Managing Pakistan's failure

[member_19686]

Ya that's just what we need, more ROL followers in India. Better study history.

Prominent Xtian leaders of Punjab cast in their lot for Pakistan.

Hindus and Sikhs opposed Pakistan but were thrown to the wolves by Gandhi and Nehru.

[RajeshA]

Dealing with Pakistani Terror

X-Posting from TIRP Thread

RajeshA, suppose one replied to a war of a thousand cuts with a decapitation - would the number of punches matter?

Number of punches are counted by the victim only if he intends

"Number of Punches" brings in a lot of political maths. Let's say that we do believe in the principle of "sau sunaar ki to ek lauhar ki" (Single hit by a blacksmith is equivalent to a hundred hits by a goldsmith)! How does that function in reality?

There is a lobby in India which does not want war between India and Pakistan, be it because of concerns relating to business environment, or relating to inter-communal relations inside India, or relating to some personal interests, or genuine fear of war and its toll on human life, or ideological reasons, etc.

There can be a lobby which holds an opposite view. These would be the Indian nationalists who would opt for a retaliation for the terror acts. Then there can be politicians, who could genuinely benefit from anti-Pakistani mood in India. Thirdly it is the military-industrial complex of a country which is eager to have war. For some reason or another, I don't see Indian politicians trying to milk a post-terror anti-Pakistan mood in India to make political hay. It is as if the anesthesia is strong enough for Indians to not feel too much discomfort even if India's teeth are broken through repeated punching. So politicians don't make much of an issue out of it. Neither does India have an entrenched MIC. It is all public sector. As far as Indian nationalists are concerned the Internet offers some respite and one can vent out one's frustration and anger, without much changing the status quo.

Under such circumstances, the 'Peace Lobby' is far stronger, and can ultimately fashion India's response.

Now we come to the number game, and some questions arise!

1. How many terror acts from Pakistan are needed before the Lauhar goes and gets his hammer?
2. Who would count Pakistan's terror acts?
3. So even as Pakistan adds to its list of terror acts against India, wouldn't the 'Peace Lobby' try to use a rubber at the other end, and start wiping off those terror acts from Indian public's memory,
   1. By overemphasizing how the city and community is getting back on its feet
   2. By directing the anger inwards towards the failure of own intelligence and security forces in the various marches, rather than at the perpetrator.
   3. By keeping the survivors and families of the victims as faceless
   4. By not commemorating the anniversaries
      1. through TV programs on the terror act
      2. by revisiting the survivors and the families of victims and their anguish
      3. by not making it an issue of how the government has delivered on justice for some terror act
      4. by not having country-wide 2 minute silence
      5. by not making the history of terror against the country a part of the education curriculum
      6. by instead bringing out "Aman ki Asha" campaigns instead
4. Many would dispute that some terror acts were even from Pakistan, and hence cannot be 'counted'.

The system is hardwired not to respond to the many acts of terror against the country. There is no guarantee that at the end there would be an Indian response. So even if there are a thousand or two thousand cuts, it will never add to a sufficient number to declare war against Pakistan or to do a decapitation. It is not as if a new terror attack adds to a preexisting anger among us. The old anger has been sufficiently cooled in the meantime before the next terror attack takes place.

Secondly 'decapitation' sounds good only in theory. Jihadism is a multi-headed monster. It is somewhat incredulous to think that a single reprisal would bring us the total 'decapitation'.

All that counts is that the Terrorist can space its attacks appropriately; can keep the threshold of its last attack below a certain level, behind the red line; and can manipulate Indian politics directly or indirectly to not retaliate. This game the terrorist can play indefinitely, as no counting of terror attacks take place.

The only solution is to respond to each and every terror act individually. If one does that properly, there is not going to be a thousand cuts. The lesson would reach home. The retaliation should be limited in duration - say 2-3 days, it should be surgical and it should be comprehensive on the terrorist's person, his family, his organization, his community, his country and his ideology. The retaliation should be granular. It should be the Michael Corleone way - synchronous, and thus granular! In the intervening period we collect intelligence for the next retaliation.

Such a pattern of retaliation is important, because we don't want to be in a state of constant war, only in a state of constant preparation for war. Constant war only helps India's enemies to consolidate their position within their communities and ideology.

Everybody needs to be told why somebody was punished.

Why? To make us feel better? Will the other rage boys be suitably chastised after that? On the other hand, what if Saeed was punished by someone even more pious?

This "to make us feel better" is getting boring! It is piskologising ourselves to a paralysis!

I am in favor of painting the Pakistan's Breakup Painting using broad brushes of such strategies - letting more pious carve up the less pious. But this should not go too far.

When Hafiz Saeed masterminded Mumbai 26/11, he branded his ass with "India"! His ass belongs to us! It would be a folly to let him die in any other way than by India's hand! In fact we should kill anybody else who takes him down before we get the chance to do so! He belongs to us!

Now the piskological brigade would start jumping up and down, telling me that that is only because I want to feel better. But that is not the whole story. That is kshatriya dharma, as I see it, and we have to do that dharma justice. Sure a hyena can wait till the lion has made his kill, get some of the leftovers and lick its tongue in contentment. But that is not how we want to be seen - as a hyena. A world power needs to be seen as a lion! We have to make our own kill.

Now of course GoI can say, they didn't have anything to do with the retaliation, as far as assassinations go or collective punishment goes, but there should be sufficient rumor in the mills to point out in our direction without there being conclusive proof.

[RajeshA]

The Karachi Pivot: Indo-Pak Conflict Reformulation

Continuing from TIRP Thread

Because there are a section of Hindus who believe in the Two Nation theory and are out to attack Muslims, India has a bad reputation internationally whereby wars imposed by Pakistan on India are interpreted as Hindu versus Muslim war between Muslim Pakistan and Hindu dominated India The Indian government would need to be seen as going out of its way to show that this characterization of India as Hindu power trying to intimidate Muslim Pakistan is baseless.

This actually puts all Hindus on the back foot. If they want a "good reputation" then they have to agree with what the government is doing. If they don't care about the reputation, there should be absolutely no worry about the characterization and there should be an open willingness to admit that Hindus have rights and a minority of Hindus have actually indulged in violence against Muslims to claim what is their legitimate right.

This is a political dilemma imposed by the Congress on its political opponents while simultaneously earning brownie points internationally. But how do you represent a Hindu viewpoint if you deny that Hindus have a genuine grievance and have been violent on occasion? Isn't it plain hogwash to claim that all Hindus are "secular" an "tolerant" when a large number of Hindus openly say that this business is loaded against Hindus. An Indian government has to say that is is following national and international laws. It cannot represent a particular religious interest. If the international press has open evidence of violent actions by Hindus no government can say "No. Hindus are tolerant, secular, ahimsa-pasand people" This is how the world works and it is harsh.

