Terrorist Islamic Republic of Pakistan (TSP), Feb. 26, 2010

[CRamS]

Zardari shouldn't be saying things like these. BB was doing the same things before she met a gruesome end.

Zardari should know that his situation in pakistan is most precarious. It seems at a certain level he knows that the inevitable is going to happen to him.

He is within bounds. He is basically repeating the bold-faced lie: only "non state actors" exist now, which has been the refrain of TSPA/ISI/RAPE as well. He is safe on this count. Of course, there are many other reasons why he could be targeted.

[Joseph]

One way to look at Pakistan is as a "club of landowning feudals". Unity and cooperation between the landowning feudals of Pakistan serves their interests well and they have ensured control over the officer cadre of the army.

That means that there is cross-province unity between the feudal classes. For example the Mazari tribe is a huge landowning and prominent Baloch tribe. But a person like Shireen Mazari is a dyed in the wool Paki RAPE. However, control of the army gives Pakjab a disproportionate representation in the leadership, but that does not mean that control of other provinces does not exist via the feudal allies they have in Sindh and elsewhere.

I am talking of a class struggle here and the feudals and their subjects are spread all over Pakistan. What we see in the media and on TV are the representatives of the feudal landowners, again with the army being a prime landowner. The rest of Pakistan we never see. When Irfan Husain's firangi friend allegedly says there is "in your face" poverty in India, it means that that poverty cannot be hidden away in India. Apart from poverty, even the less wealthy are visible all over India and it is their right to be visible and represented. Such rights are absent in Pakistan.

The Sindh Feudals in the PPP would join with the PA & Pakjabi Feudals and become a Second Class in leadership rather than try to form a breakaway Sindh country in which they would remain supreme?

After the assassination of Benazir Bhutto, there was unrest in Sindh that the PPP could utilize in the future. Granted, the PA is heavily weighted to the Pakjabi power group and freedom seeking Sindhs would pay a severe price in an uprising against the Pakjabis.

In regards to your earlier discussions about the size of the middle class in Pakistan, has there been a study on the percentage of MQM (and splinter groups) members that are middle class compared to other groups in Pakistan?

[MurthyB]

Looks like this fag Zaid Hamid's ranting days are over?

http://zaidhamidexposition.wordpress.co ... niversity/

Earlier, he was also banned from Peshawar U. The orcs over at def and dumb are also speculatin' that some of the mullahs bumped off yesterday or day before have to do with Zaid Hamid. And also this:

Threat to kill a 2nd year student by Sir Zaid Zaman Hamid

And in other developments, this is fascinating:

'They Need to Be Liberated From Their God'

Now 32, Mosab is the son of Sheikh Hassan Yousef, a founder and leader of the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas. Throughout the last decade, from the second Intifada to the current stalemate, he worked alongside his father in the West Bank. During that time the younger Mr. Yousef also secretly embraced Christianity. And as he reveals in his book "Son of Hamas," out this week, he became one of the top spies for Israel's internal security arm, the Shin Bet.

Wow!! I knew Israeli secret agents were "da bomb", but Hamas' son! That would be like R&AW getting Saeed's son to convert to, say, Jainism, and work for India secretly. But then, R&AW has already infiltrated the entire Taliban, so I guess we are ok

[kenop]

It is interesting to see Zardari back in the news. Just when I was wondering about his whereabouts. He has made interesting observations in the past and has caused others to react.

[putnanja]

Pak muddies waters: ‘don’t build any power plant in J&K’

[putnanja]

Do Pakistan’s claims over the Indus hold water?

[Hari Seldon]

Pak muddies waters: ‘don’t build any power plant in J&K’

Where's the ungli dikhao icon just when you need one?

[krishnan]

http://sify.com/sports/18-member-pakist ... cdedb.html

All the 18 members of the Pakistan hockey team announced their retirement from international hockey following the four-time champions’ 12th place finish in the Hockey World Cup.

[svinayak]

Terrorists of today fathered by Pak were yesteryear 'heroes' prior to 9/11 : Zardari

FOOLISH SHAMELESS PORKISTANI TALK
1945 - Half India is ours
1947 - Kashmir, Bangladesh & Hyderabad is ours.
1957 - Kashmir & East Bangladesh is ours
1987 - Kashmir is ours.
2007 - Baluchistan & NWFP is ours.
2012 - Sindh & Punjab is ours.
2020 - Punjab is ours.
2021 - We are not capable to handle even Punjab

[amit]

Pak muddies waters: ‘don’t build any power plant in J&K’

Where's the ungli dikhao icon just when you need one?

