Terrorist Islamic Republic of Pakistan (TSP): June 30, 2011

[RSoami]

Its probably because we can sum up in two or three lines what we want the govt to do.

Thanks for responding.

think I remember writing somewhere what i would want the government to do.
Strengthen the counter terrorism and intelligence apparatus, double fence the border, stop others from helping them(diplomacy) and take initiative.

This is a fairly benign set of points. Which of the above do you think GOI is not doing? Also, do you really think this represents BRF consensus?

I ve nothing to do with consensus but i do think that the govt is doing none of the above.IF you think goberment is doing any of the above please enlighten me.

[asprinzl]

Doc, long before 9/11, there was a show on A&E channel where the main topic was Afghanistan. In one of the segment, the host was in Northern Alliance controlled territory, interviewing Massoud and other people. There were several cages on trucks, full of Taliban fighters captured by the NA that the host said were Pakistanis. He was allowed by the NA soldiers to talk to a few and they were speaking in Punjabi.

Lots of Pakjabi ex-servicemen went to fight under tha Taliban banner. That is why in many of the Taliban offensives, there was total disregard for the lives of Pashtun civillians caught in the crossfire. Pakjabis have little care for Pashtun lives.

Remember during the American bombing campaign, Rashid Bostom's men locked up captured Taliban fighters in shipping containers under the blazing sun and when the container was openned a couple of days later...all the Taliban were found dead. They were all Punjabis.

Also remember the incident where upon seeing the approach of the NA forces, the Arabs comandeered all vehicles they can lay their hands on and fled leaving behind the Punjabis. The Arabs took with them only the Arabs by preventing the Punjabis from getting on the vehicles.

I think thousands of Punjabis took part in the Taliban wars. Otherwise, it was impossible for the Taliban to capture much of the land. Most glaring was the battle for Pansjir Valley. It was a see-saw going forth and back over weeks. Without the Pakjabis, the Taliban would have lost.

The fighting arm of the Taliban was most probably majority Pakjabi and I wont be surprised if the present Taliban too is dominantly Pakjabis.

AS

[RSoami]

I always thought that the Taliban were largely Pashtuns trained and led by the Pakistan military and funded and armed by the US and KSA

I dont see how your POV is any different than mine. And no, I cant point to any articles per se as I dont think thats important enough.
These taliban rose from the refugee camps of afghans/pashtoons in pakistan.


Regards

[Kashi]

Our indic ethos??

we must not leave them?

Are you taking a piss?

He's a known paki; don't take anything he writes seriously.

I know that's why I found her use of "our indic" extremely incredulous.

[krisna]

Never allowed US to use Pak airbases for drone strikes: Groper

The unmanned aircraft regularly carry out missile strikes in Pakistans tribal regions despite public opposition by Pakistani leaders.The US has ruled out any change in its policy and insists that the drones are useful to eliminate Al Qaeda and Taliban elements.

Asked about the possibility of a military operation being launched against militants in North Waziristan tribal region, Gilani said Pakistan will not carry out operation in the area on the dictations of others. "If it is in the interest of the country, we will go ahead with the plan and if it is not in our interest, we will not launch any operation on others demands," he said.

[krisna]

U.S. embassy stirs a hornets' nest in Pakistan

The U.S. has stirred up another controversy in Pakistan, this time by organising the first ever ‘gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender (GLBT) pride celebration' here on June 26. Though the event went largely unnoticed despite the U.S. embassy putting out a press release, a news report on Sunday set off an intense debate on blogs on the propriety of the American mission organising such a celebration in a conservative Islamic country.

According to the U.S. Embassy press release, by hosting the event, Charge d'Affaires Richard Hoagland and members of Gays and Lesbians in Foreign Affairs Agencies sought to demonstrate the American mission's continued support for human rights including GLBT rights in Pakistan at a time when those rights are increasingly under attack from extremist elements throughout Pakistani society. Over 75 people including mission officers, foreign diplomats and leaders of Pakistani GLBT advocacy groups participated in the celebration.

[krisna]

Power cuts leave Pakistan hot and bothered

For all its agonies at the hands of gunmen, inept politicos and swaggering generals, these days Pakistan's national misery comes in the form of crushing electricity outages, known locally as "load shedding".

Pakistan's thin upper-crust powers its air conditioners with petrol-guzzling generators, but the poor sleep on the rooftops. Once the sun rises they riot – protests have erupted in several cities.

This week it was reported that load shedding would continue until 2018. Things are worst in Karachi, where the electricity company and the unions are fighting over plans to fire 4,500 workers and gun-toting political mafias complicate the mess. Several people have died. Strikers cut off residents' power and then demand bribes to fix it while the power company is engaged in collective punishment: areas where few pay their bills suffer the worst cuts.

[Dipanker]

I think thousands of Punjabis took part in the Taliban wars. Otherwise, it was impossible for the Taliban to capture much of the land. Most glaring was the battle for Pansjir Valley. It was a see-saw going forth and back over weeks. Without the Pakjabis, the Taliban would have lost.

The fighting arm of the Taliban was most probably majority Pakjabi and I wont be surprised if the present Taliban too is dominantly Pakjabis.

AS

They were regular TSPA, thus the Kunduz airlift.

[SSridhar]

“I think the prism through which they see this issue has definitely been altered,” Ms. Rao told Karan Thapar on “Devil's Advocate” programme on CNN-IBN.

She was replying to a question whether India saw a change in Pakistan's attitude towards terrorism during the recently concluded Foreign Secretary-level talks.

link

In fact, we do not want Pakistan to see the jihadi terrorism light through any prism at all. They will then not see true light, only its components such as 'good', 'bad', 'moderate', 'vulnerable', 'State', 'non-State', and 'foreign' making up the seven.

[Nandu]

"ajit_tr"

Are you taking a piss?

He's a known paki;

Other than "Paki is a state of mind", there is no actual evidence that ajit_tr is a Pakistani national, or that he is not an Indian citizen.

[Airavat]

In this June 28, 2011 photo, Gen. Aminullah Amerkhail, commander of the eastern region of the Afghan Border Police, speaks during an interview with The Associated Press at his office in Jalalabad, Nangarhar, east of Kabul, Afghanistan. Amerkhail offered his resignation recently to protest the international coalition's lack of response to a five-week artillery barrage along Afghanistan's border with Pakistan. As travelers moved eastward toward Kunar province's mountain-studded southeastern border with Pakistan, the explosions became louder, more constant, and finally visible as puffs of smoke on distant peaks and in low-lying valleys. (AP Photo/Rahmat Gul)

[sum]

The U.S. has stirred up another controversy in Pakistan, this time by organising the first ever ‘gay, **** bisexual and transgender (GLBT) pride celebration' here on June 26

Love the way Unkil is showing the ungli and causing more khujli to Poaks...
what next : We hate Jinnah day organized by the consulate?

