Of course it matters.
Retired Gen Mirza Aslam Beg said he suggested their government “make it clear that if anything happens to Iran, if anyone attacks it – it doesn’t matter who it is or how it is attacked – that Iran’s answer will be to hit Israel; the only target will be Israel.”
Since Beg spoke in an interview with The Associated Press, echoes of his thinking have been heard in Iran, though whether they result directly from his advice isn’t known. Mohammad Ebrahim Dehghani, an Iranian Revolutionary Guards commander, was quoted last week as saying that if “America does make any mischief, the first place we target will be Israel.” The threat was disavowed the next day by Brig Gen Alireza Afshar, deputy to the chief of Iran’s military staff, who said it was Dehghani’s “personal view and has no validity as far as the Iranian military officials are concerned”.
Although analysts are divided on how soon Iran might have nuclear weapons, Beg said he is sure Iran has had enough time to develop them. But he insists the Pakistani government didn’t help, even though he says former prime minister Benazir Bhutto once told him the Iranians offered more than $4 billion for the technology.
The bigger picture has also changed radically. Pakistan is now a US ally in the war on terrorism, and Asculai said “Pakistani government officials have often suggested that they would be willing to have ties with Israel under certain conditions.”
In the AP interview, Beg detailed nearly 20 years of Iranian approaches to obtain conventional arms and then technology for nuclear weapons. He described an Iranian visit in 1990, when he was army chief of staff. “They didn’t want the technology. They asked: ‘Can we have a bomb?’ My answer was: By all means you can have it but you must make it yourself. Nobody gave it to us.(yeah.. its just we had our right khans at right place at right time..AP
sanjaykumar wrote:What is it abt our leaders that reduce us to Bhikari status, time and time again?
Can you explain this statement or is it meant to be rhetorical, signifying nothing?
Pak heading towards 1971-like situation
LAHORE - The present political and economic conditions in Pakistan are leading the country towards a fate similar to the one that disintegrated the country in 1971 resulted by deprivation of the masses and exploitation by ruling class.
The reason for the chaos faced by the country is that after the demise of Quaid-e-Azam the nation became a scattered crowd, which found no true leader like him to make them a nation by setting a goal for them.
In a bid to save Pakistan from threats to its sovereignty we will have to get rid of the American hegemony prevailing on our country’s security, economics, politics and ideology of Pakistan, they said.
“The establishment destabilised the democracy and dictators deprived the Bangalis of their rights. The demand for basic rights later took shape of separation movement there.”
He said first dictator brought BD system to prolong dictatorship, the second dictator broke the country and the recent one pushed the nation into a menace of terrorism.
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Singling out passengers from a few countries for special checks which are, except Cuba, Muslim is a sheer discrimination and amounts to hurling insults on them....Deputy Chairman Senate Jan Muhammad Jamali announced that he would not undertake any visit to the United States in protest ( O mee God, this would really scare the panties off the yankees, would it not...) . There are also logical demands that passengers from the United States should also be subjected to similar security checks.
You are forgetting one tiny little fact. Americans own you because you survive on their aid. You don't have the right or the capability to do the above. You sold yourself, live with it.Nude screening of Pakistanis, shame on you
http://pakobserver.net/201001/15/Editorial02.aspSingling out passengers from a few countries for special checks which are, except Cuba, Muslim is a sheer discrimination and amounts to hurling insults on them....Deputy Chairman Senate Jan Muhammad Jamali announced that he would not undertake any visit to the United States in protest ( O mee God, this would really scare the panties off the yankees, would it not...) . There are also logical demands that passengers from the United States should also be subjected to similar security checks.
The past 60 years have shown India’s tendency to throw its weight about and browbeat its neighbours. With those that are bigger and more powerful, India tends to adopt a moralistic and intellectually superior tone, as noted by some American leaders. With its smaller neighbours, it does not hesitate to take off its gloves.
The Mumbai terror attack in November 2008 angered the Indian government, which thereafter had to cater to massive popular outrage. The consequent decision to suspend the dialogue with Pakistan was understandable.
Since then, the Pakistani leadership has been engaged in a major effort to convince New Delhi that it was sincere in its desire to cooperate with India with the common objective of confronting the extremists. In fact, the most remarkable thing was the near unanimity with which the Pakistanis not only condemned the Mumbai attacks, but also acknowledged that their country needed to take concrete steps to assuage India’s anguish.
