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

[anupmisra]

Musharraf berates Muslim world

See, Mush's circular arguement starts something like this:

Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf has said Islamic countries will remain backward unless they concentrate more on scientific and technological development.

"Today we are the poorest, the most illiterate, the most backward, the most unhealthy, the most un-enlightened, the most deprived, and the weakest of all the human race," he told the delegates.

While the collective Gross National Product of the all Muslim countries stands at $1,200bn, that of Germany alone is $2,500bn and that of Japan $5,500bn.

And, also note that he did not mention India's GDP at $1.3 Trillion. BTW, upon hearing Mush berate his own, a section of the enlightened audience rushed forward to hug him:

[anupmisra]

Clinton on Packistan
Warns of severe consequences if....

[archan]

Methinks Kayani is the real "ringleader" who gave the go ahead for 26/11.

Right and wrong. Right on the generics and wrong on specifics.
the Pakistani army has required an army chief to "prove his credentials" by initiating action against India (That's right)
Not only in TSPA, but among the aam junta and all sorts of acronymns, ISI, TTP, LET, JEM which are nothing but one and the same people, a strong action against India gets respect, obedience and retirement goodies.

But 26/11 in it's conception was too small an operation to have been gone at Kayanee level or even ISI chief level. It was no different than Akshardham and in its expected results the parliament attack was way bigger.
26/11 success surprised the TSPA top brass as it shocked Indians and later TSP brass usurped it.
Kargil was a way bigger operation and Mushy got his 10 years due to it.

Kayanee I guess is still waiting for that golden chance to "prove his credentials".

I would advise you to not be too judgmental. What you presented, after all, is your opinion, and by your own admission, part of it was your guess. shiv ignored it but I see potential problems due to this behavior. Who knows what is absolutely true and what is not, everyone tries to put forward their opinions based on what they know, how they think. Bluntly calling someone wrong would not help.

[Brad Goodman]

Clinton on Packistan
Warns of severe consequences if....

why r they playing good cop & bad cop. Her own foggy bottom official is busy protecting pakis

[Amber G.]

^^^ story wrt to Clinton posted by Anup above also here:
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/05/ ... 8740.shtml

[CalvinH]

This FS case seems to bring up quite a lot of questions in my mind. If he did actually intend causing damage, did he really think that he wouldn't be tracked down even if the car exploded and there were only shreds left behind at the scene?

If he actually did know he could be tracked down, why didn't he leave the country on the same night? That tells me he was planning on not being tracked down by the fbi or dhs and decided to leave the country when they were close to getting him. If that is the case, did he leave on his own or was he told to leave by someone from outside.

He was over confident and amatuerish. He probably never thought the car would be traced back to him. Otherwise it is very difficult to explain his actions. He even forgot the keys of his get away car in the SUV. Then he went back to his apartment and got his landlord to open the apartment and collected his suzuki and waited another day before he tried to flee. This was like the first world trade center bombing. In that the idiot went back to Uhaul co (?) to collect his deposit and never expected that the FBI would be able to trace the truck.

1. I think its reasonable to assume that a car which is blown to pieces cannot be traced back the original source
2. He didnt tried flying out immediately because once the car is discovered and nationwide alert is launched first thing checked is who is flying out and booked the ticket 2 hours ago at the airport. its reasonable to expect that he may be thinking of other options related to hiding or using some other means to get out of US.
c. Anyone can forget the car keys in the car one is parking with that intention in the heat of the moment. It doesnt prove that he is an idiot or didnt planned it well.

I find this whole reasoning of labeling him as an amateur who didnt planned it well is basically flawed and based on assumptions for which many reasonable alternate explanations can be provided. he is MS+MBA ...last think one can assume is that he didnt planned it well.

I see either this or the other opinion that he is from JEM or taliban:

Why pakis are trying to put a TTP or JEM spin on this. Because they want US people to believe that this not an ordinary paki but a militant paki, a terrorist paki. They dont want you to believe that an ordinary decent looking paki from your office who has access to all key places in your office cant put a bomb their tommorow to teach US a lesson. Only an extraordinary, trained and radicalized is capable of doing something like this and you dont have to worry about normal looking pakistanis around you.

[Gagan]

One possible reason why TTP / JEM is mentioned, is because LET has to be protected.

There is no love lost between the Pakistani establishment and the TTP / JEM. Both these groups have attacked pakistan and the military establishment.

It is LET on which the Pakistan punjabi army relies on most. The LET is like a brother to the Paki army. Remember what G Parthasarathy had said. In the villages of south punjab one brother joins the army as a soldier, and the other brother joins the LET.

LET is the main operations wing, a-la strategic forces of Pakistan. But this group which is allied to Al-Qaida in that their cadres have a rich history of training together, and its leader, that fat assed Hafiz Pig Sayeed does not forget to mention that he's done his namaz with OBL himself on a few occasions. Some Pan Islamic agenda has rubbed off on the LET from Al qauida and the general islamization trend in Pakistan. The result is that this past decade and a half, the LET has been involved in terrorist acts all the way from Australia, to Indonesia, to Chechnya, to ouirope to the US.