[Muppalla]

Some fun reading onleee. TWIW. Does not look like a news article to me.

Kayani`s gamble

By R. Prasannan/Islamabad, Swat and PoK

It is a war, full scale, in Pakistan.

The enemy is entrenched on the mountain tops and in the valleys to the west of the Indus. The state’s army, or the army that owns the state of Pakistan, is fighting a full-scale war. Unleashing awesome firepower on the enemy are supersonic F-16 jet-fighters, squadrons of helicopter gunships, several score batteries of beyond-the-horizon artillery guns that once pounded India’s Kargil-Leh road and, of course, lakhs of hardy Pakistani infantrymen. The only missing elements are armour (tanks) and the navy.

India and the world may scoff at Pakistan that it is fighting an army of Frankenstein’s monsters it had spawned in the eighties through an illicit liaison with the US. Such historical prudery has no relevance in General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani’s war room in the General Headquarters in Rawalpindi. It is war and he has to win it. Already he has cleared large swathes of territory from the enemy [see maps].

Last week’s announcement by US President Barack Obama that the Americans would begin pulling out of Afghanistan has added an urgency to Kayani’s efforts to finish the war. Even prior to that, he has been taking the riskiest gamble ever taken by a Pakistani army chief. He has left the Indian border thinly defended. Kayani has drawn entire divisions and brigades from the Indian border and sent them to fight militants in the west, leaving his 2,240-km Indian border thinly defended. In the process, he has put blind faith in three things—his less-than-100km range Hatf nuclear missiles to scare India’s three strike corps, a strategic insurance policy taken with the Chinese and the good sense of a 78-year-old man sitting in Delhi’s South Block.

The offices of both Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and General Kayani have denied any contact between the two. However, it is clear that there has been an unspoken understanding between the civilian leaders of the two countries that Singh won’t create trouble as long as Kayani is immersed, helmet to boots, in pursuing his civil war seriously. What they would now like to know is: would Singh continue to cooperate, even after the Americans get out of Afghanistan?

The generals and brigadiers at GHQ say Kayani has been serious. Look at the order of battle (orbat). Traditionally seven of Pakistan’s nine corps were poised against India; the exceptions were the Peshawar (XI) Corps and the Quetta (XII) Corps. Now the entire Peshawar Corps, complete with 7 and 9 Divisions, is committed to operations; the Quetta Corps has lent two full brigades.

The big news for Indian commanders is the orbat in the eastern theatre. A few months ago, US RAND Corporation’s Seth Jones and Christine Fair had estimated that troops drawn from two division headquarters, eight infantry headquarters, 20 full battalions, eight engineer battalions, one special battalion, two signals battalions and 38 Frontier Corps wings have been pressed into battle at various stages in Operation Al Mizan in South Waziristan. In the subsequent Operation Zalzala, the entire 14 Division, drawn from the India-centric Multan (II) Corps, was put to battle. In Operation Sherdil in Bajaur, a brigade headquarters, four battalions and seven Frontier Corps wings were pressed into action under the command of a three-star general.

The entire 19 Division, attached to the Rawalpindi (X) Corps and earlier stationed in Mangla on the Indian frontier, is still fighting in Operation Rah-e-Rast in Swat. Operation Rah-e-Nijat in South Waziristan involved 7 Division and 9 Division from the Peshawar Corps, plus two Special Services Group battalions and two infantry brigades taken off from the Indian border. Some 30,000 troops were inducted into battle, along with several artillery regiments, against 10,000 die-hard Pak Taliban in this operation.

Now THE WEEK learns that Kayani has drawn more from the east, including from the two strike corps—Mangla (I) Corps and Multan (II) Corps. The strike corps are the sword-arms of Pakistan which would blitzkrieg into Indian Punjab and Rajasthan in the event of a war. The Mangla Corps has lent 17 Division and the Multan Corps 14 Division to the war in the west. The five defensive (pivot) corps, the shield arms that have to fend off Indian armoured thrusts, have lost more. The Rawalpindi Corps, charged with defending the entire capital region and reinforcing the Mangla strike corps, has been deprived of its prized 19 Division. It is left with just 12 Division (HQ Murree), 23 Division (Jhelum) minus a couple of brigades, Force Command Northern Areas (Gilgit), one infantry brigade, one armoured brigade and one artillery brigade.

The Gujranwala (XXX) Corps and the Bahawalpur (XXXI) Corps have lent one brigade each. In all, four full infantry divisions, 17 brigades (three in North Waziristan alone), 54 battalions, one Special Services Group battalion, one task force and 58 Frontier Corps wings are still battling the militants. The remaining line-up left in the east may appear utterly butterly to the knives of Indian generals.

Pakistani sources would not comment on the formations. Yet, “we have committed 1,47,400 troops” into the war on terror, said Brigadier Syed Aznat Ali, a director at the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR), Rawalpindi. Add to them the thousands who are manning, patrolling and doing sentry duties on the Durand Line. “One-third of our force is in the west,” said Major-General Athar Abbas, ISPR director-general.

Given a total active strength of 5,50,000, Abbas’s one-third would work out to more than 1,83,000 troops committed to the west-of-the-Indus theatre, compared with just about 1 lakh manning the precarious Line of Control in Kashmir against India. (Another 10,000 are on UN duties.) That leaves just about 3.5 lakh troops to defend Pakistan against an Indian Army that has three full armoured strike corps to thrust into West Punjab and Sind.

More than the crippled orbat, Kayani’s worry is about the shortage of experienced commanders. “A full two-star officer [major-general] has been sent to Miranshah just to supervise the Waziristan operations,” said a brigadier. Field formations in the east have been left to be commanded by officers qualified to command lower formations. The 12 Division (Murree), reporting to the Rawalpindi Corps, has been robbed of several decorated brigade commanders who have been sent to the west. The Jhelum Valley Brigade, part of 12 Division and poised near Aman Setu on the Srinagar-Muzaffarabad highway, is commanded by Colonel Khalid Khan. Asked how a battalion commander (colonel) is commanding a brigade, a staff officer replied evasively that lieutenant-colonels command battalions in the Pak army. Probably. But do colonels command brigades? “It happens,” Colonel Khalid Khan said evasively.