Pakistan has been open in supporting Islamic terror groups and Pakistani spokespersons are on record saying that Hindu India is out to destroy Pakistan. This is by and large believed in most countries of the world to a lesser or greater extent.

At one level the issue is why should India care about whether the West & Ummah and the rest want to portray India-Pak conflict as a conflict between Hindu-dominated India vs. Islamist Pakistan, as a Hindu-Muslim conflict! Let it be!

At another level if India does care, the question is whether India has another option, other than "Hindu is tolerant onlee", "marginal Saffron terror groups to be crushed", "Pak Kissing on the Wagah", etc. policy.

There is another option. And that is to reformulate India-Pak conflict as a Muslim sectarian conflict, with the Hindus a passive spectator.

There was a news story earlier from India.

Published on Oct 16, 2011
By Vidya Subrahmaniam
Sufi Maha Panchayat denounces Wahabi extremism: The Hindu

Board members stressed the threat from Wahabi extremism over and over in their speeches to the Maha Panchayat, arguing that a small group of people had succeeded in giving a bad name to Islam and Muslims, most of whom were Sunni Sufis and therefore peace-loving, tolerant and intensely patriotic. Speakers also emphasised the essentially inclusive nature of Sufism which did not differentiate between Muslims and non-Muslims and allowed all communities to pray in their shrines. The Deobandis, on the other hand, did not allow their followers to go to Sufi dargahs.

“The time has come for us to come out and claim our rights. Let us take a pledge that we will never support Wahabi extremism — not today, not tomorrow. Let us take a pledge that we will work for the unity and integrity of our motherland,” Maulana Kachochavi told the gathering.

Later talking to the press, the Maulana made a strong pitch for a Madrasa Board saying: “Right now the madrasas are under the control of Wahabi-inspired organisations which run on Saudi money. The ideology they teach and spread is hardline Wahabism. These organisations have put pressure on the government not to enact the Act. We want the funds to go to the really needy and poor.”

That is one opening. But the other major opening is the upcoming MQM-Pushtun conflict in Karachi. As Imran Khan is given the crown in Islamabad, the politics in Pakistan will tilt even further away from MQM. As Imran Khan assumes civilian power, the Pushtuns of Karachi will feel emboldened, MQM will feel isolated, and there is going to be a lot more bloodshed in the streets of Karachi. Moreover the PPP reign over Islamabad would also come to an end, and the Sindhis would move closer to MQM on this, especially if Zardari feels threatened or his tenure is brought to any abrupt halt.

When the Karachi killings start next time, what we need to do is bring out the Indian Muslim masses on the streets of India in open support of MQM, their ethnic brethren living across the border. The more the atrocities on the Mohajirs in Karachi, the deeper can be the purge of Wahhabis from Muslim power elite in India. Simultaneously India too can take a more belligerent attitude towards Pakistan citing Pakistan's open state support to the "oppression" of Mohajirs from India. We can also keep some sections of the Pakjabis tied to the "Aman ka Tamasha" campaign, not to look partisan.

We need to make Altaf Hussain into a Hassan Nasrallah, and MQM into Hezbollah, an unbudgeable urban militant group and supply it with both training and arms. We need to sharpen the divide and make the pro-Indian side infallible.

[ramana]

From newinsight.net

All for one...
Pakistan's democracy faces its toughest test now, says N.V.Subramanian.

9 January 2012: While Pakistan's president, Asif Ali Zardari, may defy the odds and survive, democracy in that country is being choked to death. And the institutions that stand arraigned for this are Pakistan's Supreme Court, the army and the notorious Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI).

Since "memogate", the Pakistan army and ISI have been gunning for Zardari. They forced the resignation of the Pak envoy to the US, Hussain Haqqani, who is now hiding in the prime minister's bungalow in Islamabad. He told a wire service he would be killed like the Punjab governor, Salman Taseer, if he left his sanctuary.

Haqqani does not have the obvious advantages and immunities Zardari enjoys. But if he goes down, it would be a blow to Zardari, and it would tell the world that Pakistan's democracy is gravely imperiled.

Pakistan's Supreme Court chief justice, Iftikhar Mohammed Chaudhry, has had reservations about Zardari from the beginning. He has sought to pursue his corrupt wealth stashed abroad. The law must take its course here. But he cannot become party to the destabilization of the Zardari regime in tacit collaboration with the Pakistan army and ISI, which is what the judicial inquiry into "memogate" amounts to.

The Pakistan army and ISI have particular reasons to oppose the Zardari government, but it doesn't take away from their generic aversion for democracy. The military and intelligence establishments blame the government for the sorry mess Pakistan is, and accuse it of being excessively pro-American. "Memogate" has come in handy for them.

As an elected government, the Zardari regime has a mandate to run the country, and it is finally its own best judge of its foreign-policy angularities. The National Assembly is there to correct its tilts and check its powers. And if the people of Pakistan disapprove of the regime, they will vote it out. How can the Pakistan army and ISI become arbiters of good governance in the country? Who has elected them?

What the Pakistan army and ISI are basically doing is buck-passing. Their image has been destroyed by the American operation that killed Osama Bin Laden in Abbottabad and the Al-Qaeda revenge attack on the Mehran naval base in which an Orion was gutted. Meanwhile, terrorists have overrun large parts of Pakistan. Its nukes are unsafe. To deflect the hard questions, the army and ISI have taken on the elected government, aided by a capricious judiciary and an ultra-nationalistic section of the media.

But Zardari is a hard nut to crack, as this writer has ventured to say in the past. Knowing they are on shaky grounds, the army and ISI have not moved to depose the government. It would be a most unpopular move. And whatever his faults, Zardari has proved a fighter, and he is backed by the powerful Bhutto legacy.

Which is why the anti-Zardari forces have turned their wrath on the lesser Hussain Haqqani. They have cornered him like a rat in the prime minister's house in the capital. They wish to make a terrible example of him. Through him, the Pakistan army, ISI and the Supreme Court want to wound Zardari. But it is Pakistan's democracy that will be maximally damaged.

However you look, "memogate" is not about treason. Since Pakistan's National Assembly is already investigating the matter, a parallel judicial commission is uncalled for and indeed undemocratic. And Hussein Haqqani's asylum in the PM's house brings shame to Pakistan. It's the worst PR for Pakistan when he says he fears the fate of the Pakistan Punjab governor who was gunned down by his bodyguard for standing up for minorities.