Pakistan desperately wants to preserve the LET for use against India. (Who else will do mumbai 26/11 type terror strikes on India? Who will lob grenades and set off bombs in vegetable markets in J&K or the rest of India, and who will carry that JDAM into India hain ji?).

Pakistan will try its best to make sure that:
1. Any links to LET and therefore to Jihadist Ex or serving military officers is made to disappear.
2. Obfuscate, and try and shift the blame to groups that are aligned against Pakistan - JEM, TTP.
The unusually large group of IB, ISI, MI etc (all going by the colloquial 'Agencies' in Pakistan), brief will be to do exactly this.

Don't forget that its possible this might lead to some military officers in Pakistan.

I think Hillary is hinting at this.

[CRamS]

R-man was right on when he said that Hillary is a hawk among all the AfPak handlers. I excuse her for being cuddly cuddly with Quereshi (she after all is human, and God knows where Billy boy sleeps ),

[Guddu]

Some details of the bomb from Strat
"The bomb’s components were common, everyday products that would not raise undue suspicion when purchased — especially if they were bought separately. They included the following:

1. Some 113 kilograms (250 pounds) of urea-based fertilizer. A diagram released by the U.S. Department of Justice indicates that the fertilizer was found in a metal gun locker in the back of the Pathfinder. The mere presence of urea-based fertilizer does not necessarily indicate that the materials in the gun locker composed a viable improvised explosive mixture, but urea-based fertilizer can be mixed with nitric acid to create urea nitrate, the main explosive charge used in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. (It is not known if the fertilizer in the Pathfinder had been used to create urea nitrate.) Urea nitrate is a popular improvised mixture that can be detonated by a blasting cap and does not require a high-explosive booster charge like ammonium nitrate does; 250 pounds of urea nitrate would be enough to destroy the Pathfinder completely and create a substantial blast effect. If detonated near a large crowd of people, such an explosion could produce serious carnage.

2.Two 19-liter (5-gallon) containers of gasoline. If ignited, this fuel would have added an impressive fireball to the explosion but, in practical terms, would not have added much to the explosive effect of the device. Most of the damage would have been done by the urea nitrate. Reports indicate that consumer-grade fireworks (M-88 firecrackers) had been placed between the two containers of gasoline and were detonated, but they do not appear to have ruptured the containers and did not ignite the gasoline inside them. It appears that the firecrackers were intended to be the initiator for the device and were apparently the source of a small fire in the carpet upholstery of the Pathfinder. This created smoke that alerted a street vendor that something was wrong. The firecrackers likely would not have had sufficient detonation velocity to initiate urea nitrate.

3.Three 75-liter (20-gallon) propane tanks. Police have reported that the tank valves were left unopened, which has led others to conclude that this was yet another mistake on the part of Shahzad. Certainly, opening the tanks’ valves, filling the vehicle with propane gas and then igniting a spark would have been one way to cause a large explosion. Another way would have been to use explosives (such as the adjacent fertilizer mixture or gasoline) to rupture the tanks, which would have created a large amount of force and fire since the propane inside the tanks was under considerable pressure. Shahzad may have actually been attempting to blast open the propane tanks, which would explain why the valves were closed. Propane tanks are commonly used in improvised explosive devices (IEDs) in many parts of the world. Even without detonating, the propane tanks would have become very large and dangerous projectiles if the fertilizer had detonated.

[Carl_T]

R-man was right on when he said that Hillary is a hawk among all the AfPak handlers. I excuse her for being cuddly cuddly with Quereshi (she after all is human, and God knows where Billy boy sleeps ),

She's a 60 yr old old-fashioned feminist, getting cuddly with Qurayshi has to be an act...

[Airavat]

It's all America's fault

The moot question is, what is wrong with the US system? Five Americans — two of Pakistani-origin, one Eritrean, one Ethiopian and one of Egyptian origin — are in a Pakistani lockup in Sargodha since December 2009. On interrogation they stated that they were trying to find an al Qaeda link to go to Afghanistan. This means that they were sufficiently motivated to go to Afghanistan to fight the occupiers before they arrived in Pakistan . In fact, the US has made many enemies by bombing other countries.

The reason for invading Afghanistan was ascribed to al Qaeda, which reportedly had planned the 9/11 terrorist attacks. But it was proved beyond doubt that all those involved had been living in western countries. They all had studied in western universities and planning was carried out in the German city of Hamburg. And they had gotten training in American aviation academies.

[Prasad]

Weren't lpg cylinders used in a bombing in mumbai near the gateway of india a few years ago? Some guy in a taxi set it off killing scores? Looks like the same modus operandi here, though the fertiliser seems to be extra.