Retired majors and lieutenant colonels have been drafted back into service to fly Mi-17 helicopters which lift troops to and from forward locations. “I am here for the love of flying this machine,” said a retired major of 6 Aviation Squadron who flew us to Chakoti near Aman Setu. “Most posts in the hills are maintained by air,” said Major-General Abbas, in a different context. “We need more helicopters and more communication equipment.”

The third worry, by far the biggest, is about the ordinary soldier’s prolonged exposure to combat. Since the start of militancy, the army has undertaken 879 operations, 284 of them major ones. Indeed, most of the badlands have been sanitised, except parts of North Waziristan, Orakzai and Khurram. But the average tenure of the Pak soldier in combat zone is now stretching to 26 months, whereas a German soldier, just across the Durand Line in Afghanistan and doing the same job, goes home and to his girlfriend after six months, and an American soldier after one year. This is affecting morale, as also training, since the drills for conventional war are entirely different from the drills for counter-insurgency war. “The price is very heavy,” said General Abbas. “We have lost 2,795 brave soldiers since 2001. Another 8,671 have been injured.”

Worse still, the rate of officer casualty is high. As Syed Manzur Abbas Zaidi wrote in RUSI Journal, “The average officer-to-soldier ratio in combat fatalities is around 1:17 in most armies, while in Swat operations it has been 1:5 to 1:6. This is higher than the usual Pakistani average of 1:10.” The figures speak well of a dedicated officer cadre, but also indicate a current shortage of middle-level commanders (majors to colonels) and future shortage of higher command (brigadiers and above) officers. The army has already lost one lieutenant-general, two major-generals and five brigadiers in the war on terror.

There are two related worries on this count. One, the soldier, whose essential training has been to fight a full-scale conventional war against India, is losing his ‘killer instinct’ doing ‘lowly’ guard duties. Several battalions have been taken out from battle formations to man the Pak-Afghan border posts crossed every ?day by thousands of natives and ?scores of murder-minded al Qaeda men. The border in Khyber-Pakhtoonkhwa has 128 routes. “An average of 1,290 vehicles and 6,800 people cross back and forth every day,” said Brigadier Syed Aznat Ali. The Baluch border with Afghanistan has 234 routes, which are used by 12,000 vehicles and 31,000 people every day.

Pak generals claim that they are doing more than the coalition forces across the Durand Line to check al Qaeda men from crossing. “We have 821 posts on the border whereas on the other side they [the coalition forces from 42 countries] have just 112,” pointed out General Abbas. In addition is the task of protecting the NATO supply trucks moving through Pakistan into Afghanistan. About 56,000 trucks and tankers passed through Pakistan last year alone, among which “only 110 were damaged” in militant attacks, claimed Brig. Ali.

All this is fine, but Kayani’s problem is that these men were not trained to be sentries, but warriors. Even those engaged in combat are fighting a battle different from the conventional plains warfare they have been trained to fight. Unlike the Indian Army, which has been fighting insurgencies since Independence in the northeast and later in the Kashmir Valley, the Pak army has never been committed to counter-insurgency, which requires training methods, systems and even combat philosophies that are radically different.

The inadequacy has been far too evident in the conduct of operations, too. Unlike the Indian Army, which has been fighting insurgency doing combing ops, selective search-and-hunt and graduated use of force, the Pak army has been unleashing immense firepower on their internal enemy, as if against a conventional army. First they depopulate the entire area of operation, and then rain fire and brimstone on the target area. More than 2.8 lakh of South Waziristan’s 4 lakh people were cleared out before operations began.

The onset of the war necessitated setting up three counter-insurgency training schools. “Every battalion undergoes three months’ training” before being committed to battle, said General Abbas. “We train them in all methods and tactics that suit our environment—counter-ID ops, guarding oneself and posts against suicide bombers...” which are not part of a regular soldier’s training ‘syllabus’. There is a three-star general, designated inspector-general in charge of training and evaluation, who can claim credit for bringing down the number of suicide attacks on military posts.

The other training, to fight the ‘mountain rats’, is tougher. The terrain is completely unknown. No army, not even that of the British empire which sent three expeditions, has snatched and held territory among the frontier tribes. Even the Pak constitution guarantees tribal autonomy and the writ of the Pakistani state never ran among them. “This is the first time in history that any army has entered this region and held territory,” said Brig. Ali. But it is no easy job. The army still doesn’t know the terrain, and the enemy knows it like the back of his palm.

Kayani worries that such deep involvement of more than a third of his army is blunting his capability to fend off India. His army traditionally had been trained to fight in the plains of Punjab and around the sand dunes of Sind, but Pervez Musharraf, following his 2004 accord with A.B. Vajpayee, changed all that. Against Musharraf’s promise not to allow Pak-held territory for anti-India terror, Vajpayee ‘allowed’ him to move three (some say four) divisions from the Indian frontier. He called a corps commanders’ conference immediately after the 2004 ‘accord’ and declared that his army was no longer India-centric.

Kayani wants to reverse this, but finds he cannot. “While the Pakistan army is alert to and fighting the threat posed by militancy, it remains an ‘India-centric’ institution and that reality will not change in any significant way until the Kashmir issue and water disputes are resolved,” he declared early last year.
“The media interpreted it as a political statement,” said a brigadier. “He meant that it should be trained and equipped to deter India, as it always has been.” The problem is that Kayani cannot deter India, with more than a third of his army committed to fight militancy.

Initially he tried quick-fixes—kill’em quick and get back to the Indian frontier. Soon after he took over, Kayani sent 9,000 troops, gunships and fighter planes to Bajaur which killed a thousand militants in one month. “If they lose here, they’d have lost everything,” said General Tariq Khan, who commanded the Frontier Corps deployed in Bajaur then. F-16 supersonics bombed South Waziristan even before ground troop movement commenced. The successes were short-lived; the enemy simply shifted base. “Bajaur had to be retaken thrice,” said a brigade commander. “It will take another two or three years to have a reasonable level of order in the [frontier] region,” added Brig. Ali.

