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

[hnair]

They were not F-18s, they were the syooper dyooper F22s which were downed by RPG wielding Taliban hanging on to the wings of JF-17 Bandars

eyewitnesses heard other say that they used scotch brite and welding torches. Scotch brite to take out the non-stick anti-radar coatings and welding torches to take out the joints.... very thorough

[NRao]

The Double Game :: The unintended consequences of American funding in Pakistan

It’s the end of the Second World War, and the United States is deciding what to do about two immense, poor, densely populated countries in Asia. America chooses one of the countries, becoming its benefactor. Over the decades, it pours billions of dollars into that country’s economy, training and equipping its military and its intelligence services. The stated goal is to create a reliable ally with strong institutions and a modern, vigorous democracy. The other country, meanwhile, is spurned because it forges alliances with America’s enemies.

The country not chosen was India, which “tilted” toward the Soviet Union during the Cold War.

[shiv]

something is serious guys....My pakistani colleagues chattering in my office just that 2 of uncle's F-18s have been downed over pakistan.Any news regarding this? coz i cant find anything over internet.

It was an F-22. Not an F/A-18

Here is the mijjile camera video
http://www.facebook.com/home.php#!/vide ... 8048443496

[Sadler]

something is serious guys....My pakistani colleagues chattering in my office just that 2 of uncle's F-18s have been downed over pakistan.Any news regarding this? coz i cant find anything over internet.

Because it never happened. See, your first mistake was listening to porkis chatter.

If a couple of hornets had indeed gone down, the porkis would have indeed been bombed back to the Stone Age. Not that they are too far from it today.

[ranjbe]

From the latest Economist:

The insanity clause
You don’t have to be crazy to run counter-terrorism in Pakistan; but it helps to appear so

and

UNDER your own nose is often the last place you look for something you have mislaid. But in this case the missing object was the target of perhaps the most expensive manhunt in history. It seems inconceivable that parts of the Pakistani establishment were unaware that Osama bin Laden was living in their midst. You might think it also seems unbelievable that Pakistan could be so breathtakingly duplicitous and take such a risk of antagonising America, its most important ally. In fact, you would be wrong: high-risk duplicity has long been the hallmark of Pakistani foreign policy.

You never know when the world’s most-wanted man might come in handy. Some members of the Inter-Services Intelligence or ISI, Pakistan’s spy agency, probably thought it a good idea to hang on to Mr bin Laden. The reasons lie in Pakistan’s tortured relations with America, with Islamist extremism and with India.....

If it were located anywhere else, Pakistan—which also has the world’s worst record on nuclear proliferation—might be treated as a rogue state. But it is too important. The fear of its lurching into fundamentalist hands is in turn part of what restrains America and India. That would be a catastrophe for the war in Afghanistan, for India’s hopes of a prosperous future in a calmer region and, most of all, for the vast majority of Pakistanis, who show little sign of hankering for harsh clerical rule.

http://www.economist.com/node/18651382

[shiv]

something is serious guys....My pakistani colleagues chattering in my office just that 2 of uncle's F-18s have been downed over pakistan.Any news regarding this? coz i cant find anything over internet.

Because it never happened. See, your first mistake was listening to porkis chatter.

If a couple of hornets had indeed gone down, the porkis would have indeed been bombed back to the Stone Age. Not that they are too far from it today.

No No Sadlerji, I am half Pakistani and my uncle's concubine's brother is a PAF pilot. He has sent me the video above - which the Americans are hiding because of shame.

[anupmisra]

something is serious guys....My pakistani colleagues chattering in my office just that 2 of uncle's F-18s have been downed over pakistan.Any news regarding this? coz i cant find anything over internet.

Ajit_tr: weren't you also on the paki deaf and dumb show castigating Indian news sources? Your name (or nom de guerre) sounds very familiar.

[Brad Goodman]

An American, on another forum, described talking to Pak like this-

'talking to their "leaders" is like having a meeting to discuss a high school's budget by talking to the class president.'

Which IMO is a perfect analogy.

OT here but could not resist myself from posting

Pakistan army like Anna Kournikova oph tennis. Hasnt won a thing, but gives everyone a Hard-on

"9/11 also happened due to intelligence failure" Rehman Malik 400% agree. I soch Rehman Malik also happened due to intelligence failure

references halaled at request

[anupmisra]

Pakistani-born man suspected of link with anthrax attacks
Jo LaWhore mein G***U, woh New York mein Maha G***U.