[A_Gupta]

deleted

[Singha]

a piece of news may have been missed here.

a frenchman of algerian origin in delhi was picked up for suspicious movements, interrogated in FRRO and deported. he could not explain why he
had come to india from qatar but intended to go to pakistan via india. he visited the pak consulate in delhi and one "kabad house" (could be some
yehudi center). that must have set off some red flag in the MIB bunker and the black van got to him.

[abhishek_sharma]

Faisal Shahzad and the Pakistan Problem

http://afpak.foreignpolicy.com/posts/20 ... an_problem

[Rupesh]

PESHAWAR: Terrorists attacked a police checkpost situated in the jurisdiction of the Mansehra Police Station on Friday, killing four policemen and critically injuring one, police said. The gunmen sprayed bullets at policemen sheltering from rain inside a checkpost building in Ghazi Kot town in Mansehra district. “Four policemen were killed on the spot, while the injured policeman is still unconscious,” Zulfiqar Jadoon, a police official said. “This is a clear act of terrorism,” Jadoon said. The gunmen arrived in a vehicle and fled after the attack, he added. staff report/afp

AoA Gunmen have escaped..hope they will continue with their pious acts with better results.

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.as ... 2010_pg7_3

[shiv]

If one goes by deaf-n-dumb forum, at least one Paki is quite upset with this, he says:

I will be rather called a terrorist than an Indian.

Pakistanis pose as Indians after NY bomb scare

Pakistani merchants and job seekers in the United States, still reeling from economic hardship since the September 11 attacks of 2001, are posing as Indians to avoid discrimination in the wake of the Times Square bomb attempt.

[arun]

Pakistanis pose as Indians after NY bomb scare

Pakistani merchants and job seekers in the United States, still reeling from economic hardship since the September 11 attacks of 2001, are posing as Indians to avoid discrimination in the wake of the Times Square bomb attempt.

"A lot of Pakistanis can't get jobs after 9/11 and now it's even worse," said Asghar Choudhri, an accountant and chairman of Brooklyn's Pakistani American Merchant Association. "They are now pretending they are Indian so they can get a job."

{Snipped}

"After 9/11, we took much pain," he said. "After that, a small beating is nothing. Now the Pakistanis are not so much scared but we are ashamed. We are embarrassed that the name of Pakistan came up. "

Jingo ka dil kush hua..

There is an inevitability I guess that those who originate from the Islamic Republic of Pakistan will try to pose as Indian .

I know that the statute books of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan has a law that makes it a crime to "Pose as a Muslim". Is it a crime to "Pose as an Indian"? :

The failed attempt of demonstrating the IEDology of Pakistan in New York’s Times Square is causing some introspection among those whose descent originates in the Islamic Republic of Pakistan

Here is an individual originating from the Islamic Republic of Pakistan who would rather be identified as Indian :

Sometimes, I long for the blurry cultural identities of the 80s, when elementary school friends lumped all Pakistani, Bangladeshi, Sri Lankan and Egyptian immigrants in one brown-hued bucket: "India." Who wouldn't rather be affiliated with "Slumdog Millionaire," Metro PCS's Ranjit and Chad, Chicken Tikkah Masala, Bhangra remixes and Bollywood instead of religious extremism and Al Qaeda?

Read the complete lament in Salon :

What I understand about Faisal Shahzad

[Sanjay M]

Hillary Says Pak Told to Shape Up Or Else

Meh, as if the Pakistanis could give a damn

[rgsrini]

Shahzad close friend of 26/11 mastermind: Report

Quoting sources, ABC news said Shahzad was a close childhood friend of one of the alleged masterminds of the 26/11Mumbai carnage, in which more than 166 people were killed.

However, the television network did not identify the Pakistani mastermind.

[archan]

R-man was right on when he said that Hillary is a hawk among all the AfPak handlers. I excuse her for being cuddly cuddly with Quereshi (she after all is human, and God knows where Billy boy sleeps ),

She's a 60 yr old old-fashioned feminist, getting cuddly with Qurayshi has to be an act...

Why do we even bring this kind of stuff up... really

[shiv]

She's a 60 yr old old-fashioned feminist, getting cuddly with Qurayshi has to be an act...

To be fair - Qureishi forced her into looking cuddly. What the shameless Paki did was to combine his speech (that was basically about how satisfied he was with the result of US-Paki strategic dialog) with an artificially long laugh where he pretended that he and Mrs Clinton were old pals sharing a joke and he extended his laugh to an abnormally and artificially long length while he leaned towards Clinton. She could have stood erect and unresponsive but given that the US has just thoroughly GUBOed Pakistan and here was this Paki effusively thanking the US for that, she had to at least pretend empathy and the shared joke for the Paki audience that would watch. So she leaned towards him empathetically. That moment was caught on a billion cameras.

So in the strategic dialog if Pakistan lost 99 out of 100 points - Qureshi pulled off a 1 point Hezbollah victory.

Anyone can publish a photo of me driving past a red light area and claim that I live in a whorehouse.

