Bharat Rakshak

Cut to the studio, and the same anchor had on live calls a Mufti Sahab and a woman rights activist. The maulana hurriedly declared Zainab Bibi a liar and doubted her statement as to the motive of killing her husband; the rights activist condemned the murder and asked the maulana to also condemn in similar words the killer of Salmaan Taseer. This is where the anchor’s wish was granted and all hell broke loose.The maulana categorically stated that Qadri in his love for the Prophet of Islam was overwhelmed by the blasphemy committed by the former governor, Punjab and killed him. It was a crime of passion, committed in the heat of the moment, which did not allow the murderer the time to think clearly. In the normal course, Qadri should have brought a blasphemy case against the governor.This was too much to fathom for the rights activist and a two-way shouting match ensued. The maulana accused the rights activist of being westernised in her thinking; she in turn accused the maulana of being ill-mannered because of his bad upbringing. The maulana conveniently ‘established’ the non-credibility of the rights activist because most NGOs that play up violence against women in the Islamic Republic of Pakistan are funded by anti-Islam donors and manned by westernised Pakistanis who seek their guidance from the West and not the Quran and Sunnah. The maulana also ostensibly scored a high point by asking the rights activist to repent for what she had to say on Salmaan Taseer’s murder.
The missing gap — and a gaping hole it is — lies in the fact that Pakistan has 21st century information technology to showcase only medieval mindsets. Religion remains the prism through which everything and every issue must be seen for any validation.A sorry state to be in, indeed.

The Pakistani government also lodged a protest with Afghanistan on Sunday about the “use of Afghan territory against Pakistan”, according to government officials. The Afghan government was urged to take steps to ensure such attacks would not be repeated.

sum wrote:X-post:

sum wrote:Lots of stories on the 1971 war in this time WEEK edition. Read them all:
When freedom triumphed

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Army while expressing its disgust over NATO attacks has said that it does not accept NATO's apology and that this action can lead to serious consequences, Geo News reported Monday.

According to Army spokesman Major General Athar Abbas, NATO’s regret over the attack is not enough.

Abbas said that such incidents have happened in the past which have killed 72 soldiers and injured more than 250 troops in three years.

The West is striving to limit the fallout from a deadly Nato air raid on Pakistani border troops, but reports the soldiers opened fire first on US and Afghan forces risked stoking new tensions. Pakistan is simmering over the killings of the 24 soldiers, with fiery weekend protests denouncing the assault by Nato helicopters and fighter jets on two military posts on the Afghan border early on Saturday.
The United States, which depends on Pakistan as a vital lifeline to supply 130,000 foreign troops fighting in landlocked Afghanistan, on Sunday scrambled to salvage the alliance, backing a full inquiry and expressing condolences.

Nato secretary general Anders Fogh Rasmussen also sought to soothe Islamabad's rage, but stopped short of issuing a full apology for the "tragic, unintended" killings.

In retaliation for the raid, Islamabad has blocked Nato convoys from crossing into Afghanistan, ordered a review of its alliance with the US and mulled whether to boycott a key conference on Afghanistan next month.

Hundreds of enraged Pakistanis took to the streets Sunday, burning an effigy of President Barack Obama and setting fire to US flags across the country of 167 million where opposition to the government's US alliance is rampant.

Pakistan says the attack was unprovoked.

Foreign minister Hina Rabbani Khar telephoned US secretary of state Hillary Clinton on Sunday to convey a "deep sense of rage" as a joint funeral was held for the dead soldiers, their coffins draped in the national flag.

But a report in Monday's Wall Street Journal -- denied by Islamabad -- said the Nato jets and helicopters responded to firing from a Pakistani post on the ill-defined Afghan border.

The article, which followed a similar report by Britain's Guardian newspaper, cited three Afghan officials and one Western official as saying the air raid was called in to shield allied forces targeting Taliban fighters.

Nato and Afghan forces "were fired on from a Pakistani army base", the unnamed Western official told the Wall Street Journal. "It was a defensive action."

An Afghan official in Kabul was quoted as saying: "There was firing coming from the position against Afghan army soldiers who requested support and this is what happened."

The official added that the government in Kabul believes the fire came from the Pakistani military base -- and not from insurgents in the area.

There was no official US response to the report.

The latest tensions have erupted months after the fraught US-Pakistan alliance was plunged into crisis by the killing in May of al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden north of Islamabad by US special forces.

On the Fox News on Sunday talk show, US lawmakers vented frustration over Pakistan, with Republican senator Jon Kyl demanding Islamabad cooperate with the United States in order to maintain billions of dollars in financial aid.