Anything India says would have the opposite effect in India, but the media should take it up vigorously. And led by the United States, the rest of the democratic world should apply pressure so that Hussain Haqqani is secured and, if he wants, evacuated to safety overseas.

But the larger threat is for Pakistan's democracy. There is nothing in "memogate" that warrants penal action against Zardari or his government. His government must be allowed to complete its term and face the electorate, as it happens in natural course in all democracies.

The Pakistan Supreme Court should disband the judicial commission in good faith, and deny cover to the Pakistan army and ISI to advance their anti-democratic agenda in the country. All political parties should rally to the side of the government because, divided, they will all fall.

His listing of symptoms is right. His prescription is not.

[devesh]

RajeshA ji,

there is no need to "bring out India's Muslim masses". whatever we decide to wrt inter-Pakistan rivalries and hates, it has to be from an India standpoint. we cannot risk another Khilafat. the very notion of "bring Indian Muslims out on the streets" is a dangerous thing. it gives credibility and face value to all and sundry Islamist demands. today it might be Sindh, but tomorrow it will be about Shariah in "hindustan".

[RajeshA]

RajeshA ji,

there is no need to "bring out India's Muslim masses". whatever we decide to wrt inter-Pakistan rivalries and hates, it has to be from an India standpoint. we cannot risk another Khilafat. the very notion of "bring Indian Muslims out on the streets" is a dangerous thing. it gives credibility and face value to all and sundry Islamist demands. today it might be Sindh, but tomorrow it will be about Shariah in "hindustan".

devesh ji,

one needs to do whatever one needs to get the job done. People often forget that we are facing a nuclear-armed Pakistan which is using terror under nuclear cover against India. It is a mortal enemy and it needs to be brought down with the least amount of fallout for us.

If you want to do that "from an Indian standpoint", you are proposing a nuclear war. If you are not proposing taking them on "from an Indian standpoint", but rather just tolerating them "from an Indian standpoint", then you are willing to live with the terrorist, be willing to be blackmailed by the terrorist, and be willing to take frequent terrorist hits. Besides the regional and global ramifications of taking on Pakistan "from an Indian standpoint" is such that every two-bit Jihadi from Morocco to Mindanao would come flying to India, Middle-East would bankroll the Jihad against India, Western countries would give us sanctimonious lectures and rejoice their staying above the fray, and China may take another bite off India.

If we wanted to do anything against Pakistan "from an Indian standpoint", we would have done that years ago. There is nothing to the adage "from an Indian standpoint" other than some hollow dreaming by a few Indian nationalists.

In 1971 we got some results because we were not squeamish about cooperating with the Muslim Bengalis from East Pakistanis. If we had had the view that it has to be "from an Indian standpoint" we would have thought any cooperation with Muslim Bengalis would have meant, that at some later day they would be demanding Khilafat or another Partition, and we would have done nothing. There would still have been flanked by Pakistan on both our East and West.

Coming to notion that "bringing out India's Muslim masses" is tantamount to another Khilafat, I can only say that that is way off the intention. "Bringing out India's Muslim masses" in this case is in support of the "Divide and Rule" policy, whereas Khilafat was about "Unity of the Muslims of the World", the exact opposite.

The "Indian Muslim masses" can come out and challenge Indian state anytime they wish. They showed that amply during George W. Bush's visit to India. They don't need our encouragement to do so! Whenever that happens, India would have to deal with them in the best way possible. But keeping them at home on the question of support to the Mohajir cause in Pakistan does not dampen the possibility, not even in the least bit, that they may still come out against the Indian state someday.

What we need is a deep division between the Indian Muslims and the Pakistani Muslims, and secondly a real political division of Pakistan, a break up of Pakistan. If setting up Indian Muslims vs Pakistani Muslims on the question of treatment of Mohajirs helps India's cause, we should use it.

[ramana]

Looks like there is rethink in various options for TSP failure.

Restitiching the subcontinent

How do you solve a problem like Pakistan?

Restitching the Subcontinent
How do you solve a problem like Pakistan?
Austin Bay
November 28, 2011, Vol. 17, No. 11

The post-World War Two partition of British India was a blood-drenched mess. Since partition, India has prospered. Bangladesh, the 1971 Indo-Pakistani war’s ******** child, remains wretched. For three decades a low-grade civil war has afflicted Pakistan, pitting urban-based modernizers against Islamist extremists reinforced by militant hill tribes. The Taliban attack on Pakistan’s Karachi naval base in May 2011 reprised the hill versus urban paradigm. Pakistan’s civil war divides its intelligence and security services, which is one reason the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff can argue (with confidence) that an element within Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency supported the September 2011 Taliban assault on America’s embassy in Kabul.

In retrospect, splitting British India into East and West Pakistan and India may have been one of the 20th century’s greatest geostrategic errors.

I got a hint of this in the 1970s when I was injured at Ft. Benning, Georgia, and befriended by two Pakistani officers attending an advanced military course. My leg-length cast made walking to the mess hall a pain, so the Pakistani major and lieutenant-colonel took turns chauffeuring me in their car.

One evening, in slow traffic, the major and I passed an Indian Army colonel standing on the sidewalk. The major cracked his window, yelled, and waved. The Indian colonel smiled, raised his left hand, and wiggled his fingers. The major glanced at me and with a soft chuckle said, “That man—he is my enemy.”

Despite their recent war, I knew better. On at least two occasions the Indian colonel had dropped by our bachelor officers’ quarters to watch television with the Pakistanis. I had found a corner chair, propped my cast on a crutch, and learned that on the subcontinent cricket matches are a very serious matter.

The major knew I grasped his irony and added, with a wistful, startling sadness: “You know .  .  . we were once the British Indian Army.”

Yes sir, you were. And you were very, very good. That great Indian Army (“British” being colloquial, not official) fought and defeated first-rate, first-world enemies: Germans in North Africa and Italy; the Imperial Japanese in southeast Asia. Stripped of Commonwealth camouflage, the Indian Army of 1945 was, in its own right, a veteran combat outfit with global experience.

Today, when the U.N. seeks crack peacekeeping troops, that old army’s components, now split among India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh, top the wish list. In the eastern Congo’s chaos, Indian Air Force helicopters fly support missions for Pakistanis and Bangladeshis. To tacticians this demonstrates the value of British military training methods; to military historians it testifies to the British Indian Army’s tradition of excellence maintained by its fragmented descendants.

The Indian and Pakistanis at Ft. Benning shared more than professional interests—they were friends. If religion and state politics divided them, culture, common sense, and common decency united them. But reuniting India’s fragments? Political fantasy. Blood has spilled, in torrents.

