Terrorist Islamic Republic of Pakistan (TSP): Apr. 11, 2010

[vishal]

Paki Army shells soldiers house, then PAF bombs it as tribals start rescue efforts. PA, PAF combo nets more than 50 tribals.
clicky

Nice to see some of that US aid being put to good use.

My antivirus program went berserk with a trojan warning while clicking the above link.

Strange. I didn't get so much as a peep from all the stuff I have on my laptop. And yes, am fully up to date and using a legit product.

Edited later: OK, I checked my log files and they show blocked incoming connections everytime I go to that site. Coming from xx.xxx.22.70. Are you getting the same thing?

[SSridhar]

No compliance, no money: IMF to TSP

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has conveyed to Pakistan that the Fund is not an economic arm of the US and will not be influenced by Washington with regard to giving relief to the country. The Fund wants 100 per cent compliance from Pakistan on the issue of implementation of VAT from July 1 and power tariff raise from April 1.

During the Pak-US strategic dialogue, Islamabad had asked the US authorities to influence the IMF for a waiver in the power tariff increase of six per cent due from April 1 and the implementation of the VAT from July 1, 2010.

“Following this attempt of Pakistan, the IMF conveyed to Pakistan that it is not the economic arm of the US and wants 100 per cent implementation. Otherwise, it will take back its entire amount from Pakistan, as it did with Russia. So, implement the programme in letter and spirit,” a close aide to the adviser to the prime minister on finance and revenue told The News.

The IMF’s Director for Middle East and Central Asia, Adnan Mazari, is currently visiting Pakistan to settle these issues before the approval of the fifth tranche of $1.2 billion under the IMF’s $11.3 billion bailout package.

The Fund mission has extended its stay till Tuesday, as it wants clear-cut commitments from Pakistan over compliance of its covenants for the $11.3 billion Standby Arrangement loan. The official said the government had never been committed to implementing the VAT, as it was only interested in engaging the IMF and keep getting released the amount under the $11.3 billion bailout package, as the FBR had not trained its staff so far to collect the VAT and taxpapers had also not been educated as to how to maintain their documents with regard to the VAT implementation. So far, the government has got $6.4 billion from the IMF under the bailout package.

The government fears severe agitation across the country if it complies with the IMF condition to increase the power tariff from April 1. The impact of six per cent power tariff has been worked out at Rs 30 billion, according to the latest working on the subject.

The government’s own survival lies in not raising the power tariff as the masses are already on the roads demonstrating against the government for want of electricity. The power deficit has swelled to 5,000 MW.

[SSridhar]

Demand for new Seraiki & Bahawalpur provinces
Meanwhile, the Hazaras are up in arms against the name of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa

[SSridhar]

Obama asks Pakistan to take action against 26/11 perpetrators

Raising the issue of Mumbai attack directly with Gilani at his meeting, barely two hours after his talks with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Obama said the Indian leader was sincere in improving ties with Pakistan but wants it to take action against those responsible for 26/11. 166 persons were killed in the Mumbai attack in November 2008.

Obama also did not commit for any civilian nuclear deal with Pakistan on the lines of the Indo-US atomic pact.

During the meeting, the US President is understood to have spoken on his desire to have an improved Indo-Pak relationship arguing that he believes that this would have a positive impact on the overall situation in the region.

Noting that both India and Pakistan are sovereign nations, Obama felt that improvement in Indo-Pak relationship is beneficial to both of them.

"Obama said he feels that Prime Minister Singh is sincere in his desire to engage Pakistan, but he (Singh) wants Pakistan to move against those responsible for the Mumbai attacks," said a source referring to the deliberations between the two delegations for about 40 minutes at the Blair House.

Obama is believed to have said that he also personally believes that Pakistan taking action against those responsible for the Mumbai attack "would be a positive thing", sources said.

Gilani replied in the affirmative when asked by reporters whether some action can be expected from Pakistan now that Obama is pressing it to bring those behind Mumbai attack to justice.

"Certainly," Gilani said, adding "I am against terrorism and always of the opinion that those who are the culprit they should be brought to justice." {So, what is delaying you, Mr. Gilani ?}

The sources said there was no commitment to the Pakistani leader when Gilani pitched for a civilian nuclear deal with the US on the lines of that of India to meet its acute energy needs.

[Ameet]

Pakistan: 41 militants, 2 soldiers die in fighting
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100412/ap_ ... s_pakistan

PARACHINAR, Pakistan – More than 100 militants armed with rockets and automatic weapons attacked two security checkpoints in northwestern Pakistan on Monday, sparking intense fighting that left at least 41 insurgents and two soldiers dead, officials said.

The clashes were the latest violence in the Orakzai tribal region, where the military launched an operation in March to rout Pakistani Taliban fighters who have fled there to escape other offensives. More than 300 suspected militants have been killed in three weeks of constant airstrikes and occasional ground clashes.

"More then 100 militants attacked the security checkpoint in Shireen Dara," Khan said. "They fought a gunbattle for two hours and fired several rockets."