Will Manmohan and General V.K. Singh wait? Or, would they put their enigmatic Cold Start doctrine to test? Cold Start is a doctrine evolved by the Indian Army after it found it was too slow in mobilising in Operation Parakram, ordered following the attack on Parliament. While the pivot corps were ready for battle in 72 to 96 hours from the word ‘go’, the three strike corps—I Corps (Mathura), II Corps (Ambala) and XXI Corps (Bhopal)—took three weeks to reach their wartime locations. The new doctrine, perfected after Parakram, envisages rapid deployment of smaller-than-corps formations which would make quick thrusts into Pak territory, salami-slice it, and take over Pakistan’s nuclear and other command-and-control centres. As the then Indian Army chief, Gen. Deepak Kapoor, said in January 2010, it involved quick, salami-slicing thrusts into Pakistan “under a nuclear overhang”.

Pakistan army’s old doctrine of ‘Riposte’ presumed that any large-scale Indian thrust could be countered by unleashing firepower and manoeuvrings to counter-attack into Indian territory. However, India’s reliance on Cold Start has made Kayani realise that he would not have the latitude for manoeuvre. Kapoor’s and a few other statements last year also rattled Kayani. Pak generals say Kayani’s ‘India-centric’ statement was in response to Kapoor’s. That is why he is now doing some Hatf-rattling.

Gen. V.K. Singh has got the message. Apparently it was to reassure Kayani that he could pursue his war in the west without worrying about India’s intentions that V.K. Singh recently denied even the existence of Cold Start. Kayani, however, is not resting on the Indian denials and assurances. Especially after India announced it was going ahead with the month-long Exercise Vijayee Bhava (Be Victorious) which ended mid-May, involving the strike corps in Ambala and the Delhi-based Western Air Command. The exercise validated the strike corps’ rapid mobilisation plans involving mechanised manoeuvres “in a fluid battlefield” where “the operational plans [were] based on real time situational awareness,” an official Army note said. As many as “300 paratroopers and 50 despatchers were air-dropped from one Il-76 and six An-32 transport aircraft in stealthy night operations. The IAF pressed in Mi-17 IV utility helicopters for special heliborne operations (SHBO), including dropping of special forces behind simulated enemy lines.”

Instead of merely providing air support in the conventional manner, the IAF assets were “employed in an integrated manner”, with the western Army commander Lt-Gen. S.R. Ghosh even flying in a Jaguar deep-penetration bomber over the 2,400sq.km exercise area. “Offensive air defence was integral in the exercise that included interception in enemy territory. Nearly 100 fighter sorties, decimation of advancing armour, round-the-clock readiness for fighters and attack helicopters, mobilisation of several ground and airborne air defence assets were undertaken by the IAF.”

Kayani, too, is learnt to be sharpening his doctrine, and tightening its nuts and bolts. His strategic doctrine had allowed use of nuclear weapon against a conventional strike by India, but as a last resort. This was officially spelt out by the then strategic plans division chief Lt-Gen Khalid Kidwai three years ago. He said nuclear weapons would be “weapons of last resort, and could be used against India in the event of space losses, severe force destruction or economic losses.”

Kayani is also lowering the nuclear threshold or the ‘nuclear overhang’. In fact, a few months ago, President Zardari had openly talked of a no-first-use policy for Pakistan. Kayani bitterly opposed this, as was revealed by WikiLeaks recently, and the then US ambassador to Pakistan, Anne Patterson, wrote: “Although he has remained silent on the subject, Kayani does not support Zardari’s statement... that Pakistan would adopt a ‘no first use’ policy on nuclear weapons.... We believe that the military is proceeding with an expansion of both its growing strategic weapons and missile programs.”

So Kayani is testing and re-testing his short-range Hatf-9 missiles, essentially to warn India that the nuclear option can be exercised not at the last moment or as a last resort, but when Indian tank columns have entered less than 100km. To India, “this means we will have to strike, with conventional force, at Pakistan’s Hatf missile bases first, and destroy them, simultaneously or even before our strike corps move in,” said a general officer involved in Vijayee Bhava. No wonder, India insisted on discussing nuclear confidence-building measures at the meeting between the two foreign secretaries last week.

Kayani’s third insurance policy is with the Chinese. Indian security brass believe that Kayani has been drawing the Chinese into strategic gaming on the Indian frontier, mainly to warn India. “We believe that Pakistan deliberately leaked the news about the Chinese troops in Gilgit-Baltistan late last year,” said an IAF officer. “There were also highly publicised joint exercises between Chinese and Pakistani troops, one in Abbottabad. There have been too many high-profile visits by Pakistani military and civilian leaders to Beijing. During Yousuf Geelani’s visit in May, China agreed to sell him 50 fighter-jets. All these were signals sent out about the strong strategic ties and aimed at warning us.”

This is especially obvious because the Chinese, who were otherwise needling India in Arunachal and the eastern sector have been getting “deliberately active”, as a general staff officer put it, in the western sector in the recent months. In fact, while Exercise Vijayee Bhava was progressing, the three Indian chiefs took note of not only India’s capabilities against Pakistan, but also the distinct possibility of strategic support that Pakistan could get from China in Ladakh. They are learnt to have taken note of the possibility of a “diversionary move in Siachen or Kargil” while the Chinese would mobilise through the Gilgit axis, thus holding India’s XIV Corps in a pincer.

For the Indian military, it means something else—that a two-front war is still in the realm of the possible.

[jrjrao]

Gee, yikes, hiccup and snort. Now who to believe???

Yesterday, Her Eminence Smt. Nirupama Rao declared very prominently in prominent media that the Pakis have changed after all, and that they indeed have seen religion as regards to sponsoring terrorists to killing Bharatis in Bharat, and that they the Pakis are now all new and afresh and kosher.

But that was yesterday. Now today, the NY Times, sourcing sources directly from the region, says that none of that Nirupama-Roy-gulab-jamun is true.

Pakistani Military Still Cultivates Militant Groups, a Former Fighter Says
By CARLOTTA GALL
Published: July 3, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/04/world ... istan.html

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — The Pakistani military continues to nurture a broad range of militant groups as part of a three-decade strategy of using proxies against its neighbors and American forces in Afghanistan, but now some of the fighters it trained are questioning that strategy, a prominent former militant commander says.

The former commander said that he was supported by the Pakistani military for 15 years as a fighter, leader and trainer of insurgents until he quit a few years ago. Well known in militant circles but accustomed to a covert existence, he gave an interview to The New York Times on the condition that his name, location and other personal details not be revealed.

Militant groups, like Lashkar-e-Taiba, Harakat-ul-Mujahedeen and Hizbul Mujahedeen, are run by religious leaders, with the Pakistani military providing training, strategic planning and protection. That system was still functioning, he said.