Two remarks made 30 years later by Benazir Bhutto in March 2005 led me to reconsider. Before an interview with four or five writers, someone in conversation mentioned Kashmir. Bhutto said India and Pakistan had too many common interests not to make peace, and that meant resolving Kashmir’s division. “It will happen,” she said. An optimistic nonanswer by a politician? I respected her forceful tone. But how do you resolve it?

Bhutto also mentioned India’s expanding economy and her belief Pakistan would emulate India’s success. I knew forward-thinking sub-continent business leaders favored a robust common market. India liberalized its economy and created wealth; so could Pakistan. English is India’s business language, as it is Pakistan’s. India’s economy could lift Pakistan’s. Their economies might merge—but why pursue the thought, given the spilled blood?

Two years later Bhutto was assassinated, by Pakistani Islamist extremists likely linked to the Taliban and al Qaeda.

{Wrong. BB was killed per TSPA instructions to avoid giving US more say in TSP.}

I was dining with an Indian businessman. “My family came from Karachi,” he explained, now Pakistan’s largest city. “We are Hindus. When partition occurred there was violence. My parents fled to India. To what is now India. .  .  . I finally came to the United States. And I got a job working for a broker on Wall Street.”

“Did partition have to happen? In retrospect.”

He thought a moment, shook his head. “In my opinion? No.”

Biographer Stanley Wolpert contends Mahatma Gandhi opposed partition. Wolpert wrote that Gandhi never accepted the partition plan and “realized too late that his closest comrades and disciples were more interested in power than principle.” A Hindu extremist assassinated Gandhi. Spilled blood.

But young Pakistanis are now reconsidering partition—because the bloodletting continues. Oh, those thinking the unthinkable are the well-educated, the next generation of Benazir Bhuttos pursuing college degrees in the United States and Canada, or manning ex-im offices in Singapore, Abu Dhabi, and London. Bhutto’s murder and the 2008 Mumbai massacre by Islamist terrorists in league with ISI officers spurred harsh moral reflection and intellectual reappraisal.

Pakistan as India’s rival? Only in cricket. India has six times Pakistan’s population and about 10 times its GDP. Year by year Pakistan decays amid corruption, Islamic terrorism, and economic rot. India’s economic surge has made it a global power. Bollywood entertains Asia. India’s Hindus and Christians and Sikhs and, yes, despite Mohammed Ali Jinnah’s contrary claim, Muslims, too, have economic opportunities. Jinnah, leader of the Muslim League and Pakistan’s first post-partition governor general, contended Muslims would never prosper if yoked by a Hindu majority. Jinnah was intellectually and politically gifted, a sophisticate with cosmopolitan taste. Sixty years of history have shown he was dead wrong.

And the new reunifiers know it. Their idea is preposterous, a fantasy, but it has on its side a deeper history than the last six decades. They argue that a reunited India would give Pakistani modernizers strategic depth: economically, demographically, socially, and geographically. The geographic argument has old roots. For millennia the “tribal threat from the mountains” has vexed northern India, from the Indus valley (Pakistan’s heartland) and east beyond Delhi. The reunifiers see the Taliban and other violent factions as tribal raiders attacking the wealthy lowlands, with the goal of seizing urban wealth, imposing tribal rule, then pushing east. Antiquarian? No, insightful. Al Qaeda promotes a 10th-century misogynistic social order; it glorifies beheadings but says little about jobs. A reinvented pre-partition India would have the economic, social, and demographic depth to buffer and absorb the tribes and their turmoil. Pakistan alone does not.

{So the Paki reunifiers want Indian strength to stave off the Taliban. They need the economic Indo-Gangetic subsidy to keep afloat. They fear the US-UK subsidy getting choked off.}


Two years ago, while discussing the idea of a reunited India with a faculty member at the University of Texas, I pointed out that the reunifiers know they are engaged in a protracted, low-grade civil war, pitting Pakistani modernizers against militant Muslim religious fundamentalists. The modernizers believe a reunited subcontinent would give them instant allies. But consider the obstacles. Indians might balk at absorbing Pakistan’s basket-case economy. (South Koreans fear a generation of paying for North Korea’s poverty post-reunification.)We’ve also had six decades of hateful propaganda spewed by jingoists in Delhi and Islamabad—the heirs of Gandhi’s “comrades” hellbent on personal power. They stoke enmity between Muslims and Hindus for political advantage.

The professor replied that the Pakistani intellectuals he’d met acknowledged re-creation might take a generation—but they raise the possibility and see its value.

Meanwhile, Pakistan risks collapse. Lawrence Solomon, in an article in Canada’s Financial Post, argued that British India requires further “unstitching.” Solomon’s scenario had Pakistan splitting into Pashtun Afghania, Baluchistan, a Sindh state, and an independent Punjab. Solomon asserted that, with the possible exception of current “top dog” Punjab, “the new nations to emerge from a breakup of Pakistan likely would soon become more prosperous as well as more free.”

Likely more prosperous and free? Maybe. A stand-alone Sindh might do well, for a while. In A Quick and Dirty Guide to War (2008), James. F. Dunnigan and I speculated that a Punjab-Sindh state might be more stable than Pakistan. But Pashtun and Baluchi states? I see a squalid future: These suddenly independent confederations slip deeper into misery, plagued by unmitigated clan violence while continuing to provide, with even less intelligence scrutiny, bases for well-financed terrorists. Punjab and Sindh still confront the threat from the hills. Where do they look for help? To India? That’s the argument for restitching, not unstitching.

Abandoning the hills to their despair is a mistake. The tribes deserve peace and development. A dysfunctional Pakistan cannot provide either. A restitched India could, in time.

{So they want India to bear the burden of revitalising the TSP and they want to grant it as afavor to save their sorry a$$es!}

The Pakistani major at Ft. Benning repeatedly told me the lieutenant-colonel was an unusual man. The day the leg cast came off the lieutenant-colonel and I went to the mess hall. Over dinner he explained the major’s comment: “I come from a hill tribe. We plaster bricks with goat sh— to keep the wind out.”

The lieutenant-colonel assessed my reaction. “You know I attended graduate school in Europe. .  .  . I started life in the 12th century. I’m now in the 20th. That’s what the major means.” Then he flashed a wry smile. “He comes from the cities. I suppose, to him, I am living proof that it can be done.”

Austin Bay is the author, most recently, of Ataturk: Lessons in Leadership from the Greatest General of the Ottoman Empire.

Now makes sense the US scholar waxing about Nizam's Hyderabad being the last bastion of ganga jamini culture in Hyderabad !!!

