Terrorist Islamic Republic of Pakistan (TSP): May 8, 2011

A_Gupta · Post by **A_Gupta** » 14 May 2011 20:02

From Anatol Lieven's book - some piskology

"Muhammad Azam Chaudhary writes that:
The decision to go to the police/courts involves a risk of blemishing the izzat. You often hear 'if you are a man, brave and strong, come forward and fight directly. Why do you go to uncle police', and that the real badla [revenge] could only be inflicted directly or by close relatives and not by the police or courts. But, on the other hand, if going to the police is only for the purpose of harassing the opponent and impoverishing him, it could become a source of adding to one's izzat, especially by winning a court case against one's rival. This competition of winning the cases in the courts between rivals leads to .... 'addiction to litigation'.
"During a visit to Sindh in 1990, a member of a great local landowning and political family in Shikarpur told me:
If neighbouring landowners see that you are weakening, there are always a lot of people to take your place, and they will hit your interests in various ways, like bringing lawsuits to seize your land or your water. If you can't protect yourself, your followers and tenants will ask how you can protect them. A semblance of strength must be maintained, or you're finished. The trick is to show your armed strength without getting involved in endless blood-feuds.... Such rivalries between families and clans are also conducted in the law courts, but the ultimate decision always lies with physical force....

shravan · Post by **shravan** » 14 May 2011 21:14

blast in a bus in Pakistan city of Gujrat, Punjab province, 10 killed

Anujan · Post by **Anujan** » 14 May 2011 21:45

"Spontaneous" Protests fully supporting the ISI (using very TFTA looking sign boards)

pgbhat · Post by **pgbhat** » 14 May 2011 21:54

Gramatically correct english too. Clear psy-ops directed at the west to show an "united" front with TSPA still being the "boss". Abduls carrying it would'nt know what those placards mean.

Anujan · Post by **Anujan** » 14 May 2011 21:58

More importantly, look at the caps of the abduls

pgbhat · Post by **pgbhat** » 14 May 2011 22:00

....ISI media wing onlee....wearing goggles and all.

saip · Post by **saip** » 14 May 2011 22:06

I dont think they are the regular abduls. Must be army guys.

saip · Post by **saip** » 14 May 2011 22:07

Here we go again

Six Pakistanis charged in US for aiding Taliban

http://thenews.com.pk/NewsDetail.aspx?ID=15544

KLNMurthy · Post by **KLNMurthy** » 14 May 2011 22:50

abhishek_sharma wrote:From Jaswant Singh

Here, India bears a grave responsibility: it must assuage Pakistan’s valid security concerns convincingly. After all, there is no solution in retributory, panic-ridden responses by Pakistan, or in chest-thumping schadenfreude elsewhere. Now is the moment for South Asia to revert to its “natural balance,” gain breathing space, and recover its shattered peace.

Let me try to put this as politely as I can. Jaswant is a slimy creature with the morals of Uriah Heep and an intellect I will generously call microscopic.

Two words: Lieutenant Kalia

A_Gupta · Post by **A_Gupta** » 14 May 2011 23:30

^^^ What is a "valid security concern" of Pakistan?

If Pakistan was not terrorist but merely hostile, and otherwise just another SAARC country, what would BRFers take to be legitimate security concerns of Pakistan?

CRamS · Post by **CRamS** » 14 May 2011 23:48

What are the legitimate security concerns of Bangladesh, Nepal, SL etc? You and I both know that TSP has no legitimate security concerns per se. It has nothing that anybody esle covets. What it wants is parity with India en route to dominance. Thats not a legitimate security concern.

Naidu · Post by **Naidu** » 14 May 2011 23:53

Anujan wrote:More importantly, look at the caps of the abduls

Another tactically brilliant demonstration by the Pakis! Didn't have time for a wardrobe change.

Gagan · Post by **Gagan** » 15 May 2011 00:03

Yes, even Jassu's book had a good amount of ==, it was enough for a few Pakis to start quoting it.

pgbhat · Post by **pgbhat** » 15 May 2011 01:11

Pakistan may cut Nato's Afghan supply line after Osama bin Laden killing

The security of Nato's main supply line into Afghanistan came under threat on Saturday as Pakistani parliamentarians voted to review all aspects of their relationship with the US amid worsening political fallout from the raid that killed Osama bin Laden.