After the battles subsided, authorities found the bodies of 15 dead militants around the two checkpoints, said two intelligence officials. Insurgents removed the bodies of at least 26 others who were killed, they said, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media.

Fighter jets destroyed three militant hide-outs in Sangram village in Orakzai on Sunday, killing 10 suspected insurgents, Khan said. A day earlier, similar strikes killed nearly 100 suspected militants in the Orakzai and Khyber tribal areas, according to officials.

Government reports are almost impossible to independently verify because journalists are prohibited from traveling to the country's semiautonomous tribal areas.

[abhishek_sharma]

http://www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/daw ... kistan-240

Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani was to meet the US president a few hours later. The US wanted a trilateral meeting, but the Indians refused to participate in direct political talks with Pakistan. They also refused to hold bilateral talks with the Pakistani leader.

[archan]

Paki Army shells soldiers house, then PAF bombs it as tribals start rescue efforts. PA, PAF combo nets more than 50 tribals.
clicky

Nice to see some of that US aid being put to good use.

My antivirus program went berserk with a trojan warning while clicking the above link.

Your antivirus maker is a genius. He knows a paki from a distance and alerts people.

[amit]

http://www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/daw ... kistan-240

Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani was to meet the US president a few hours later. The US wanted a trilateral meeting, but the Indians refused to participate in direct political talks with Pakistan. They also refused to hold bilateral talks with the Pakistani leader.

Hmm, if this trilateral nonsense is true then I guess this is a sly effort on the part of Obama to fulfil the Paki wet dream of "US mediation". By holding such a "trilateral" meeting Obama could tell the Pakis, "see we did what you wanted". Besides this could have been a dangerous precedent.

Good India declined not only to this "trilateral nonsense" but also to talking with the Pakis in the US.

However, I tried a search on Google news on this trilateral talks proposal. Didn't see it anywhere expect in Dawn. Could this be another fast one pulled by the Paquis? Would be much obliged if anyone could point to a more authentic news source which also talks about this trilateral meeting proposal.

If true, IMO, an important pointer about the "real" intentions of Obama.

[SSridhar]

India conveys to US concerns over Pakistan

Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani was to meet the US president a few hours later. The US wanted a trilateral meeting, but the Indians refused to participate in direct political talks with Pakistan. They also refused to hold bilateral talks with the Pakistani leader.

Hmm, if this trilateral nonsense is true then I guess this is a sly effort on the part of Obama to fulfil the Paki wet dream of "US mediation".

amit, no, I do not have any web links to point to authentic sources. But, if we look at history we can't be surprised if such a trilateral meeting had indeed been proposed by the US. It has been a long standing dream of the US to get involved in the dispute since time immemorial. During Kargil time, Clinton promised to take a 'personal interest' in resolving the Kashmir dispute as a quid-pro-quo for Nawaz ordering a pull out of the PA. The US Administration now realizes that it has to have a long-haul rather than the earlier condom-like relationship with Pakistan. It is somehow convinced that the India-Pakistan relationship holds the key for all the terrorism as well as the situation in Afghanistan and it is further convinced that Kashmir lies at the root of this Indo-Pak hostility. It has concluded that if this issue is resolved, a large reason for terror will disappear from Pakistan, Afghanistan will become stable and the US can live peacefully thereafter. With this in mind, it announced Af-Pak-India initiative in the form of Holbrooke, from which it later cosmetically dropped India to placate her without really not removing India from the equation for all practical purposes. The US is, in a very sophisticated way, carrying out its agenda without really naming it so. But, the US either does not want to or does not care to realize that Kashmir or water is simply a manifestation of something more deep-rooted and sinister and unless and until that is addressed, Pakistan will behave only in increasingly worse ways.

[amit]

Sridhar,

What you write makes a lot of sense. I guess the Dawn report is probably accurate. Where they may have goofed up is in mentioning the trilateral effort by the US. I would reckon once India rejected the proposal, the US (and the Paquis) would probably have preferred to keep quiet. That could explain why there aren't any other news reports easily available which mentions it.

We have to see if the Indian press have the intelligence to pick this point up. IMO it's very important and a sinister development. Could it explain why MMS, by his standards, appears to have done some plain talking if we take ToI's report on face value?

[anupmisra]

Demanding beggars, as usual!
Speculation, pure speculation on the paki part. Watch the choice of words used by the porki journalists for consumption back at home.

Pakistan has been assured that Washington would cater to its needs in the fields of security, energy and the economy.

Prime Minister Gilani has given the wish list of Pakistan covering its requirements for various fields.

Pakistan delegation had the first extremely pleasant surprise when the PM delegation including the media team was not screened at the airport and even they had not to go through the ordinary checking process.

The protocol given to the prime minister was unprecedented in the recent history. Pakistan Ambassador in the United States Husain Haqqani and US protocol officials received him at the airport and guard of honour was presented to him.