[svinayak]

We need to remove all their fantasies quickly
US scholar waxing about Nizam's Hyderabad

[Klaus]

Re-stitching will have to happen according to India's preferences and wishes and our time of choosing. The article also hints that Nehru's "heirs" (Nehru-Gandhi dynasty) will have to exit the scene for this to happen.

Proponents of further "un-stitching" such as Lawrence Solomon need to be put under the microscope. These proponents indicate that the Brits will make another attempt at power politics in the sub-continent.

[svinayak]

No foreigners should be allowed to dictate India about its future.

[RajeshA]

The Great Game is all about controlling India. Anglo-Americans will try the Dravidian-Dalit-Tribal-Northeast Victimization cum Evangelism route by setting up players there to influence Indian policies. They will try to control major political parties through foreign-born players. The fact that English has become India's operating system also plays into their plans. Now they seem to be trying to infect India with Pakistaniyat by getting Pakistan to be restitched with India, thus enabling Pakistanis to get involved in the politics of India. Through the Pakistanis they want to control Muslim politics and the Muslim vote banks of India as well.

With so many pivots in India, it is no wonder that India would become vulnerable to the loss of its traditional non-alignment.

Dharmic Renaissance makes India an independent pole in the world. What they are trying to do is to smother that outcome by setting up alternative pivots.

If at all, India needs to digest Pakistan bit by bit, taking the next bite only after the first bite has been chewed and digested. Throwing in the whole of Pakjab and Pushtun areas into India would overload our digestive tract.

[ShauryaT]

Realistic policy choices within meaningful time frames are restricted to economic integration and security alignments and these two alone would be HUGE steps. Necessary for India herself to more forward. India cannot be a pole, without resolution to TSP and better control of South Asia.

[svinayak]

India will become a pole by taking the Pak by the horn and the process of fixing it

[devesh]

I'm sure Brihaspati ji has a very interesting take on the article. but IMO, "restitching" cannot take place without finding a solution of the Islam problem. India must not and will not accept any portion of Pak without solid steps to roll back Islam and eventually exterminate this Middle-Eastern mind-virus from the psyche of the Pakis.

restitching is only possible when Bharat finally decides to acknowledge and confront the problem of the institutional basis of Islam which preserves the genocidal fantasies generation after generation. until Bharat decides to tackle this bull by the horns, there will be NO restitching.

[abhischekcc]

India will become a pole by taking the Pak by the horn and the process of fixing it

That is why destruction of Pakistan is the key to India's rise. And the rescinding the Indus Water Treaty is the key to destroying Pakistan.

[shiv]

It occurs to me that "Managing Pakistan's failure" is about "Managing Pakjab". Everything else is manageable. Pakjab has wealth, population and radicalization.

Apart from the rapist army that is manned mostly by Pakjabis, Pakjab's political parties also support radical Islamist groups. When you aid Pakistan, Pakjab benefits from the aid and Pakjabi's internal foes be they from Sindh, Baluchistan or Pashtun get nothing.

One of things that needs doing is a division of Pakistan into Pakjab, Seraikistan, Baluchistan and Pakhtunistan apart from Pakjab. "Norther areas" should be reintegrated with J&K. Increasing 'Pakistani strength" vis a vis india by military and eco aid (as the US did for over half a century) only increases Pakjabi strength vis a vis others. The Pakjabi army has always told the others "Don't be scared of us - India is the enemy". Fact is the Pakjabis are seen as the enemy by a lot of Pakis. They do not fear India so much and India can actually extend a hand towards them with the caveat that Pakjab has to be controlled. But that is largely dependent on the US which keeps the army ion good health and therefore Pakjabis in good health.

The US remains a key player in Pakistan as long as they keep buttressing the largely Pakjabi army. There seems to be a strange homo-erotic relationship between TFTA USA and the Pakjabi army. Progress towards making Pakjab lose its grip on the rest of Pakistan revolves around US policy. India can play bigger role only if the US is either somehow removed from being able to support the Pak(jab)i army, or figures out what is wrong on its own.

[Prem]

Destruction of Pakjabi wealth , health and new generation will cook their murgi for good. So far Indians have shown no inclination to punish these particular BCs woth the exception of short period in 47. They escaped both Maratha and Khalsa wrath. NSA s hired in Afghanistan will love to Love Pakjabis in Peshawari style. Question of Indian political will only.

[member_20317]

India will become a pole by taking the Pak by the horn and the process of fixing it

That is why destruction of Pakistan is the key to India's rise. And the rescinding the Indus Water Treaty is the key to destroying Pakistan.

Neutralising Pakistan is also the key to managing China.

[Prem]

Poaqoons spend next 2-3 years with the present tussle between Milliroaches and Civiroaches. In the mean times Dekhonomy goes down the tube along with FE reserves. IMHO, it will take another 4-6 years before they can get stablized with the expected generous donation from both Massa and Chaxxa.By this time Sindh and Baluch desh will be on the verge of Azadi and another BD scale genocide on the way. They must be kept on the path where they go from crisis to calamities and from calamities to Karbala. In the meantime Indians must keep the psychological preassure by reinforcing the true idea of Paki Dumbness in their mind. Make them realize they have lost the capacity to think right and have truley lost their soul by licking alien Joote 24/7.By the 16th Dec of 2022, we actively move in to manage these brain dead Poakanimals. Go in with cash first and then slowly buy the choicest maal and dump the rest in Indus. Start anew by cleaning the ganda khoon.

[member_20617]

By the 16th Dec of 2022, we actively move in to manage these brain dead Poakanimals.

Why 16th Dec 2022?Any significance?

Just curious!

[RajeshA]

By the 16th Dec of 2022, we actively move in to manage these brain dead Poakanimals.

Why 16th Dec 2022? Any significance?

Just curious!

On Dec 16, 1971 the Instrument of Surrender was signed between Lieutenant General Jagjit Singh Aurora and 'Tiger' Niazi. That will 51 years from this date!