None of this, however, appears to have had much impact on the Indian establishment. Even the expectations raised at the Gilani-Singh meeting in Sharm El Sheikh were snuffed out when Manmohan Singh’s colleagues publicly expressed their misgivings.
What has been particularly galling is the failure of the Obama administration to act on its seemingly wise policy pronouncements during the election campaign. Instead of encouraging India to reduce its presence in Afghanistan and ceasing to stir up trouble in Balochistan, the US appears to have gone along with Indian allegations, agreeing to inject into the US-India joint statement a provision “to work jointly to deal with terrorism emanating from India’s neighbourhood”.
This was strange, coming from an administration that had publicly expressed a desire to promote Indo-Pakistan normalisation and to work for the resolution of the Kashmir problem.
The Indian army chief’s latest statement in which he spoke of his army’s capacity to fight a two-front war has evoked great surprise and disappointment. But while it conveyed hostility and belligerence, his words are neither realistic nor achievable as India does not have the capability to successfully initiate its much-heralded ‘cold start’ strategy, much less wage two wars against two neighbours simultaneously.
This does not mean, however, that we can dismiss these statements as mere rhetoric. It could be more evidence of the increasing inclination of the Indian forces to have a role in the India-Pakistan equation.
Another important factor is the newfound confidence acquired from the special relationship that the US has so eagerly conferred on India, not only as its strategic partner, but also as a potential counterweight to China. No less important could be the growing influence of rightwing parties and religious groups that want India to adopt more nationalist policies vis-à-vis its neighbours.
Whatever the reason, our leaders should not react in haste or with similar belligerence. What must be avoided at all costs are provocative steps, such as refusing to cooperate against the militants or brandishing nuclear assets.
Instead, what is required is a dispassionate analysis of what these signals portend for Pakistan and sensitising our friends to Indian actions. While we must not be distracted from the objective of seeking a peaceful resolution of our differences with India, we must not show undignified haste towards that end.
Forgive the reviewer for he seems not to know Wilson John's efforts. By same token the reviewer would be appalled by BRF.INFORMATION BOOM
For a different cause
Coming blowback: How Pakistan is endangering the world By Wilson John,
Rupa, Rs 595
There are two types of reporting done on Pakistan. One, the ‘been-there-seen-it’ kind that mediamen in the West are known to have a special knack for. The other is armchair theorizing, the forte of a group that calls itself Pakistan-watchers. The second obviously lacks the thrill and personal touch of a first-hand account, but a long shot of events often provides an insight the first kind may not reveal. That is what keeps research foundations hedging their bets on the armchairwallahs. It is a tad disappointing when a work sinks in between the two stools, which this book does.
Despite the unusual data Wilson John uses, some of the startling revelations he unearths, and brief spells of clearheaded analysis, the book is lost in the heap of information that John feeds his reader. The ‘info’ breaks the narrative in the most unexpected places and leaves one groping for the line of argument. It annoys one to no end because some of this information (not altogether unknown) is repeated, sometimes verbatim, in the later sections of the book. To take just one example, a paragraph John cites with Ahmed Rashid’s quote from a Tehelka report on page 182 reappears in its exact form on page 238. There must have been others, for several times I was left feeling that I had read something similar only a few pages ago. This trait, detected in other “research works” that base themselves heavily on secondary sources, neither speaks highly of the researcher nor of those who edit such works.
The central thrust of John’s book is to look at the way the civil society in Pakistan is changing, imperceptibly but determinedly — a facet often overlooked by critics of the country’s civilian and military leadership. John, however, acknowledges that this change is steered by the Pakistan State itself in order to “justify its overt use of terrorist and extremist elements against its adversaries”. The radicalization effected not only makes the civil society encourage further radicalization but also to become an active participant in the process.