Hari,

At one level you gotta admire these sh!t head. They are systematically building up a new issue which they will use to give Bharat future ungli. Very soon bleeding heart WKKs will be shouting paani dedo. I predict the next demand will be for all the waters of the eastern rivers as well.

[Gagan]

^^^
Does this suggest that the banana of the banana republic is getting fully ripe. Imagine:
1. The president is called 10%. I don't know what words to use to describe their PM.
2. People say that the President has been forced upon them.
3. The nation's leaders repeatedly call for more aid.
4. Random bomb blasts at least on a weekly basis.
5. That country is now the playground of the superpower battles.

[A_Gupta]

Pak muddies waters: ‘don’t build any power plant in J&K’

It should be amply clear to stupid Kashmiri separatists that
(a) if they want any development, they have keep out of the clutches of the Pakjabis
(b) since Pakistan is willing to go to war over water (see Kayani, Hafeez Saeed), their stupid dream of an independent state won't stand a chance.

Only chance for them to build (legitimate by Indus Waters treaty) power plants, etc., is cease secessionism.

[shiv]

Assume 1.8 million landowners own 1.8 million farms. About 1% of the people own 75% of the land

1% of the people own 75% of the agricultural land.
Presumably the middle class will be detectable in the urban property ownership?

PS: I have updated the post with Paki data with comparable Indian data. And note that that landownership pattern in India (top 19.5% of the land holdings account for 63.9% of the land) is bad enough to provoke a Naxalite movement.

Thanks for taking the trouble. I have also been doing some referencing. The percentages of absolute landless in India and Pakistan seem to be different. Am still looking - but more than one source says 75% absolute landless in Pakistan and about 40% in India. That does not mean that India does not have a problem - India's problem is different. And while on the subject of problems - having problems is one thing. Recognizing them, acknowledging them and taking firm affirmative action is another matter altogether. Imagine that you (India) had warts and I (Pakistan) had syphilis. Every time you talk you are saying "I have warts - I need treatment" and every time I talk I am saying "Arun has warts. Arun has warts. Arun has the worst warts in the universe", with not a chirp about my syphilis. This is how Pakistanis who call themselves leaders have dealt with their own problems.

50% of Indian land is now held by people who own small farms of single digit acreage or more.But beyond land ownership is the fact that no matter how you split up land - everyone is not going to end up owning land and some small farms are unviable in the absence of cooperative farming in which a tractor and other resources are shared by a cooperative. This seems to go in favor of American style huge farms. But "huge landholdings" all over the Indian subcontinent essentially meant the feudal "zamindari" system which we inherited from the Brits and which we promptly abolished. It has not been abolished in Pakistan.

The zamindari system is a glorified protection racket. The head honcho (The Brit overlord or the Paki army) recognizes the right of a zamindar over huge tracts of land and provides the forces and policing necessary for the zamindar to hold on to his land. In exchange the zamindar squeezes the people living on the land to collect a rent to pay a big tax to the head honcho while retaining a large amount for himself. The system is very convenient for the powerful. It's like I own the domain name "Bharat-Rakshak" and I allow admins to run a forum but they have to pay me tax. Admins collect the tax from users and as long as they pay me what I ask I don't care what happens to the user.

So part of the problem is the total lack of rights of the people living within a zamindars land. technically there is no such thing as lack of rights for any India. But that is not true in the Pakistani zamindari system. So there is plenty of scope for trouble in Pakistan provided those people proliferate and the population gets larger and larger and larger. that is why it is important for Pakistan to be properly Islamic. There must be no birth control. Men should rule over women.

The inteeseting part is that I have been reading and hearing in recent days about members of the Paki RAPE class who realise that Pakistan has a problem and that the army in particular is incorrigible and helping Pakistan head up shit creek. But what amuses me is that every one of those rich RAPEs who shake their heads today are part an parcel of the zamindari system. They have convinced themselves that they live in a superior land - and while they accept that there are problems - none of them has the moral courage to stand up and say it like it is. But then again - when you put Islam as the boss- anyone who tells the truth can have his head cut off as long as you can declare it as unislamic. Pakistan excels at that:

Pakistan is Islamic. The Pakistani army protects Islam and Pakistan If you are against Pakistan, you are anti Islam. So you can be killed. The Quran sez so

And finally guess who in Pakistan is the US's biggest friend:
1) The landless and other poor in Pakistan with low education and high birth rate?
2) The feudal zamindars?
3) The army - the people who run the "Pakistan protection" racket?