[Prem]

Hech and Dee saved and Sauverginity restored.
Puckers need not pretend to be Indian/Can emit natural stink.
http://www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/daw ... traeus-850
Shahzad a ‘lone wolf’: Petraeus

WASHINGTON: A senior US military commander and a lawmaker said on Friday they believed the man who tried to bomb New York’s Times Square was a ‘lone wolf’. Gen David Petraeus, who oversees America’s wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, told a US news agency there was no indication that Faisal Shahzad worked with others in concocting the terror attack or the homemade bomb. “We don’t know that this individual did something that escaped in some way our ability to pick up on either his trip to Pakistan or some other case,” said Congressman Silvestre Reyes, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, when asked at a news conference why US intelligence agencies failed to learn about Faisal’s links to the Taliban. Gen Petraeus, however, told AP that Faisal was “inspired by militants in Pakistan but didn’t have direct contact with them”.
On Thursday, the Washington Post reported that US investigators were “increasingly convinced that (Faisal’s) accounts to interrogators, in particular his assertion that he was trained by the Pakistani Taliban, are on the mark”. The report, quoting anonymous intelligence sources, also claimed that US officials had identified an “overseas courier” who funnelled money to Shahzad for the failed terrorist attack. The Obama’s administration believed that drone attacks were not adequate in thwarting militant attempts on the West. And it was considering an “expanded training mission” by US Special Forces to establish enough “confidence” in the Pakistani military to launch offensives against militant strongholds in North Waziristan, a press report said. The US administration did not share the media’s enthusiasm, particularly when it came to browbeating Pakistan. “We have dramatically increased our partnership with Pakistan – intense security cooperation, supporting Pakistan’s largest offensive against terrorism within borders – within its borders in years, an offensive that is focused not just on Al Qaeda, but on the Pakistani Taliban as well,” said White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs.
Mr Gibbs also downplayed the suggestion that Faisal had received training at a camp in North Waziristan.
“The specific region was not, as I recall, brought up in great detail today,” said the White House spokesman when asked if President Barack Obama had discussed the terror camps in North Waziristan with his war council on Thursday. “Suffice to say that many regions in Pakistan have been the focus of our cooperative work with Pakistan, the government of Pakistan for the length of our administration, understanding that we have a threat that continues from that region of the world.”

[SSridhar]

Our Secretive PM - Seema Mustafa
Excerpts with comments

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has returned from the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) summit in Thimphu with ostensibly an agreement for peace with Pakistan in hand. At his meeting with Pakistan Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani, Singh negotiated a deal accommodating most of Pakistan’s concerns. In that the two decided that the dialogue would be resumed after a meeting of the foreign secretaries and foreign ministers. That the initial eight issues identified for discussion in the composite dialogue would be expanded to cover Balochistan and water as areas of ‘mutual concern’ as Pakistan has been insisting. And that terrorism would, of course, remain on top of the agenda, but after Pakistan has recorded its inability because of ‘legal problems’ to take action against Hafiz Saeed. {So, it has been accepted by our PM and his bureaucrats that Prof. Hafeez Saeed is out-of-bounds because there is 'some difficulty with judicial process'. That was the result of the Thimpu meeting. No wonder Shah Mehmood Qureshi says that the meeting went beyond their expectation. We can now see India de-emphasising Prof. Hafeez Saeed. Pakistan has always been saying that our relationship cannot depend on an individual which we have been forced to accept}

The prime minister has always been uneasy, like a good bureaucrat, with transparency even when it works for the government. He likes to hide decisions from public view until he is in position to confront the people with the actual event. {That then becomes a fait-accompli} The meeting with Gilani had been decided weeks ago, a certain agenda had also been worked out (after all 50 minutes is not sufficient to chart out an entire course of action without preparatory work), but a decision had been taken by the PMO to keep it all under wraps for as long as possible. So the government remained in denial mode about the meeting with Gilani till almost the moment it took place, in what the bureaucrats led by Singh think is good policy.

The problem in this is that whatever is decided by the prime minister remains the decision of the PMO and not of the Congress, Parliament or for that matter even the government. Singh is a firm believer in keeping information hidden from those who believe could be detractors, and really demonstrated these skills during the discussions surrounding the Indo-US civilian nuclear energy agreement.

The same has emerged from Thimphu. Singh has been so eager for talks to resume that as in Sharm el-Sheikh he has conceded some major points to Pakistan. The charge that he is under US pressure sticks, as again the pressure to restore peace at any cost is not coming from the Congress or for that matter from Parliament and the Cabinet to which he is accountable. As a result there was no need for him to make undue concessions as he has done yet again. {So, water is now added officially to the list of issues to be discussed as part of composite dialogue. We conceded Balochistan in S-e-S.}And without taking his party or the country into confidence. It has now been decided by the prime minister and his team of bureaucrats that all areas of ‘mutual concern’ will be on the table for dialogue, including Balochistan and water that Indian diplomats over the decades had succeeded in keeping out of bilateral talks. Now each time India and Pakistan meet, the former has to reiterate as it did again this time in Thimphu, that it is not interested in meddling in the internal affairs of Pakistan. A reiteration which is immediately publicised by Pakistan, as it was again by their foreign minister at his press conference after the Thimphu meeting.