A leaked US document suggests that the owner of several drugstores in New York City could be an Al Qaeda agent with knowledge of anthrax, `Mother Jones` a prominent online blog reported on Monday.

According to `Mother Jones` blog, a 2008 US document says the name of the Pakistani-born entrepreneur was cited in a paper discovered at a Qaeda location in his home nation , seemingly connected to an allusion to a vaccine for anthrax, which is considered a potential bioterror agent.

The suspect held at Guantanamo Bay said that the pharmacy owner was a long-time acquaintance and an operative for a Taliban-backing organisation active in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

[anupmisra]

Only in pureland. Punjab flood report put under wraps.

The report of the judicial inquiry into last year`s devastating floods, titled “A Rude Awakening”, has been concealed by the Punjab government reportedly to keep its “unfavourable contents” away from the public eye.

The judge unsealed the report and handed it over to the home secretary in the presence of journalists, but the latter took it with him. Since then, the report has been under wraps.

it might contain something which is preventing the Punjab government from making it public

That India was not responsible for the pakjabi floods?

[Theo_Fidel]

From the New Yorker article...
The twisted logic behind this American belief always staggers me. TSP is a cheat, a liar and homicidal, therefore we need to put pressure on India so it coughs up Kashmir and TSP becomes a friend. Tells us what kind of ally this Amrika is. Their financial fertilization of TSP is a weapon against India. Verily a Trojan gift state.

India would no doubt welcome a reduction in military aid to Pakistan, and the U.S. could use this as leverage to pressure India to allow the Kashmiris to vote on their future, which would very likely be a vote for independence. These two actions might do far more to enhance Pakistan’s stability, and to insure its friendship, than the billions of dollars that America now pays like a ransom.

[GuruPrabhu]

soosai IED mubarak.

[arun]

Thomas Friedman in an Op-Ed in the New York Times on the malign role played by the Islamic Republic of Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. An excerpt dealing with the Islamic Republic of Pakistan’s role:

Op-Ed Columnist

Bad Bargains

By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
Published: May 10, 2011

So Osama bin Laden was living in a specially built villa in Pakistan. I wonder where he got the money to buy it? Cashed in his Saudi 401(k)? A Pakistani subprime mortgage, perhaps? No. I suspect we will find that it all came from the same place most of Al Qaeda’s funds come from: some combination of private Saudi donations spent under the watchful eye of the Pakistani Army. ……………………..

Ditto Pakistan. The Pakistani ruling bargain is set by the Pakistani Army and says: “We let you civilians pretend to rule, but we will actually call all the key shots, we will consume nearly 25 percent of the state budget and we will justify all of this as necessary for Pakistan to confront its real security challenge: India and its occupation of Kashmir. Looking for Bin Laden became a side-business for Pakistan’s military to generate U.S. aid.

As the Al Qaeda expert Lawrence Wright observed in The New Yorker this week: Pakistan’s Army and intelligence service “were in the looking-for-Bin-Laden business, and if they found him they’d be out of business.” Since 9/11, Wright added, “the U.S. had given $11 billion to Pakistan, the bulk of it in military aid, much of which was misappropriated to buy weapons to defend against India.”
(President Hamid Karzai in Afghanistan plays the same game. He’s in the looking-for-stability-in-Afghanistan-business. And as long as we keep paying him, he’ll keep looking.)

What both countries need is shock therapy. For Pakistan, that would mean America converting the lion’s share of its military aid to K-12 education programs, while also reducing the U.S. footprint in Afghanistan. Together, the message would be that we’re ready to help Pakistan fight its real enemies and ours — ignorance, illiteracy, corrupt elites and religious obscurantism — but we have no interest in being dupes for the nonsense that Pakistan is threatened by India and therefore needs “strategic depth” in Afghanistan and allies among the Taliban. …………………………

NYT

[Prasad]

GP,
please to edit your post too

[A_Gupta]

Started on Anatol Lieven's book. My notes are here:
http://observingliberalpakistan.blogspo ... istan.html

Lieven sets great store by Pakistan's kinship networks. He tells us that whether run by civilians or by the military, the state is weak, and society is strong. The military, he postulates, derives its strength from being like an extended clan. He attributes the Pakistan's 2002 Gini Index of 30.6 (a relatively low value signifying greater income equality) to the obligations placed on the elite by kinship. (He doesn't tell us that the Gini Index was 41 in 1997-98, which strains his hypothesis.)