It shows you how the US is clearly working for the benefit of the Pakistani people. More power to the US.

This is the happiest thing that Pakistan has done for itself. I fervently hope that Pakistan keeps on going down this route for another two decades at least.

[A_Gupta]

Addressing a joint press conference here with Prime Minister Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani after signing the MoU, he said India has gone out of the way to help Afghanistan; but Pakistan is twin brother of Afghanistan, adding without cooperation from Pakistan, there could be no stability.

Siamese twin, I suppose.

Geo TV.


He did say that.
Times of India

"India is a close friend of Afghanistan but Pakistan is a twin brother of Afghanistan. We are more than twins, we are conjoined twins. There is no separation, there cannot be a separation," he said in response to a question during a joint news conference with Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani.

Conjoined twins would like to be separated, but often cannot be, because it proves fatal to one or both of them.

[Hiten]

part of a documentary made in the mid-90s [Blue Star was said to be 11 years old]

pakistan:Exporting terror

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kc30hE4dTi0

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mIakkWGXzJ4

actually were it not for the Blue Star reference, this documentary would appear just as contemporary.

Any idea who made this docu? No credits in the video.

[SSridhar]

Maulana Abdul Ghafoor, the Amir of Jamaat-e-Ahl e sunnat has been bumped off in Karachi.

Is this different than Ahl-e-Hadith or the same? If so it means Deobandis are consolidating.

Ramana, Ahl-e-Sunnat (more precisely, Jama'at Ahl-e-Sunnat, or JAS) is a Berelvi organization and a very old one, founded in Karachi by rich Gujarati Memons and Bohras in 1956. They are anti Deobandi, anti-Wahhabi and are held in contempt therefore by the various Deobandi groups. Sunni Tehrik (ST) is JAS' terrorist offshoot. Deobandis have systematically and violently occupied the mosques of JAS. Their greatest mystical saint of Islam is Sheikh Abdul Qadir Gilani, one of whose direct descendants is Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani. Ahl-e-Sunnat-Barelvis usually have names ending with Qadri to show their devotion to the great saint.

The Ahl-e-Hadis (or Hadith or Hadees), is a Salafi organization. The Ahl-e-Hadees {People of the Traditions of the Prophet} do not follow any of the four traditional Islamic schools of thought as they think that everything is available in the Hadith and anything else is ‘imitation’. They also hate syncretism. Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) is a fine example of followers of Ahl-e-Hadis.

[A_Gupta]

Pakistan: The Lost Generation

“Today, there are 68.4 million children between the ages of five and 19 in this country, and fewer than 30 million of those kids are in any type of school,” says Mosharraf Zaidi, a longtime advocate of reforming Pakistan’s schools. “You look at the consequences of these kids not going to school -- and let's set aside the fearmongering and the scare-mongering of saying, you know, ‘What if all these kids become terrorists?’ Setting that aside, the real problem is that, if you aren't capable of participating in the global economy, you will be very, very poor. And desperate and extreme poverty has some diabolical consequences for societies and for individuals.”

[svinayak]

part of a documentary made in the mid-90s [Blue Star was said to be 11 years old]
pakistan:Exporting terror
actually were it not for the Blue Star reference, this documentary would appear just as contemporary.
Any idea who made this docu? No credits in the video.

http://www.currenttrends.org/research/p ... detail.asp

The Ideologies of South Asian Jihadi Groups
by Husain Haqqani
Published on Thursday, May 19, 2005