The former commander’s account belies years of assurances by Pakistan to American officials since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks that it has ceased supporting militant groups in its territory. The United States has given Pakistan more than $20 billion in aid over the past decade for its help with counterterrorism operations. Still, the former commander said, Pakistan’s military and intelligence establishment has not abandoned its policy of supporting the militant groups as tools in Pakistan’s dispute with India over the border territory of Kashmir and in Afghanistan to drive out American and NATO forces.

“The government is not interested in eliminating them permanently,” he said. “The Pakistani military establishment has become habituated to using proxies.” He added that there were many sympathizers in the military who still supported the use of militants.

Pakistan has 12,000 to 14,000 fully trained Kashmiri fighters, scattered throughout various camps in Pakistan, and is holding them in reserve to use if needed in a war against India, he said.

Yet Pakistan has been losing the fight for Kashmir, and most Kashmiris now want independence and not to be part of Pakistan or India, he said. Since Sept. 11, Pakistan has redirected much of its attention away from Kashmir to Afghanistan, and many Kashmiri fighters are not interested in that fight and have taken up India’s offer of an amnesty to go home.

Many of the thousands of trained Pakistani fighters turned against the military because it treated them so carelessly, he said. “Pakistan used them and then, like a paper tissue, threw them away,” he said. “Look at me, I am a very well-trained fighter and I have no other option in life, except to fight and take revenge.”

Indeed, he was first trained for a year by the Pakistani militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba at a camp in Kunar Province, in Afghanistan, in the early 1990s.

[chetak]

Gee, yikes, hiccup and snort. Now who to believe???

Yesterday, Her Eminence Smt. Nirupama Rao declared very prominently in prominent media that the Pakis have changed after all, and that they indeed have seen religion as regards to sponsoring terrorists to killing Bharatis in Bharat, and that they the Pakis are now all new and afresh and kosher.

But that was yesterday. Now today, the NY Times, sourcing sources directly from the region, says that none of that Nirupama-Roy-gulab-jamun is true.

Nirupama is just pragmatically and cynically preparing for her next assignment in Washington as ambassador.

All is fair in diplomacy and self interest onlee.

[Suppiah]

Didnt some Beijing puppet Stalinist rapist goon camp follower recently declare that his favorite military is smart and they use political methods to deal with militants and not the massive army operations that displace civilians?

Operation launched in Kurram

The Fata Disaster Management Authority has set up two registration centres where 500 displaced families have enrolled
themselves so far.

According to official estimates, over 4,000 families are likely to flee their homes because of the military operation.

[Suppiah]

Some countries trade in soccer players and cricket batsmen...our Pakbaric animal neighbours trade in...guess what?

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.as ... 011_pg7_12

suicide bombers

[Gus]

And no, I cant point to any articles per se as I dont think thats important enough.
These taliban rose from the refugee camps of afghans/pashtoons in pakistan.

What next - the taliban were mujahideen of Afg jihad and "rose" as a reaction to power vacuum blah blah...

I read this tripe everywhere...but I did not expect to see this passed off as factual here..

[jamwal]

TOURISM RELATED TAG LINES FOR DIFFERENT COUNTRIES:

Thailand : Amazing Thailand

Malaysia : Truly Asia

India : Incredible India










Pakistan : Have a blast till you last.


Got it as a sms.

[Suppiah]

DT article on 'Peace between India and TSP'

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.as ... 2011_pg3_3

Some nuggets

Pakistanis have this entirely incorrect feeling that the people in the US obsess excessively and continuously about Pakistan

oh no...not unless they are suffering from diarhhea..typically it is only for 10 min in the morning..

Frankly it is time for Pakistanis as well as the Indians to accept once and for all that Indian Muslims are Indians and their sympathies are with the country they live in.

...the Indians have long accepted that...it is you scums that are having problem because your nation is found on hatred and barbaric animalism...

[Philip]

The wheel is turning full circle.If the reports that Pak is committing that many troops into Af-Pak,so be it.We wish them good luck and Godspeed in defeating the evil forces of the Islamist un-Godly,ever mindful of the results of the many campaigns of the British,the Russians,the Americans + NATO,etc.,etc.! AS one army departs wth its tail tucked between its legs,so another takes its place to learn the same lessons of the past!

A good time too to give some of our troops some much needed leave,so that they can be with their families and loved ones and watch the fun from the sdielines.A tired and weakened Paki army fighting the enemy within will suit us fine.Let's watch and see how sincere the Paki army is in fighting its own creation.

[Theo_Fidel]

The British always found it easy to walk into these places. It was the staying and holding bit that they ran into trouble with.

On the other hand if the majority of the Taliban are now Pakjabi maybe they are fighting in the wrong place.

[Shrinivasan]

Some countries trade in soccer players and cricket batsmen...our Pakbaric animal neighbours trade in...guess what?

Soccer and Cricket are unislamic (today)... Pakjabis have been trading lives of Pakistanis for decades, trading Suicide Bombers is not anything new. Their own families have been trading their kids to become Mujahids for couple of lakhs of rupees for decades, why this Thakleef now?

[chetak]

This is what happens when the Pakistanis bet on the only horse in a one-horse race - and it turns out to be an ornery army mule.