The unanimous motion was passed in the early hours of Saturday morning at the conclusion of an extraordinary 10-hour parliamentary session when the military's top brass offered apologies and admissions of failure, and the country's spy chief offered to resign.

Suspicious of Pakistan's failure to capture bin Laden but recognising the importance of the supply line and pursuing other al-Qaida fugitives, the Obama administration is dispatching Senator John Kerry – the "good cop" of US diplomacy with Pakistan – to Islamabad on Sunday.

"We're not trying to find a way to break the relationship apart, we're trying to find a way to build it," he told reporters in Kabul on Saturday.

Kerry arrives in Pakistan at a time of unprecedented criticism of the powerful military. On Friday night top generals were submitted to harsh questioning from parliamentarians during a marathon session that stretched late into the night.

Although generally apologetic, in some instances the generals struck back at their critics. When an MP from a religious party attacked Pasha, the spy chief told the mullah that was in no position to talk because he had received funds from Libya and Saudi Arabia.

A_Gupta · Post by **A_Gupta** » 15 May 2011 01:17

Gagan wrote:Yes, even Jassu's book had a good amount of ==, it was enough for a few Pakis to start quoting it.

Anatol Lieven spoils an otherwise good book by constantly inserting "(like India)". If you look at all named in the acknowledgements, it becomes clear that to keep his friendships with them, he would almost compulsorily have to do it.

Then there is the "South Asia" trick.

So, e.g., he writes about some measure (local democracy) introduced by Musharraf "...tragic that a reform with some truly positive democratic and modern aspects should have foundered on the traditional hard realities of South Asian society."

It is rather bullshit because, India's Panchayati Raj experiment is on-going, and is slowly but surely introducing a social change - what "traditional hard realities of South Asian society" is it foundering on?

Furthermore, the "local democracy" is ploy by Paki military dictators (Ayub Khan, Musharraf) to reduce the power of parliament. On the other hand, the Panchayati Raj in India was brought about by the Parliament.

Bhima · Post by **Bhima** » 15 May 2011 01:44

A_Gupta wrote:^^^ What is a "valid security concern" of Pakistan?

Google search brought this up: Security Concerns of Pakistan Lt Gen (Retd) Sardar FS Lodi.

In short India is THE one and only security concern of TSP. Either get rid of the concern or get rid of the concerned.

Prem · Post by **Prem** » 15 May 2011 01:49

In case of pakistan
ISI= Indian Superior Intelligence !!
They cant fight it.

Multatuli · Post by **Multatuli** » 15 May 2011 02:00

Fla. imam, 2 sons charged with supporting Taliban

MIAMI – A Miami imam and two of his sons were arrested Saturday on charges they provided some $50,000 to the Pakistani Taliban, designated by the State Department as a terrorist organization, officials said.

Hafiz Muhammed Sher Ali Khan, 76, was arrested after morning services at the Miami Mosque, also known as the Flagler Mosque, where he is an imam. One of his sons, Izhar Khan, 24, an imam at the Jamaat Al-Mu'mineen Mosque in nearby Margate, Fla., was arrested after morning services there. Another son, Irfan Khan, 37, was detained at his hotel room in Los Angeles around the same time. The men are U.S. citizens. Their mosques are not suspected of wrongdoing, officials said.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110514/ap_ ... es_florida

Anujan · Post by **Anujan** » 15 May 2011 02:39

A_Gupta wrote: Anatol Lieven spoils an otherwise good book by constantly inserting "(like India)". If you look at all named in the acknowledgements, it becomes clear that to keep his friendships with them, he would almost compulsorily have to do it.

Lieven is a GHQ boy and an apologist for them

Cosmo_R · Post by **Cosmo_R** » 15 May 2011 04:29

Pakistan After Bin Laden

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/14/opini ... t1.html?hp

Finally, the NYT published my comment on their editorial

"This editorial is the standard bromide that has been dispensed by the NYT Editorial Board for eons. In essence, it says "Pakistan, you can't live with it and you can't leave it." Wow!

Every Pakistani transgression ranging from the ISI's financing of Mohammed Atta to harboring Al-Qaeda has drawn a similar response from US media and officials that goes through the same Elizabeth Kubler Ross cycle: Anger, acceptance and more aid. I think the Pakistanis have this figured out. With the Bin Laden episode, it evokes a Marx Brothers line: “Who you gonna believe me or your own eyes?”