Sources of Islamism in South Asia
Until the decline of the Mughal Empire in the eighteenth century, Muslim rulers presided over South Asian kingdoms in which the majority of their subjects were Hindus. The exigencies of Muslim ascendancy in a non-Muslim environment demanded religious tolerance by the rulers and resulted in syncretism in the religion as practiced by local Muslims. Unlike in the Middle East, enforcement of Shariah in historic India was never complete.But Muslim ulema, muftis and qadis as well as laymen enjoyed a position of relative prestige as co-religionists of the rulers.
The rise of British rule, culminating in the formal addition of India to the British Empire after 1857, marked the end of the privileged position of Muslims. The Muslim community’s response to the gradual decline in Muslim political power came in the form of revivalist movements seeking to sharpen an Islamic identity. South Asia’s Islamist political movements trace their inspiration back to Shaykh Ahmed Sirhandi’s challenge in the sixteenth century to the ecumenism of Mughal emperor Akbar.
In the nineteenth century, the first jihadi group emerged in India and operated in the country’s northwest frontier, including parts of present-day Pakistan and Afghanistan. This puritanical militant movement fought the region’s Sikh rulers. The rise of British power simply changed the militants’ target. The movement’s founder, Sayyid Ahmed of Bareili, organized cells throughout India to supply the frontier movement with men and money.Calling themselves “mujahidin,” the movement’s followers interpreted the Islamic concept of jihad in its literal sense of holy war. Sayyid Ahmed of Bareili (not to be confused with Sir Sayyid Ahmed Khan, the reformer) had been influenced by the ideas of Muhammad ibn-Abdul Wahhab, to which he had been exposed during his pilgrimage to Mecca. He called for a return to early Islamic purity and the re-establishment of Muslim political power. Sayyid Ahmed’s revival of the ideology of jihad became the prototype for subsequent Islamic militant movements in South and Central Asia and is also the main influence over the jihad network of al-Qaeda and its associated groups in the region.
The influence of Sayyid Ahmed’s ideas and practices on South Asian Islamists is visible in recent jihad literature in Pakistan, which invariably draws parallels between British colonial rule in the nineteenth century and U.S. domination since the end of the twentieth. Unlike in Sayyid Ahmed’s time, today’s jihad battlefield is not limited to a single geographic area. Nor are the various mujahid cells dependent on handwritten messages delivered by couriers riding (and hiding) for thousands of miles. Modern communications facilitate jihad without frontiers. After all, the enemy is also global in reach.And despite the differences in technology, the nineteenth-century mujahidin remain the role model for today’s jihadis, who make up an international network aimed at waging holy war at a time when the majority of Muslims seek to synthesize their faith with modern living.
But the revivalist ideas of Shaykh Ahmed Sirhandi and the jihadi ideology of Sayyid Ahmed of Bareili alone do not explain the rise of modern jihadis. Even the large number of South Asian Muslims who embraced western learning under British rule were influenced by revivalist ideas to the extent of seeking a separate identity from South Asia’s Muslims, a process that was somewhat accelerated by the demand for and creation of Pakistan.
The emergence of Pakistan as an independent state in 1947 was the culmination of decades of debate and divisions among Muslims in British India about their collectivefuture. The concept of a Muslim-majority Pakistan rested on the notion that India’sMuslims constituted a separate nation from non-Muslim Indians. Although the Islamistsdid not like the westernized leadership that sought Pakistan, and in some cases activelyopposed the campaign for Pakistan, the lack of religious orthodoxy among Pakistan’sfounders did not prevent them from seeking the revival of Islam’s lost glory in SouthAsia. In fact, the creation of a Muslim-majority state provided them with a betterenvironment to pursue their ideas.

Although Jamaat-e-Islami can be described as being sympathetic to the aims of various Jihadi movements, it has taken care not to cross the line from being primarily an ideological-political movement—“the vanguard of the Islamic revolution,” in Maududi’s words. The party’s ideological journal, Tarjuman al-Quran, explained the need for caution in approaching the issue of military jihad, implying that there was no sense in attracting massive military retaliation when political options were available. According to one editorial in the journal:
Muslim rulers sheepishly follow the steps of their Western masters. They ful.ll their political and economic interests. In retaliation if some people resort to force, they are branded as terrorists. These rulers are promoting non-Islamic culture and crushing Islamic forces in their own as well as their masters’ interests. How to work for the supremacy of [faith] is then a problem of universal extent. There has been an element of disunity in some movements on this issue, due to which some extremist-armed groups have sprung up in small niches. Excesses by such groups have sometimes been reported from some places. Using the excuse of these groups’ violations, the hostile rulers are crushing Islamic movements. At places where these movements are cautious and not providing any such opportunity, the antagonists are trying to create [an] atmosphere so as to crush them, e.g. in Pakistan …Confused thinking, particularly when it is based on despair instead of reasoning and thinking, diffuses strength for action. This can lead to disastrous consequences … for so long as doors are open for peaceful preaching of Islam’s message and the required result to bring change is satisfactory, and for so long as the public opinion for an Islamic revolution is not mobilized, one [does] not qualify to pick up arms for Jihad.
Aside from its involvement in the conflicts in Afghanistan and Kashmir, Jamaat-e-Islami appears unwilling to acknowledge any direct involvement in jihadi activities. But like the Muslim Brotherhood in the Arab world, the movement serves as an ideological inspiration for polarizing Muslims between “true believers” and “camp followers of the West.” The Jamaat-e-Islami has built a coherent ideological case for global Islamic revivalism—a revivalism that includes the defense of violent jihad, but without identifying Jamaate-Islami clearly with militant struggle.