Lieven says that "this is a cultural system so strong that it can persuade a father to kill a much-loved daughter, not for having an affair or becoming pregnant, but for marrying outside her kinship group without permission". He also attributes to it the widespread practice of first cousin marriage, quoting a statistic that even among Pakistanis in Oxford, England, 59% of marriages are with first cousins; cousin marriage being one of the most important expressions of honoring obligations to one's kin.

(Lieven attributes the same kinship system to India; but he fails to note that among most Hindus, first cousin marriage is not allowed.)

The upshot is that Pakistan is very conservative - stuck in the mud - and unlikely to have a revolution of any kind, Islamic or other. This preoccupation with a violent revolt that overthows the Pakistani state and replaces with an Islamic fundamentalist order is, in my opinion, misplaced. Lieven, like most Occidentals, thinks of the Pakistani Army as modernist. From the Indian point of view, however, the Pakistani Army is fundamentalist to the core, with a modernist veneer necessarily in place in order to keep Western aid flowing in. Pakistan's nukes are already in the hands of Islamists. As Retd US Col. P.W. Lang writes

Pakistan's military keeps it's existing and future nuclear capability out of the larger world game. As has been discussed at SST many times, Pakistan either has or will soon have the real world CAPABILITY of ranging Israel's target set. They have around 100 fully engineered and manufactired deliverable nuclear weapons. They have aircraft and missiles (Shahiin 2 improved) that would do the job. The missile launchers are fully mobile. The US has zero control over this nuclear strike force. Logically, the willingness of the Pakistan military to keep this "piece" off the chess board is a major boon to the US. We do not want to see that willingness change to something else.

This Pakistani stance is not because the army is not Islamist; it is because it pays, and pays well.

Regarding Pakistan as a failed state, Lieven notes the first obituary was written in 1983, by Tariq Ali, Can Pakistan Survive? The Death of a State. He says that Naxalites in India control a larger fraction of the territory than the Taliban ever did in Pakistan. He notes that Afghanistan, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Burma have had long insurgencies that have proportionally lasted longer, covered more territory and caused more casualties than the Taliban in Pakistan. Therefore "when compared to Canada or France, Pakistan inevitably fails. When compared to India, Bangladesh, Afghanistan, Nepal and Sri Lanka, things ...do not look so terrible." If Pakistan was a state in India, it would rank somewhere in the middle in development, or "if India was only the 'cow-belt' of Hindi-speaking north India, it probably wouldn't be a democracy or a growing economic power either, but some form of impoverished Hindu-nationalist dictatorship, riven by local conflicts."

Lieven's analysis is deceptive, but I think demolishing it is not worth the time (exercise left to my few readers?). Oh, and he translates "Bhai-sahib" (as one might use to address a bus conductor) as "Brother-Lord". ("Brother-sir" would be better, no?)

I haven't finished the first chapter yet, so maybe more later.

[Manny]

From the New Yorker article...
The twisted logic behind this American belief always staggers me. TSP is a cheat, a liar and homicidal, therefore we need to put pressure on India so it coughs up Kashmir and TSP becomes a friend. Tells us what kind of ally this Amrika is. Their financial fertilization of TSP is a weapon against India. Verily a Trojan gift state.

India would no doubt welcome a reduction in military aid to Pakistan, and the U.S. could use this as leverage to pressure India to allow the Kashmiris to vote on their future, which would very likely be a vote for independence. These two actions might do far more to enhance Pakistan’s stability, and to insure its friendship, than the billions of dollars that America now pays like a ransom.

This is what I posted on Huffington Post referring that article

“This article basically says..

1) We the US chose Pakistan over India to be our friends.
2) We paid them Billions of $$$ and Military equipment and made it into a military state to be against India.
3) We looked the other way when they built up their n00ks so they can threaten India.
4) We continue to do that ...even Today Sen Kerry apologized on behalf of ISI

So... India should help us by giving up one of their state!

Pfffffffff­ffffffffff­ffffffffff­ffffffffff­ffffffffff­ffffffft! F_U Mo Fkers!”


Americans and Indians culturall­y are friends. Our values are the same., That matters and that is what is important. India should not become an US ally like Pakistan or other small third world countries next to the 800 lb gorilla.

-----------------------------------------------------------------

The response I got was

"Peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations...­entangling alliances with none"
— Thomas Jefferson

Keep nations separate, build up your militaries­, be suspicious of one another at all times. Good plan.

[Kamboja]

Yo Paklurks -- I bring good tidings! Thanks to your ceaseless efforts over the past decades, the world is finally realizing that the TFTA mards of Pakiland are indeed very different from the shivering dhoti-clad SDREs of kufr India.