Much of this change happens through education. As the co-founder of Jamaat-ud-Dawa (a major focus of John’s analysis) and colleague of Hafeez Saeed, the JuD chief, pointed out, it would be impossible to establish the “system of Allah in the world” without education. There are two things that John emphasizes here. One, he tries to dispel the notion that madaris alone promote Islamic education and popularize the notion of jihad. The failure of the State school system has brought in major players in the form of religious organizations and jihadi parties which have set up chains of their own brand of model hybrid schools that make religious education and jihad just as popular as the traditional madaris. (They, in fact, follow the guidelines laid down by the curriculum wing of the ministry of education that makes it mandatory for the schools to enable a Class V child to “make speeches on jihad and shahadaat” and “understand Hindu-Muslim differences”.) And they educate women in enormously large numbers to have control on the mental universe of the future generation.
The second thing John wants to stress is that jihadi outpourings in Pakistan are not the function of economic disparities that have resulted in a class war. Yes, the typical population in madaris may be poor, but the students there are not necessarily more predisposed to terrorism than the products of Pakistan’s elite secular institutions. In fact, the research he accesses show that since the latter lacked basic knowledge about Islamic teachings and the value attached to life, they may be more “amenable to getting involved in ruthless acts of terrorism”. In Pakistan, and elsewhere, that is precisely what is happening. Children of elite institutions are quitting school to rough it out in the terror camps with the blessings of their parents. Or else products of renowned international institutions are coming home to take on their share of the mantle of the global jihad.
The last indicates a fundamental change in the profile of the jihadist. A class apart from the recruits in madaris or those indoctrinated through intense courses in religion who fight side by side with the literate or illiterate in the fronts in Afghanistan and Kashmir, the net-born, e-coached, highly-educated, jeans-clad jihadist is a loner who forms his linkages with global jihad in his room, is less amenable to control than the innumerable fidayeens on the battlefield and perhaps more devastating in his impact on the world.
John goes into intricate details of how the JuD is fostering changes of all kind and linking up the jihadist world through its associations with the like-minded in the Arab nations, in India, the West, and within Pakistan’s bureaucracy and the army. There are fascinating accounts of Lashkar-e-Toiba camps, of indoctrination meetings where women sacrifice their sons as easily as their jewels to the cause. Incidentally, many of these are attributed either to reporters or analysts who are not named in the text or in the footnotes, which appear generously at the end of the pages.
John’s analyses, when they are not swamped by information, are remarkable. Consider the Pakistan army operation in Waziristan, the failure of which he blames as much on the inaction of the allied forces as on the sentimentalism of the Pakistan army officers. He also does an enormously useful summary of the jihadi movement in India and the jihadist linkages in Kashmir. However, one cannot rate his sensational account of ISI officers and Pervez Musharraf as highly. Nor can one give him the credit he lays claim on for prophesying that terrorist groups will “adopt new techniques or a combination of old modus operandi” to launch future attacks on India. That, one dares say, is obvious.
CHIROSREE BASU
Pakistan’s worries
Sir: Dr Manzur Ejaz in his article ‘The real competition with India’ (Daily Times, January 13, 2010), written after his recent visit to India, says that “Pakistan should be more worried about Indian economic growth” in the context of comparing the two economies. It came as a surprise to me on account of his reference to Pakistani worries. Pakistan cannot and indeed should not worry about India’s economic growth. Rather, it must simply see how it can grow too. It is this habit of constantly looking over the shoulder at India that clouds Pakistani vision.
Pakistan has to do whatever it can for its own sake. Can Pakistan afford to neglect its economy if India were not doing well?
SUBRAMANYAM SRIDHARAN
Bangalore, India
From the above,shravan wrote:Manmohan Singh opens door to Pakistan
Huge efforts. Somebody, some uncle or aunty or both perhaps, is funding the efforts.Simultaneously, there is a move to build up public mood for resumption of dialogue. A flurry of Indo-Pak jamborees is scheduled this month. The first has taken place in New Delhi with all the usual suspects from Pakistan, like human rights activist Asma Jehangir, flying down for a three-day conference.
Another, organised by the Centre for Reconciliation and Dialogue, is slated next week. Participants include former Pakistani foreign secretary Humayun Khan and former Pakistani high commissioner to India, Aziz Ahmed Khan.
At around the same time, the Lahore University of Management Sciences is hosting a conference in Lahore. A few days later, a media delegation from Pakistan is due in India.
Next month, another Track II effort, hosted by the Institute of Peace and Conflict Studies, will get under way in Bangkok. People-to-people contacts have obviously revived in a big way after being put into the freezer in the wake of the Mumbai attack. Although they are largely private efforts, the fact that governments on both sides have issued visas is a sign of benign official support.