And, the probable reality (Ouch!):

Earlier, a senior US official here said on condition of anonymity that US President Barack Obama will ask Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani to take stern and decisive action against banned militant organization Lashkar-e-Taiba (LT) in Punjab.

the US still believes that the major threat to Pakistan’s nuclear assets comes from Punjab-based LT that was “struggling hard to get the dirty bomb”.

President Obama will be very frank and open in telling the visiting prime minister that it would be in the interest of Pakistan and the world to take action against LT without any delay.

The US officials say that LT has continued to flourish in Pakistan. And what makes it so dangerous was that unlike the mostly Pashtun Taliban it recruits its followers in the Punjab - the area where the Pakistani army recruits its officers corps.

“relationship between the army and the LT is a family affair. That gives the LT the possibility of access to the arsenal through insider connections that other terror groups lack”.

Pakistan has taken serious measures to protect the crown jewels of its national security but it lives in a perilous time. If there is a nightmare nuclear security scenario in Pakistan today it is probably an inside the family job that ends up in a nuclear Armageddon in India.

Hey, pakis. Do more. Then we will talk.

[shravan]

Abbotabad Protest: Seven Killed, Over 100 Wounded In Police Fire

[skaranam]

http://www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/daw ... kistan-240

Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani was to meet the US president a few hours later. The US wanted a trilateral meeting, but the Indians refused to participate in direct political talks with Pakistan. They also refused to hold bilateral talks with the Pakistani leader.

TOIlet Reports: Pakistan rules out meeting between Manmohan Singh and Gilani in US

Pakistan today said no meeting has been scheduled between Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani and his Indian counterpart Manmohan Singh on the sidelines of the Nuclear Security Summit in Washington, dismissing media reports that there could be a brief encounter.

[SSridhar]

Demanding beggars, as usual!

Prime Minister Gilani has given the wish list of Pakistan covering its requirements for various fields.

Now, Gilani hands over a wish list ? Is this on top of the 56-page wish list that the brat Qureshi and Gen. Kiyani handed over a couple of weeks back ?

I am reminded of the petitions that people usually submit to the high & mighty ministers whenever they pass-by.

[SSridhar]

5 die in violence related to demand for separate Hazara province

The number of deaths in the rampant violence in Abbottabad against the name of Khyber Pakhtoonkhaw, rose to five with over 100 injured, Geo News reported Monday.

These people were injured in the firing incidents by the riot police during the protests demonstrations by the workers of Tehreek Sooba Hazara.

Police resorted to aerial firing outside the District Hospital as well.

According to hospital sources, several injured have been brought to the hospitals where state of emergency has been declared, as the protest is raging across the city.

Out of these injured, five critically hurt people lost their lives, the hospital sources said.

The protesters demanding new Hazarah province, set on fire a police mobile at Fawwarah Chawk. Various other vehicles have been torched in the city.

[SSridhar]

Orakzai Offensive by PA: 200,000 flee

More than 200,000 people have fled Pakistan’s latest offensive against Taliban militants in the northwest, the United Nations said on Monday, as fresh clashes in the remote region killed 41 insurgents and two soldiers.

The military has pounded the Orakzai tribal region with airstrikes and artillery in an attempt to rout insurgents from the rugged, mountainous area near the Afghan border. Many Taliban fighters fled to Orakzai last year to escape a separate army offensive in their tribal stronghold of South Waziristan.

Almost 210,000 people have fled Orakzai since the fighting first started at the end of last year, including nearly 50,000 people who have left in the last month as the military has intensified its offensive in the area, said the U.N.

The latest violence in Orakzai occurred on Monday when dozens of militants armed with rockets and automatic weapons attacked two security checkpoints in the villages of Shireen Dara and Sangrana, local administrator Samiullah Khan said. Security forces successfully repelled the attack, but two soldiers were killed and three others wounded, he said.

“More than 100 militants attacked the security checkpoint in Shireen Dara,” Mr. Khan said. “They fought a gun-battle for two hours and fired several rockets.”

After the battles subsided, authorities found the bodies of 15 dead militants around the two checkpoints, said two intelligence officials. Insurgents removed the bodies of at least 26 others who were killed, they said, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media.

More than 300 suspected militants have been killed in Orakzai since mid-March, including 10 on Sunday when fighter jets destroyed three militant hide-outs in Sangram village, Khan said.

Government reports are almost impossible to independently verify because journalists are prohibited from travelling to the country’s semiautonomous tribal areas.

[A_Gupta]

Obama opens the conference Monday with a working dinner, and meets individually that day with the leaders of Jordan, Malaysia, Armenia and China.

e.g., http://www.wgal.com/politics/23120974/detail.html

And on Sunday, he met individually with India and Pakistan. Would he really have tried for trilateral talks? Or is this Dawn inner pakistani?

PS: Trilateral talks fit in the Pakistani idea of equal-equal. I won't believe it unless there is an Indian or American source for this trilateral talks proposal.

[CRamS]

But, the US either does not want to or does not care to realize that Kashmir or water is simply a manifestation of something more deep-rooted and sinister and unless and until that is addressed, Pakistan will behave only in increasingly worse ways.