Much is made about Pakistan being vital to our efforts in Afghanistan but if the bad guys are in Pakistan, why are we in Afghanistan? We don't need a supply line to bomb the heck out Pakistan.

What we are really afraid of is Pakistan's nukes being commanded by Jihadist Generals and its Diaspora (the Faisal Shahzads) combusting spontaneously in our cities.

So, take out the nukes now. Why give them money to build more and make it more difficult to take them out later?

The response has to be different this time not just sanctimonious hand-wringing that is guaranteed to get the same results as we’ve gotten.

The way out of Afghanistan is to de-nuke Pakistan now."

NRao · Post by **NRao** » 15 May 2011 04:36

Chicago Trial May Unmask Pakistan's Links to Militants

Saturday, 14 May 2011 18:43
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NY Times

By GINGER THOMPSON and DAVID ROHDE

WASHINGTON - Two years before terrorists struck the Indian port city of Mumbai, a Pakistani-American man named David Coleman Headley began laying the groundwork for the attack, financed, he claims, by $25,000 from an officer in Pakistan's powerful intelligence service.

Mr. Headley told Indian investigators that the officer, known only as Maj. Iqbal, "listened to my entire plan to attack India." Another ISI officer, Mr. Headley said, "assured me of the financial help."

As the United States presses Pakistan for answers about whether the its intelligence service, the Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate, or ISI, played a role in harboring Osama bin Laden, Mr. Headley is set to recount that story in a federal courthouse in Chicago. What he discloses could further deepen suspicions that Pakistani spies are connected to terrorists and potentially worsening relations between Washington and Islamabad.

India, the site of the November 2008 attacks, will be closely monitoring the trial for evidence of the ISI's duplicity. Pakistan will also be listening to - and likely denying - Mr. Headley's every word. So far, Islamabad has dismissed Mr. Headley's accusations against the ISI as little more than a desperate performance by a man hoping to avoid the death penalty.

An American official who spoke on the condition of anonymity said that the United States government's view of Mr. Headley - like so much else surrounding the ISI - was murky. No agreement exists in Washington on whether the ISI guided Mr. Headley and the attacks on Mumbai.

"It's not very clear," the official said. "A lot of this is going to come out of the trial. His claim could just be his claim."

Still, the very fact that the government is presenting him as a prosecution witness suggests that at least some believe he has a truthful story to tell. And the authorities said they expected the government to present supporting e-mails and tapes of telephone conversations to support his story.

Any new public evidence of ISI malfeasance that emerge from the trial will reverberate in Washington too, with the relationship between the United States and Pakistan at its most tenuous state in years.

A growing chorus on Capitol Hill argues that the discovery of Bin Laden's hideout along with the evidence in Mr. Headley's case leave no doubt that the ISI and its Pakistani military overseers have played a cynical double game with the United States. Pakistan has received $20 billion in military and development assistance since 2001, and its military has sheltered Bin Laden, supported Afghan Taliban who kill American troops and guided the militants who attacked Mumbai, they say.

Mr. Headley himself is not on trial. But he will be the main witness against a Chicago businessman named Tahawwur Hussain Rana, who is accused of providing financial and logistical support for the 2008 siege on Mumbai. The attack, a barrage of gunfire and grenades, killed at least 163 people, including six Americans. Mr. Rana's defense is that he agreed to support Mr. Headley's activities in India because he was led to believe he was working for the ISI, and therefore the Pakistani government.

Bruce O. Riedel, a terrorism expert at the Brookings Institution, a former Central Intelligence Agency officer and a critic of the ISI, predicted that the upcoming trial would be "the next nail in the coffin of U.S.-Pakistan relations as the ISI's role in the murder of six Americans is revealed in graphic detail."

With precisely that possibility in mind, the American authorities have kept much of the evidence secret. Citing national security concerns, they have successfully moved to quash the defense lawyers' subpoenas for State Department cables and records held by the F.B.I. that discuss Pakistan's links with militants.

And though the government has charged four other men on charges of aiding and abetting the murder of American citizens, including Major Iqbal, the indictment refers to them either as commanders or associates of the militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba, not as having links to ISI.