Nearly 1 million Kashmiri Muslims living in Indian administered Kashmir fled to Pakistani administered Kashmir for fear of genocide at the hands of Indian army posted there to curb a separatist movement since 1988.
Chhamb after the 1971 warsanjaykumar wrote:Has India ever ceded anything to Pakistan in 60 years?
This stems out of Paki thinking, whereby they were threatening not long ago, that if Unkil tries to snatch their nukes, they will launch against India. The reasoning being, the only reason they had nukes was to use them against India, and if they were losing it, might as well launch. Kinda like soosai bomber thinking, "I am going to die some day, why not do a soosai bombing"animesharma wrote:Iran offered Benazir $4b for nuclear tech: Beg
Retired Gen Mirza Aslam Beg said he suggested their government “make it clear that if anything happens to Iran, if anyone attacks it – it doesn’t matter who it is or how it is attacked – that Iran’s answer will be to hit Israel; the only target will be Israel.”
Ah the Prave righteous uncorruptible Beg ! This is verbatim from Corera's bookHe described an Iranian visit in 1990, when he was army chief of staff. “They didn’t want the technology. They asked: ‘Can we have a bomb?’ My answer was: By all means you can have it but you must make it yourself. Nobody gave it to us.(
Similar proposals were being pushed forward....Beg and Interservices intelligence agency chief Durrani approached President Ghulam Ishaq Khan with a proposal to sell nuclear technology to finance ISI operations which were ongoing in Afghanistan (but now without US financial support), and just starting up in Kashmir.
Isn't the correct phrase indian subcontinent.Altair wrote:south asia.
A few years back, Khaled Ahmed estimated that the Kashmir terrorism alone costed Pakistan USD 2 Billion annually.Holbrooke also got an earful from Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani on the issue of delayed Coalition Support Fund payments, which at last count have mounted to over $ 2 billion.
It was a welcome coincidence that both Bangladesh and Pakistan figured in the discussions in New Delhi this week. Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina was on her first official visit after a landslide victory last year. Top Pakistan lawyers, academicians and human rights activists sat in the capital with their counterparts to find a road to peace after the governments in Delhi and Islamabad had failed to resolve their problems in the last 60 years.
One thing common between the two meetings, held at separate places and at different levels, was the search for peace. Both have succeeded in the sense that they have taken certain decisions which, if implemented, will yield untold benefits. The difference — a big one — was while the governments of Bangladesh and India signed several agreements to restart on a path to peace and friendship after a dreary journey, India and Pakistan have gone still further apart.
The Manmohan Singh government was at pains to accommodate Sheikh Hasina to register that India had opened all its doors to cultivate at least one of its estranged neighbours. On the other hand, New Delhi hardly took notice of the three-day Indo-Pak meeting right under its nose.
The resolve to eliminate terrorism is what the region wants, from Kabul to Dhaka. Islamabad would like New Delhi to join the operation but India is in no mood to listen to Pakistan’s argument for the resumption of a composite dialogue. The 26/11 carnage, even though 13 months old, is still fresh in the minds of people.
The Indo-Pak meet has also appreciated the point and has suggested a bilateral and regional approach to combat the menace. It would be better if India and Bangladesh were to integrate their efforts with the ones initiated by Pakistan Prime Minister Yousuf Reza Gilani and Afghanistan President Karzai.
The Pakistani speakers were frank enough to admit the havoc the terrorists were creating in their country. One of them said that no one leaving the house was sure whether he would return alive. Islamabad needs to be retrieved. It does not mean that India will be less anxious in having Pakistan pursue its effort to book the perpetrators of 26/11.
It is strange that Islamabad has not yet understood how the system works in Delhi. Otherwise, Pakistan would not have overreacted to the statement by chief of the army staff Gen Deepak Kapoor that India may have to prepare for war against China and Pakistan. However irresponsible the statement, it does not pose any threat to Pakistan. Defence Minister A K Anthony scoffed at Islamabad’s reaction.
Gen Kapoor is not Gen Pervez Kayani. The systems in the two countries are different. Gen Kapoor or the Army has no say in India’s political affairs. He is due to retire after serving his tenure. The government will soon be naming his successor.