Witness the following Economist 'chatter' graphic indicating how topics are linked. See how mighty and pious Pakiland is rightly being grouped with their ummah brethren (and ancestors) the Afghans, Turks, Arabs, Libyans, Al Qaeda, Taliban, Nigerians, [maulanedit: too SDRE] and other Muslims! Meanwhile SDRE India is relegated to being associated with the likes of China, Japan, Germany, the EU, and other assorted kaffirs. Truly a great day for the distinct Paki identity so assiduously cultivated over the years.



Give yourselves a big hand Pakis, for the whole world now recognizes what you have been screaming about the past six decades -- Pakis are definitely, definitely not Indians.

(Apologies to the adminullahs if this belongs in the BENIS thread!)

[SSridhar]

ajit_tr, Pakistanis are well known for rumour-mongering and spreading wild conspiracy theories. Why should such things be brought to a serious thread like this and that too after you found not an iota of information regarding that piece of information ? Did you yourself believe that ? Do not derail this thread. Take it as a warning.

[shiv]

From the New Yorker article...

India would no doubt welcome a reduction in military aid to Pakistan, and the U.S. could use this as leverage to pressure India to allow the Kashmiris to vote on their future, which would very likely be a vote for independence. These two actions might do far more to enhance Pakistan’s stability, and to insure its friendship, than the billions of dollars that America now pays like a ransom.

I don't believe it!!

This American thinks just like a Paki. I mean the logic - clearly the Lahori logic variety is as follows:

1. I support a man who rapes your wife repeatedly
2. You want me to stop supporting him
3. I say "It's a deal. You give your house to the rapist. I stop supporting him"


Christine Fair is right. Americans and Pakis are similar. Thick as thieves.

[Anujan]

Only in pureland. Punjab flood report put under wraps.

That India was not responsible for the pakjabi floods?

Nope. The canal breaches were made to save the lands of the Jernails and feudals and ended up drowning the homes of mango abduls.

[krithivas]

There is one more Snake-oil Salesman in town (John Bolton) peddling Cashmere solution will solve Pakistan problem:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142 ... lenews_wsj

For outsiders, Kashmir is the third rail of diplomatic relations with India, which has insisted since Britain partitioned the subcontinent in 1947 that Kashmir was Indian. India contends that the 1972 Simla Agreement codifies its position and that the dispute can only be resolved bilaterally by India and Pakistan.

Pakistan, the weaker power, would prefer outside involvement, ideally to organize the referendum promised at partition to determine the status of largely Muslim Kashmir. But India will never allow that referendum.

Thus, over the decades, many proposals for resolving Kashmir have died, and new ideas are greeted derisively. Meanwhile, elements of Pakistan's government, namely the intelligence services, have harbored terrorist groups like Lashkar-e Taiba in order to threaten India.

[SSridhar]

From the 26/11 thread:

Pakistan's ISI fights lawsuit linking it to Mumbai attacks --
US lawyers seek dismissal of allegations against embattled intelligence agency

U.S. lawyers for the ISI are now moving to quash the lawsuit, arguing that if the case proceeds, it “will fuel violence and extremism” that will threaten the Pakistani government and pour “gasoline on the fire” of relations between Pakistan and India.

I interpret this as a direct warning of more terror on India if uncomfortable truths tumble out. Indians know what ISI has been doing and nothing may be surprising. It will only confirm what we already know. OTOH, the effects of 'cognitive dissonance' within Pakistan could lead to the rage boys frothing at the mouth corners and calling for jihad against the Hanud. That is what the Pakistani lawyers are saying. The are implicitly justifying such a violent reaction and are also olding the Americans accountable for such an eventuality.

[g.sarkar]

Gautham, any number of khoon maaf when the dictators are to the advantage of the US.

Sridharji,
We have to understand that US' interest and India's interest are not the same at all. The billions that the US is spending in defence and in intelligence gathering is entirely to their benefit. The US understands we will never be UQ to their lead. At best at times we may play a France to their interest and at worst a Russia. In this game India is still a by stander. We will not get any help from them, unless we castrate ourselves and become a neutered poodle and even then they may not trust us. The supreme confidence the US displays in doing KLPD to the scotch drinking Puke Generals shows that they know they have Puke tattas in their sarota. They can cut at their pleasure. But we still have cause to rejoice in the current state of affairs. Every Pakistani Jehadi killed by Unkel, is one less for Indian forces to face in future. Each blow from the US fragments the Puke society and in future may help to create a pro India Baluchistan and Sindh. To get more we have to play a more active role in doing danda in the field. But our leaders are taking a different route. The route of gaining economic strength and then military strength. And even though there is less izzat in this method, we have to persevere. The real game is with the lizard. And each day we are getting stronger economically.
Just my 2 paisa.
Gautam

[shiv]

Started on Anatol Lieven's book. My notes are here:
http://observingliberalpakistan.blogspo ... istan.html

Lieven sets great store by Pakistan's kinship networks. He tells us that whether run by civilians or by the military, the state is weak, and society is strong. The military, he postulates, derives its strength from being like an extended clan.