In Pakistan, denial is easier than heartbreak

By Nzaar Ihsan Nzaar Ihsan – Tue Jun 21, 11:11 am ET


Doha, Qatar – Ever since Osama bin Laden’s assassination, the western media have been wondering why Pakistanis refuse to accept the truth and instead believe in wild conspiracy theories. As one particularly scathing article in a Canadian paper puts it, “This is the salve that now comforts millions of Pakistanis at a time of fundamental crisis. They choose the magical world of conspiracy.”
As an expatriate Pakistani, I’ve also been asked by confused Britons, Arabs, and Indians: “Why don’t you guys admit that things are out of control? Why is everything that goes wrong in Pakistan always a CIA conspiracy?”
Let me explain. In the 1980s, every 5-year-old in Pakistan wanted to become a commando or a pilot. Nobody wanted to become an accountant or an architect or a civil engineer. Ever wonder why? It’s because the army was awesome.
Pakistan's national heroes.
One of my earliest memories was waking up early in the morning each Sept. 6 to watch the Defense Day Parade on TV. It was amazing. There were planes, commandos, and missiles: everything that makes up the fantasy toy world of a young boy.
As we watched the tanks roll by, my mom told me that Sept. 6 is celebrated to commemorate the valiant defense of the country against an Indian attack in 1965. The Pakistan studies book in school later taught me that India attacked Lahore in the dead of the night, without any provocation or formal declaration of war – a “cowardly attack.” We won the war and caused major losses to the Indian military machine. Maj. Shaheed Aziz Bhatti was my hero.
The next chapter talked about 1971. We learned that India created a terrorist group called the “Mukti Bahini,” which terrorized the population in Bangladesh. While a massive conspiracy engineered by the Indians misled the East Pakistan population and eventually led to partition, our army still won the war and the Indian army was left licking its wounds. Shaheed Rashid Minhas was the hero this time.
School books told us that India never accepted the creation of Pakistan and that its army would invade Pakistan the first chance it got; we would then be forced to lead terrible lives, just like Muslims in India lived a life of servitude and backwardness.
A career in the army was a dream. Regardless of economic background, if a young man made it into the Pakistan Army as an officer, it was guaranteed that he would have a nice house, a decent car, and access to the prestigious Services Club. His children would study in good schools and he would be eligible for discounts on everything from groceries to airline tickets.
Never again would the police harass him, and petty burglars would think twice before trying to break into his house in the military cantonment. He would get to play golf and polo. When he retired, he would end up with a couple of plots of land in prime neighborhoods, allowing him to grow old in peace.
The army was everything good and reliable. Over the years, we observed that everything that was good, pure, and reliable in the country was associated with the army. The state infrastructure was corrupt, inefficient, and lazy, while the army was honest, disciplined, and efficient.
Policemen in the street were overweight, unshaven, and unkempt – they traveled in banged up pickups. Soldiers, on the other hand, were lean, well groomed, and smartly dressed. They drove around in Land Cruisers and big shiny army trucks. Army officers wore Ray Bans. Girls dreamed of getting married to dashing young lieutenants.
The army was awesome. The army was also obviously successful in the pursuit of Pakistan's strategic interests. In addition to the fending off the Indians, the army had now also saved us from the wrath of the Soviet juggernaut. The creation of the Taliban and a pro-Pakistan government in Afghanistan was a success in our effort to achieve "strategic depth".
We had a highly skilled, extremely powerful, and deadly efficient military. We were a nuclear-armed nation that basked in the glory of our military strength – we were the world’s most powerful defenders of Islam. Allahu Akbar.
With new information, disillusionment :
Then the 21st century happened and things started going wrong. Information that was locked up in books that nobody read, was suddenly available on TV and in people’s email boxes. Internet articles told us that Pakistan started the 1965 war on Aug. 5 by sending soldiers into Kashmir (and that the Sept. 6 attack from India was a retaliation). Wikipedia showed us a news item from the Los Angeles Times that referred to our beloved Gen. Tikka Khan (the martial law administrator for East Pakistan) as “The Butcher of Bengal.” Googling “Operation Searchlight” gave gory details of the mass atrocities committed by the Pakistan Army in Bangladesh during 1971, including mass murder and rape.
The previously classified Hamoodur Rahman Commission Report, a post-fact investigation by a Pakistani judicial commission on the causes of the 1971 disaster, was leaked on the Internet for all to read.
Its findings accused the Pakistan Army of arson and excessive use of force. It also recommended courts-martial for much of the top brass for criminal neglect of duty, premature surrender, corruption, incompetence and for being power hungry. We learned that no action was ever taken on the recommendations of the report. President Pervez Musharraf was blamed in 2001 for hastily jumping into bed with the US after 9/11. Books were written on the multi-billion dollar businesses owned by the Army. Bomb blasts started happening. Was the Army still awesome?
Answers to tough questions? Denial :
Fast forward to 2011. The “war on terror” has killed 35,000 Pakistanis. Taliban have shown they can take over small towns. Terrorists have shown they can take over the Army general headquarters and one of Pakistan’s largest naval installations. Mr. bin Laden has been found and killed by a covert US raid, which the Pakistani air force couldn’t detect. Bin Laden’s long-time residency in Abbottabad raises serious questions about Pakistan’s intelligence agency.
The air force has admitted that the airbase in Balochistan is not actually under their control, as it was constructed by the United Arab Emirates. Meanwhile, Wikileaks has proven that our top general secretly asked for drone strikes and lied in public.
Suddenly, 187 million people are forced to come to terms with the possibility that their armed forces might not be as awesome as they thought.
Pakistanis are now asking difficult questions: Is the Army incapable? Is it corrupt? Has it really been the savior of the country for the past 65 years? And the most dangerous question of all: Are sections of the Army supporting the terrorists? In a world where the Army is the only thing in Pakistan that is reliable and true, this is a fundamental shock to the nation’s value system.
Denial is a natural reaction when everything that you believed in is suddenly taken away from you. That’s why I agree with most Pakistanis that it’s all a conspiracy. It’s a plan by the CIA to malign our armed forces and take over our nuclear assets. Maybe it’s an effort by India’s intelligence agency to hurt our defense capabilities. In fact, it’s probably an evil scheme by the Israeli Mossad to destroy the world’s most powerful Muslim army. The Army isn't corrupt. The Army is still awesome.
Nzaar Ihsan is a Pakistani expatriate currently living in Qatar, where he works in the banking sector.

[Narad]

He's a known paki;

Other than "Paki is a state of mind", there is no actual evidence that ajit_tr is a Pakistani national, or that he is not an Indian citizen.

Born to a paki father and Indian mother, Non-resident "South Asian", living in unkilistan. pakistaniat embedded into its DNA.

[RajeshA]

Born to a paki father and Indian mother, Non-resident "South Asian", living in unkilistan. pakitaniat embedded into its DNA. I have been following her in DnD.

What ajit_tr is a Pakeezah? If she listens more often to Prem ji's prem-bhari poetry, she would change her mind about Indics!

And Narad ji, are joo a Pakeezah-stalker? Bleez juice yower stalk braberly!

[RSoami]

And no, I cant point to any articles per se as I dont think thats important enough.
These taliban rose from the refugee camps of afghans/pashtoons in pakistan.

What next - the taliban were mujahideen of Afg jihad and "rose" as a reaction to power vacuum blah blah...

I read this tripe everywhere...but I did not expect to see this passed off as factual here..