Most contemporary Deobandi literature on jihad traces the history of Muslim grievances. According to this view, the world as shaped over the last two centuries is unfavorable to Muslims. Palestine has been taken over by the Zionists, Kashmir occupied by India, Chechnya devoured by Russia, and the Muslim sultanates in southern Philippines subjugated by Catholic Manila. The battle in each case, irrespective of the political issues involved, is one of Muslim against non-Muslim. And the Muslims’ disadvantage comes from their lack of effective military power vested in the hands of the righteous.
“Every Muslim must just turn to God” is the remedy for this imbalance, according to Maulana Masood Azhar, in the foreword of his third book, The Gift of Virtue. As a tribute to the nineteenth-century Wahhabis and Sayyid Ahmed of Bareili, Azhar penned the preface of The Struggle in the mountainous redoubt where Ahmed died in battle. The fundamental argument of each one of Azhar’s books, and many published speeches, appears to be that puritanical Islam faces extinction at the hands of an ascendant secular culture, just as the fledgling religion was challenged by unbelievers in its earliest days during the seventh century A.D. The Struggle is written as an invitation to young Muslims to join Jaish-e-Muhammad, complete with motivational anecdotes from the early history of Islam. For example, Azhar reminds readers of how the Battle of Badr, in A.D. 623, was won by the earliest Muslims with an ill-equipped army of 313 fighters facing Arabia’s pagan tribes numbering in the thousands.

[shiv]

part of a documentary made in the mid-90s [Blue Star was said to be 11 years old]

pakistan:Exporting terror

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kc30hE4dTi0

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mIakkWGXzJ4

actually were it not for the Blue Star reference, this documentary would appear just as contemporary.

Any idea who made this docu? No credits in the video.

This deserves a link from the first post of every Paki thread.

[shiv]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mIakkWGXzJ4

Note that the captured "militants" in this video have an unmistakable British (even Scottish!) lilt to their accent. Thank You Britain. Thank you Qyoon Eijabeth. We will revert to you on this in due course..

[abhishek_sharma]

Promotion of 29 brigadiers to rank of maj-general

http://www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/daw ... -130-hh-02

Twenty-nine brigadiers have been promoted to the rank of major general and a major reshuffle in the army’s top brass is reported to be on the cards after expected promotion of at least seven officers to three-star generals over the next few weeks.

...

Those promoted include 10 officers from Infantry, four each from Artillery and Medical Corps, three from engineering corps, two each from Electrical and Mechanical Engineering (EME) and Army Services Corps and one each from Armoured Corps, Air Defence Signals and Ordnance.

They are: Brigadiers Nadir Zeb (Armoured Corps), Allah Ditta Khan, Obaid Ullah Khan, Naveed Ahmed and Mian M. Hilal Hussain (Artillery), Muhammad Zahid Latif Mirza (Air Defence), Muhammad Imran Zafar, Shahzad Sikander and Asghar Nawaz (Engineers), Sohail Abbas Zaidi (Signals), Abid Hasan, Ikram Ul Haq, Nasrullah Tahir Dogar, Agha Masood Akram, Inam Ul Haq, Sohail Ahmed Khan, Naushad Ahmed Kayani, Rizwan Akhtar, Tariq Javed and Ghayur Mahmood (Infantry), Sajid Iqbal and Imtiaz Hussain Sherazi (Army Services Corps), Faiz Muhammad Khan Bangash (Ordnance), Tariq Jawaid and Syed Jamal Shahid (EME) and Adil Khan, Amjad Fahim, Hamid Shafique and Abdul Khaliq Naveed (Army Medical Corps).

Sources told Dawn that Army Air Defence Commander Lt-Gen Muhammad Ashraf Saleem, who was due to retire on March 31, had tendered resignation for personal reasons and it was under process.