<snip>

Lieven says that "this is a cultural system so strong that it can persuade a father to kill a much-loved daughter, not for having an affair or becoming pregnant, but for marrying outside her kinship group without permission". He also attributes to it the widespread practice of first cousin marriage, quoting a statistic that even among Pakistanis in Oxford, England, 59% of marriages are with first cousins; cousin marriage being one of the most important expressions of honoring obligations to one's kin.

I think a comment by ramana in the Osama thread gels in with Lieven's observations

I have been thinking about Nightwatch comment about the US raid exposing the strategic weakness of TSP being exposed to India.

One weakness in note is TSP buckles down when confronted with firm resolve backed by excess force. This has happened many times since 9/11 with Mushy gushing excuses. And now Kiyani without speeches.

In a kinship based society every action is a transaction which you weigh to see if it benefits your extended family or not. If the Pakistani army is kinship based - you are risking your own kin by exposing them to war and death.

Even honor killing is a cowardly and half hearted method of saving your own ass by taking out the weakest from your own side.

Very interesting to me the way the two observations gel together.

[Altair]

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2011 ... act_wright
India would no doubt welcome a reduction in military aid to Pakistan, and the U.S. could use this as leverage to pressure India to allow the Kashmiris to vote on their future, which would very likely be a vote for independence. These two actions might do far more to enhance Pakistan’s stability, and to insure its friendship, than the billions of dollars that America now pays like a ransom.

This thing happens when someone has a complete disconnect with reality. I have also observed that their belief in this perfidious logic cements after their discussions and pep talk with Indian journos and left leaning liberal articles published in India, namely The Hindu and TOI.
It has both advantages and disadvantages. It negates their knowledge into actual Indian mindset.So their game designs will all be flawed making us completely unpredictable. Its an advantage if their interests are in contrast with ours.
We have witnessed disadvantages as above in the new yorker article.It happens when we try to be friends.Very funny.

[ramana]

Emma Duncan in her book "Breaking the Curfew" *mentions the first cousin marriages of the Pukies. One of he interlocutors says they marry their father's brother's daughter just like the Egyptians. Its some idiot idea of bloodlines etc. Maybe some one more knowledgeable can comment

Rare book written in early 90s. Analyses TSP vertically and horizontally. Its an anathema to TSPians.

[abhishek_sharma]

How to deal with Pakistan: Drones, India, Russia, and more

Here's what a nuanced Pakistan policy looks like

[jrjrao]

Recall that Sec. Clinton was scheduled to visit Isloo this month to head a big delegation to further the "strategic" dialog with Terroristan. But now this:

Earth-e-shaster Oovacha:

Hillary Clinton cancels Pakistan’s visit
http://pakobserver.net/detailnews.asp?id=91504

[shiv]

Emma Duncan in her book "Breaking the Curfew" *mentions the first cousin marriages of the Pukies. One of he interlocutors says they marry their father's brother's daughter just like the Egyptians. Its some idiot idea of bloodlines etc. Maybe some one more knowledgeable can comment

Rare book written in early 90s. Analyses TSP vertically and horizontally. Its an anathema to TSPians.

Ramana - it is an economic advantage in a patriarchal patrilineal society.

For example I have a sister and she has a son. Whoever my sister's son marries will come into my father's clan (as part of teh patriarchal system)

But I have a daughter. No matter whom she marries, she will go out of my father's clan and take dowry with her unless the marriage rules can be tweaked for advantage. So I get my daughter to marry my sisters son. That way my dowry remains in the family and any wealth that is inherited by my sister's son does not get diluted by going into another family.

[shiv]

Richard Dawkins made a very interesting observation in his book "The Selfish gene". He said - no matter what happens - you can be 100% sure that your daughter's child is carrying your genes. But short of genetic testing (by which time it is too late) you can never be 100% certain that your daughter-in-law's child (and hence your son's child) has any of your genes. She could have cuckolded your son.