Boss, it would be impossible for US to see it that way unless India forces it to. I have lived in the US for many years now, and as I mentioned many times, for US, there is no difference between Indians and TSPians; however much we Indians would like US to consider TSP as one of their bad guys. Thus, from their vantage point, territorial integrity of India or for that matter TSP is not of importance at all. And neither is India's scared notion of secularism and why Kashmir is important.

[CRamS]

"Certainly," Gilani said, adding "I am against terrorism and always of the opinion that those who are the culprit they should be brought to justice." {So, what is delaying you, Mr. Gilani ?}

Why delay? No kick on TSP's balls thats why? And also, the attack on Mumbai is not considered terrorism in TSP, or for that matter any terrorist attack until TSP is forced to pay a price. Do you ever recall TSP taking on or saying anyhting against Taliban prior to 9/11. Now its front-line all-lie taking on Taliban. Go figure.

[jrjrao]

Here is a yet another outer Pakistani who wants to commit mass murder by bombing subway trains in NY.:

AP Sources: NYC terror probe nabs 4th in Pakistan
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/co ... 01837.html

[jrjrao]

David Frum's blog entry today:

Choosing Between India and Pakistan
http://www.frumforum.com/choosing-betwe ... d-pakistan

The New York Times leads today’s story on the nuclear summit with some hard words about the Bush administration’s nuclear deal with India....

The authors of the piece have been listening to self-serving Pakistani sources.
...

[svinayak]

David Frum's blog entry today:

Choosing Between India and Pakistan
http://www.frumforum.com/choosing-betwe ... d-pakistan
The authors of the piece have been listening to self-serving Pakistani sources.
...

They have been programmed to see IndiaPakistan. They cannot see Pakistan without India and they cannot see India without Pakistan.

Second, Pakistan’s assessment of Indian intentions has always been paranoid, never clear-eyed, and if we’re to “go slow” in South Asia until Pakistan calms down, we will never build the relationship with India that we need.

Clearly they have been holding back to establish relationship according to how they want to balance the region. They may be already be late in establishing relationship with India,

[armenon]

Strange. I didn't get so much as a peep from all the stuff I have on my laptop. And yes, am fully up to date and using a legit product.

Edited later: OK, I checked my log files and they show blocked incoming connections everytime I go to that site. Coming from xx.xxx.22.70. Are you getting the same thing?

vishal,

It was an incoming connection alert.

I am using a free AV product @home laptop so cannot drill down and get exact the error message/ ip later on.

Knowing our neighbors, they would have kept this trojan intentionally to "keep track' of visitors. One cannot be too careful these days.

[A_Gupta]

David Frum's blog entry today:

Choosing Between India and Pakistan
http://www.frumforum.com/choosing-betwe ... d-pakistan

The New York Times leads today’s story on the nuclear summit with some hard words about the Bush administration’s nuclear deal with India....

The authors of the piece have been listening to self-serving Pakistani sources.
...

This excerpt from Jason Burke's Prospect article is great. The whole article is behind a firewall; but it may be worth obtaining and putting at the head of the thread.

{Burke calls such people “Mehran man” after an inexpensive car popular with the country’s middle class:} Mehran man has a satellite television (there are now 43m viewers in Pakistan), likes the occasional Bollywood movie and is not averse to a bottle of cheap whisky, though not at home. This does not stop him being socially conservative and pious. His wife will wear a headscarf or veil, as will his daughters from puberty.

Much of his worldview is close to the “single narrative”—that the Muslim world is under attack from western interests controlled by neo-Crusaders and malevolent Zionist-Jewish lobbies. Like many Pakistanis, he believes that 9/11 was probably the work of the CIA and/or Mossad. …

Mehran man’s sentiments towards India are divided. There is the attraction of the glitzy country seen in films and then there is the India as historic enemy and oppressor. Similarly, there are the freedom fighters of Kashmir or Afghanistan and there are the terrorists: the distinction is based on the identity of their victims. Kill Americans in Afghanistan or get killed by them anywhere and you are a freedom fighter, kill Pakistanis and you are a terrorist. Mehran man is incensed by the drone attacks in the northwest frontier, as much for their infringement of national sovereignty as out of solidarity with poor villagers killed by them.

Mehran man is deeply proud of his country. A new identification with the ummah, or global community of Muslims, paradoxically reinforces rather than degrades his nationalism. For him, Pakistan was founded as an Islamic state, not a state for south Asian Muslims. Mehran man is an “Islamo-nationalist.” His country possesses a nuclear bomb that, as one Lahore shopkeeper told me, even the rich Arabs haven’t built. The sentiment of self-sufficiency and nascent confidence, hardly justified given Pakistan’s dependence on external aid and internal weaknesses, is boosted by the size of the country: in a decade the population will near 200m.

[jrjrao]

Here is the full text. Will leave it to the admins to see if it can stay:

Letter from Karachi
Prospect
March 25, 2010
BYLINE: Jason Burke

Stand on the corner of a Karachi street and the key to understanding contemporary Pakistan passes you every few seconds. It's a small, 796cc car made by Suzuki. Once known as the Alto, the name was "localised" in 1992 to Mehran, after an ancient Persian deity and an alternative name for the nearby Indus river.