[Prem]

By 2022 , We will for sure cover the military and economic end to switch from passive mode to active mode in achieving our national objectives . 75 year cycle 1947+75=2022 turns another page of destiny in South Asia.The 16Dec was gift of Gen Arora to celebrate my arrival in this world. Abhi time is not ripe because

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=etnAlW9m ... re=related
Watch after 7minute

[RajeshA]

A post on PTH

Code: Select all

http://pakteahouse.net/2012/01/24/an-australian-takes-issue-over-skewed-article-on-pakistan-by-time-magazine/comment-page-2/#comment-81190

I personally think that placing such emphasis on “Pakistan” as you do at least partially defocalizes main issues. Problems lie in sets of specific ideas, ideologies, and with their defenders.
Take for example the idea that terrorizing a group of humans is a good thing. Is there something particularly Pakistani about it? Probably not. But there is this well-established idea that an extra-terrestrial creature out there somewhere takes pure delight in terrorizing the hearts of those humans who do not believe in it or who do not submit to its whims – now that is a broad fact not limited to Pakistan alone. Those who do submit to this creature, some of the more enthusiastic ones, legitimately delight in and draw pride from terrorizing the hearts of those who don’t submit.
I would personally place greater focus on that ideology. If and to the extent Pakistan is an epiphenomenon, subservient of that ideology, it will be guided by it and will enable it, but in itself, Pakistan is not such an interesting identity. Nothing more than say any other nation. By understanding ideology one can understand Pakistan, not vice versa.

Pakistan is important to the future of that ideology. In Pakistan the ideology is going into a chain reaction. Pakistan is ground zero for the ideology. Pakis always considered their country simply a laboratory of Islam. Well the results are due soon.

Ideological disarmament can only take place if the adherents of the ideology realize the consequences. Somalia was another experiment. I did not quite reach critical mass, simply because there was not enough fuel. In Pakistan, there is no dearth of fuel. In fact each year they are enriching more fuel, in maternity wards and madrassas.

India simply has to watch out for the impact of the blast and try to shield herself.

[RajeshA]

Continuing from TIRP Thread

The essential similarities between Western feudalism (transplanted to colonized countries in the colonial era) and Islamic "Kabila" imply that it is not only the "West" which has been a colonial entity as far as societies like ours are concerned... Islam itself is equally a foreign colonialist entity in our subcontinent, as fundamentally alien and predatory to our land, our culture and our way of life as the British or Portuguese or Dutch ever were. The atavistic howls issuing from their minarets five times a day are, indeed, cries of triumph and domination in a foreign language... the language of the colonizer shouting down the colonized.

Ramana has written extensively on the "Kabila" model... it roughly translates to "government as armed camp." Essentially there is a sultan who, with his generals and their troops, constitutes the ultimate fount of power in the political hierarchy. This is unwaveringly typical of the manner in which various political groups and dynasties have consolidated power in West and Central Asia, and North Africa, since the very advent of Islam.

The "Kabila" worked very well in the lands where Islam originated, and where it spread in the early centuries of its expansion. Why? Because the lands themselves were amenable to being governed in this form. In the deserts of West Asia, the arid mountains of Persia and the steppes to the North, the circumstances of nature favour a form of political dominance which relies on armament, maneuverability and mobility. This is because resources are scarce and concentrated in a few areas... an oasis here, a valley there. With a strong group of highly mobile armed men on horseback, you can easily forge an empire in such places. All you have to do is seize control of the few well-defined supply centers, the market centers (city states) and the trade routes between them. Most of the land is junk anyway. Once you're able to do this, and especially to destroy any civilizational affinity to pre-Islamic forms in the market centers (hence the Islamic obsession with temple breaking and idol smashing) you have, effectively, an empire. It doesn't matter if the thousands of useless square miles in between are physically under your domination or not; as long as you have no challengers in these particular small foci of power, you're an unchallenged monarch.

"Kabila" differs from European feudalism because of the emphasis on mobility... horsemen and artillery could be moved to engage a challenger in very short order. A necessary corollary of the Kabila model is un-rootedness. If you have to move fast you cannot afford to be tied down. Therefore, you do not invest in the land or the people, you see them only as objects to be controlled and squeezed for every drop of utility against the hard anvil of history. You position mullahs in population centers to be your spies, propagandists and social monitors... weeding out unorthodoxy and rebellion at the stage of ideation before it becomes necessary to smack down an armed rebellion. But ultimately you, and your apparatus of mullahs, constitute an extraordinarily parasitic, locust-like and virulent form of colonialism. This is something that Western studies of post-colonialism (with their essentially Euro-centric historiography) entirely ignore... they see the Islamic virus as something that was indigenous somehow to the lands they conquered. They do not realize that it was merely a more rapacious and less invested form of colonial imperialism.

Indeed, the more invested Muslim rulers became in their territories, the less "Islamic" they became, of necessity taking on the administrative, social and traditional trappings of pre-Islamic statehood. This made them vulnerable to "purer", mobile and less-invested Islamic conquerors. Hence the Delhi sultanate was prime fodder for Timur and Babar... Baghdad for the Mongols... and Mughal Delhi, again, for Nadir Shah. In each case the less-civilized, more predatory and more essentially savage Kabila prevailed over the more "settled" and "urbanized" Muslim state. When you do not carry the baggage of civilization or of feeling responsibility for the people you rule, you have much more maneuverability and ruthlessness at your disposal. Taking advantage of the Kabila's inherent strengths, the West was able to lead roving bands of armed Arabs in a devastatingly effective rebellion against the settled Ottomans during the 1st World War.

Why do I bring all this up with relevance to Pakistan?

As I said before... the "Kabila" system worked very well to dominate places where resources were scarce and concentrated in well-defined locations. However, it never worked quite as well in India.

That is because our Bharatvarsha is quite unlike those lands where Islam originated and expanded in the early centuries of its being. In Bharatvarsha, the land is almost never inhospitable or forbidding. In Arabia, a band of people displaced from an oasis had two choices: submit to the peaceful orthodoxy of a triumphant Muslim conqueror, or go out into the desert and die. In India, not so. A displaced people had only to go fifty or a hundred or two hundred kilometres in any direction... and mother Bharat in her generous embrace would provide fertile lands, rich orchards, abundant and plentiful fields. How many generations and what huge extents of such flights were supported by the bounty of Bharatvarsha become apparent if you study the migration of the Saraswats, originally from Kashmir... one branch traveled from there south of the Vindhyas, to Goa, and then again uprooted themselves in the face of Portuguese onslaught and proceeded to what is Dakshin Kannada in Karnataka today.

This had two effects: first, it made Indians in general indifferent to the fact of an Islamic conquest. If they took away our old fields and seized our city... well, we would just move over a little bit and build a new city, cultivate new fields. Our Gods and families are safe, let the Turk or Afghan have the old land, because there is enough for everybody if we simply adjust our location a little bit: this was how our forefathers dealt with Islamic expansion.