In interviews in recent days, American military and intelligence officials who have served in Pakistan argued that the story of the ISI is complex. Some of them portray it as an unwieldy third-world bureaucracy that even Pakistani generals struggle to control. The United States should try to reform the ISI, they argue, not abandon it.

"I think we're at an extremely critical juncture," said James Helmly, a retired general who served as the senior American military representative in Pakistan from 2006-08. "We need to mature the relationship."

Arguably the most feared institution in Pakistan, the ISI has a mythic reputation among Pakistanis as a shadow government with a hand in virtually every major development in the country. Human rights and democracy activists say the agency is out of control and accuse it of carrying out hundreds of disappearances, systematically rigging elections and harassing civilians who support peace with India.

They say the American raid that killed Bin Laden has created a rare moment where the ISI's judgment and effectiveness is being challenged. Whether the ISI unsuccessfully sheltered Bin Laden or was simply unaware of his presence, the agency must be revamped, they say.

In a series of unprecedented developments in a country long-dominated by its powerful military, the ISI chief twice offered to resign last week. News commentators are assailing the agency and political parties are demanding the ISI be reined in.

"It depends on the caliber and the grit of the political leadership," Rasul Baksh Rais, a leading Pakistani political scientist, said in an interview. "How they can use this opportunity to restructure the civilian-military relationship and bring the military under civilian control."

American and Pakistani officials said the ISI was still dominated by military officers wedded to an outdated, paranoid and dangerous mindset the C.I.A. helped create during the 1980s anti-Soviet jihad in Afghanistan. More ultranationalists than jihadists, they view themselves as Pakistan's true guardians. They see the United States as a feckless, immoral power in deep decline, India as Pakistan's core threat and militants as proxies they can control.

A former American intelligence official said the C.I.A. funneled vast amounts of covert aid to more cooperative sections of the ISI in an effort to strengthen them. Former American officials said they did the same with the Pakistani Army. But progress has been slow.

Critics of the ISI say it will never be reformed or weakened by Pakistan's weak civilian leadership. They call proponents of continuing to send American aid to the ISI naive "apologists" for an agency that has repeatedly double-crossed the United States.

The man who is suddenly an important figure in the relationship between Pakistan and the United States, Mr. Headley, may not be the most reliable witness, despite some evidence that he has worked closely with intelligence and drug agencies here and abroad. His adult life is a blur of deceit, involving multiple marriages, illegal business deals and numerous turns in and out of jail.

He is the son of a Pakistani diplomat and Philadelphia socialite who graduated from a Pakistani military academy and then moved to Philadelphia, where he ran his mother's bar into the ground, partly by squandering its money on alcohol and drugs.

Mr. Headley quickly went from abusing drugs to trafficking them, according to court records. And then, in order to avoid long prison sentences, he became a valuable informant to the Drug Enforcement Administration, which began sending him to work in Pakistan.

In February 2002, while still under contract with the D.E.A., Mr. Headley began training with Lashkar-e-Taiba, which aims to wrest control of disputed Indian-controlled territory in Kashmir. Born Daood Gilani, he told investigators he changed his name and used his dual nationality to move easily across borders on behalf of the group.

Then in 2006, Mr. Headley told investigators, he met Major Iqbal. Mr. Headley described the officer as "fat, with a moustache, big head, thick hair, deep voice."

He said Major Iqbal introduced him to a senior ISI officer who offered to provide financial support for Mr. Headley's Lashkar activities in India if Mr. Headley agreed to share any intelligence he gathered in India with the ISI.

Mr. Rana's defense succeeds or fails on his lawyer's ability to discredit Mr. Headley. They are expected to attempt to show that Mr. Headley has a long history of deceiving American law enforcement authorities. For example, they are expected to produce an informant agreement, which would provide the most conclusive evidence yet that Mr. Headley was under contract with the D.E.A. when he began training with terrorists.

NRao · Post by **NRao** » 15 May 2011 04:40

pgbhat wrote:Pakistan may cut Nato's Afghan supply line after Osama bin Laden killing

Nice.

Time to cut that land of the pure.

Baluchistan Zindabad.

Keep China out of the region too.

pgbhat · Post by **pgbhat** » 15 May 2011 04:42

^not so fast .... jaan kairy is in town.