The Mehran is Pakistan's most popular car. It costs £4,000 in a country where the average per capita income is £550. Most of those in use were bought secondhand. A trader in the northwest frontier province offered me one last year for £1,000. "A bargain," he told me, "one careful owner."

Mehran drivers are increasingly defining the identity and evolution of Pakistan-an important shift that has gone largely unnoticed. It is the result of urbanisation, the expansion of the lower middle class and the emergence of a new national identity as the last traces of colonial rule disappear.

In Pakistan, the hierarchy on the roads reflects that of society. If you are poor, you use the overcrowded buses or a bicycle. Small shopkeepers, rural teachers and better-off farmers are likely to have a £1,000 Chinese or Japanese-made motorbike. With mum riding sidesaddle behind dad, a kid in front and two behind, these are an effective if dangerous equivalent of a European family's Mondeo estate or Espace.

Then come the Mehran drivers. A rank above them, in air-conditioned Toyota Corolla saloons, are the small businessmen, smaller landlords, more senior army officers and bureaucrats. Finally, there are the luxury four-wheel drives of "feudal" landowners, big businessmen, expats, drug dealers, generals, ministers and elite bureaucrats. The latter may be superior in status, power and wealth, but it is the Mehrans which, by dint of numbers, dominate the roads.
The Mehrans' natural habitat are mega-cities like Lahore or Karachi, as well as smaller cities like Faisalabad and Hyderabad. Over a third of Pakistan's 170m population live in towns and by 2030 the proportion is expected to be over half.
The recent economic boom has been driven by cheap credit, immigrant remittances, foreign aid and economic reforms. As elsewhere, the growth has been slowed by the economic crisis but not before a huge number of lower middle-class urbanites have got richer. At the same time, telecommunications have exploded, with satellite chains penetrating even remote villages (see "The real news from Pakistan," July 2009). The newly enriched are thus also newly politically conscious.

What are the consequences of this new wealth, urbanisation and politicisation? Politically, the Bhutto dynasty's Pakistan Peoples party, mostly based in rural constituencies and led by the feudal landowners, will lose out to the Pakistan Muslim League of Nawaz Sharif with its industrial, commercial, urban constituency. Culturally, the traditional, folksy, tolerant practices in rural areas will decline in favour of more modern, politicised Islamic strands and identities. And as power and influence shift away from rural elites once co-opted by colonialism, the few elements of British influence to have survived will fade faster.

For Mehran man is not a natural ally of the west. He is 30 or older, urban, works as a junior army officer, a middling journalist, a small businessman, a university lecturer, perhaps a headmaster or a lawyer.

Educated outside the elite English-language system, he speaks Urdu or a local language such as Punjabi, Sindhi or Pashto at home and at work. Unless he is a doctor, army officer or civil servant, his English is likely to be limited. This reflects the shift of English from signifier of social status to a tool for professional advancement. When I visited the country in the early 1990s, the middle class apologised for their poor English. On my most recent visit, several elite Pakistanis told me they were ashamed of their poor Urdu.

Mehran man has a satellite television (there are now 43m viewers in Pakistan), likes the occasional Bollywood movie and is not averse to a bottle of cheap whisky, though not at home. This does not stop him being socially conservative and pious. His wife will wear a headscarf or veil, as will his daughters from puberty.

Much of his worldview is close to the "single narrative"-that the Muslim world is under attack from western interests controlled by neo-Crusaders and malevolent Zionist-Jewish lobbies. Like many Pakistanis, he believes that 9/11 was probably the work of the CIA and/or Mossad.

If he can afford a holiday, he takes his family to one of the hill stations in the north. But he dreams of holidaying in Malaysia, Saudi Arabia or Dubai, an indication of the shift in economic, political and cultural orientation of Pakistan towards the Islamic world. A decade ago, the country felt like the western extension of south Asia. Now it feels increasingly like the eastern fringe of the middle east.

Mehran man's sentiments towards India are divided. There is the attraction of the glitzy country seen in films and then there is the India as historic enemy and oppressor. Similarly, there are the freedom fighters of Kashmir or Afghanistan and there are the terrorists: the distinction is based on the identity of their victims. Kill Americans in Afghanistan or get killed by them anywhere and you are a freedom fighter, kill Pakistanis and you are a terrorist. Mehran man is incensed by the drone attacks in the northwest frontier, as much for their infringement of national sovereignty as out of solidarity with poor villagers killed by them.

Mehran man is deeply proud of his country. A new identification with the ummah, or global community of Muslims, paradoxically reinforces rather than degrades his nationalism. For him, Pakistan was founded as an Islamic state, not a state for south Asian Muslims. Mehran man is an "Islamo-nationalist." His country possesses a nuclear bomb that, as one Lahore shopkeeper told me, even the rich Arabs haven't built. The sentiment of self-sufficiency and nascent confidence, hardly justified given Pakistan's dependence on external aid and internal weaknesses, is boosted by the size of the country: in a decade the population will near 200m.

