Twirp : Terrorist Wahabi Islamic Republic Pakistan

02-21-2008, 01:59 AM

QUOTEZardari meets US envoy, uncertainty in Pakistan
Pioneer.com
Rezaul H Laskar | Islamabad
Suspense mounted over Government formation in Pakistan ahead of a crucial meeting between Asif Ali Zardari and Nawaz Sharif on Thursday, but the PPP chief ruled out his becoming Prime Minister or having a truck with President Pervez Musharraf who rejected calls for his resignation.

Amid reports that Washington would prefer a Government that would work with Musharraf, Zardari met US Ambassador in Pakistan Anne Patterson on Wednesday but dismissed reports that he gave assurances on working with the President.

The PPP, which emerged as the single largest party bagging 87 of the 269 seats but cannot form a Government of its own, held a meeting of its Central Executive and considered various options.

After the meeting, Zardari made it clear that he would not be the prime ministerial candidate and his party would chose a nominee from its senior leadership once it is called to form the Government.

Zardari's meeting with Sharif, whose PML is the second largest party with 66 seats, is likely to touch upon cobbling a coalition that could check the powers of the President if not impeach him.

Zardari also said Musharraf will not "last long" in office and that it should be left to the new Parliament to decide on his continuance. Musharraf's Presidential term is up to 2011.

But in significant remarks that could give an indication of the possible new alliance, Zardari has asked the international community, especially the US, to "support us" in building a new era of peace "instead of continuing with the erroneous belief that alliance with a strongman is its best bet to bring stability to Pakistan".


Butter Popcorn with pinch of salt time <!--emo& Big Grin

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

02-22-2008, 03:21 AM

Musharraf pushes Swiss to prosecute Zardari
Â· Corruption case against PPP leader resurrected
Â· Beleaguered president in bid to sink coalition talksQUOTEBut EU observers said they found evidence of significant manipulation in favour of Musharraf's party, particularly in the run-up to polling. "A level playing field was not provided for the campaign, with authorities primarily favouring the former ruling parties," Michael Gahler, head of the observer mission, told reporters.

The irregularities persisted last night, with the election commission failing to declare the results in a handful of constituencies - seats that could be vital in any future vote against Musharraf


This shows how serious Mushy is for civilian rule. <!--emo& Big Grin

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Naresh · 02-22-2008, 05:15 AM

Pakistanâs Foreign Exchange Reserves decline further by USD 470 Million to USD14.08 Billion

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

02-22-2008, 08:37 AM

For a national resurgence 

Naveed Tajammal

Under the present Act of Appeasement, which literally means, âAn act or a policy of appeasing, especially by making concessions to a possible enemy in order to avoid war or for reasons related to a confrontationâ , I feel we have gone overboard. This is in continuation to my earlier article, âEnlightenment for our youthâ, in which I had very briefly highlighted the present English medium historical aspect being taught as a part of the syllabus. The conclusion drawn from it, unfortunately, leads us nowhere. It is like going in circles. It mystifies and misleads our young ones. At the age of seven years, they are stuck in a mental debate, whether their religion is correct or the theory of Darwin.

Parents, as stated earlier, are so much engrossed in their own world that they have so far failed to agitate this point â a point that affects the ideology of our state, nay, our very entity. As an Islamic Republic of Pakistan with reference to the âActâ, it stands on a trial. Our learned men, unwittingly, have been drawn into an arena that they do not comprehend, nor wish to even bother to get themselves enlightened with. Has our statecraft gone to sleep? In our English medium schools, that are a breeding ground for our future intelligentsia and subsequent leadership in them, a syllabus is being taught in which, what to speak of our national entity, our very faith is put on a pedestal to be ridiculed at.

If rectification of this error is not timely done after our generation is dead and buried, our upcoming generations will end up in an abyss that has no way out. When the basics are put in doubt, what next? Our faith is being ridiculed in the guise of science, what science? Is it the one that has yet to prove the actual so-called missing link? Besides science fiction in movies, conjecture and theories put aside, they have nothing to show getting down to the brass tacks. So, why is there an element of doubt in so young an age? It seems that to copy the West in our quest to become more liberal than the Westerners themselves, we from a population of now almost 170 million. We could not locate a single writer to write our historical perspective in its true form. It had to be a Peter Moss, a Teressa Crompton and a Beatrice Stimpson. One wonders why, on whose behest and on whose calling?

We are a nation so rich in its past, a past that competes the world in the chronology of events, starting from the mists of time. The question is why our past governments did not spend money and failed to make efforts to realise our past glory? Our books have been rewritten in Deva Nagri script, our medicinal works are now called with Sanskrit names, i e, Ayur-Vedic â a work done in our Taxila University in the bygone times. The book on statecraft, the much acclaimed, Arthashastra, the book which supersedes Machiavelliâs The Prince in all aspects was also written in the Taxila University. In fact, all data was meticulously maintained by our Buddhist monks but has now been rewritten from our script into Deva Nagri script with new titles and new Hindi sounding names. A history in reverse is being taught to us. 

But such is the fate of nations that disassociate with their past. The governments since 1947 have failed to establish that beside our religion the key factor is that we have a separate entity called in the present Western term, âThe Indus Valley Civilizationâ , which did not end as propagated in our new history books in the year 1900 BC. It has continued till to date. In various times and under different geographic names, it is a subject by itself. The Hindu historians have tried to prove that the Indus people did not posses a horse till they came riding on the horses and destroyed us. 

We were an agrarian society till 1900 BC, meaning thereby a peaceful society. As is being propagated under the Appeasement Act what we should become in our present English syllabus. To briefly give insight of our past, i e, the Buddhist past, the Hindus jointly with the Western historians changed the world chronology in the 18th century. <!--emo& Big Grin

--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif' /> Earlier, in the 15th and the 16th century the world chronology had also been changed during the European Renaissance. It was for nothing that Sir William Jones was helped by a Hindu Brahman called Pundit Radha Kanta along with Edward Gibbons, who in the same epoch wrote an epic called the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. With such editions, the Western world bestowed on Jones the title of father of Indianology. The Pundit did his job. 