In a male dominated patriarchal society that puts the burden of keeping family wealth (aka "honor" on the woman in many ways. Your daughter must not breed outside the clan. Your daughter in law can breed outside the clan if need be (no one must find out though ) - as long as she produces a son who will keep your wealth in the family.

[Johann]

Its not just patriarchy

It is the *particular* nature of inheritance laws in Islam. You cant just leave your money and property to one child, or even just to your children. Everyone gets a share.

Marrying paternal cousins is one of the only ways to keep wealth in the direct bloodline.

So the irony is that what has become Islamic practice is in spirit designed to thwart the original intent - not uncommon in Islam.

Additionally in purdah societies where gender mixing was discouraged after puberty, cousins often have a better chance to getting to know and like each other.

[shiv]

Its not just patriarchy

It is the *particular* nature of inheritance laws in Islam. You cant just leave your money and property to one child, or even just to your children. Everyone gets a share.

Marrying paternal cousins is one of the only ways to keep wealth in the direct bloodline.

Correct Johann - and that explains why cousin marriages are particularly meaningful among Islamic Pakistanis as opposed to some non Islamic communities where cousin marriage happens for the relatively lesser economic benefit. I should have used the word patrilineal I guess.

[partha]

An editorial about the most important issue Pakistan is facing today.... Ayodhya judgement.

http://www.dawn.com/2011/05/11/ayodhya-revisited.html

[KLNMurthy]

I don't disagree that TSP's army should be taken down, of course. But I firmly disagree with the notion (at the core of India's policy I think) that the civilians in TSP should be encouraged, and "liberated" from the army yoke, and all else will follow. The marauder meme must be unequivocally extirpated from the Paki collective psyche, and the task at hand would be whatever it takes to accomplish this in a verifiable way. Every effort should be made to get this done short of commitng genocide.

These are significant and basic differences. I am frankly surprised to see them.

I am sorry you did not mention Islam specifically and I do not understand your reason for tippy-toeing around Islam. That is a mistake. Islam is fundamental to the meme you refer to.

The marauder meme must be unequivocally extirpated from the Paki collective psyche, and the task at hand would be whatever it takes to accomplish this in a verifiable way. Every effort should be made to get this done short of committing genocide.

If I attribute a meaning to the expression "marauder meme" it strikes me that marauders are armed. You disarm a marauder - he becomes a toothless ascetic whose thoughts (memes) can be passed off as "opinion". Violent jihad becomes jihad of the mind.

The Pakistan army is a unique marauder who is focused on India. If you disarm the army we are left with marauders (Jihadis/Taliban) with memes that will attack the West and not just India . Since I have said this so many times before I left it unsaid. Removing the Pakistan army will not solve all problems. It will modify a specific anti-India problem into a global anti everyone problem so that more nations can deal with the meme.

Changing memes minus genocide is a noble if difficult ideal to obtain. Why should it be India's burden to do that? Let the world face part of the problem we have faced. The Pakistani army was paid to keep the meme focused on India. But it is not a specific anti-India meme. I hope you have not forgotten to read the reports - some of which have been posted today - (in the last 2 hours) that show how spokespeople from the USA hopes to keep the meme focused on india by hoping to make India give the Pakistan army concessions on Cashmere so that he army is not consumed by the jihadis who have an anti-US meme. That is trouble that the US wants to avoid, Keeping the meme anti-India is good for the US.

The first step is to take down the Pakistan army. Waiting to take down the meme is in my view inaction. The meme in its original form is Islam. It has survived 1300 years and we wil not take it down. The Pakistani Army version of the meme, supported by the US and China is specifically anti-Hindu. Remove the army and let the meme survive in its pure form. Why should Hindus take it upon themselves to fight it? Let it be a free for all.

I won't drag this out on a topic where there is mostly agreement; I just don't want to leave the discussion abruptly in the middle.

Obviously I have little dispute with the formulation of West & India essentially each tussling (the latter hardly at all, but...) to shift the focus of the monster on the other. That is exactly the game here. The West has the upper hand in resources and focus, but its game will totter if not collapse (as we are seeing this past week-10 days) under the fundamental contradiction and moral bankruptcy of their position.