Given the dysfunctional nature of Pakistani democracy, we cannot ignore Mehran man. Apart from anything else, the army is full of Mehran men. During a week I spent with the Pakistani army, the heritage of Sandhurst seemed largely restricted to the whitewashed stones aligned outside segregated messes for senior officers, junior officers, non-commissioned officers and other ranks. The links to America are more material-helicopters, jeeps and ammunition-but no more profound. Conversations with officers reveals that their understanding of Pakistan's best interests differs radically from that which London or Washington would like them to have. As for the other pillar of non-elected power in Pakistan, a lot of bureaucrats drive Mehrans too, or at least did before being promoted.

All this poses problems for the west. Our policy towards Pakistan has long been based on finding the interlocutor who resembles us the most-Pervez Musharraf, Benazir Bhutto, now her widower-and then trying to persuade them to fit in with our agenda. But the people we are talking to are going to find themselves more and more cut off, culturally and politically, from those they lead, and less and less capable of implementing the policies that we want. Pakistanis are increasingly defining their own interests, independently of the views of their pro-western leaders. And Mehran man will soon be in the driving seat.

[Rupesh]

The resident Indian paki continues spreading lies and disinformation. His latest c**p from Yawn

When Charu Mazumdar famously said, ‘China’s Chairman is our Chairman and China’s Path is Our Path’ he was prepared to extend it to the point where the Naxalites remained silent while General Yahya Khan committed genocide in East Pakistan (Bangladesh), because at the time, China was an ally of Pakistan. There was silence too, over the Khmer Rouge and its killing fields in Cambodia. There was silence over the egregious excesses of the Chinese and Russian Revolutions. Silence over Tibet.

“Within the Naxalite movement too, there have been violent excesses and it’s impossible to defend much of what they’ve done. But can anything they have done compare with the sordid achievements of the Congress and the BJP in Punjab, Kashmir, Delhi, Mumbai, Gujarat… And yet, despite these terrifying contradictions, Charu Mazumdar was a visionary in much of what he wrote and said. The party he founded (and its many splinter groups) has kept the dream of revolution real and present in India. Imagine a society without that dream. For that alone we cannot judge him too harshly.”

[Gerard]

Halal comedy? You might as well ask for halal bacon

[Airavat]

Stinking heaps of garbage spreading disease near Rawalpindi

The area falls under the jurisdiction of the Potohar Town administration where not a single dustbin is available for the waste. The residents told ‘The News’ that children are facing abdominal diseases like diarrhoea due to the ever-increasing heap of garbage. In case of wind or storm scattered garbage enter their houses, while in rainy situation scanting smell makes it difficult to breathe.

Flight Lieutenant (r) Muhammad Saifullah said that he is living in front of the garbage dump. “My children are facing abdominal diseases for the last two months, but the sanitation department failed to lift the garbage.”

[shynee]

Pakistan’s Gilani Says He Opposes Afghan Talks With Taliban - Geela-hi-na's wish list

[Prasad]

Bootlegging, Pakistan-Style

In today’s urban centers like Lahore and Karachi, alcohol is still widely available. But in places like Peshawar, a somewhat lawless and more conservative city on the frontier of the Taliban’s strongholds in Pakistan’s northwest, it has lately become far more difficult to procure.

One man, who claims to be the biggest dealer in Peshawar, says he has 10 employees and nets as much as $14,000 a night serving “the so-called respectable people,” as he wryly referred to his customers.

To ensure their safety, bootleggers hire teenage motorbike drivers to shuttle one or two bottles across the police checkpoints that divide Peshawar from the outlying Tribal Areas. Sometimes the motorbike drivers panic at the checkpoints, the bootleggers say, refusing to stop and getting themselves shot in the process.

Those who are caught typically are released after paying a $350 bribe. At the higher levels, some bootleggers say they pay $1,200 a month to police chiefs who stamp their signature on the bottles, a sign to police officers to look the other way.

“We used to be a very moderate, vibrant and modern society,” said a 28-year-old educated Pakistani who does not tell his family that he is a regular drinker. “We had clubs, and females went to those clubs, but if you have people who have arms and are fully equipped, you don’t have any options.”

[arun]

X Posted. Yet another case of a kidnapped Sikh being pressured during his kidnap ordeal in the Islamic Republic of Pakistan to change his religion and convert to Islam.

It seems to be standard operating practice in the Islamic Republic of Pakistan to pressure kidnapped non Muslim individuals to convert and become Muslim.

That leads me to wonder if this was being done by the Muslim kidnappers to prepare the grounds for immunity from future prosecution by posing as good, pious Muslims only doing their religious duty of rounding up Kaafirs and bringing them in the fold of the Momin?

Sikh IT professional freed after two months

[Vivek_A]

Amit and SSridhar: Take the Dawn article with a pinch of salt

Every time you read something like this, think of Richard Holbrooke, US envoy for the Kashmir issue.