Senator Dick Durbin, a top Democrat, offered condolences but said US soldiers were caught in a "diplomatic morass between the incompetence and corruption in Afghanistan, and complicity in parts of Pakistan".

But John Bolton, a former US ambassador to the United Nations who was a hawkish foreign policy advisor to president George W. Bush, laid bare the dilemma for Washington in handling nuclear-armed Pakistan.

"While it is tempting for many people to say we ought to throw the Pakistanis over the side and stop giving them aid... as long as that country has nuclear weapons that could fall into the hands of radicals and be a threat worldwide, they have incredible leverage," he said.

The United States in 2009 approved a huge five-year, $7.5 billion civilian assistance package for Pakistan, but some US lawmakers want to cut civilian aid due to concerns over extremism.

Narad wrote:We do not accept NATO apology: Pak Army

According to Army spokesman Major General Athar Abbas, NATO’s regret over the attack is not enough.

SSridhar wrote:{quote="Narad"}We do not accept NATO apology: Pak Army

According to Army spokesman Major General Athar Abbas, NATO’s regret over the attack is not enough.

OK, the PA does not accept apologies. What else do they want, money ?

saptarishi wrote:its their luck that powerful nato states are apologetic. stupid porkis .when they kill indians they dont make issue....when they lose their people then only crying starts,,,

chetak wrote:The pakis are simply cashing in on an opportune and windfall money making opportunity that has suddenly presented itself. Praise be upon it!

The PA will pluck the low hanging fruit and lay quiet after that.

vishvak wrote:

chetak wrote:The pakis are simply cashing in on an opportune and windfall money making opportunity that has suddenly presented itself. Praise be upon it!

The PA will pluck the low hanging fruit and lay quiet after that.

If amrikans / NATO / families of those killed by pakis start demanding suitable cash (in $$ etc) as compensation against terrorism then the pakis will lose it for good.

pakis are taught a small lesson in otherwise wild time pakis have on the border and pakis are pissed because suddenly terrorism can't continue just as it was the day before.

Arun Roperia wrote:Pakistani commanders pleaded with kafir (coalition) forces to stop but the air strikes continued for almost two hours.

A_Gupta wrote:

Arun Roperia wrote:Pakistani commanders pleaded with kafir (coalition) forces to stop but the air strikes continued for almost two hours.

So NATO took two hours to knock out a Pakistani border post?

rajanb wrote: Surprisingly there are no eyewitness accounts and the funeral, in my opinion was conducted rather swiftly.

A_Gupta wrote:

Arun Roperia wrote:Pakistani commanders pleaded with kafir (coalition) forces to stop but the air strikes continued for almost two hours.

So NATO took two hours to knock out a Pakistani border post?

The air strike by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) at the Pakistani military post at Salala in the Mohmand Agency on the Afghan-Pakistan border Friday night is destined to become a milestone in the chronicle of the Afghan war.

What is absolutely stunning about the statement issued by Pakistan's Defence Committee of the Cabinet (DDC), which met Saturday at Islamabad under the chairmanship of Prime Minister Yousuf Gilani is that it did not bother to call for an inquiry by the US or NATO into the air strike that resulted in the death of 28 Pakistani soldiers.

At any rate, the DDC simply proceeded on the basis that this was a calculated air strike - and by no means an accidental occurrence. Again, the DDC statement implies that in the Pakistan military's estimation, the NATO attack emanated from a US decision. Pakistan lodged a strong protest at the NATO Headquarters in Brussels but that was more for purpose of 'record', while the "operative" part is directed at Washington.

The GHQ in Rawalpindi would have made the assessment within hours of the Salala incident that the US is directly culpable.

The response stops short of declaring the termination of Pakistan's participation in the US-led war in Afghanistan (which, incidentally, is the demand by Pakistani politician Imran Khan who is considered to be close to the Pakistani military circles). In essence, however, Pakistan is within inches of doing that.

Pakistan has denied reports that it opened fire first provoking the Nato air strike which killed 24 troops at a checkpoint on the Afghan border.

It follows claims by Afghan officials that Nato forces were retaliating for gunfire from the Pakistani side of the volatile border region on Saturday.

"This is not true. They are making up excuses. What are their losses, casualties?" Pakistani army spokesman Maj-Gen Athar Abbas said in a text message in response to the allegations.

Maj-Gen Abbas has also said that the raid went on for more than an hour and continued even after local commanders contacted Nato telling them to stop the strike, according to the Associated Press news agency.