Gibbons got the Romans a place in the world chronology. The original Iranian Empire, and Turanian too, were swept under the carpet. The same happened with our Gandhara Civilisation. Brief times are allotted to them as one reads on. The old empires were broken into pieces and from the dismembered, geographic areas new entities were created. But the old Arabic and the Persian literature still stands testimony to their past and salutes the actual civilisations.

The past is now locked in the libraries of Saint Petersberg, Russia, the British Museum, the India Office Library, the Paris National library and the library of Royal Asiatic Society. All of our past is now gathering dust. The books were translated in the 18th and 19th centuries by scholars who faltered on the ânuqtahâ or the âizafatsâ â the diacritical points placed above or below a written letter to indicate different sounds. The learned men of our past who had written the books were products of two institutions called maktab and the madrassah. <img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/ROTFL.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='ROTFL.gif' /> All manuscripts were handwritten. The âdalsâ were marked with diacritical points. A person familiar with the trend could and can give a true descriptive meaning of the works described above. What one can only lament at this moment is the callous attitude on the part of our past leaders for having failed to identify the actual reason for our Two Nation Theory on which I have very briefly touched upon above.

The story of the horse âThe causeâ attributed to our downfall in 1900 BC by the wise Hindu Nagar Brahman pundits of the Kathiawar region, the actual home and birthplace of a new religion, was based on the concepts of the three older religions of Buddha, Zartusht and Mahavira. To a reader, it may sound ridiculous who may have read the past chronology as taught to him by his teachers. But history never forgets the past, nor forgives those who distort it. The new religion was called âBrahmanismâ. Hind was a separate entity with reference to its geography. So, it was since the 7th and the 8th century A D that the Arab geographers and historians started writing. Hence evolved two entities called âSindh-wa-Hindâ as the people of Hind had by now started professing a new religion. They were later called Hindus with reference to their geographic entity. Brahmanism was hence termed Hinduism by the Arabs. <img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/ROTFL.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='ROTFL.gif' /> <img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/ROTFL.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='ROTFL.gif' />

Referring back to the âhorseâ to highlight from the books of Hindus themselves, I will quote the History of Punjab, edition of 1891 by S.M. Latif. He states that in the Hindu Book of Law, Dham ma podam the mention of the noble Sindhi horses exists and also in the Ramayana of Hindus, the king of Kaikeyes occupying the Ravi-Beas region, Harappa to be precise, had the title of âAsvaptiâ or the lord of the Horses.

But our children, unfortunately, are not informed of such information. Even our learned educationists who must have pondered over the drafts of these books when they were allowed to be published, failed to realise that till the Sikh period. The dhani breed of our Salt Range was very famous. It is now almost extinct. The Sanghar breed of Sanghar Pass area now forms Dera Ghazi Khan. The third breed was the Roh-i-Sulemani breed of horses that was raised and trained to walk on pebbles from the start. Hence they could be used without horse shoes of iron and nails. The British had their horse depots all over the Punjab region on our side â the Trans-Sutlej region.

Later, the Roh-i-Sulemani breed came to be called the Balochi breed by the British in the Raj period. The other reason was that the bulk of its cavalry was from our regions post 1857. These horses lasted till the mechanised elements entered the cavalry regiments. But not to be forgotten, our Indus Valley horses through out the time were noted for their equable temperament and soundness of constitution. The hallmark of our horses was a very distinctive head with exceptionally mobile ears, which curved inward until tips were almost touching. âKunootiâ is a term designated for them. Their hooves were hard and well-shaped. Such is the past of our unfortunate horse.

The writer has a 24-year experience in investigating the identity of the Indus-person in a historical context.
http://thepost. com.pk/OpinionNe ws.aspx?dtlid= 145258&catid=11

ramana · 02-23-2008, 12:38 AM

QUOTE("ramana")Op-Ed in Pioneer, 22 Feb.,2008
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE
Meanwhile, Washington is nervous
The other voice: S Rajagopalan | Washington correspondent The Pioneer

Is this endgame time for George W Bush's Musharraf policy? Why is the voice of the Democrats fractured? Washington this week is looking for all kinds of signs that would bring Americans the hope that Pakistan, with or without General 'Indispensable Ally', could still be a partner in the 'war against terror'

For months on end, the writing on the wall was there for all to see. But the Bush Administration was in no mood to dump its "indispensable ally" -- President Pervez Musharraf. In the week's epochal elections he was the one man who was not on the ballot, but who has been defeated so decisively. But Washington is not deserting him -- not just yet, anyway -- even as it tries to reach out to the new leadership with open arms.

President George W Bush, in the midst of an African sojourn, took time off to speak to Gen Musharraf. What the two discussed has not been revealed, but no one expects Mr Bush to have followed the Washington Post's advice: That he urge his "not-so-indispensable ally" to step down as part of a new American policy to bolster Pakistan's re-emerging democratic centre.

Mr Bush has studiously avoided making a public comment on the political future of the General in Islamabad. His spokesperson, while repeating the line that Gen Musharraf has been "a strong US ally", evasively stated that it is "up to the Pakistani people to decide" (whether he should retain his position). The word out of the State Department is that the US will continue working with both Gen Musharraf and the new Government that takes office in Islamabad.

{This flies in the face of dictats to Zardari as reproted in the TSP press. Could be overblown but there is no smoke without fire! So this means DC is trying to have it both ways. DupleeCity verily}

As the PPP and PML(N) thrash out the nuts and bolts of Government formation, now that they have agreed on a coalition set-up, Washington is clearly buying time to formulate a new Pakistan policy or, at least, fine-tune its existing one. Some analysts, however, wonder if drastic changes would be attempted by the Bush Administration, now that less than a year of its tenure is left.

For a long time now, Democrats, led by Mr Joe Biden, chairman of the powerful Senate Foreign Relations Committee, have slammed Mr Bush for putting all the eggs in Gen Musharraf's basket. As Mr Biden puts it, what the administration has been pursuing is a "Musharraf policy", instead of a Pakistan policy. He reckons that the electoral verdict provides the US with the opportunity to hammer out a policy that focuses on the entire populace of Pakistan.

Earlier this month, Mr Biden and eight other prominent Senators moved a resolution, urging Mr Bush to review all US aid to Pakistan to ensure that the assistance is used to fight violent radicalism and promote a free and democratic nation. The US has doled out more than $ 10 billion to Pakistan since Gen Musharraf made the tactical transition as a US ally after the 9/11 terror strikes in 2001.