[SSridhar]

LeT flourishes on Facebook

Jaish chief Azhar's more improbable Facebook friends include Rotterdam-based Gautam Ramaswamy, whose profile also demonstrates an eclectic interest in Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi, the philosophy of Adi Sankara and the music of the heavy metal band Slayer.

[amit]

Amit and SSridhar: Take the Dawn article with a pinch of salt

Every time you read something like this, think of Richard Holbrooke, US envoy for the Kashmir issue.

Boss,

Your probably right. That was my initial reaction too. However, what intrigued me a bit was two things. The Obama-MMS meeting was extended from 45 mins to 1.5 hours. And the other was that our Maniniya Pradhan Mantri ji, by his standards, seem to have done quite a lot of franking talking, making his (that is India's) displeasure known and that's the apparent reason why Obama had an extended meeting with the PM. My speculation is that something really nasty may have triggered off this behaviour on the part of the PM. Of course all this is based on media reports so take FWIW.

And I don't put it past that idiot Holbrooke and his cronies to come up with this "tactically" brilliant plan for the trilateral. They've been sleeping with the W*ore for far too long and display the same behaviour. Also since they've become experts in downhill skiing when things go bad (remember Holbrooke's comments after the last Kabul blasts and the hurried klariphucation when the SDRE expressed displeasure?) I guess they thought they could manage the situation if it went bad.

[Juggi G]

deleted - off topic. You are treading on thin ice here.

Please avoid this sort of post in the future. This is a Pakistani specific thread, not one on Arabia or Arab or Muslim alleged customs.

[shiv]

Here is the full text. Will leave it to the admins to see if it can stay:

Letter from Karachi
Prospect
March 25, 2010
BYLINE: Jason Burke]

jrjRAW thanks for posting the article and thanks to Arun Gupta for pointing it out.

This article goes well with the following link in pointing out the "state of RAPE" in Paagistaaan.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree ... -sex-halal

Some interesting movement has occurred in Pakhanastaan - nothing new, but Pakistan means different things depending on where you view it from.

Someone mentioned the words "center of gravity". The US consider the RAPE as the center of gravity of Pakhanastan. Support for RAPE would bend Pakistan their way. What the US ignored of course is that beneath the veneer, RAPE had the psyche of Mehran man. Mehran man might well represent the new Pakhanastani that is replacing RAPE but I see no shift in Paa'staan's "center of gravity". It is neither RAPE nor Mehran. Rape and Mehran have required life support in the form of US bailouts to survive and develop, But Mango Abdul, who helps fund and preserve the LeT and Taliban while simultaneously being responsible for Pakhanastaans insurgencies is IMO the real center of gravity that is ignored by the US.

The US calculus has traditionally been one of support to a well armed and funded elite. They did that in Vietnam and in Iran. They have done that in KSA and in Pakhanastan as well. While a well armed elite have been the traditional arbiters of power in colonial times, a huge population has dynamic and power of its own that a well armed and funded elite cannot necessarily control.

The "population struggle" that defeated the US in Vietnam and the revolution in Iran are both examples of the failure of support to a well armed and funded elite and the failure to acknowledge the unpredictable dynamics of people power.

So that is fine - I have pointed out what the US is doing wrong. Big deal! So what? I ask this because the viewpoint from India is different and has always been different. Except for the kandle kissers, India has never considered the elite of Pakistan as a center of gravity. At best they have been recognised as irritants and the inciters of war, terrorism and hatred towards India. India and the Indian polity have always viewed Pakistan as owned by Abdul Pakistani - in the same way that the Indian polity views India as mango Indian - "aam junta" voters of special interest groups. India has never been in the business of kowtowing or paying off RAPE, but talks in terms of asking what Abdul Pakistani - the real "center of gravity" as far as India is concerned wants. So it is important to ask yet again the similarities and differences between, RAPE, Mehran man and Abdul Pakistani.

Islam and the Muslim identity are common between RAPE, Mehran and Abdul. Islam is not about to go away. But other than Islam there is a gap between RAPE, Mehran man and Mango Abdul.

Once again (and I apologize for linking it yet again) I call attention to a graphic of islamic society that I crated some years ago. These are the two "oil droplet" pictures.
http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a11/cy ... -drop2.jpg
http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a11/cy ... -drop1.jpg

Abdul Pakistani is closer to "Core Islamist". Mehran is closer to "assimilated Muslim". RAPE hovers between Assimilated and "world citizen"

I also see islam as having two components

1) One is the humanitarian component that helps Muslims lead lives, provides comfort, succor and companionship - let me refer to this is "Peaceful Islam". (This is just a name - a name that is preferred by a whole lot of people who speak of islam. I am not asking anyone to agree with the name)
2) Political Islam - that seeks domination, submission and subjugation. - let me call this "jihadi islam"

Islam was like this right from its start and developed both these components very early. But that is OT. Jihadi Islam has always used the "veneer" the "front end" of peaceful islam to get volunteers for jihad. While "peaceful Islam" is just a way for people to be religious a politically minded Muslim with resources like money and arms can get his volunteers from the ranks of "peaceful islam"

I think it was Johann who pointed out on this forum that it is always the educated and well fed guy who serves as the ideologue to start a revolution. It is not the starving poor guy. But these two groups "well fed educated and "starving poor" characterize the relationship between RAPE/Mehran on the one hand and Abdul Pakistani on the other hand.