This absurd secrecy is raising unnecessary suspicions and controversies at home. As also the fact that this does not really help the peace process, in fact, it detracts from it, as piecemeal information creates opposition and hurdles at every step.

Now everything is up for grabs and no one, not even Singh or Gilani can say with any certainty that it will work. Except for the fact that some kind of talks will begin, no one can say whether these will result in a substantive dialogue. For Balochistan and water are now two other contentious issues that have been added to Kashmir, and the Indian consensus still is against discussing these. Singh has not been able to shift that, nor has he tried to. And the Congress is not sufficiently on board to do the work for him.

The result is that even Pakistan has started doubting his ability to deliver, with its leaders maintaining that while he was willing his party was not backing him. In India, unfortunately for Pakistan, it has to be the other way around. The party has to be willing, and only then can a prime minister deliver. The bureaucrat in Singh has prevented him from recognising this fact, as well as the need for at least some level of transparency and accountability to make an agreement work.

[Prem]

Our conferees concluded, (Pakistan) will not recover easily from decades of political and economic mismanagement, divisive politics, lawlessness, corruption and ethnic friction. Nascent democratic reforms will produce little change in the face of opposition from an entrenched political elite and radical Islamic parties. Further domestic decline would benefit Islamic political activists, who may significantly increase their role in national politics and alter the makeup and cohesion of the military — once Pakistan’s most capable institution. In a climate of continuing domestic turmoil, the central government’s control probably will be reduced to the Punjabi heartland and the economic hub of Karachi” — ‘US National Intelligence Council, Global Trends 2015’, published in December 2000.

VIEW: Pakistan in 2015 —Shahid Ilyas
http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.as ... 2010_pg3_3

[arun]

X Posted.

The involvement of India born “Kaafir” US Federal Attorney Preet Bharara in prosecuting Pakistani origin “Momin” terrorists is being viewed as a conspiracy by the Urdu media of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan.

Translation of an article that appeared in Roznama Nawa-i-Waqt by MEMRI:

Urdu Daily Sees Conspiracy, Says: Faisal Shahzad Arrested, Charged And Confessed In One Day, Too Good To Be True; U.S. Federal Attorney Is Hindu With A Jewish Wife

[arun]

X Posted.

In a not very subtle bid to get the smaller provinces of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan to acquiesce to dominant Punjab province’s water gluttony, the Nation in an editorial rails about Kishanganga and suggests as a solution that Kalabagh dam be built.

Water terrorism

[arun]

The inevitable uncorking of the genie of Islamic bigotry initiated by the formation of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan on the grounds of the specious two nation theory is starting to impact Pakistani elites.

:

U.S. Muslims still face many misperceptions

Rafia Zakaria
Posted: May 8, 2010

The sick, sinking feeling following news of any new terrorist incident is by now familiar to any Muslim living in the United States.

As in the aftermath of 9/11 or Fort Hood, you hope against hope that the suspect is not a Muslim and, in my case, Pakistani -- and find your hopes dashed when indeed the suspect is. ……………….

With each breaking news story involving a Muslim or Pakistani suspect -- as this recent one about Faisal Shahzad, accused of trying to set off a bomb in Times Square -- I must face the awkward task of telling my daughter.

………………….. I want desperately for my daughter to be proud of being Muslim and Pakistani, and I balk at the mountain of misperceptions that she as a Muslim and Pakistani-American child already has to contend with. ………………..

Indystar

[arun]

How is it kosher for entities of the Government of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan to malign Islam, a religion which is claimed to be a “Religion of Peace”, by closing down schools teaching the tenets of the Muslim religion on the grounds that they are a threat to security?

Will the Organisation of Islamic Conference (OIC) censure its own member the Islamic Republic of Pakistan for this affront to the Muslim religion?

Madrassas close to sensitive installations alarm govt

[Johann]

This FS case seems to bring up quite a lot of questions in my mind. If he did actually intend causing damage, did he really think that he wouldn't be tracked down even if the car exploded and there were only shreds left behind at the scene?

If he actually did know he could be tracked down, why didn't he leave the country on the same night? That tells me he was planning on not being tracked down by the fbi or dhs and decided to leave the country when they were close to getting him. If that is the case, did he leave on his own or was he told to leave by someone from outside.

He was over confident and amatuerish. He probably never thought the car would be traced back to him. Otherwise it is very difficult to explain his actions. He even forgot the keys of his get away car in the SUV. Then he went back to his apartment and got his landlord to open the apartment and collected his suzuki and waited another day before he tried to flee. This was like the first world trade center bombing. In that the idiot went back to Uhaul co (?) to collect his deposit and never expected that the FBI would be able to trace the truck.