NRao · Post by **NRao** » 15 May 2011 04:47

I hate shelving great ideas.

(Kairy = raw mango)

Gagan · Post by **Gagan** » 15 May 2011 05:19

Guys,
Even more than Balochistan, Pashtunistan has greater chances of becoming reality.
The afghans don't like the Durand line, the Pashtoons don't like it, the Talibs don't like it.

KP is more or less a no go area for the Pak Fauj, they have to fight for every inch of the space against the various tribes there. The Pakistanis resort to mass murders, indiscriminate shelling, aerial bombardment of villages to keep the tribes in check.

Hatred for the Punjabis is very high indeed, which is why groups target elements of the State.

What we are witnessing is in fact the beginning of a freedom struggle in Khyber Pakhtoonkhwa.

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 15 May 2011 05:20

CosmoR. Good comments. CUB also says its the Pak nukes that enable their terrorism under the umbrella.

Wrt to India they threaten to use nukes.

Wrt to US the threaten to give them to the jihadis.

Seeing the non response when facing US power, India draw the lesson that they need more nukes rather than minimum . I would say its important to have more weapons(low yield and low range) to assure them of certain destruction and still maintain credible minimum deterrent wrt to the normal nuke powers.

shiv · Post by **shiv** » 15 May 2011 05:59

A_Gupta wrote:From Anatol Lieven's book - some piskology

The decision to go to the police/courts involves a risk of blemishing the izzat. You often hear 'if you are a man, brave and strong, come forward and fight directly. Why do you go to uncle police', and that the real badla [revenge] could only be inflicted directly or by close relatives and not by the police or courts. But, on the other hand, if going to the police is only for the purpose of harassing the opponent and impoverishing him, it could become a source of adding to one's izzat, especially by winning a court case against one's rival. This competition of winning the cases in the courts between rivals leads to .... 'addiction to litigation'.

"During a visit to Sindh in 1990, a member of a great local landowning and political family in Shikarpur told me:
If neighbouring landowners see that you are weakening, there are always a lot of people to take your place, and they will hit your interests in various ways, like bringing lawsuits to seize your land or your water. If you can't protect yourself, your followers and tenants will ask how you can protect them. A semblance of strength must be maintained, or you're finished. The trick is to show your armed strength without getting involved in endless blood-feuds.... Such rivalries between families and clans are also conducted in the law courts, but the ultimate decision always lies with physical force....

Very revealing. Thanks for posting. In fact it throws more light on Paki society because it deals with enmity.

The above characteristics are the hallmarks of a society in a weak state. In a powerful state the king/federal government takes over the duty of settling disputes to bring uniform, non subjective laws helping to unite society Pakistan is not there yet. It remains a collection of tribes.

Incidentally I had used the following paper for reference in my e book. This paper speaks of Paki family piskology for friendship and (cousin) Marriage unlike the enmity part that you have quoted from Lieven.

http://reference.allrefer.com/country-g ... tan45.html

NRao · Post by **NRao** » 15 May 2011 06:35

Even more than Balochistan, Pashtunistan has greater chances of becoming reality.

I think you have a valid point. However, it does not solve the problem/s of access to A'stan.

There is also this little thing called critical mass for Balochistan to happen. The idea seems to be simmering for eons without boiling over. The two little ideas of access to A'stan and Balouchistan to happen, together, just may make the milk boil over.

Paul · Post by **Paul** » 15 May 2011 07:43

Anujan wrote:"Spontaneous" Protests fully supporting the ISI (using very TFTA looking sign boards)

and the crewcuts....

ranjbe · Post by **ranjbe** » 15 May 2011 08:04

Not only did the US helicopter have super-duper stealth features, but they refuelled in at a Pak base

So says Pak Air Force supremo Suleman.

The report states that the latest in stealth technology was used by the choppers employed in the raid. Helicopters equipped with such technology are undetectable by any radar in the world. The most modern radar system in Russian technology, which is the IR13, is also powerless to detect stealth equipment helicopters, it has been revealed. No country in the world, including Pakistan, possesses or has as yet discovered a method of beating this technology by radar.

....