The second effect, of course, is that Hindu society survived, largely unscathed, as an essentially Indian identity. In Mesopotamia or Egypt, the Muslim idol-smashers and temple-breakers could effectively carry out cultural genocide because their targets were all in one place and immobile... where could you build another Baghdad or Luxor? The inheritors of the old culture had no choice but to surrender before the savagery of Islam's harbingers, and participate willingly in the extinction of their pre-Islamic cultural identities, if they wished to survive at all. In India, we would take our Gods, our families and our few possessions and head out a few more miles into the vast green hinterland and endless bounty of Bharat-mata, who would provide lovingly for us to begin our lives over again as Hindus.

This is essentially why we were saved from being extinguished by the onslaught of Islamic colonialism... Bharatvarsha herself sheltered her children and empowered them to preserve their way of life.

Now what you have in Pakistan today is the continuance of the Kabila system. The West realized soon enough that without the depredations of Islamic colonialism that denuded the civilizational wealth of the East for nearly ten centuries, sapping the power of the old Asiatic states and erasing their very identities... without this, the West would have had a much harder time pursuing their own colonial expansions. In fact, Islamic colonialism prepares the ground for Western colonialism... a fact that remains as true today as it was before the Battle of Plassey. Hence, everyone from Olaf Caroe to Zbignew Brzezinski sees a utility for the West in maintaining Islamic Kabilas even when the armies and viceroys of the West have gone home. The Kabilas will never construct a state of sufficient power to threaten the West; but they will keep Asia weak for the day that the West might want to return, in one form or another.

THIS is why the West was so determined to see a Pakistan constructed out of a large portion of Bharatvarsha. It is also why the West has been careful to destroy any alternative sense of nationhood or state-based form of governance in the Muslim world, other than Kabila. It is why the Arab nationalists of Ba'ath Egypt (Nasser) and Iraq (Saddam) had to be deposed, and the last scion of Ba'athism, Syria's Assad, is being systematically marked for elimination today. This is the reason why Gaddaffi in Libya was ousted, and why Iran is now at the head of the list of Western targets. Meanwhile the Kabila-state of Saudi Arabia is raised to paramountcy; while in smaller GCC nations... which are essentially city-states or market-centers like the UAE, Qatar, Kuwait and Bahrain... the US itself has taken on the role of Kabila.

In Pakistan that role has been given to the Kabila known as the Pakistan Army. However, let's remember... the land which the Pakistan Army Kabila seeks to dominate is not an arid expanse with tightly localized resource concentrations, as in the territories where the Kabila model has a natural advantage. No, the land of Pakistan is the land of Bharatvarsha... all-embracing and hospitable. It is much harder for a Kabila to control and dominate this "Pakistan" than a Persia or an Iraq.

Meanwhile, to the northwest of Pakistan is Afghanistan... a prime Kabila land, where a mobile and savage army unencumbered by investment in the people can always prevail over the forces of a more settled kingdom.

What happened over the last ten years is instructive. The Kabila (Pakistan Army) deputed by the West to control and enervate Western Bharatvarsha for colonial exploitation, has failed in its task. It has succumbed to the temptations of the land it occupies... Bharatvarsha... and become more "settled" than a Kabila has any right to be. It has become invested in private enterprise, legitimate ones like textiles and agriculture as well as illegal ones such as heroin supply. The Pakistan Army remains a true Kabila in that it still does not give a damn for the people in its charge; but it has become "softer" in the style of the Lodhi who was overwhelmed by Babar, or the Abbasid Caliph who was smashed by Genghis Khan. To compensate for its softness, the Pakistan Army has overemphasized the role traditionally played by Mullahs in the Kabila system, and set up a huge, hypertrophied apparatus of highly empowered political agents to subdue the population in the name of Islam... including all our favourite Tanzeems.

The big mistake that the Soft Kabila of the Pakistan Army made was to create another Kabila... the Taliban... in an attempt to colonize and subdue the people of Afghanistan. Taliban Kabila, being a classic, mobile, hard Kabila, was able to gain control over the prime Kabila-land of Afghanistan in record time back in 1996. However, with the force of historic inevitability... they have utterly lost regard and affinity for the soft, settled Kabila of the TSPA. They see no reason why they should take orders from this decadent, less-pure Sultanate; they have enjoyed repeated military successes over the TSPA over the past ten years; and worst of all, they have seen the TSPA do the bidding of the Kaffir by comfortably abetting the slaughter of Momin perpetuated by the Americans since 2001.

As a result, not only the Taliban, but many sections of the Kabila-apparatchik mullahs (who would ordinarily remain loyal to a strong, hard-Kabila) have turned against the soft and decadent Kabila of the TSPA.

Perhaps the most curious thing is how the TSPA and the Paki elite have responded to this state of affairs. Being themselves of Bharatvarsha... they have begun to do the classic Hindoo thing! "Fine", they say, "let the fundoos have FATA/KP, after all we have much more productive land".... "fine, let them have a presence in Karachi/Quetta/Peshawar, not a blade of grass grows there"... "fine, let them expand into southern Punjab, after all we should keep them close so we can keep an eye on them." Rationalization after rationalization is articulated by these Pakis while their circle of influence shrinks; so far will our bounteous mother Bharat let them retreat into the welcoming folds of her sari that they blindfold themselves ever more tightly with her pallu and convince themselves that all is well.

Rudradev ji,
Excellent piece!

Basically your piece also throws light on how to push back the Islamic occupation of Western Bharat! At a disadvantage is the side which tries to settle down and build their societies. The "Kabila" is mobile, doesn't care much about consolidation of land but keeps its focus on securing key centers from their adversaries, usually by making control of those centers untenable for the opponent. The work is distributed between the Ghazi and the Mullah! The Ghazi breaks the hold of the opponent on a key population center whereas the Mullah under the premise of diplomatic, nay religious immunity incites the local population against the adversary! The Mullah is the veritable intelligence, subversion and propaganda arm of the "Kabila"!

NATO could not win in Afghanistan, simply because NATO could never purge the various population centers of the various subversion arms of the Taliban which operated under the guise of freedom of religion! And the Ghazis were not trying to hold on to any population centers because they already had kept control of these centers through their Mullahs! They were free to conduct a guerrilla war, attack and retreat!

Secondly the second reason for their mobility is because they do not need to fear for the safety of their families. The code of war of civilized countries do not include any retaliation against the family and kin of the "Kabila" soldiers, a code they themselves do not need to observe!

The "Kabila" would be forced to occupy and hold a strategic population center only if its intelligence, subversion and propaganda assets, the Mullahs, are packed up and thrown out or their families are threatened! When the "Kabila" try to hold a population center, then they become vulnerable to the same tactics they use! They become an immovable target!

[bahdada]

India will become a pole by taking the Pak by the horn and the process of fixing it

How is that possible with their ~200million islamotards and our own subset of 5th columnists? Not to mention the Islmaobongs who creep into our society by the thousands daily?