Have you wondered why the all of the last three attempted bombings in the UK failed to detonate properly? The attack in Glasgow in fact resembled the Times Square design in a number of respects.

It takes a *lot* of experience and training, or a lot of luck to build a powerful, portable IED that will go off when and *only* when you want it to. Especially when you're using legal, commercially available materials.

In the post 9/11 era a successful attack in the homeland of a Western country requires recruiting a citizen since non-citizens are scrutinised much more closely.

The problem is you can't spend too long training them - the more time they spend hanging around your jihadi kind, the more likely they are to pop up on the security agencies radars, and the less likely they are to be able to actually conduct the attack.

On the other hand the less time they spend training, the less likely they are to master all of the skills required.

Pakistan on the other hand has been a factory of jihad for so long, and jihadi ideology so widespread that there's no shortage of skilled bomb-makers, and no shortage of volunteers, and no shortage of military grade explosive materials to crank out one suicide attack after another on a weekly basis.

[Suppiah]

Clinton goes far beyond mere politically correct statements. This one is very very significant:

I think that there was a double game going on in the previous years, where we got a lot of lip service but very little produced. We've got a lot produced.

A part of this is of course the usual 'we are better than the previous regime' crap that we see everywhere...but the operative part double game gives us hope that Unkil has been cuckold not blind and one day he may discover his b..s

[Suppiah]

Guys seriously how to sensitise innocent Americans or other foreigners who may been fooled by Pakbarian animals pretending to be Indians? Foolish to expect GOI to do this and short of taking out full page ads in NYT what can be done?

[praksam]

US doesn't rule out Headley-Shahzad link


http://www.zeenews.com/news625122.html

[KLNMurthy]

Our Secretive PM - Seema Mustafa
Excerpts with comments

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has returned from the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) summit in Thimphu with ostensibly an agreement for peace with Pakistan in hand. At his meeting with Pakistan Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani, Singh negotiated a deal accommodating most of Pakistan’s concerns. In that the two decided that the dialogue would be resumed after a meeting of the foreign secretaries and foreign ministers. That the initial eight issues identified for discussion in the composite dialogue would be expanded to cover Balochistan and water as areas of ‘mutual concern’ as Pakistan has been insisting. And that terrorism would, of course, remain on top of the agenda, but after Pakistan has recorded its inability because of ‘legal problems’ to take action against Hafiz Saeed. {So, it has been accepted by our PM and his bureaucrats that Prof. Hafeez Saeed is out-of-bounds because there is 'some difficulty with judicial process'. That was the result of the Thimpu meeting. No wonder Shah Mehmood Qureshi says that the meeting went beyond their expectation. We can now see India de-emphasising Prof. Hafeez Saeed. Pakistan has always been saying that our relationship cannot depend on an individual which we have been forced to accept}

The prime minister has always been uneasy, like a good bureaucrat, with transparency even when it works for the government. He likes to hide decisions from public view until he is in position to confront the people with the actual event. {That then becomes a fait-accompli} The meeting with Gilani had been decided weeks ago, a certain agenda had also been worked out (after all 50 minutes is not sufficient to chart out an entire course of action without preparatory work), but a decision had been taken by the PMO to keep it all under wraps for as long as possible. So the government remained in denial mode about the meeting with Gilani till almost the moment it took place, in what the bureaucrats led by Singh think is good policy.

The problem in this is that whatever is decided by the prime minister remains the decision of the PMO and not of the Congress, Parliament or for that matter even the government. Singh is a firm believer in keeping information hidden from those who believe could be detractors, and really demonstrated these skills during the discussions surrounding the Indo-US civilian nuclear energy agreement.

The same has emerged from Thimphu. Singh has been so eager for talks to resume that as in Sharm el-Sheikh he has conceded some major points to Pakistan. The charge that he is under US pressure sticks, as again the pressure to restore peace at any cost is not coming from the Congress or for that matter from Parliament and the Cabinet to which he is accountable. As a result there was no need for him to make undue concessions as he has done yet again. {So, water is now added officially to the list of issues to be discussed as part of composite dialogue. We conceded Balochistan in S-e-S.}And without taking his party or the country into confidence. It has now been decided by the prime minister and his team of bureaucrats that all areas of ‘mutual concern’ will be on the table for dialogue, including Balochistan and water that Indian diplomats over the decades had succeeded in keeping out of bilateral talks. Now each time India and Pakistan meet, the former has to reiterate as it did again this time in Thimphu, that it is not interested in meddling in the internal affairs of Pakistan. A reiteration which is immediately publicised by Pakistan, as it was again by their foreign minister at his press conference after the Thimphu meeting.

This absurd secrecy is raising unnecessary suspicions and controversies at home. As also the fact that this does not really help the peace process, in fact, it detracts from it, as piecemeal information creates opposition and hurdles at every step.