As the engines of these helicopters were intended to remain running even while the Navy Seals carried out their operation in Abbottabad, it was necessary for them to have refuelled at least once, other than the fact that stealth technology helicopters are not capable of flying long distances without refuelling. Although able to refuel mid-flight, the helicopters carrying Seal Team 6 were most probably refuelled after having landed on Pakistani soil, due to the difficulty of refuelling in the air in the mountainous territory they chose to travel through.

Kya kare bichare Pakistani

http://nation.com.pk/pakistan-news-news ... n-Pakistan

Anujan · Post by **Anujan** » 15 May 2011 08:55

^^^
The H&D hit is so high that the Pakis are

till today. I think it is part of deliberate american strategy to take Paki H&D and rub it to the ground. They are laying plans to weaken the army.

uddu · Post by **uddu** » 15 May 2011 09:06

The best example of Pakis and their lying skills.

arun · Post by **arun** » 15 May 2011 09:29

shravan wrote:blast in a bus in Pakistan city of Gujrat, Punjab province, 10 killed

An URL to go with that demonstartion of the IEDology of Pakistan and possibly an IED Mubarak variant of the same at Kharian in Punjab Province:

7 killed as blast hits bus in Pakistan

jrjrao · Post by **jrjrao** » 15 May 2011 09:34

In the Toronto Globe and Mail of Saturday, this report by Graeme Smith is a compelling read. I am saving it to hard disk:

REPUBLIC OF FABLES---
Pakistan's reaction to Osama's killing shows it's a country of contradictions

The young army captain standing in front of Osama bin Laden's house seemed genuinely perplexed by all the fuss... he could not understand how the bucolic landscape might have hidden the world's most wanted terrorist, only a short walk from the revered Pakistan Military Academy. It was impossible for him to believe that security officials had overlooked the high-security fortress in such a sensitive location.

Nor did the captain consider for a moment that somebody in his own ranks might have hidden Mr. bin Laden...This puzzle seemed to cause him physical pain. He squinted as if the sunlight hurt his eyes, before offering the only solution that gave him relief.

“This whole thing was a drama,” he said, with intense conviction, as soldiers around him nodded with approval. “This is the only thing I feel certain about: Nothing happened here except a big show.”

This is the salve that now comforts millions of Pakistanis at a time of fundamental crisis. They choose the magical world of conspiracy.

It's a remedy for what psychologists would call cognitive dissonance, the discomfort of holding two conflicting views at the same time. Pakistan fights terrorism; Pakistan helps terrorists.

You don't have to worry about such contradictions if you indulge in fantasy.

Osama bin Laden died of natural causes years ago, in Afghanistan. He died in Yemen. He died with his hands and feet bound by plastic straps, carried into the house on a helicopter and executed there in an American operation to embarrass Pakistan. His own bodyguard shot him in the heart, but he survived with supernatural strength, until he requested that his loyal follower shoot him in the head.

These are not whispers in Pakistan; they are full-throated howls. They thunder down from the loudspeakers of mosques, they appear on the front pages of the biggest newspapers, they fill the screaming debates on prime-time television.

Such ideas frequently come from quasi-official sources: security officials, retired generals or other mouthpieces of the Pakistani establishment. Senators questioned the reality of Mr. bin Laden's death during a debate in the upper house of Parliament this week.

Perhaps the only conspiracy theory that never gets attention among Pakistanis is the possibility that their leaders are sowing confusion on purpose, pulling the woolly strands of doubt over their eyes.

The profusion of theories about the Abbottabad operation has shifted debate away from the initial shock of discovering Osama bin Laden next door to a military camp. Media and politicians fixate instead on narrow technical issues – “How did U.S. helicopters evade our radar?” – or pontificate on a warped strain of geopolitical questions. They debate whether American masterminds selected this moment to unthaw the terrorist leader so they could choreograph an exit for U.S. troops in Afghanistan, or secure a win for President Barack Obama in the next election.

That diffusion of public curiosity, the dispersal of questions down a thousand blind alleys, makes it less likely that any official inquiry will have damning consequences for Pakistani authorities.

If investigations into Mr. bin Laden's death get sidetracked by the astonishing breadth of Pakistani suspicions, it would fit a historical pattern.

Even the birth of Pakistan remains a subject of active conspiracy talk: To this day, local newspapers continue to report new revelations about the behind-the-scenes politicking of the commissions that partitioned India in 1947. Many people in Pakistan feel that their country was shortchanged in those backroom talks. The legacy of partition has been three wars, a nuclear standoff and a lingering nervousness about Indian aggression that continues to dominate all conversations about national security in Islamabad.

