01-11-2008, 01:26 AM
Mudy the article was posted to show that TSP is descending into a jihadi pit. It was not to find equal-equal situations. Dasgupta is addressing =-= folks who say "TSP is just like us" AKA WKK.
Thanks, ramana
Last part of Sareen's article in Pioneer 11 Jan., 2008
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>Can Pakistan survive? </b>
This seems difficult with radical Islamism gaining ground, says Sushant Sareen
<b>Lt Gen Asad Durrani, the former ISI chief, dismisses these conspiracy theories as nonsense. He argues that no military commander will ever get hundreds of his troops killed and allow a situation to develop where large parts of the country go out of control of the state.</b> He also defended his former organisation, ISI, by saying that it is silly to talk of the <b>ISI </b>as a state within a state. The ISI functions as an instrument of the state and while there <b>may be individuals in the organisation who harbour sympathy and share the ideology of the militants, it is impossible for them to go against the policy framework adopted by the Army high command. He said that at best such individuals can pass on some information or look the other way in certain situations.</b>
Notwithstanding the allegations and counter allegations, the blame-game and political one-upmanship, Pakistan is facing an alarmingly serious situation on the ground. <b>Pashtun society has undergone a massive transformation and is getting increasingly radicalised and defiant and the prime example of this is Swat, whose inhabitants were considered to be one of the most peaceful and liberal of all Pashtuns.</b>
<b>Pashtun identity, tribal affiliations and religious zealotry have combined to produce a deadly cocktail to which the Pakistani state seems to have no antidote. Interestingly, the insurgency has absolutely nothing to do with Pashtun nationalism because as puritanical Muslims, the Taliban do not believe in ethnicity.</b> <b>Pashtun nationalists, in fact, are fast becoming irrelevant,</b> so much so that a journalist friend said that even in their own backyard -- Charsadda -- eight out of 10 people are Taliban sympathisers. Even though publicly they protest against the military operations by saying that Pashtuns are being killed, in private they exhort the state authorities to crackdown hard on the Islamists.
Most of the solutions being offered to the crisis will either make the situation worse or postpone the problem until such time when it erupts with even greater virulence. For instance, an all-out military operation will only alienate the people and drive them into the arms of the Islamists. On the other hand, <b>if the state engages the militants in a dialogue and, as many people suggest, gives in to their demands of imposing a Taliban-esque system, then it will buy temporary peace, which will be used by the Islamists to consolidate their position until they are ready to make their next big push</b>.
For instance, in Swat, the radical Tehrik-e-Nifaz-e-Shariat-Mohammadi, which had suffered a major setback after 9/11, distanced itself from Mullah Fazlullah because it thought he is inviting too much attention something that could affect the efforts of the organisation to reorganise itself. But once the fighting started, the TNSM cadre are reported to have joined up with Fazlullah's followers. <b>Ultimately, the shared aim is not to Islamise only the Pashtun areas but to impose their vision and their version of Islam in not only Pakistan but also in Afghanistan.</b>
There is another strategy that people like Interior Minister Aftab Sherpao advocate. <b>According to Mr Sherpao, since the militants do not have a unified command structure and individuals heading militant groups in different areas are not willing to accept the authority of any one person, the state can play one against the other. Tribal divisions and blood feuds can also be exploited to divide and rule the turbulent Pashtun tribes.</b> These tactics paid handsome dividends in South Waziristan when local militants expelled the Uzbeks from the area with the help of the Army.
<b>But this strategy does not take into account the fact that the Islamists have established a sort of confederacy of militant groups, in which differences on the issue of leadership play a secondary role to the primary objective of imposing a Taliban-type political system. This means that even though the Pakistani state might succeed in pitting one militant group against another, the basic demand of Islamisation will remain non-negotiable.</b>
-- Concluded
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Thanks, ramana
Last part of Sareen's article in Pioneer 11 Jan., 2008
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>Can Pakistan survive? </b>
This seems difficult with radical Islamism gaining ground, says Sushant Sareen
<b>Lt Gen Asad Durrani, the former ISI chief, dismisses these conspiracy theories as nonsense. He argues that no military commander will ever get hundreds of his troops killed and allow a situation to develop where large parts of the country go out of control of the state.</b> He also defended his former organisation, ISI, by saying that it is silly to talk of the <b>ISI </b>as a state within a state. The ISI functions as an instrument of the state and while there <b>may be individuals in the organisation who harbour sympathy and share the ideology of the militants, it is impossible for them to go against the policy framework adopted by the Army high command. He said that at best such individuals can pass on some information or look the other way in certain situations.</b>
Notwithstanding the allegations and counter allegations, the blame-game and political one-upmanship, Pakistan is facing an alarmingly serious situation on the ground. <b>Pashtun society has undergone a massive transformation and is getting increasingly radicalised and defiant and the prime example of this is Swat, whose inhabitants were considered to be one of the most peaceful and liberal of all Pashtuns.</b>
<b>Pashtun identity, tribal affiliations and religious zealotry have combined to produce a deadly cocktail to which the Pakistani state seems to have no antidote. Interestingly, the insurgency has absolutely nothing to do with Pashtun nationalism because as puritanical Muslims, the Taliban do not believe in ethnicity.</b> <b>Pashtun nationalists, in fact, are fast becoming irrelevant,</b> so much so that a journalist friend said that even in their own backyard -- Charsadda -- eight out of 10 people are Taliban sympathisers. Even though publicly they protest against the military operations by saying that Pashtuns are being killed, in private they exhort the state authorities to crackdown hard on the Islamists.
Most of the solutions being offered to the crisis will either make the situation worse or postpone the problem until such time when it erupts with even greater virulence. For instance, an all-out military operation will only alienate the people and drive them into the arms of the Islamists. On the other hand, <b>if the state engages the militants in a dialogue and, as many people suggest, gives in to their demands of imposing a Taliban-esque system, then it will buy temporary peace, which will be used by the Islamists to consolidate their position until they are ready to make their next big push</b>.
For instance, in Swat, the radical Tehrik-e-Nifaz-e-Shariat-Mohammadi, which had suffered a major setback after 9/11, distanced itself from Mullah Fazlullah because it thought he is inviting too much attention something that could affect the efforts of the organisation to reorganise itself. But once the fighting started, the TNSM cadre are reported to have joined up with Fazlullah's followers. <b>Ultimately, the shared aim is not to Islamise only the Pashtun areas but to impose their vision and their version of Islam in not only Pakistan but also in Afghanistan.</b>
There is another strategy that people like Interior Minister Aftab Sherpao advocate. <b>According to Mr Sherpao, since the militants do not have a unified command structure and individuals heading militant groups in different areas are not willing to accept the authority of any one person, the state can play one against the other. Tribal divisions and blood feuds can also be exploited to divide and rule the turbulent Pashtun tribes.</b> These tactics paid handsome dividends in South Waziristan when local militants expelled the Uzbeks from the area with the help of the Army.
<b>But this strategy does not take into account the fact that the Islamists have established a sort of confederacy of militant groups, in which differences on the issue of leadership play a secondary role to the primary objective of imposing a Taliban-type political system. This means that even though the Pakistani state might succeed in pitting one militant group against another, the basic demand of Islamisation will remain non-negotiable.</b>
-- Concluded
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->