I don't think it is a matter of undermining the army OR undermining "the meme"; firstly undermining of the Paki army is non-trivial (nukes, for one thing), and secondly, attacking or countering "the meme" also amounts to indirectly undermining the army, since soft power, propaganda, diplomacy, morale etc. are all part of the war. That's where my "tiptoeing" around calling "the meme" by the usual religious label fits in: we Indians are in a peculiar cultural situation, many of us will rush to pigeonhole any direct, named critique of Islam as communal and tune out. To keep people's attention and make the case, it would be more useful to focus on the traits and qualities, and stay away from labeling the religion. If I may personalize and speak from experience, I spent years of my youth campaigning against communalism, engaging Pakis in WKK-type peace morchas, participating in ghazal recitation, and on and on, till eventually the moral bankruptcy became too hard to ignore and now I find myself an implacable foe of pakiness. I think, I would not have wasted so much time in the well-intentioned naivete, if I had learned to frame the issue in stark moral terms, free of the burden of feeling that I am somehow betraying my Indian ethos of brotherhood among all religions etc.

[KLNMurthy]

From the 26/11 thread:

U.S. lawyers for the ISI are now moving to quash the lawsuit, arguing that if the case proceeds, it “will fuel violence and extremism” that will threaten the Pakistani government and pour “gasoline on the fire” of relations between Pakistan and India.
I interpret this as a direct warning of more terror on India if uncomfortable truths tumble out. Indians know what ISI has been doing and nothing may be surprising. It will only confirm what we already know. OTOH, the effects of 'cognitive dissonance' within Pakistan could lead to the rage boys frothing at the mouth corners and calling for jihad against the Hanud. That is what the Pakistani lawyers are saying. The are implicitly justifying such a violent reaction and are also olding the Americans accountable for such an eventuality.

Very interesting--it seems like a message to India to stop pushing behind the scenes to put ISI in the dock, and not a message to US since US couldn't care less about terrorism in India, beyond lip service.

[abhishek_sharma]

The Implications of Colonel Imam’s Murder in Pakistan

[Anindya]

FWIW...from http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/indi ... 232717.cms

LeT trying to acquire weapons of mass destruction with help from Qaida

NEW DELHI: One of LeT's most important leaders who was indicted by the US treasury department for the July 2006 Mumbai train bombings, Arif Qasmani, is helping the India-centric terror group acquire biological weapons and anthrax through his al-Qaida links.

The interrogation report of a Pakistani businessman and Guantanamo Bay detainee, Saifullah Paracha, has revealed that LeT was in touch with a US-based "al-Qaida anthrax operative'' as it tried to acquire weapons of mass destruction.

.....
Paracha, a businessman from Sargodha, revealed to the US authorities in 2008 that LeT's Qasmani might have been discussing ways to acquire biological weapons and anthrax with a US based pharmacist, Nazmut Tariq, identified also as an al-Qaida operative.

Sources said the Qasmani referred to in Paracha's Guantanamo interrogation report is the same Qasmani who facilitated the suburban train blasts in Mumbai. "Information linking Tariq to biological weapons and anthrax was found on a calendar belonging to Arif Qasmani, LeT member and associate of senior al-Qaida facilitator Zayn al-Abidin Muhammad Husayn, aka Abu Zubaydah,'' the report said. The Pune-educated Zubaydah was described by the US as one of the senior-most al-Qaida leaders to have been arrested from Pakistan after 9/11. He was said to have been arrested from a Lashkar safe house in Faisalabad.

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Paracha's Guantanamo interrogation report mentions that Tariq's contact information was recovered from the detainee's electronic diary. Tariq is identified as a possible al-Qaida anthrax operative based in New York and that his name was also mentioned in a document seized from an al-Qaida safe house in Pakistan along with a notation for anthrax vaccine.

Paracha told his interrogators that he knew Tariq since 1969 since they came from the same village, Nazimabad, in Pakistan. He also described Tariq as a member of Jamiat Islami who was a pharmacist in the US with stores in New York City and Boston.

It has been obvious to Indian agencies for some time now that LeT has been trying to acquire weapons of mass destruction. A Harvard University report titled 'Securing the Bomb 2010' last year raised this issue along with LeT's cooperation with al-Qaida.

"There are at least some indications that Pakistani groups such as LeT may also be interested — a particularly troubling possibility given the deep past connections these groups have had with Pakistani security services, their ongoing cooperation with al-Qaida, and the example of in-depth cooperation on unconventional weapons provided by al-Qaida's work with Jemaah Islamiyah on anthrax," it said.

[Kailash]

No money to Pak till they get rid of nukes: Trump

One businessman from US asks that which no Indian diplomat will ask for. Why not... its HIS hard earned money..