I brought up the issue of religious fundamentalism of Taliban because someone here said that we should engage them politically..And I did not ever say that they did not get arms and training as well as men from TSPA..Initially they got their recruits from the afghan refugee camps..and were led by `religious` leaders...Later they got recruits from all over Pakistan and also officers and men from the TSPA...In fact I think they were led militarily by TSPA/ISI officers and thats why the Kunduz airlift.
Regards

[RSoami]

And Nirupama Roy was being plain stupid in saying that the pakistani attitude to terror has changed...After the next attack India simply cannot say that pakistani state is involved and that it trains terrorists..and go around calling it a terrorist state...
While the world has come round to accepting that Pakistani state is involved in terrorism here is our own Madam Rao proclaiming otherwise..
And non state actors theory gets a boost...Pakistani state is not involved...and its daaman is saaf...its only helpless to countter those whose attitude has not changed..
Phew...Idiot

[Y I Patel]

This is regarding Prof. Fair's article.

UNFAIR. She has shown that India's whole bunch of so called analysts are bumbling amateurs.

UNFAIR. She is a jhonny come lately who relies on carefully assembled resears, including reading biographies of killed jehadis. Given how widely that material would be circulating, how come no Indian analyst has ever thought of conducting a similar public domain analysis?

UNFAIR. She does not impute motives or rely on conspiracy theories. She supports every assertion with detailed evidence and logical analysis.

After reading her article I feel the same sense of shame that I did when I read other articles on India's counter insurgency doctrine, on Cold Start, etc., by American authors. How come India can produce world class doctors, scientists and engineers, but our scholarship is so shoddy when it comes to analysis of existential threats to India's security?

The continuing strong bond between Pakistani establishment and LeT has been a continuing source of puzzlement ever since the Kashmir earthquake, when JuD clearly overshadowed Pak Army's bumbling rescue efforts. At that time I jubiliantly forecast the first sign of daylight between the aims of ISI and its child. I was so wrong. Later, overcome by my own high opinion of my analytical abilities, I forecast anti Pak operations by jehadi outfits would spread to groups fighting in J&K. I have been waiting for that till I am blue in my face, but this article tells finally me why I was so far removed from reality.

Prof. Fair, like Ashley Tellis, has done Indian a great service in producing articles that go to the heart of the Pakistani strategy for asymetric warfare, and into Pakistan's one 100% indigineously developed strategic asset. Please cast aside your prejudices and reread it word for word until the import sinks in. Then think long and hard about what this means as US and Pakistan square of as enemies for the first time since the creation of Pakistan. I think Prof. Fair has done her part. Now it is for the rest of us to head her words.

She is my new American Idol.

[rajanb]

Patelji

Then think long and hard about what this means as US and Pakistan square of as enemies for the first time since the creation of Pakistan.

I have gone blue in the face waiting for this.

Right now tempers are cooling and they will go back to pyar onlee.

[Y I Patel]

Rajan, some time ago Ramana had asked why Pakistan is so furious at the US raid that killed OBL. When I tried to come up with an explanation for that, the conclusion was that US and Pakistan are at cross purposes for the first time since creation of Pakistan.

If we think about it, US did not have to reveal so quickly that it had taken OBL out. And there was no call, per se, for Obama to say so openly that the raid was carried out without Pakistan's cooperation. So why did he chose to do so?

I am no Obama fan, and my first inclination was to view it as grandstanding. But later it sank in that he said it really with the Talibaan in mind, and the message was that no one would be safe from US, AND that US did not need Pakistan's help to carry out it's agenda. Given the ongoing US negotiations with the Talibaan, the message was that the Talibaan should not rely on their creators for their continued well being or for considering cooperation with US.

For just these reasons, the successful raid is a huge strategic loss to Pakistan. As US forces withdraw from Afghanistan, Pak and US interests in AfPak will increasingly be on the collision course. A gaping void is opening up, and while there will undoubtedly be efforts to paper it up, things will no longer be the same. Which is why Let might eventually be given a new strategic orientation.

[jrjrao]

YIP, I agree to a large extent with what you are saying and what Shiv saar have said about this Fair article. And yet, I see danger signals here, based on my past reading of Unfair.

This article is like if, after years of pyaar-mohabbat between the US and Iran, someone in DC had written a scholarly treatise on how Iran would never give up on Hezbollah, no matter given the inducements to do so. The question then becomes -- what policy follows from this.

The Fair article finally says that TSP and L-e-T are like peas in a pod -- inseparable, and totally useful to one other. This tubelight moment in DC now leads to the following fork in the road:

[A]: TSP and L-e-T are one welded unit, and L-e-T is scum, so let us treat this welded unit like we would treat scum L-e-T,
or
TSP and L-e-T are one welded unit, and L-e-T is scum, but TSP has great use and utility, so let us hold our nose and treat this welded unit as we treat TSP.

I still maintain that this Fair thesis and doctrine will imply , and nothing remotely like [A]. In that sense, I read this Fair article as one more step in rationalizing the existence and mission of L-e-T. The tail end of her article, where she lists some new and feeble recommendations for more cooperation between anti-terror Pandus of L-e-T affected countries, buttresses my huge skepticism.

What buttresses my ire more is what Unfair has written elsewhere. Take at look at this UnFair crap, published in the Foreign Policy magazine on May 24 this year:
http://afpak.foreignpolicy.com/posts/20 ... _it_my_way

Among the craziness in this article above, is this crap:

If the United States is committed to supporting India's vision of itself as a regional hegemon...Engaging Pakistan could become impossible if the United States accepts India's goals of regional domination.

which lead to this Twitter exchange:

@CChristineFair And when has India declared it as a policy to be a "regional hegemon"? When did I miss that Indian Parliament debate?

@jrjrao Have you heard of the Indira Gandhi doctrine (her version of the US Monroe Doctrine)? If not, you should.

@CChristineFair Indira Gandhi died 27 years ago. If that is the straw you are reaching for, your credentials as an academic are garbage.

[rajanb]

Patel, I have seen this US-Pak tango since before the 1965 war. Promises made and broken by the US. Pak's pefridy on numerous occasions.

The US loves the poodle in pak, and pak is totally shameless, their populace fractured, and their polity a tamasha. I would laugh at the thought even, that Pak did not know about OBL. Whenever things have reached the brink in US-Pak relations in the past, the Pakis have offered them a "token" on a silver platter, which the frustrated US has accepted with relief. And back to life being hunky dory.

It is we who have to exorcise the Pak demon once and for all, but are we upto it? And the US, to accept the ground realities by appropriate action, rather than utterances made in senate hearings and conference rooms.

