourteen deportees had been shifted to FIAâs passport cell for further interrogation, the sources said.

Emotions ran high when the deportees landed at the airport. They kissed the soil and hugged their relations.

Pakistani embassy officials were present in the plane who gave each of the deportees $20 to reach home.

Tanveer Ahmed, a deportee, said he had been living in Virginias over the last 10 years and the US law enforcement agencies arrested him on suspicions of having links with outlaws.

He said the US authorities put him in a jail for two years, where several other Pakistanis were also kept, adding that the police treated them inhumanly. Zafeer Ahmed, another deportee, claimed the US agencies arrested him for growing a long beard and carrying out Islamic practices. âThe US officials disgraced me during detention,â he said.Â <img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/liar.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='liar.gif' />

10-12-2006, 05:49 AM

QUOTEMusharraf 'panicked' after Kargil 
October 11, 2006 20:01 IST
Pakistan President General Pervez Musharraf, who was the army chief during the Kargil war, panicked when the 1999 conflict broke out with India and decided to brief the then Pakistan premier Nawaz Sharif for soliciting his support, Sharif's party has claimed.

The Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz, which released part-1 of the fact-sheet on Kargil, questioned the version of Musharraf in his book In the Line of Fire, where he claims that he had informed Sharif about the operation.

Giving out his party's version to the media, PML-N secretary Ahsan Iqbal said that according to Musharraf's version, Sharif was first briefed in May 1999.

The chronology of events that led to Kargil conflict, however, started much earlier. "It was amply clear that when the war had broken out between armies of the two nuclear states, General Musharraf panicked and decided to brief the prime minister for soliciting his support, he was quoted as saying by The Nation on Wednesday.

Iqbal said this briefing on May 17 was not complete either as it became evident later from the recorded conversation between Musharraf and then DGMO Gen. Aziz, which came to light in the first week of June.

It was only then that the prime minister came to know that our troops were involved in the Kargil conflict, he said.

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