[svinayak]

Dear China: Help Us Fix Pakistan
The world's two superpowers must work together to fix the world's most broken country.

BY PATRICK C. DOHERTY | MAY 9, 2011

The war of words is officially on. The killing of Osama bin Laden has shone a harsh light on the fraught U.S.-Pakistan relationship.
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2 ... c=obinsite

In Washington, lawmakers from both sides of the aisle are angrily questioning how it's possible that Pakistan didn't know about the whereabouts of Osama bin Laden as he hid for years under their noses in Abbottabad, a military garrison town. In Islamabad, Prime Minister Yousuf Gilani lashed out at the United States, calling it "disingenuous" to believe that Pakistan could have been "in cahoots" with al Qaeda. Whatever the case, the U.S. strategic calculus in South Asia is now in flux. What is Washington's best opportunity to us

Unfortunately, the debate on Capitol Hill has quickly fallen into two polarized and short-sighted camps. In the Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearings last week, both Democrats and Republicans used bin Laden's death to justify an accelerated withdrawal from Afghanistan. Sen. Richard Lugar (R-Ind.), the ranking member on the committee, argued, "It's exceedingly difficult to conclude that our vast expenditures in Afghanistan represent a rational [strategy]." Other lawmakers have called for renewed pressure on Islamabad to take direct action against anti-U.S. militant bases in Pakistan, such as the Quetta Shura and the Haqqani network.

Neither path is likely to work. Abandoning Afghanistan for a third time since 1989 is not going to et us there -- indeed, each time the United States neglects the country, it gets worse. And strong-arm tactics won't work either: A gambit to withhold military or civilian assistance is also not going to force Islamabad to change its strategic calculus, which is rooted in decades of deep mistrust of the United States. Furthermore, because of continued U.S. dependence on Pakistani supply routes into Afghanistan and Pakistani intelligence services' ability to unleash terrorist devastation such as the 2008 Mumbai attacks, calling Pakistan's bluff could be disastrous.

It's time to return to the fundamentals when it comes to U.S. interests in Pakistan. Ultimately, Washington desires a prosperous, sustainable, and secure South Asian region that does not remain a base for al Qaeda and its affiliates, or a likely flashpoint for a nuclear exchange.

Understood this way, U.S. interests are broadly shared by China, Pakistan's primary ally and a major investor in the country's economic success. That's a point President Barack Obama should drive home to Chinese officials this week, as Washington hosts the U.S.-China Strategic and Economic Dialogue. Indeed, the late Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan Richard Holbrooke made a similar case to the Chinese in Beijing.

To date, China's relationship with Pakistan -- with which it has shared military technology and invested in major infrastructure projects -- has only enabled that South Asian nation's unstable status quo. When it comes to military hardware, China has shared ballistic missiles such as the short-range DF-11, is jointly producing the JF-17 advanced fighter with Pakistan, and has provided its ally with anti-ship cruise missiles, among other weapons. China also built the massive multimodal port in the southern city of Gwadar, along with a highway and rail link connecting it to China. Indeed, the relationship is so strong that, at the request of Beijing, the Pakistani military stormed Islamabad's Red Mosque in 2007 to liberate 10 Chinese nationals, a move that crystallized the Pakistani Taliban as an anti-government movement.

Nevertheless, there are two important points of convergence between Beijing's long-term interests and Washington's. First, China is concerned with preventing Islamist terrorism from disrupting its Central Asian energy routes and its restive western region, Xinjiang, which borders Pakistan. China is actively securing natural gas and oil reserves as far as Turkmenistan on the Caspian, rebuilding the old Soviet-era pipelines to feed its western frontier and crossing territory that hosts a majority Muslim population.

Secondly, China has a stake in promoting sustainable, pan-Asian prosperity in the medium-to-long term to fuel its torrid economic growth. China -- and neighboring India -- are undertaking a monumental frenzy of urbanization. A study prepared by McKinsey estimates that approximately 375 million Chinese and 250 million Indians will move from villages to cities over the next 20 years. This growth will require a substantial productivity increase across all economic sectors -- but along the China-India periphery, the question of whether this massive urbanization will be sustainable hinges on higher levels of food production.

[JE Menon]

>>The suspect held at Guantanamo Bay said that the pharmacy owner was a long-time acquaintance and an operative for a Taliban-backing organisation active in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Probably "Ummah Tameer e Nau" (somebody correct me if the name is wrong, it's from memory), the organisation in which Javed Nasir, Hamid Gul, Sultan Bashiruddin and Osama's friends used as a charitable front for "agriculture" business....