The speculation in Washington right now is whether the PPP-PML(N) coalition and supporting groups would muster the requisite two-thirds majority and push for Gen Musharraf's impeachment -- a contingency unlikely to appeal to the Bush Administration for fear that the resulting instability could weaken the war on terror at a time of resurgence of the Al Qaeda-Taliban combine. 

"We need Pakistan as an important ally. We've got common interests. We've got interests in dealing with radicals who killed Benazir Bhutto. We've got interests in helping make sure there's no safe haven from which people can plot and plan attacks against the United States of America and Pakistan," said Mr Bush in his first comments after the elections inflicted a crushing defeat on the pro-Musharraf PML(Q).

{Talk about cognitive dissonance.. TSP was the one that seeded and nurtured the Taliban and other Islamic terrorists as a state policy under US guidance. The only reason why Mushy agreed to become an ally is the US envoy Armitage threatened to bomb TSP to stone age. And to add insult to injury India offered bases for the US to attack Afghanistan. The US accepted the TSP as a ally on GOAT in order to corral all the dregs in Afghanistan inside TSP to minimize their costs of invading Afghanistan. These coralled terrorists have taken over the NWFP areas and have started routing TSP polic forces and could eventually migrate to the ciites. Mushy has provided safe sanctuary to Islamic terrorists. If he is the ally in the GOAT then there is the Brooklyn bridge still for sale. It would be in US interest to take a back seat and let the TSP people sort out their affairs which got hijacked by the RAPE, ARMY and US for their global interests. The $10B in 'aid' was rentier money that TSP always got from the Indian heartland. So what is the complaint. They got the services they paid for. Instead of mollycoddling the terrorist in cheif the US should have coralled the nukes. Looks like they are no and this charade of ally n the war on terrorism is being bandied about. What this means is Bush admin not only failed in Iraq but also in TSP.}

That Washington expects Gen Musharraf to remain in the saddle for now was apparent from the State Department's remarks. As Deputy Spokesman Tom Casey put it, "Ultimately, President Musharraf is still the president of Pakistan and certainly we would hope that whoever becomes Prime Minister and whoever winds up in charge of the new Government would be able to work with him and with all other factions." 

{Dont let your policy imperative become TSP's governance problem. If there is process to get rid of him it should be allowed to happen. Who died and let you make policy for the people of TSP?}

Though the two principal coalition partners have fallen short of the two-thirds majority to impeach Gen Musharraf, officialdom in Washington is keeping its fingers crossed. South Asia specialists have little doubt that Mr Nawaz Sharif and Mr Asif Zardari, no matter their present differences on this issue, will go for Gen Musharraf's scalp.

{Its not a matter of going after his scalp. He has wig.Â Its about accountability. His 'election' was considered illegal and let the TSP people decide their own thing That is called self determination. They want the same rights that the US supports in Kosovo!}

Stephen Cohen of the Brookings Institution feels the Bush Administration is behind the curve on this. "They tried to manage Musharraf's continuation in power, but he's probably going to go -- unless there's so much chaos among the politicians that he can play them off against each other," he says.

Michael Krepon of the Stimson Centre says his sense is that Mr Zardari and Mr Sharif will work in concert to remove Gen Musharraf, beginning with the restoration of an independent judiciary. He believes that if and when Gen Musharraf leaves office, the centrifugal forces of Pakistani politics would gain momentum all over again.

"It's clear that while Gen Musharraf is nominally President, the key for the US is Gen Ashfaq Kayani and the Army," says Cohen. He reckons that Gen Kayani has started undoing some of Gen Musharraf's damage to the armed forces, but adds it is hard to predict how far he would be willing to go in mounting an effective campaign against the Taliban.

{Alas Cohen has become a one string violin player. He is too involved with the RATs to see the light. He is still slurping samosas cooked by Gen Zia's wife.}

The first bone of contention is expected to be over the reinstatement of deposed Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammed Chaudhry and other Supreme Court judges. In an interview to the Wall Street Journal, Gen Musharraf has taken the stand that there is no way of bringing back the dismissed judges, at least legally. "I can't even imagine how this is doable," he said, sounding an ominous note.

If the experts were not involved in the policy they would recognize that there is a unwritten compact about the judiciary in TSP. Judiciary is off limits in all previous coups. Mushy broke that and lost his legitimacy and that of the RATS. So he will go no matter what DC thinks and hopes.

Kiyanis big task is to restore RATS legitimacy. He is working to that pattern.

If the restored judiciary oust him then Kiyani wont do anything. If there are moves to impeach him with the 2/3 vote then there will be a coup.</div>

02-23-2008, 01:09 AM

I think Mushy is waiting for Mango crate, till then everyone has to sit with hand on nose.
If Obama becomes President, we may see Biden foreign policy, which is basically cut and paste from Zbigniew Brzezinski dreams.
We may see lot of renewed love story, lot singing around trees. Lot of lefty hugging from around the world.

If Clinton, crate may come sooner.
McCain, everything will be same.

For Pakistan, whole world is helping them; they are their own worst enemy. They can destroy themselves. Letâs see how long it will take them to reach finishing point for suicide, it is slow, but they are on that path.

ramana · 02-23-2008, 02:44 AM

Two views from Deccan Chronicel, 23 Feb., 2008

QUOTEThe Quiet Revolution
By Seema Mustafa

Islamabad: It was a peaceful revolution. The people of Pakistan, fed up with the violence and the authoritarianism and the Americans and the price rise and Musharraf and the muzzling of the judiciary and the press, decided to vote it all out. First, the media and the lawyers and the Opposition parties shouted for a free and fair poll that had hundreds of observers pouring into Pakistan from all over the world, leaving the government with little choice but to allow as free a poll as possible under the circumstances. Then, they lined up quietly defying threats and cast the vote that ensured the revolution.