Peshawar Corps Commander Lt-Gen Masood Aslam, who is on extension has expressed his inability to continue and is most likely to relinquish charge by the end of this month. His young son was killed in a terrorist attack on a mosque in Rawalpindi’s Parade Lane on Dec 4 last year. Lt-Gen Sikandar Afzal, who is also on extension and currently on a UN assignment, will complete his term of service in a couple of months.

A lieutenant general is most likely to be appointed at the Special Plans Division where he will benefit from expertise of the division’s incumbent chief Lt-Gen Khalid Ahmad Qidwai before replacing him. The sources said that Mangla Corps Commander General Nadeem Ahmed, Lahore Corps Commander Lt-Gen Ijaz Ahmad Bakshi, Chairman of the Earthquake Reconstruction and Rehabilitation Authority Lt-Gen Sajjad Akram and Inspector General of Training and Evaluation at GHQ Lt-Gen Ahsan Azhar Hayat will retire on May 1. Lt-Gen Shahid Niaz, currently serving as engineer-in-chief at GHQ, will retire by the end of June.

...

The sources said the Chief of General Staff Lt-Gen Mustafa Khan, who is due to retire on Oct 31, is likely to get an extension for at least six months. Also Lt-Gen S. Absar Hussain, who is currently serving as Commander Strategic Force, will retire on Oct 22 and is most likely to get an extension.

[shiv]

The Wiki article on Feudalism in Pakistan is informative..
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feudalism_in_Pakistan

[abhishek_sharma]

Water: a pre-eminent political issue

http://www.thenews.com.pk/daily_detail.asp?id=228545

At the moment, the types of voices that are filling the debate are unsettling. Over and above the clichéd upper and lower riparian antagonism, the debate is often fuelled by anti-Indian sentiment. One senior journalist has gone as far as offering himself as a human bomb against Indian dams. For once, I wish he would carry out his threat to prove to others who share his worldview: This is not how things are resolved.

[MurthyB]

The cowardice and downhill skiing by the paki ministers in the face of a skinny gora admi asking some questions in this is hilarious. I mean even on a question like

your 3d class textbook says that over last 300 years, Europeans tried to keep the momeen down; do you seriously believe that?

he can't come out and say why some part of that might in fact be true. Instead lots of downhill skiing. And then when the other creature is confronted with why girls school is a sewage filled yard with no roof, he meekly says, effectively

Sir! Yes Sir! We will shift them Sir!.

Oye pakis, where's the jazba?

Pakistan: The Lost Generation

“Today, there are 68.4 million children between the ages of five and 19 in this country, and fewer than 30 million of those kids are in any type of school,” says Mosharraf Zaidi, a longtime advocate of reforming Pakistan’s schools. “You look at the consequences of these kids not going to school -- and let's set aside the fearmongering and the scare-mongering of saying, you know, ‘What if all these kids become terrorists?’ Setting that aside, the real problem is that, if you aren't capable of participating in the global economy, you will be very, very poor. And desperate and extreme poverty has some diabolical consequences for societies and for individuals.”

[abhishek_sharma]

Pakistan Water Front formed

http://www.thenews.com.pk/daily_detail.asp?id=228434

India is building water projects on Jehlum, Chenab and Indus in violation of international treaties apart from building huge $120 billion storage capability (national river linking project) of 178 cubic KM water from north to south that has environmental repercussions.

Convener of the newly formed Pakistan Water Front Shahzad Malik stated this in a brief given to the farmers, media and civil society representatives.

He said the projects have been designed to deprive its neighbouring countries Pakistan, Bangladesh and China of their legitimate rights to the rivers that pass through Indian soil.

He said as far as Pakistan is concerned the Indian politicians have full backing of their trade and industry.

Shahzad said the Federation of Indian Commerce and Industry in its detailed advisory report on Pakistan had asked its government to use all means to control Pakistan including surprise military strikes, denial of air space rights to Pakistani aircrafts and stopping river water from going into Pakistan by building dams.

The report pointed out that water is a matter of life and death for Pakistan and the country could be brought to its knees by this tool.

"The FICCI is a two faced monster that supports Pakistan-India trade at public forums while advising its government to destroy Pakistan", he added.

[abhishek_sharma]

Karzai Meets With Top Officials in Pakistan

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/12/world ... arzai.html

...

But some analysts noted that beyond the diplomatic niceties, important differences remained. Mr. Karzai’s main mission, they said, was to seek Pakistani help in promoting conciliatory gestures and peace efforts toward the Taliban.