Making a mountain out of a molehill gives the impression as if Pakistan is trying to score a point, however weak and farfetched. What all this boils down to is the unending mistrust. Until it is replaced by confidence, the two sides have to see that they do not present an exaggerated picture, indulge in accusations or imagine something which has no basis.
The president described the water crisis as the “biggest challenges” facing the country, and said efforts for the liberation of Jammu and Kashmir were not just aimed at acquiring land, they rather went “far beyond this”.
Someone is also contributing to pakistan's efforts in kashmir for sure. There is no way that pakistan is bankrolling that from drug money or selling nuclear rip-off secrets.SSridhar wrote:A few years back, Khaled Ahmed estimated that the Kashmir terrorism alone costed Pakistan USD 2 Billion annually.
The only way it would work is for Uncle to tell the Pakbarian animals that if by a certain date this is not agreed to, US and EU together with India will by force open a corridor to the sea for the Afghans via TSP space and enforce it with bombs. If TSP questions, it will be nuked.Karan Dixit wrote:
US presses Pakistan to open Afghan-India trade route
http://www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/daw ... -410-za-02
The Sind collects more tax revenue than the Punjab (and Karachi dominates the Sind collection). That is why, the Sind always demands more allocation from the NFC (National Finance Commission) awards, but always gets a short shrift. The bulk of the award goes to the Punjab, based purely on the size of population. Another of their long-standing and legitimate list of grievancesshiv wrote:Karachi - as far as I can tell is almost an autonomous state. I would be interested in finding out what proportion of Pakistani tax revenue comes from Karachi.
what levers of control do you think India has for achieving this influence?shiv wrote:I wonder if Pakistan can be looked at as a collection of cooperating and competing warlords.
At one time in the not too distant past it could have been said that the Pakistan army was the single warlord controlling Pakistan. But now areas of Pakistan are not under control of that warlord. (Let me do a minor equal equal for the purpose of clarity. India too can be defined in terms of a collection of spheres of influence and that the center does not wield influence in some areas - but I would have to write a chapter on the differences)
The Pakistan army had total political and military control in Pakjab, but that has seen some challenges recently.
Sindh is an uneasy partner, but the army does exert military, if not political control
Karachi - as far as I can tell is almost an autonomous state. I would be interested in finding out what proportion of Pakistani tax revenue comes from Karachi.
FATA is more or less warlord territory where the Pakistan army does not exert control. So also NWFP.
The warlord called the "Pakistan army" has traditionally been under control of the US, and the Pakistan army has in turn controlled the warlords of FATA and NWFP. The latter have now become largely autonomous. They are extending an ideological hand into Punjab where the army cannot really fight them on ideological grounds.The US is frantically paying the Paki army to do its work but the main unifying force is fear of Hindus. Unless fear of Hindu India is revitalized, the Paki army cannot regain control.
So whether India threatens Pakistan or whether India "reaches out" to Pakistan with an olive branch will have different effects on different constituencies of people in Pakistan. India has to choose the best path forward that will ensure that maybe 20 years down the line India has more say in the affairs of Pakistani people than the US or China. Right now the US and China exert more positive influence.
So a blind hate or blind love of Pakistan may both be wrong polices on their own but both may be policies to follow depending in what element within Pakistan must be reassured and what element within Pakistan needs to be threatened.
This is very interesting analysis Doc. Now didn't ToI claim that "A Monkey's Ayesha" launched with the blessings of senior politicos of ruling party?shiv wrote: So a blind hate or blind love of Pakistan may both be wrong polices on their own but both may be policies to follow depending in what element within Pakistan must be reassured and what element within Pakistan needs to be threatened.
Meanwhile, senators Khan Muhammad Sheerani and Ismail Buledi called for declaring Urdu the official language for Pakistan.
This seems like a BS grievance - is this for real? Gujarat, Maharashtra or Andhra Pradesh can tout similar grievances in India.SSridhar wrote:The Sind collects more tax revenue than the Punjab (and Karachi dominates the Sind collection). That is why, the Sind always demands more allocation from the NFC (National Finance Commission) awards, but always gets a short shrift. The bulk of the award goes to the Punjab, based purely on the size of population. Another of their long-standing and legitimate list of grievances