The biggest upset was for the corrupt and notorious family led by Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain who was amongst those to take the direct brunt of the peopleâs anger and lose the polls. Every taxi-driver in Lahore during the campaign would point towards the huge bungalows occupying an entire street saying, "This is what they have built with our money." Sheikh Rashid, Khurshid Mehmood Kasuri were the others who fell by the wayside, with only Mushahid Hussain listening to his iPod as he worked out at the gym, maintaining, "I am happy, I am relaxed, no tensions." He, like others, is now looking for the PML-Q to "reinvent" itself when it meets in Islamabad in a couple of days with many in the party likely to demand the head of the Chaudhry brothers.

The desire for change and for democracy was very visible on the streets of Pakistan before the polls. The religious right too had been wiped out and as the people did not cease reminding one, "this in itself gives a lie to the western propaganda that Pakistan is dominated by the religious parties and the extremists." Former professor of the Quaid-e-Azam University, Professor A. Nayar pointed out that "Musharrafâs propaganda that he alone can save the country from the religious right is now exposed as blatantly false, he is expendable." And that was the refrain: Musharraf must go, he must resign or else be forced out.

It was, therefore, with some seriousness, that Musharraf and his men sought the help of the Americans to continue in power with the help of leaders like Asif Ali Zardari. Talks were held and Zardari dismayed the voter when he went across to the US mission in Islamabad to meet the ambassador after the election results had placed him and his party at the top. "Sell-out" was the whisper that almost became a shout, and the lawyers came out into the streets to ensure that the political leadership respected the mandate.

PPP leader Aitzaz Ahsan came out of house-arrest to be carried across the street on the shoulders of his lawyer supporters, and made it clear that there could be no compromise on the two-point agenda articulated so forcefully by the lawyers and the media that has become a player as well, following the restrictions imposed on it by Musharraf. It was apparent to all that a close watch was being kept by Pakistan on Zardari and Musharraf, and the hint of a deal would have everybody out on the streets in strong protest. "He (Zardari) would like to do it, but he cannot do it as he will be finished and the PPP will split in all directions," was the consensus view emanating not just from others, but also from within the PPP.

Zardari and Sharif decided to form the government. Both with their individual agendas in hand as well. Zardari clearly likes the idea of being the man behind the throne, the party leader who, like Congress president Sonia Gandhi, runs the party by trying to rise above it. He is clever enough to realise that to gain full acceptance and get full control over the party he has to stay out of power for a longer while. As it is he has emerged as the main leader, addressing the press conferences, while all others sit quietly around him, and is also now the man that the Americans are talking to. Sharif is looking at the elections ahead. He will act as the conscience-keeper of the government, with his unambiguous demand for the exit of Musharraf and open support for the restoration of the judiciary, earning him new admirers. He is playing for long-term gains, and is prepared to sit in the second seat in this government that the power elite does not expect to last for more than a couple of years at best.

Musharraf is now in deep trouble. And he should realise that. For even if Zardari does not press for his removal, and Sharif goes along, the lawyers and the media will continue to holler for his exit. Both these groups are a furious lot and while public memory in Pakistan is perhaps shorter â look at the comeback of Zardari â than other South Asian nations, Musharraf is not the kind of man to sit back in the shadows and wait for the storm to pass. His every word will produce a reaction, and instead of being in control he will be under the control of the politician. That will not be what he wants, but now that his efforts to cut a deal have not worked, he does not have too many aces left up his wilting sleeves.

That leaves the two biggest players in Pakistan. The US and the Army. The Bush administration has received a major slap in the face, and the US President does not have the time to formulate and implement a new strategy that can be effective during his last months in power. Clearly, the initial assessment has been to recognise the peopleâs mandate, as any other option would result in violence across the streets. A fair poll was ensured because all the Opposition parties, the media and the judiciary threatened violence if there was rigging. Now, overt attempts at influencing the government will generate the same reaction, as every man and woman, from the taxi-driver to the retired general, is clear: we have had enough of the Americans. In fact, many told this columnist to ask the Indian government leaders to visit Pakistan, and see for themselves what havoc the Americans can create. "Keep away," they said, even those generals who are known to have been close to Washington. The US knows that the vote is also against the global war on terror, and while Zardari can be trusted to ensure that this does not become the mandate of the new government, Sharif still remains an uncertain entity. As Musharrafâs spokesperson Major General Rashid Qureshi said, "He is becoming confrontationist, he is not listening to anyone." He is the hero of these elections, along with civil society and the people of Pakistan. So while it is true that no Pakistan establishment today can afford to move out of the US embrace, there are nuances and gradations that might become more pronounced as the weeks go by.

The Army in Pakistan is the other major entity. And here the new Chief of Army Staff, General Kayani has made it clear that he is not keen on a direct involvement in politics. He appears keen to move the Army back into the barracks and has issued instructions that all Army officers in civilian jobs must return to the Army. He is a low profile, professional general who rose from humble beginnings. He needs time to settle in, and while he commands the respect of the soldier, he still has to establish himself at the higher levels in a class conscious Army. He is also not keen to continue the war against terror in its present form, and is clearly conscious of the necessity to keep the Army away from the direct impact of the US direct operations. How far he will be successful again remains to be seen, but for the moment, the Army under him will not be playing a political role. He has virtually said that through his recent actions.

Pakistan, thus, can be heading for a new dawn. Where the government in power restores the institutions of democracy, listens to the voices of the people and moves to bring them social and economic comfort, isolates the militants, and keeps foreign powers in their place. Kashmir, for the first time in independent Pakistan, has been replaced by real bread and butter issues. Not a single person through the campaign tried to, or could have capitalised on, the issue of Kashmir, that no one, leader or voter, was even willing to talk about during the days of government formation. The people have given the new government an overwhelming mandate that the leadership can capitalise on, if it has the courage and the vision. But somehow, somewhere, there is a sense of unease. Will it happen, or will these men in power again squander away the gains? The answer will be found not in the next few weeks, but certainly the next few months.



and

QUOTEA perfect election
By Ashaâar Rehman

Karachi: It is a perfect verdict for everyone except for those who had become a liability for people above and below them. First take the President of Pakistan. He has been absolved of charges of rigging the vote in favour of his Pakistan Muslim League (Q). Next is the Pakistan Election Commission, which had been until February 18 dubbed as the executer of the rigging plan. Its early estimates say the voter turnout could be as high as 45 per cent.