In recent weeks, there has been a flurry of arrests of militant leaders in Pakistan, most importantly that of Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, the No. 2 Taliban figure, who was detained last month in Karachi. However, Pakistani officials have rejected Afghan demands to hand him over.

Ahmed Rashid, a Pakistani journalist and expert on the Taliban who met with Mr. Karzai on Thursday morning, said the arrests of Taliban leaders in Pakistan were a source of “a very serious underlying tension” between the countries.

Mr. Rashid told Dawn News, a private television news channel, “Karzai has asked for the extradition of Mullah Baradar and these Taliban who have been caught by the ISI in recent weeks.”

...

Mr. Rashid said there was a suggestion from the Afghan side that the Pakistani arrests of Taliban leaders were not helping Kabul.

“The word ‘undermining’ Kabul’s own initiative was used, and I think these tensions would have been a key in the talks with Prime Minister Gilani,” as well as the Afghan and Pakistani intelligence chiefs, he said.

“Some of the more pragmatic Taliban have been arrested by the ISI,” Mr. Rashid said, “and this has caused consternation in Kabul because these were the same people who were holding secret talks with the Kabul administration, and the other suggestion is that a number of hard-liners will replace Mullah Baradar and those arrested.”

Mr. Rashid said that Afghans were eager for reconciliation with the Taliban. The Americans are not fully on board but the British are pushing Mr. Karzai for it, he said.

“India, of course, I think has got quite a fit that Pakistan is muscling in by making these arrests,” he said. “There is an enormous amount of complexity and tension between all the major players right now in Afghanistan.”


...

[abhishek_sharma]

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.as ... 2010_pg1_1

Afghan president says India a close friend, but Pakistan like a brother

[arun]

X Posted. The US Subcommittee on the Middle East and South Asia held on March 11, 2010 a hearing titled “Bad Company: Lashkar-e-Tayyiba and the Growing Ambition of Islamist Militancy in Pakistan”

In his comment Gary Ackerman, Chairman of the Subcommittee disclosed that the Military of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan has likely paid compensation to the next of kin of the terrorists killed in the 26/11 Mumbai attack:

There is, in fact, no reason to doubt that Pakistan’s military is likely paying compensation to the families of the terrorists killed in the Mumbai attacks. These are our allies in the war on terror.

Chairman House Subcommittee on the Middle East and South Asia

[arun]

Thus spake Professor Marvin Weinbaum on LeT. Although the unsconscious colonialism is hard to miss, namely, its OK if LeT were focused on India alone, but neverthless the nexus between TSP state and LeT is clearly articulated. Although we all know that LeT is kep element of TSPA, just pointing to the halls of power in Washington on the nexus between LeT and TSPA is a good start. It busts the "non state actors" nonsense.

The transcript of Dr. Weinbaum's testimony is here:

Testimony of Dr. Marvin G. Weinbaum

[A_Gupta]

The FICCI issued a report in Nov 2009 on terrorism. This is what has the Pakistanis so upset.
An excerpt and summary of the rest is on my blog:
http://arunsmusings.blogspot.com/2010/0 ... ional.html

[pgbhat]

The transcript of Dr. Weinbaum's testimony is here:

Testimony of Dr. Marvin G. Weinbaum

Some of the recent spectacular terrorists operations in India and Afghanistan may have been planned and executed without the approval of the ISI. The Islamabad government’s cooperation with India in investigating and trying those accused in the November 2008 Mumbai attacks is also unwelcome.

Huh?

[A_Gupta]

^^^^

The LeT has been displeased with the constraints placed on its jihadi operations as a result of Indian and international pressures. Some of the recent spectacular terrorists operations in India and Afghanistan may have been planned and executed without the approval of the ISI. {i.e., overriding the supposed constraints ISI placed on it} The Islamabad government’s cooperation with India in investigating and trying those accused in the November 2008 Mumbai attacks is also unwelcome. {Unwelcome to the LeT}

[SSridhar]

An Urgent India-Pakistan Issue - Edit in The Hindu

When diplomats from the two sides meet, they are admirably pleasant with each other even at tense moments. Retired military and intelligence officers meet and exchange niceties across Track 2 tables. But the two countries seem incapable of decent behaviour when it comes to dealing with prisoners.

[CRamS]

Instead of Aman Ki Asha crap, and Siddartha Vardarajan type legal hair splitting; India's policy must be loud and clearly articulated: Visible, verifiable, dismantling of LeT before any normalization. Even this would be a colossal concession; TSP has not paid a price for the crimes it has already committed.