Now everything is up for grabs and no one, not even Singh or Gilani can say with any certainty that it will work. Except for the fact that some kind of talks will begin, no one can say whether these will result in a substantive dialogue. For Balochistan and water are now two other contentious issues that have been added to Kashmir, and the Indian consensus still is against discussing these. Singh has not been able to shift that, nor has he tried to. And the Congress is not sufficiently on board to do the work for him.

The result is that even Pakistan has started doubting his ability to deliver, with its leaders maintaining that while he was willing his party was not backing him. In India, unfortunately for Pakistan, it has to be the other way around. The party has to be willing, and only then can a prime minister deliver. The bureaucrat in Singh has prevented him from recognising this fact, as well as the need for at least some level of transparency and accountability to make an agreement work.

This is interesting. Seema Mustafa is not, by inclination, a jingo opposed to peace with Pakistan. However, she is anti-American in the old-fashioned socialist/non-aligned commie mold. So, that constituency can be counted on, albeit in a limited way and for a limited time, to oppose the surrender to Pak.

[sum]

From Orbat:

#

Kashmir firefight leaves five Pakistani militants and two Indian soldiers dead. This kind of skirmish, even if repeated dozens of times, will not provoke Indian retaliation, as the Indians take such encounters as routine. To provoke India, a major terrorist attack, likely outside Kashmir, would have to take place.
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In Editor's opinion, the Indian position is absurd and invites a non-stop series of attacks against India, year after year. The cost to Pakistan is likely one thousandth that India incurs. There is no geopolitical cost, Moreover, by ostensibly backing "independence" for Kashmiris, Pakistan gets the cachet of supporting "freedom fighters". Of course, not only does Pakistan now allow its Kashmiris to raise their voice for independence, it has also detached the entire Northern Areas from Kashmir and put them under direct rule. Pakistan also gets away with claiming that Kashmir is a Muslim majority area. Actually, there are four parts to the former princely state of Kashmir: Jammu, Hindu majority; Kashmir, Muslim majority - most Hindus have been ethnically cleansed; Ladakh, Shia Muslim and Buddhist, with no love for Kashmir, and the Northern Areas that don't want to be with anybody. So Pakistan cannot speak for the whole province, and it's been a big mystery to the Editor why the Indians let Pakistan get away with it.
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Imagine that the US, for 25 years, has been under continuous infiltration attack along a major border. Every year hundreds of infiltrators enter, and the US fights a never-ending series of encounters with the infiltrators. Imagine that three times in the last 60 years the nation beyond the border has invaded US territory, and has had to be pushed out.
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Does anyone think the US would simply let this situation continue? Of course not. But India does, and it should not be surprised no one, including the US, takes India seriously.
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As Editor has warned, the situation will change as the generations that have been born in a dynamic, rapidly economically expanding India take charge. We don't see it happening in 10 years, because the post-independence generation, which is morally effete, will still be ruling. Twenty years down the line, things will be different.

Sad but true ( atleast the first 4 paras)

[arun]

This article by Chidanand Rajghatta titled “Hell is... to be a Pakistani American” will certainly be getting the dander of those originating in the Islamic Republic of Pakistan up:

…………… as any South Asian expert worth his or her salt will tell you, it’s bad form to imply Indians are somehow better at something, much less ask or suggest that Pakistan follow India in any respect — although the Pakistanis do it all the time.

……………….. make no mistake, for all the talk of common heritage, language, food etc, Americans see Indians very differently from Pakistanis in the US (as Crowley indicated). Indians are a stunning success, the best-educated , highest-earning , frequently-overachieving ethnic group in the country. Whenever they see Indians, Americans see IT — information technology — or similar high-funda stuff that they fear will take away jobs (although much of it is lowgrade work). And when they see Pakistanis? Also IT — except, it stands for international terrorism. “These days when I hear of a terrorist plot, I can count back from 10, and before I get to zero, someone will bring up the P word."

Read it all in the Times of India:

Hell is... to be a Pakistani American

[Gerard]

I want desperately for my daughter to be proud of being Muslim and Pakistani

What does it mean for a US born child to be a "proud Pakistani"?
What defines a Pakistani? The belief that subcontinental Muslims are a separate nation? That they cannot live in any country where they are a minority? How is that reconciled with growing up in the USA?

[brihaspati]

Suppiah wrote
Guys seriously how to sensitise innocent Americans or other foreigners who may been fooled by Pakbarian animals pretending to be Indians? Foolish to expect GOI to do this and short of taking out full page ads in NYT what can be done?

Indian Sikhs will have no problem. What I find is that the western brain cannot handle complexity of identity that is not visual. So, some overt visual symbol works very well. I tried out "forehead" symbols once, and had interesting reactions. Such is common in many south Indian communities, but may not be feasible inall professional situations in tge USA. Such symbols will be blasphemous for Muslims and Pakis in general.