This should make foreign analysts happy and the observers from abroad will soon be giving Pakistan a clean bill of democratic health, and they will not have to worry about their conscience. The results reflect a popular desire for change, a breaking away from the Musharrafian tradition of the last eight years or so. At the same time, manifest in the verdict is the Pakistanisâ rejection of the extremists who stand directly opposed to the President.

In the Frontier, as expected, the people have voted wholeheartedly for a change that they believe the Awami National Party and Pakistan Peopleâs Party are capable of bringing in a life besieged by the bombers.

By all indications of realpolitik and ideology the ANP-PPP combine should be able to form a coalition government in Peshawar. They have something to learn from the Muttahida Majlis-i-Amalâs success in keeping its coalition intact until the very last, pronouncements of its early demise notwithstanding. The ANP and PPP should realise that they need to be in power in the Frontier to secure the province for themselves for at least a few years.

The same holds true for Sindh, where, in the wake of the election results, analysts have once again been found advising the PPP and the Muttahida Quami Movement to rise above their differences for some kind of a working relationship.

A PPP-MQM coalition in the province may have its problems and its challenges, yet, so many years down the road, it is perhaps a possibility not as distant as it was in the year 1988.

The two sides have made some friendly overtures towards each other in the recent past and the media, that has been in the forefront of the save-Pakistan campaign, is persistent in keeping Altaf Hussainâs post-poll reconciliatory message pasted on the television screen to ensure that the PPP registers it. The public, which has received a voice in the media, is desperate for stability.

The PPP and MQM, like all other parties in the country, would do well to keep this in mind as they chart out their post-poll strategies for Sindh.

The PPP has done reasonably well in Balochistan, even if the PML(Q) has emerged on top. The PPP may lead the anti-PML(Q) groupâs claim to power in this seriously isolated and long smouldering province in the federation.

The solution for Balochistan lies as much in Balochistan as it lies in other provinces of Pakistan, especially in Punjab. 

True to its wont, during the election campaign the biggest province was too embroiled in its own problems to deal with the issues the smaller provinces have with it.

Punjab continues to treat Balochistan as a remote place ruled by tribal chiefs. Enough is enough. We can trust the people of Balochistan to look after themselves in their territory. Sitting in Lahore the concern should be to make their stay in Pakistan comfortable.Â :-o

Lahore is abuzz with people who have come out in the open giving the Sharifs a position to make such a huge impact on future developments. The PML(N) leaders say they are committed to their pre-election pledge of restoring the judiciary to its pre-November 3 status and they promise stability and law and order to the people. The party needs to grow in its role as an entity which cares for and respects the smaller provinces. The propensity for reconciliation it had shown in its ties with Ms Benazir Bhutto must continue and the process must embrace smaller parties and provinces â if for nothing else, for the security that its voters in Punjab demand from it.

The huge PML(N) gains in Punjab and its reasonably good showing in parts of the Frontier are intrinsically tied to the party leadersâ reputation of being moderates. The Sharifsâ win surprised not only the PML(Q) but also the PPP which had to be content with a second place in many of the constituencies it thought it had in its pocket.Â :-o

The feeling is that while the PPP has obtained a large number of seats in Punjab and has made advances in all other provinces and at the Centre, its showing in the major cities of Punjab such as Rawalpindi, Faisalabad and Gujranwala did not quite match public expectations. The sympathy vote that so many said the PPP would get in Punjab did not quite materialise. Many in the province donât consider the PPP safe enough, given its "enlightened" label and the heavy baggage of a past "tainted" with corruption.

It suffers on account of the leadership vacuum left by the death of Benazir Bhutto and is being advised to try and ensure that the Parliament now elected should complete its term.

This will enable the PPP to repair past damages. It could start by formulating it stance on crucial questions such as the restoration of the judiciary and identifying its leaders in all the five Assemblies.

On this count â being prominently represented in all five Assemblies â the PPP never had it so good. What the PPP and the PML(N) choose for themselves from now on would determine how reconciliatory politics in Pakistan will turn out to be in the near future. They have been all calling for a consensus government for some time. Now is the time.



I think Mushhraffa was surprised by the verdict. She didnt expect the rout would be so complete.

From second article it looks like PML-N has become a Pakjabi party. PML-Q has its adherents in Balochistan. Could be Serakis. And PPP has become a national party. Need to think about this.

02-23-2008, 03:00 AM

Mushy let PPP to gain in Punjab by scientific rigging so that he can keep Shariff in check; Chaudhries are sitting on sideline for short duration. This fraud will last for 2.5 years. Loss of Islamist is not good, because they will be more forceful to use other ways to control power. I still suspect it was intentionally done. Or we lose them on Indians.
Either way this is not good for India. Due NATO pressure we will be forced to divert fundus energy this year.

I think we should wait for another 15 days to get clear picture, currently lot of Western democracy torch bearers are in Pakistan and are claiming victories. Let them go back to home and we will start seeing what had actually changed.

Naresh · 02-23-2008, 03:10 AM

[center]The Pak state of general panic[/center]

Author : Vikram Sood
Publication: The Asian Age
Date: September 24, 2007
URL: http://www.asianage.com/presentation/leftn...eral-panic.aspx

All is not well in Musharraf's realm as the General faces multiple crises - of legitimacy, credibility and authority. The entire trans-border of Pakistan-Afghanistan is today a vast SEZ of International Terror Inc. International terrorists like Tahir Yuldashev (Islamic Movement of Turkestan), various factions of the Taliban with Baitullah Mehsud as the most important leader in South Waziristan, Abu Kasha, the Iraqi, and Najmuddin, the Uzbek, operate in North Waziristan along with the Al Qaeda and others. They conduct their business from these safe havens.

The pattern of terrorist violence after the Lal Masjid episode has changed. Twelve soldiers were killed in Dera Ismail Khan in a suicide attack, about 300 soldiers were kidnapped by the Taliban in Waziristan early in September, 12 policemen were kidnapped from Bannu, a "settled area" of NWFP, unlike the ungovernable FATA. A bomb blast in Rawalpindi in September killed 29 personnel, mostly from the ISI. On the day US deputy secretary of state John Negroponte was in Islamabad, a Pushtoon officer blew himself up killing 19 commandos of the SSG in Tarbela, south of Islamabad. Terror now stalks the sanctum sanctorum of Pakistan - the Pakistan Army.