At some point in the following half-century, Pakistani skepticism about world affairs turned into corrosive cynicism. Now, all major events get filtered through the lens of double games and triple bluffs; taking developments at face value is widely seen as unfashionably naive.

Movie shops prominently display pirated copies of crude 9/11 conspiracy films, and many people here prefer to believe that the attacks on the Twin Towers were a scheme hatched by Zionists, or the CIA, to give America a pretext for war in their region. Such conclusions fit comfortably into Pakistan's idea of itself as a nation under siege.

The conspiracy reflex kicked in hours after Osama bin Laden's death. A security official visited The Globe and Mail's hotel room in Quetta, Pakistan, and apologetically explained that the streets had become too dangerous for foreign journalists because of protests against the U.S. raid.

Some locals apparently believed the reports of Mr. bin Laden's death, the official said, rolling his eyes with the genteel condescension that Pakistani authorities often reserve for the uneducated masses. “We will never really know what happened,” he said, sipping green tea.

A few commentators in the English-speaking press appeared so familiar with this routine that they poked fun at the ritual.

“Tell me lies. Sweet little lies,” Sana Bucha, an anchor for GEO News, wrote in an opinion column. “I want to be lied to. Again. Because the lies only infuriated me. This ‘truth' – half-baked or completely raw – is scary.”

As Ms. Bucha foreshadowed, the local media soon filled with a kaleidoscope of rumour. Gen. Mirza Aslam Beg, former chief of Pakistan's military, was quoted on the front pages of Urdu-language newspapers speculating that Mr. bin Laden died a decade ago, of natural causes, and the Americans had instead killed someone who resembled him.

The Daily Nawa-i-Waqt, a venerable and popular Urdu newspaper, devoted a colourful “special edition” to debunking the death. Its reporters examined the gas bills for the raided compound in Abbottabad and concluded that consumption levels were too low for the wealthy bin Laden family. The paper claimed that the body recovered from the house was too short – only 5-foot-6, they wrote – to qualify as his corpse. One article even speculated that the verdant fields around Abbottabad gave off too much pollen, making the place uninhabitable for an elderly man in frail health.

“It was an invented story,” the newspaper concluded. “There is a fear that this whole drama was staged to target Pakistan's nuclear assets.”

Perhaps the most prominent skeptic was retired Lt.-Gen. Hamid Gul, former chief of Pakistani intelligence.

link

sum · Post by **sum** » 15 May 2011 09:39

pgbhat wrote:....ISI media wing onlee....wearing goggles and all.

Are these the rogue elements which Pasha, Kayani and every 2nd Paki and his unclle are talking about?

Or are these the retired ex-ISI types who turn up in most terrorist plots? or non-state actors... too many questions onlee.

sum · Post by **sum** » 15 May 2011 09:43

Entire TSP military top brass having a day out in Parliament ( no pop-corn seen in their hands). Kayani always shows up as a slouching guy . Seems to indicate lots of lack of self-confidence?

shiv · Post by **shiv** » 15 May 2011 09:56

sum wrote:( no pop-corn seen in their hands).

Pop-corn in their hands?

use Switch the "c" with "p" , and "p" with "c" and you will see what Jihadi Jernail Kiyani and his army hold in their hands.

Rajdeep · Post by **Rajdeep** » 15 May 2011 09:57

jrjrao wrote: His own bodyguard shot him in the heart, but he survived with supernatural strength (So this is the Jinn Technology that pakis possess ), until he requested that his loyal follower shoot him in the head.]

@ Shiv , Maybe someone got hold of OBL's stash of pr0n.

Rajdeep · Post by **Rajdeep** » 15 May 2011 10:02

Richard Clarke on Real Time with Bill Maher and the subject of Pakis comes up.

Airavat · Post by **Airavat** » 15 May 2011 10:07

Intelligence sources told Express 24/7 that an American citizen, Mathew Greg Bennett was involved in suspicious activities near the Kala Chitta mountain range. He was followed and arrested by intelligence officials from Rawalpindi.

The American suspect has been shifted to undisclosed location for further interrogation. The news comes after another American citizen, Aaron Mark DeHaven was barred from leaving the country.