Narad wrote:

At any rate, the DDC simply proceeded on the basis that this was a calculated air strike - and by no means an accidental occurrence.
LINK

SSridhar wrote: It certainly was. It took place at 2 or 3 AM. Probably, the ISAF had some information about an impending strike from this border post sooner or later and they pre-empted that. The PA is putting up a face of injured innocence. NATO could not have used a drone in this instance. So, they used their attack helicopters dishing out a convenient and unverifiable excuse that the Pakistanis fired at them first and they retaliated. The PA is caught in a cleft. I hope this incident becomes uninterrupted and uninterruptible, to borrow the much learned Mani Shankar Ayyar's jargon.

So NATO took two hours to knock out a Pakistani border post?

SSridhar wrote:NATO could not have used a drone in this instance. So, they used their attack helicopters dishing out a convenient and unverifiable excuse that the Pakistanis fired at them first and they retaliated. The PA is caught in a cleft. I hope this incident becomes uninterrupted and uninterruptible, to borrow the much learned Mani Shankar Ayyar's jargon.

kenop wrote:

rajanb wrote: Surprisingly there are no eyewitness accounts and the funeral, in my opinion was conducted rather swiftly.

A bit of nit-picking here. The funerals I saw on TV were like mass marriage. Isn't it normal for people to get buried in their home-towns or amongst their own?

Altair wrote:

So NATO took two hours to knock out a Pakistani border post?

Important point is where was the backup for two hours? Did Pakis had a chance to ask for any help and if so why it never arrived?

Ans) The attack was well planned much in advance and NATO/ISAF took down the communications and defenses before the actual "haleem" was made. The Pakis were sitting ducks and got slaughtered. They never had a chance to retaliate as NATO/ISAF choppers were definitely out of range.
A very coldly implemented attack on a barbaric army. A perfect "demo" for Cold Start. Lessons to be picked for India and pakis as well.

Obama's Foreign Policy Doctrine Finally Emerges With 'Off-Shore Balancing'

The deadly NATO strike in Pakistan reveals that the president has decided to contain U.S. adversaries with an affordable strategy of maintaining our naval and air power while strengthening smaller nations.

What does America’s disastrous bombing of Pakistani soldiers this week have to do with President Obama’s much bally-hooed trip to East Asia last week? Between them, they suggest that the Obama administration may be, finally, edging toward a foreign policy doctrine.


First, Pakistan. The bombing was a mistake, but it comes after a series of very conscious decisions—most significantly the assassination of Osama bin Laden—in which Obama put killing al Qaeda terrorists ahead of America’s relationship with Pakistan. That’s not the tradeoff many expected when Obama came into office determined to eschew unilateralism, reinvigorate diplomacy and improve America’s relationships with the Muslim world. But it makes sense when you realize that the Obama administration has largely given up on trying to remake Pakistan and Afghanistan.

As Bob Woodward’s Obama’s Wars made clear, Obama never considered the Taliban a real threat to American security. And after giving Gen. David Petraeus and company a chance to try counterinsurgency, Obama is increasingly pursuing the policy that Vice President Joe Biden proposed from the beginning: leave Afghanistan to the Afghans and keep al Qaeda off balance with Special Forces and attacks from the air.
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Aditya_V wrote: Going by 1971 when PAF gave the IAF and IN a Free hand in launching attacks on Karachi " My dear boy, losing ships in War.........." and Chamb sector, I dont think the Pakis can except the PAF to intervine.

ANybody knows whether these were Frontier Constabulary (sacrificial Lambs) or actual TFTA Khakis?

Aditya_V wrote:ANybody knows whether these were Frontier Constabulary (sacrificial Lambs) or actual TFTA Khakis?

Qureshi said, Pakistan's nuclear programme was not safe under President Asif Ali Zardari's leadership.

Though Qureshi did not give details of how Pakistan's nukes were in danger but promised to talk about this in detail at the next public gathering in Karachi.

SSridhar wrote:

Aditya_V wrote:ANybody knows whether these were Frontier Constabulary (sacrificial Lambs) or actual TFTA Khakis?

SSG commandos were killed-in-inaction (because they were sleepng). Khakhis at their very best, Aditya, at their very best.

Altair wrote:The attack was very very severe and punishing. A completely demoralizing use of overwhelming force on a sleeping enemy is very cold and almost sounds revenge to me. I gather that lot of firepower was used to nullify any semblance of counterattack. Whoever planned and lead the attack knew exactly what he was doing. My respects to him.Excellent Sir!