Meanwhile, helicopter gun ships were once again deployed this year in the Makeen area of South Waziristan. This was in retaliation against tribesmen who had repeatedly attacked a military post on the night of September 12, killing 124 security personnel. Artillery was used against tribesmen in Razmak and Datta Khel in North Waziristan.

It is not easy to kidnap 300 armed and trained personnel. It is not known whether these soldiers, surprised and overpowered by overwhelming force, had voluntarily surrendered without a fight, or had refused to fight. If they had surrendered, then they had no will to fight. But if they had refused to fight, possibly by saying that they were not trained to fight other Muslims, then this could only mean that the Pakistan Army has problems that are more serious than imagined.

Most of these incidents, especially the kidnapping, the bomb blasts in Rawalpindi against the ISI and the suicide attack in the high security SSG campus, mean that the attackers had accurate intelligence in each case. It also means that this intelligence emanated from within these set-ups. Recall that terrorists had perfect intelligence about Gen. Musharraf's movements when they almost succeeded in assassinating him three years ago in Rawalpindi. In his autobiography, In the Line of Fire, Musharraf has mentioned that one of the conspirators was from the SSG. Musharraf just got lucky.

Earlier this year, Pakistani authorities disclosed that about 1,400 people had been killed in over 100 military operations in South and North Waziristan. Clashes between the tribesmen and the security forces have continued for some years now, but the frequency and the efficacy of the attacks on the security forces have increased. This is especially noticeable after the commando action in Lal Masjid in July 2007: 300 persons were killed, many of whom were Pushtoons and from the Waziristan area. A Pakistan ministry of interior document admitted that government forces had forfeited authority to the Taliban and their allies, and even places like Peshawar, Kohat and Nowshera were facing Talibanisation, that the security forces in NWFP and the tribal region had been outgunned and outnumbered. (There are about 80,000 to 100,000 troops in the region.)

It is apparent that Islamic radicals have been gaining in Pakistan and their strength worries even elected parties like the MMA in NWFP. The regime invariably handles the Taliban and religious extremists with kid gloves, for they are Islamic warriors, armed and dangerous, with sympathisers in high places. On the other hand, Nawaz Sharif's short lived homecoming was handled swiftly and more with bravado than self assurance. It was the act of a regime that is getting desperate to cling to power and panicking that nothing is working in its favour. Musharraf may have succeeded, in his own eyes, of having got rid of the "problem," but this is likely to come back to haunt him.

Sixty years ago, Pakistan had only one monopoly shareholder - the United Kingdom. Then the United States took over and today Pakistan is actually like a failed MNC with the major stake holders - the US, the UK and Saudi Arabia trying to shore up this failing company. The "Chief Executive" (that was what Musharraf called himself when he ousted Nawaz) has been underperforming, but has to be rescued. That is why there have been international managers like Messrs Boucher and Negroponte rushing into Islamabad to support the CEO in public and admonish him in private.

China, the fourth shareholder in Pakistan, is worried too as its citizens continue to be killed in Baluchistan or are taken hostage elsewhere. Further, Uighur Islamists from Xinjiang have been receiving training along with Uzbeks, Tajiks and Chechens in the Waziristan areas. Pakistani troops began hunting for Uighur Muslims in Waziristan along with their Uzbek and Tajik sympathisers. Hasan Mahsum, the leader of the East Turkestan Islamic Movement, who was wanted by the Chinese authorities, was killed in a gunfight with Pakistani troops in October 2004. A week later, militants kidnapped two Chinese engineers from South Waziristan, a uranium rich area. Earlier this year, the Pakistan Army launched a massive attack against the Uzbeks and Uighurs in South Waziristan suspected by the Chinese to be carrying out subversion in Xinjiang. Very few survived this attack and the rest fled to North Waziristan.

Across the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, the situation in the Pushtoon areas of south and east Afghanistan remains grim for President Hamid Karzai. Nato forces have been unable to assert themselves and the Taliban have killed 300 Afghan policemen in recent months. The battle now seems to be more than a battle between the Taliban and foreign troops or Afghan troops. It has become a battle between the Pushtoon in Afghanistan versus the foreigners, and between the Pushtoon in Pakistan and the rest of the Pakistanis in Pakistan. This is happening in a country where the regime is wary of even renaming NWFP as Pakhtoonkhwa for fear that this may sow the seeds of Pushtoon nationalism.

The Pakistan Army in the last 60 years has begun to resemble the East India Company, acquiring prime land at privileged prices, managing all trade and industrial houses in the country, running the country's logistic systems, constructing highways and playing politics, setting up the Mohajirs against the Punjabis and religious elements against the nationalists. The Pakistan Army has a country to exploit. This has made Pakistan a global rogue state but no one is willing to say so.

A regime that is running scared of unarmed politicians, and either connives with or appeases terrorists, and in the process violates every written statute, is staring at a bleak future. When leaders openly disregard laws and the Constitution, then the followers can only do worse. Gen. Vinod Sehgal in his book Restructuring Pakistan (2001) had five main worries about Pakistan. These were the Talibanisation of Pakistan, a civil war breaking out in the country, further spread of state sponsored terrorism from the Afghan-Pakistan frontier, the spread of nuclear materials from Pakistan and the spread of regressive Islam into the subcontinent. It seems all this is taking place. Maulana Abu Ala Mawdoodi was prophetic when seeing the bloodshed and the killings during the partition of India, he remarked that "the bloody birth pangs of Pakistan" were "predicting the birth of a monster and not a human being."

The worst is yet to be.