[milindc]

Hari,

At one level you gotta admire these sh!t head. They are systematically building up a new issue which they will use to give Bharat future ungli. Very soon bleeding heart WKKs will be shouting paani dedo. I predict the next demand will be for all the waters of the eastern rivers as well.

Thats the best thing that could happen i.e., WKKs pleading to release the water. That issue will rile up all the farmers in the Punjab/Haryana belt .......

[shiv]

At one level you gotta admire these sh!t head. They are systematically building up a new issue which they will use to give Bharat future ungli. Very soon bleeding heart WKKs will be shouting paani dedo. I predict the next demand will be for all the waters of the eastern rivers as well.

I am gradually swinging around to a slightly different way of looking at Pakistan. What I mean is that the "way we view Pakistan" is like a "sovereign nation state" whose "interests" are "Cashmere", "water" etc.

But what if you look at Pakistan in a slightly different way?

I mean loo at the Army as a bunch or armed thugs - an armed mafia if you like that provides a protection racket to several thousand well to do feudal landowners. The Abduls on the land need to till the land anyway and so there is agro produce whose value is fullly utilized by the landowner.

The feudal landowners man the officer cadre of the Army, and the Army officer cadre consists of feudal landowners. It is natural that land issues, water, power and cereals or eggs need to come under the Army.

The person who gets squeezed at the bottom is always the Abdul. Keeping the Abdul subservient is the most important and most urgent task of the Pakistani army and feudals. Anything they say - be it Cashmere or water is linked to the need to keep Abdul busy and subservient.

In fact apart from terrorism and direct attacks on India (in any form) we need not take anything seriously from Pakistan. What "pakistan" says is what the RAPE/Army say And what the RAPE/Army say is increasingly devoted to keeping Abdul busy and imaginig that India is the enemy and that Army/RA are the protectors. This charade is getting increasingly difficult to maintain. Firstly because India has not been defeated by war and is not going to hand a convenient war to bring blame on itself. Secondly the US is replacing India as a target of hatred among Abduls in Pakistan - but this is heartwrenching for Pak army and RAPE because they depend on the US for their power and wealth. RAPE and Army woul rather keep Abdul busy hating India so that the an get US money, but Abduls are ganging up against the US and the US is making army hit Abduls and openly calling Army an "ally"


If terror against India is stopped, Pakistan will continue to be in trouble, perhaps deeper trouble. But if terror contnues - Pakistan's troubles will increase. The RAPE and army can look forward to some good times. We certainly live in interesting times.

[sarvadharam]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5OwBsUeewLQ

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ny6gCclrziQ

Dr. Israr Ahmad explains that sectarian fight in Pakistan is punishment from Allah.

[kenop]

Zardari not considering extension to Kayani

LAHORE: Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari is not considering any proposal to grant extension in service to Army Chief Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, said PPP spokesperson and parliamentarian Fauzia Wahab, amid reports that he may get another two years in office. “Neither the Army Chief nor anyone from the ruling Pakistan Peoples Party has forwarded a proposal to the President in this regard,” Wahab said on Wednesday. “Keeping in view past examples, extensions to army chiefs have not proved beneficial for democracy and the country,” she said.

Funny that PPP spokesperson giving this news.
Most likely a denial will follow soon.

[SSridhar]

Religious leader and his associates shot dead in Karachi

Tension gripped parts of Karachi on Thursday after unidentified armed men gunned down a prominent religious leader, his son and three associates.

Mufti Saeed Ahmed Jabalpuri, head of Khatm-e-Nabuwat movement, his son and three others were shot dead by assailants at Gulzar-e-Hijri area of the city, police said.

[SSridhar]

Now, the real reason why stiff punishments were handed out to Paksiatni Cricket players - From 'Such Gup' of TFT

No leg to stand on

It turns out that the punishments handed out to members of Pakistan’s cricket team had become unavoidable. The International Cricket Council (ICC) presented irrefutable evidence to the Pakistani authorities concerning match fixing by Pakistan’s players, and the authorities had no choice but to hand out the reprimands that they did. What’s shocking is that even Muhammad Yusuf , the born-again Muslim, had no compunctions about indulging in this sort of criminal activity. We hear that the ICC had indicated to the Pakistani authorities that if they didn’t take drastic action against their players, the entire team might be barred from playing international cricket. And we also hear that there will be no appeals from the banned and suspended players, because they don’t have a leg to stand on.