These groups also indicate the difference in the way Pakistan is viewed by the US and by india. The US funds and supports RAPE (and have created Mehran). India does not support RAPE (only Kandle Kissers do) India keeps harping on Mango Abdul. In effect the US is funding the "well fed and educated" ideologues who get recruits from the poor. The US is funding Political islamists (wearing RAPE and Mehran clothes) while the Islamists use a pool of poor "Peaceful hungry islam" to fight battles against india.

India is trying to develop a constituency among Mango Abdul and is thwarted by both RAPE and their masters the US. The US does not give a flying fig about mango Abdul and when mango Abdul revolts he is called the Taliban. Else he is moderate and secular.

The point I am trying to suggest is that the "Taliban" could be our ally. The Taliban is now a reaction that is taking on RAPE and the US. This can only be an ally for India if we play our cards right. I will expand on this in future posts - but the biggest drawback that is pointed out on this forum in supporting the Taliban is that it is seen as a "giving away of indic India" to islam. I will talk about that separately. I am not necessarily in agreement with that viewpoint.

[shynee]

PM meets Gilani on the sidelines of Nuclear Security Summit

[abhishek_sharma]

Pakistani prime minister: U.S. aid money goes through me

http://thecable.foreignpolicy.com/posts ... through_me

The U.S. government has agreed to give billions of new foreign aid money directly to Pakistani groups and not through American organizations such as the U.S. Agency for International Development, according to Pakistan's Prime Minister Syed Yousaf Raza Gilani.

...

Regardless, Gilani said, the decision has been made. "We have convinced the government of the United States that the money should be given directly to the Pakistani organizations," he told a group of reporters during a Monday lunch at Washington's Four Seasons Hotel. Gilani is in town for the Nuclear Security Summit and met with President Obama Sunday.

...


Many in the U.S. foreign aid community are upset with Holbrooke for trying to take the funds out their control, arguing that they already have the infrastructure in place to best disperse the funds. Deputy Secretary of State Jack Lew and USAID Administrator Rajiv Shah are traveling to Pakistan separately this week.

Pakistan's energy woes were a main focus for Gilani and also a main topic in his meeting with Obama, as well as the recent U.S.-Pakistan Strategic Dialogue that the State Department hosted two weeks ago. "Pakistan expects non-discrimination regarding a civil-nuclear deal with Islamabad," Gilani said.

That civil-nuclear deal is extremely unlikely, at least in the near term.

Tying the issue back to the summit, Gilani said he also wants a non-discriminatory policy regarding nuclear energy as a whole. When asked if that included Iran, he said, "Not really."

Pakistan has been resisting progress toward a Fissile Material Cutoff Treaty, part of President Obama's nuclear agenda, but Gilani declined to endorse that idea, saying that's not what was on the table now.

Gilani also said he would not allow U.S. officials to interview notorious Pakistani nuclear proliferator A.Q. Khan, who lives under limited confinement in a sort of house arrest.

Following the lunch, Foreign Minister Makhdoom Shah Mahmood Qureshi said that no progress was made in the Obama meeting toward brokering a cooling of tensions between India and Pakistan, although he said more dialogue is needed.

[abhishek_sharma]

Gilani seeks more evidence against Lashkar for action

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/worl ... 792691.cms

[sujoy]

Rupesh,

Not only are you mis-ascribing the quote, you are quoting out of context.

The following paragraph is Naqvi quoting Arundhati Roy http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/ma ... -maoists-4. He is lamenting that some in media have quoted Roy out of context in painting her as sympathizer of militant Maoism. Whether that is correct or not is the point.

Besides, this is OT.

The resident Indian paki continues spreading lies and disinformation. His latest c**p from Yawn

When Charu Mazumdar famously said, ‘China’s Chairman is our Chairman and China’s Path is Our Path’ he was prepared to extend it to the point where the Naxalites remained silent while General Yahya Khan committed genocide in East Pakistan (Bangladesh), because at the time, China was an ally of Pakistan. There was silence too, over the Khmer Rouge and its killing fields in Cambodia. There was silence over the egregious excesses of the Chinese and Russian Revolutions. Silence over Tibet.

“Within the Naxalite movement too, there have been violent excesses and it’s impossible to defend much of what they’ve done. But can anything they have done compare with the sordid achievements of the Congress and the BJP in Punjab, Kashmir, Delhi, Mumbai, Gujarat… And yet, despite these terrifying contradictions, Charu Mazumdar was a visionary in much of what he wrote and said. The party he founded (and its many splinter groups) has kept the dream of revolution real and present in India. Imagine a society without that dream. For that alone we cannot judge him too harshly.”