Vikram Sood is a former chief of RAW

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Naresh · 02-23-2008, 01:51 PM

[center]Bride among 14 killed in blast[/center]

MINGORA: A remote-controlled bomb ripped through a wedding party convoy on Friday, killing 14 people and wounding 13 others in the Matta tehsil of Swat district, hospital and police sources said. The bomb, which detonated in the Ronial Takh Maira area of the region, exploded around 4pm when the wedding party was travelling from Kandogai village to Pir Dar Baba village. The bride, four children aged between five and 12 years, and four bystanders died instantly. The injured, mostly children, were shifted to Saidu Sharif Hospital as well as a private hospital in Matta tehsil. Hospital sources said most of the injured were in critical condition. Security forces reached the scene soon after the blast and cordoned off the area, local police said. âThere was a remote-controlled bomb explosion which targeted a wedding party. Two cars were destroyed including the car in which the bride was travelling, [and] she died,â local police officer Haroon Khan told AFP. Interior Ministry spokesman Brigadier Javed Cheema confirmed that the bomb had targeted the wedding party. He and an ISPR spokesman had earlier said that eight people were killed in the bombing. This was the first such incident after the completion of the largely peaceful parliamentary elections on February 18. None of the militant groups have accepted responsibility and police have not made any arrests thus far. saleem athar

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02-24-2008, 12:21 AM

Pressure on Asif, Nawaz to work with presidentQUOTEISLAMABAD, Feb 22: Western envoys in Islamabad continued on Friday what seemed to be hectic contacts with the leaders of parties that won last Mondayâs elections amid mounting worries about President Pervez Musharrafâs political future.

The president has come under renewed pressures after the elections threw up all opponents of his iron-fisted rule for more than eight years and crushed the main party of his loyalists.

The meetings, mainly of American and British ambassadors with the leaders of the Pakistan Peopleâs Party (PPP) and Pakistan Muslim League-N (PML-N), have led to speculations about possible counsels to the makers of the future government to try to co-exist with Musharraf despite years of their mutual hostility.

Naresh · (This post was last modified: 02-24-2008, 03:58 AM by Naresh.)

[center]Exports grew by 12.84 per cent in January 2005[/center]

Figures for July 2007 - January 2008 :

Exports : Goods : $ 10.15 Billion + Services : $1.62 Billion. Total Exports : $ 11.77 Billion

Imports : Goods : $ 20.48 Billion+ Services : $5.60 Billion. Total Imports : $ 26.08 Billion

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02-24-2008, 09:55 PM

Pakistan blocks YouTube video access QUOTEISLAMABAD, Pakistan - Pakistan's government has banned access to the video-sharing Web site YouTube because of anti-Islamic movies that users have posted on the site, an official said Sunday.
Â
The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority told the country's 70 Internet service providers Friday that the popular Web site would be blocked until further notice.

The authority did not specify what the offensive material was, but a PTA official said the ban concerned a movie trailer for an upcoming film by Dutch lawmaker Geert Wilders, who has said he plans to release an anti-Quran movie portraying the religion as fascist and prone to inciting violence against women and homosexuals.

Naresh · 02-25-2008, 06:07 PM

[center]Lt. General among 8 killed in Rawalpindi suicide attack[/center]

RAWALPINDI : Eight persons including a Lt. General were martyred in a bomb attack at busy Mall Road in garrison city of Rawalpindi on Monday.

According to reports, an explosives laden vehicle collided with the vehicle of medical corps Lt. Gen. Surgeon Mushtaq in the incident killing him along with his driver, guard and five others.

The dead bodies were transferred to CMH Rawalpindi.

Relief operations were started after the bomb blast. Thirty five injured were transferred to hospitals. The blast also damaged vehicles parked near the place of the incident.

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02-26-2008, 01:35 AM

Musharraf planning exit: UK paperQUOTELONDON, Feb 24: Pervez Musharraf is considering stepping down as president of Pakistan rather than waiting to be forced out by his victorious opponents, a report in The Sunday Telegraph said quoting his close aides.

Close friends of the president and his confidants told the paper that the president believed he had run out of options and had started discussing an exit strategy for himself. One of them thought âit is now just a matter of days and not months because he would like to make a graceful exit on a highâ.

**acharya** · 02-26-2008, 05:15 AM

Pakistan causes worldwide YouTube outage

By PETER SVENSSON, AP Technology Writer 2 hours, 24 minutes ago

NEW YORK - Most of the world's Internet users lost access to YouTube for several hours Sunday after an attempt by Pakistan's government to block access domestically affected other countries.
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The outage highlighted yet another of the Internet's vulnerabilities, coming less than a month after broken fiber-optic cables in the Mediterranean took Egypt off line and caused communications problems from the Middle East to India.

An Internet expert likened the cause of the outage to "identity theft" by a Pakistani telecommunications company, which accidentally started advertising itself as the fastest route to YouTube. But instead of serving up videos of skateboarding dogs, it sent the traffic into oblivion.

On Friday, the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority ordered 70 Internet service providers to block access to YouTube.com, because of anti-Islamic movies on the video-sharing site, which is owned by Google Inc.

The authority did not specify what the offensive material was, but a PTA official said the ban concerned a trailer for an upcoming film by Dutch lawmaker Geert Wilders, who has said he plans to release a movie portraying Islam as fascist and prone to inciting violence against women and homosexuals.

The block was intended to cover only Pakistan, but extended to about two-thirds of the global Internet population, starting at 1:47 p.m. EST Sunday, according to Renesys Corp., a Manchester, N.H., firm that keeps track of the pathways of the Internet for telecommunications companies and other clients.

The greatest effect was in Asia, were the outage lasted for up to two hours, Renesys said.

YouTube confirmed the outage on Monday, saying it was caused by a network in Pakistan.

"We are investigating and working with others in the Internet community to prevent this from happening again," YouTube said in an e-mailed statement.

A YouTube spokeswoman did not immediately respond to an e-mailed question on whether the clips that offended Pakistan's government had been removed. Several clips with interviews of Wilders were still up on the site Monday afternoon.

Two apparent errors allowed the outage to propagate beyond Pakistan, according to Todd Underwood, vice president and general manager of Internet community services at Renesys.

Pakistan Telecom established a route that directed requests for YouTube videos from local Internet subscribers to a "black hole," where the data was discarded, according to Renesys. Pakistan Telecom's mistake was that it then published that route to its international data carrier, PCCW Ltd. of Hong Kong, Underwood said.

The second mistake was that PCCW accepted that route, Underwood said. It started directing requests from its customers for YouTube data to Pakistan. And since PCCW is one of the world's 20 largest data carriers, its routing table was passed along to other large carriers without any attempt at verification.

"Once a pretty big network gets an error like that, it propagates to most or all of the Internet very quickly," Underwood said. As he put it, Pakistan Telecom was impersonating YouTube to much of the world.