A simple example: When Pak reiterates repeatedly to us and the world about having lost >35,000 people, billions of $$s yada yada.
We should make sympathetic noises but in the same breath tell them that their government and the military over the past few decades have followed policies which have culminated in this. Shrug our shoulders and say, you Pakistan have been responsible for all these innocent deaths and loss of money. And the price of this is going to mount. And mount the pressure.

We cannot fight battles for the US, and neither should we expect them to fight for us.

We have been recognised economically, and now we should be recognised for our no nonsense diplomacy and military too.

Like the man said: "Enough is Enough".

[UBanerjee]

I would contend that above all else, it is the drone program that has most altered the relationship between US and Pak. The OBL & RD affairs also contributed the most visible tectonics shifts, but underlying it is the drone program.

[RajeshA]

By extension, Pakistan‘s pre-occupations in Afghanistan stem principally from its concerns about India. Pakistan has sought to use Islamist militants there to deny India access to Afghanistan from which it could support insurgencies in Pakistan.

Unfair's most basic assumption is wrong. When did India support insurgencies in Pakistan from Afghanistan? Even if we speak of India having 100,000 consulates in Afghanistan, one in each village, that is the case only after 2001 after Operation Enduring Freedom by USA.

The history of Pakistani involvement in Afghanistan goes a long time before that. The whole insecurity business from Afghanistan is all hogwash. If at all, it has always been Pakistan interfering in the internal affairs of Afghanistan and stoking fires there.

[shiv]

Prof. Fair, like Ashley Tellis, has done Indian a great service in producing articles that go to the heart of the Pakistani strategy for asymetric warfare, and into Pakistan's one 100% indigineously developed strategic asset. Please cast aside your prejudices and reread it word for word until the import sinks in. Then think long and hard about what this means as US and Pakistan square of as enemies for the first time since the creation of Pakistan. I think Prof. Fair has done her part. Now it is for the rest of us to head her words.

+1

[shiv]

TSP and L-e-T are one welded unit, and L-e-T is scum, but TSP has great use and utility, so let us hold our nose and treat this welded unit as we treat TSP.

I still maintain that this Fair thesis and doctrine will imply ,

The risk remains that whether Fair implies this or not, the US could well reach this conclusion. She doesn't advise the US not to do this, although she does say that "solving the Cashmere issue won't change things between Pakistan and LeT" This could be interpreted as "Solve Cashmere and try to break India up into a thousand pieces - or at least arm and fund Pakisan to do that and maybe our whore will cooperate. Merely solving Cashmere won't help"

[chetak]

By extension, Pakistan‘s pre-occupations in Afghanistan stem principally from its concerns about India. Pakistan has sought to use Islamist militants there to deny India access to Afghanistan from which it could support insurgencies in Pakistan.

Unfair's most basic assumption is wrong. When did India support insurgencies in Pakistan from Afghanistan? Even if we speak of India having 100,000 consulates in Afghanistan, one in each village, that is the case only after 2001 after Operation Enduring Freedom by USA.

The history of Pakistani involvement in Afghanistan goes a long time before that. The whole insecurity business from Afghanistan is all hogwash. If at all, it has always been Pakistan interfering in the internal affairs of Afghanistan and stoking fires there.

RajeshA ji,

Think Durand line.

The pakis don't want to get enmeshed in another kashmir type situation at the afghan border.

Not only will they get buggered there but their own case on kashmir will also very considerably get weakened from it's already weak international position.

Border dispute with a brother muslim nation will bring them no sympathy from other muslim nations.

[Suppiah]

This sentence alone is enough to highlight the sort of delusions our Pakbaric animal neighbours suffer from...and convince anyone with brains that talking to such a bunch of fools is like talking to a drug addict after he has had a few drinks at the bar..

http://www.thenews.com.pk/TodaysPrintDe ... t=7/4/2011

Pakistan will not exploit the Bangalore silicon valley option or grant the Most Favoured Nation Status to India as long as the Kashmir issue is not resolved.

[Ramachandran Subramanian]

I think Pakistani problem is here to stay, at least for the next 100 to 200 years.

LeT or Pak Army is just the same material in different manifestations. I know that I am preaching to the choir on this issue.

In my opinion, The first thing we can do is to seal our borders and hope for a long drawn out civil war in Pakistan, a pressure cooker like situation. If there is one thing that we can do, it is to take steps to enable an environment inside Pakistan that will make this happen. This may take 10 to 15 years. In my opinion, if the LeT is defeated or the Pak army is defeated, it will not be eliminated but will be absorbed by the victor. So it is a zero sum game for us Indians.

Even if that happens and pakistan is pressure cooked to a stew and disintegrates, I don't think Pakistani Punjabis, Sindhis, Pashtoons as separate entities will be friendly or even indifferent towards us. They will have the same degree if not more hatred for us. Only group that MAY not hate us as much would be the Balochis, and I may be wrong there too.

I don't think there is much difference between the level of blackmail we will suffer if the nuclear assets are with a very weak and desperate Pakistan Army or a post collapse group of jihadis. Only difference would be that, may be the jihadis would not bluff and may launch. But the threat that we have to face is the same. A Nuclear launch, either by PA or by jihadis. It is the only credible threat we face from Pakistan, apart from terror attacks like 26/11

The second thing we absolutely have to do is to invest heavily in the idea of a multi layered a missile defense shield with redundancy.

Even though it is important to have a second strike capability, I don't know how effective it will be in solving the Pakistani problem. I say this because unless the second strike involves total destruction of infrastructure along with massive casualties in most of the eastern and northern portions of Pakistan(I am trying to put it euphemistically when I say massive casualties) , we are still left with a viable group of people who will multiply in numbers and hatred against us.

Also I don't think India has the mindset to conduct the kind of second strike that will "take care" of the problem. Nor will the world (US and China) allow it.

Effectively there is no way we will not have a large population of haters who threaten us with nuclear strike to our west. Whether it is as a single country or a fragmented country.


So Pakistan is like diabetes. Once you get it you always have it. Only thing you can do is to learn to live with it.

In the mean time every other development should be treated as a ritualistic maneuvering and posturing. We have to say what ever we have to say with out actually conceding even an inch of what is in our grasp. We have to buy time and call them friends and say that we treat them with equal respect etc. till we can develop a credible missile shield.

Once we have developed a credible missile shield, we need to create an amended "no first use" policy which should say that our second use will be done in a way to "take care of the problem permanently" and make it public.