[A Sharma]

Intikhab calls Pakistan players 'mentally retarded'

[SSridhar]

Indo-Pak Burdens & Options - Edit in TFT by Najam Sethi

The prime ministers of India and Pakistan agreed at Thimphu, Bhutan, last week to “walk the talk” about resolving outstanding disputes. While the Indians remained circumspect, the Pakistanis were greatly pleased at the “unexpected” windfall because of India’s stubborn refusal since Mumbai 2008 to start an unconditional dialogue with Pakistan.

Clearly, there is US pressure on India to restart a dialogue with Pakistan. That is why Mr Robert Blake Jr, the US Assistant Secretary of State for South Asia, maintained a discreet presence in Bhutan during the SAARC Summit. {I didn't realize that. Was that even reported in Indian papers ?} As a quid pro quo, the US has given India access to David Headley, one of the masterminds of Mumbai, who is in prison in America. The US Ambassador to India, Timothy Roemer, came to Pakistan on May 4 and met President Asif Zardari, to urge him to prosecute the alleged handlers and backers of Headley and the Mumbai terrorists. Certainly, we may expect greater Indian pressure on this front after Headley has been interrogated by New Delhi and new evidence to incriminate targeted jihadi groups like the Lashkar-e-Tayba is presented.

Meanwhile, Pakistan’s civilian government and military establishment seem determined to reverse one critical position of the last decade regarding Kashmir. In the 1999 Lahore Summit between prime ministers Nawaz Sharif and Atal Behari Vajpayee, Pakistan stopped insisting on resolving the Kashmir dispute strictly in accordance with the UN Plebiscite Resolutions. Mr Sharif also accepted India’s notion of a “composite dialogue” in which Kashmir was relegated to being one of eight outstanding disputes for resolution instead of being the “core” issue that had to be discussed and resolved first. In exchange, India’s BJP leadership unequivocally accepted the reality of Pakistan and stopped insisting on “Akhund Bharat”. A diplomatic back channel was also opened to explore unorthodox ways of resolving Kashmir based on adjustments to the Line of Control (Chenab Formula) and management of the two Kashmirs under the joint supervision of both India and Pakistan, which Mr Sharif later insisted had all but sealed a realistic and equitable way out of the Kashmir stalemate. There was a brief reversal of this position under General Pervez Musharraf, the architect of Kargil, from 2000-2003, especially at the Summit in Agra in 2001, but General Musharraf too later adopted Mr Sharif’s flexibility, stopped funding and fueling the Kashmir jihad in 2004 and offered similarly radical out-of-the-box solutions to the Kashmir dispute based on extensive back channel diplomacy. Indeed, General Musharraf went so far as to deny “India-centricity” in Pakistan’s foreign policy, including any need or desire for “strategic depth” in Afghanistan as a result of it.

The Pakistan government now reiterates the UN position on Kashmir and repudiates any back channel progress in the last ten years. Indeed, the foreign secretary in 1999, Mr Shamshad Ahmed, blithely denies his government’s policy under prime minister Nawaz Sharif; and Mr Shah Mahmood Qureshi, the PPP foreign minister who was personally briefed by General Musharraf on the back channel’s progress, says there is no record of it in the FO. The denials are bizarre. Former foreign minister Khurshid Kasuri, and no less than General Musharraf himself, publicly insist that the back channel had produced outstanding results. In fact, an article by Steve Coll in The New Yorker last year documents the results of the back channel on the basis of interviews with the chief negotiators of that period, including Mr Satish Lambah from India and Khurshid Kasuri and Tariq Aziz of Pakistan. It should be noted that India’s prime minister, Dr Manmohan Singh, also claimed during the last Indian elections that the back channel was on the verge of finding a solution to Kashmir before General Musharraf was dissuaded from pursuing it further following acute political instability in 2007-08.

More significantly, the Pakistani military establishment under the army chief, General Ashfaq Kayani, has reclaimed “India-centricity” and “soft strategic depth” in Afghanistan as the core of Pakistan’s foreign policy.

One reason for Pakistan’s recent backtracking has to do with India’s refusal to dialogue unconditionally after Mumbai. Another has to do with India’s alleged role in Afghanistan in funding and fueling a separatist insurgency in Baluchistan. The third is America’s failure to defeat the Al-Qaeda-Taliban resistance in Afghanistan that has increasingly burdened Pakistan with its own Taliban enemy in its tribal areas and led it to bid for a defensive strategic stake in any future political dispensation in Kabul to the exclusion of India.

Therefore, given the complexity of such regional issues impinging on India-Pakistan relations, no quick fixes should be expected in the dialogue. Walking the talk may take longer than desired. In fact, instead of talking about the eight disputes of the past, {which have now become ten after the inclusion of water & Balochistan} Pakistan and India may be better off focusing on the two great threats of the future: Pakistan’s developing water and energy scarcity and India’s vulnerability to foreign-inspired Islamic terrorism in terms of its impact on Indian Muslims and on its business and foreign investment environment. {See how subtly India is being threatened andis being shown of its 'vulnerability'}Under the circumstances, perversely enough, this is the moment to grasp the future on life and death issues for the subcontinent rather than quibble over the political burdens of partition.