Pakistan Telecom and the Pakistan Telecommunications Authority were unavailable for comment on Monday night local time. Rex Stover, vice president of sales for PCCW Global in Herndon, Va., said the company is still trying to figure out what happened and why.

John Palfrey, executive director for the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard Law School, said that while all the facts in the case are not yet known, it appeared that the repercussions were due to Pakistan taking a relatively heavy-handed approach in trying to censor YouTube.

"It points in many respects to the difficulty, if not the folly, in Internet filtering at the state level," he said.

Misrouting occurs every year or so among the world's Internet carriers, usually as a result of typos or other errors, Underwood said. In a more severe example, a Turkish telecom provider in 2004 started advertising that it was the best route to all of the Internet, causing widespread outages for many Web sites over several hours.

"Nobody ran any viruses or worms or malicious code. This is just the way the Internet works. And it's not very secure or reliable," Underwood said, adding that there is no real solution to the problem on the table.

While most route hijacking is unintentional, some Yahoo networks were apparently taken over a few years ago to distribute spam.

"To be honest, there's not a single thing preventing this from happening to E-Trade, or Bank of America, or the FBI, or the White House, or the Clinton campaign," Underwood said. "I think it's a useful moment for people to decide just how important it is that we fix problems like this."

____

Associated Press writer Sadaqat Jan contributed to this report from Islamabad, Pakistan.

02-26-2008, 10:26 PM

Pakistan 'misspent billions in US aid'QUOTEAMERICA'S huge military aid to Pakistan has come under sharp scrutiny, with allegations that as much as 70% of $US5.4 billion in help has been misspent.

The US has reimbursed the Pakistani military for the cost of operations against Taliban and al-Qaeda fighters in the tribal belt, where 110,000 soldiers have been stationed since 2002.

The payments for food, fuel, ammunition and maintenance, averaging $80 million a month, have been a cornerstone of US support for President Pervez Musharraf. But US officials believe Pakistan's expense claims have been vastly inflated, according to two Western military sources, who did not want be named.

"My back-of-envelope guesstimate is that 30% of the money they requested to be reimbursed was legitimate costs they expended," said one official. He added that the US did not know what had happened to the remaining 70% â about $3.8 billion â but suspected that part of the money had been spent on F16 fighter jets or new housing for army generals.
Apart from military-related expenses, the official said, at least half the money was thought to have disappeared. "Who knows, the roads on Constitution Avenue (in Islamabad) may have been paved with part of this money," he said.
........... <!--emo& Big Grin

--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif' />
Great, it serve US well, all billions came back to US within 3 months.
Pakistan bought old planes, paid good price, In Texas thousands were able to keep jobs in parts manufacturing job.
Money gaind by Army officer helped their kids and wives to vist US and UK, lot of shoping for new house and some went to college education in US.
Not bad for US. No one can beat US in used car sale.

02-27-2008, 03:18 AM

PML-N not to join PPP governmentQUOTEFormer Pakistan premier Nawaz Sharif's Pakistan Muslim League-N will support a PPP-led government from outside as it does not want to be part of an administration with President Pervez Musharraf [Images] in power, party leaders said on Tuesday.

The PML-N was not seeking 'any share in the ministry or government' to be formed at the Centre but would support the Pakistan People's Party's administration to implement its agenda and fulfil all commitments made by the two parties in their election campaign, spokesman Ahsan Iqbal said.
.......

02-28-2008, 01:57 AM

QUOTEGraft charges against Zardari dropped 
Pioneer.com
Rezaul H Laskar | Islamabad
The Pakistan Government on Wednesday closed corruption cases against Asif Ali Zardari whose PPP will head a new ministry in Pakistan even as the three coalition partners jointly demanded that President Pervez Musharraf immediately convene the National Assembly.

With Musharraf's fate hanging in balance, the graft cases were "terminated" shortly after the Supreme Court dismissed three petitions challenging Musharraf's controversial National Reconciliation Ordinance (NRO) promulgated last October.

PPP leaders--late Benazir Bhutto and her husband Asif Ali Zardari, now the co-chairman of the single largest party, had got amnesty for the corruption cases dating back to the 1980s and 1990s following Musharraf's order. The cases were terminated by the National Accountability Bureau(NAB).

The action quickly triggered speculation of a possible understanding between Zardari and Musharraf.

As the new MPs from the planned coalition of PPP, PML-N and ANP met for the first time at a joint meeting in a show of strength against Musharraf, PML-N chief Nawaz Sharif upped the ante and appeared to suggest that the President could be impeached when he claimed that the three parties had the required two-thirds majority.

Sharif said the coalition partners would not wait "a single day more" for Parliament to be convened.

"Please see the numbers Musharraf. We already have a two-thirds majority (in the National Assembly) and I would like to inform Musharraf we are not prepared to wait for a single more day for the Assembly to be convened," he told the new MPs to a loud applause at an Islamabad hotel. In all 171 members from PPP,PML-N and Awami National Party attended the meeting. The strength of National Assembly is 272

Mushy and Sonia Gandhi behave like a identical twins.

02-28-2008, 11:31 PM

QUOTEMissile strike kills 13 in Pakistan tribal belt PESHAWAR, Pakistan, Feb 28 (AP): A suspected US missile strike destroyed an Al-Qaeda and Taliban hideout in a Pakistani tribal area Thursday, killing 13 alleged militants including several Arabs, security officials said. Residents of Azam Warsak village in South Waziristan told AFP that a house was blown up by a missile fired from a pilotless drone and the loud blast was heard miles away in the rugged valley. âA house used as a den by Al-Qaeda and Afghan Taliban militants was hit by a missile. Thirteen people were killed and around 10 were wounded,â a senior Pakistani security official told AFP. âThere was no immediate information about the presence of any high-value target,â the official said. A security source based in Peshawar said the missile was fired by a US drone at about 2:00 am Thursday. Another security official said most of the dead were Arabs. Armed militants cordoned off the site after the missile strike, residents said. They said four unidentified âguestsâ had arrived late Wednesday at the destroyed house, although their identities were not known. A spokesman for the US-led coalition force based in Afghanistan said it had âno reportsâ that either it or the separate NATO-headed force were involved in the strike. Pakistani forces were not immediately available to comment on the incident. (First Posted @ 10:00 PST, Updated @ 15:30 PST)

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