[Agnimitra]

The "Kabila" worked very well in the lands where Islam originated, and where it spread in the early centuries of its expansion. Why? Because the lands themselves were amenable to being governed in this form. In the deserts of West Asia, the arid mountains of Persia and the steppes to the North, the circumstances of nature favour a form of political dominance which relies on armament, maneuverability and mobility. This is because resources are scarce and concentrated in a few areas... an oasis here, a valley there. With a strong group of highly mobile armed men on horseback, you can easily forge an empire in such places. All you have to do is seize control of the few well-defined supply centers, the market centers (city states) and the trade routes between them. Most of the land is junk anyway. Once you're able to do this, and especially to destroy any civilizational affinity to pre-Islamic forms in the market centers (hence the Islamic obsession with temple breaking and idol smashing) you have, effectively, an empire. It doesn't matter if the thousands of useless square miles in between are physically under your domination or not; as long as you have no challengers in these particular small foci of power, you're an unchallenged monarch.

Rudradev ji, loved your post! However, consider some changes in the "cosmological" scale of earthling civilization today...

The era of Islamism was the era in which the armed, mobile, rapacious and rootless semi-nomadic hordes prospered at the cost of the old settled civilizations. The Arab, Turk, Mongol, certain African tribes, etc. were the parasitic beneficiaries, whereas Persia, Egypt, India, Byzantium were the host. These older settled civilizations were the sacrificial lambs that allowed these barbarous races to be brought into the light of civilization. In many cases they admittedly made great cultural progress, e.g. Persianized and Hellenized Arabs, Mughal India, Ottoman Turkey. So that's a positive view of the last 1200 years of history, where the old order paid the price to bring the raw ones out of the darkness into the light. Now that that's done, the aspirations and inclinations of the majority of Arabs, Turks, Mongols, etc are different from their ancestors. Only in some really screwed up corners like Afghanistan does one still find the old Qabila meme in full blossom. For that matter, the Western Roman state was the host on which the modern West European barbarian tribes fed and civilized themselves as feudal overlords.

One reason for that is that technology has shortened the vast geographical and cultural spaces and inhospitable distances that the Qabila relies on for its cultural and logistical seige. Today it takes an extraordinarily violent strain of prolonged war and destruction to sustain that meme -- even in a place like Afghanistan or Somalia. IOW, the historical dice are loaded against the Qabila meme in this age.

How much more war can the US engage in in the Mid East? Its beginning to affect their own economy, their own society. Unless one assumes that the Western elites aren't rooted or caring about their own populations and countries, its not a sustainable method of dominating Asia.

[ramana]

Carl, Its in TSP the Kabila meme is strong. Afghansitan is paying the price for that.

[ramana]

Newsinsight.net article

LoC as border
Embracing this would work to Pakistan's long-term advantage, says N.V.Subramanian.

6 February 2012: Pakistan's prime minister, Yousuf Raza Gilani, has said that the Kashmir issue has to be resolved through diplomacy and dialogue. He says Pakistan cannot afford to fight another war with India in this century.

Gilani's statement made on a so-called "Kashmir Solidarity Day" which is a public holiday in Pakistan is unexceptionable. Pakistan's anti-India military may not readily accept the logic and perspicacity of what the PM has said. But war can never be a solution.

By keeping Kashmir at the core of its disputes with India, Pakistan has warped itself since its independence. From its founder, M.A.Jinnah, down, every one of its principal leaders have sought a military solution to the Kashmir problem, hurting Pakistan in the process.

Because of the profound accent on gaining Kashmir by force, the Pakistan military and particularly its army was privileged. This privilege the army took as right, grabbed power, and reduced the politicians to second-class status. The consequent militarization of Pakistan lead, among other things, to the genocide in East Pakistan and the creation of Bangladesh.

Pakistan's nuke programme also came in consequence of this militarization. It is hardly surprising that the military controls Pakistani nukes and the entire weapons' production programme with no civilian oversight. Nowhere in the world is it so. Militarization spurred the easy location and operationalization of jihad and jihadis in Pakistan first against Afghanistan in the late 1970s and in Jammu and Kashmir in the late 1980s with disastrous blowbacks for Pakistan.

This obsession with Kashmir and the consequent militarization and jihadization of Pakistan has lagged the country way behind India. India is not one of those powers that gloats at this. But you cannot prevent a country from committing hara-kiri time and again.

For example, what is the point of commemorating "Kashmir Solidarity Day" year after year, making it a public holiday, observing it in mosques, publicizing it by way of human chains, and poisoning schoolchildren with it? If wars and Pakistani terrorism have not separated J and K from India, nothing will.

No Indian government has the mandate to alter or modify the boundaries of the country. There can be no map-making on Jammu and Kashmir, which is inalienably Indian. There is an Indian parliamentary resolution that claims Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir as well. So the longer Pakistan remains tied to its Kashmir obsession, the harder it will be to purge the military from politics, and it will keep the country stunted and abnormal.

The Palestinians lost by spurning the state that was given to them alongside the creation of Israel. Conversely, Kemal Ataturk in the course of rebuilding Turkey befriended neighbours like Russia. Until Pakistan ceases meddling in Afghanistan, withdraws its terrorist forces from India and pro-actively pursues peace in South Asia, it is condemned to destruction.

Perhaps all this is bitter medicine that Pakistanis cannot readily swallow. But there is no other option. Pakistan cannot hope to strengthen its democracy by seeding revanchist hatred in generation after generation. All those who matter in Pakistan know Kashmir is a lost cause. Pakistan is far from being the ideal state anyone would want to join. Unless Pakistan begins a long-overdue process of self-correction, it is doomed.

The Asif Ali Zardari-Geelani dispensation is involved in some corrective exercise. By being bold, they prevented a military coup. Pakistan's judiciary is opposed to deposing democracy. Broken ties with the United States have brought the state to near-bankruptcy. This is as good a time as any to pursue democratic reforms.

A key component of that is to remove Kashmir from the national agenda. Only the ruling alliance cannot do it. All political parties have to cooperate. Kashmir should not be the basis of competitive politics. To that end, the so-named "Kashmir Solidarity Day" should no more be observed.

Yousuf Gilani correctly says the Kashmir issue should be resolved through dialogue and diplomacy. A solution already exists, which (the late) Z.A.Bhutto had accepted in principle in 1972, which is to convert the Line of Control into an international border. If this gains national consensus, it would be Pakistan's doughtiest democratic accomplishment.

[Prem]

http://awesternheart.blogspot.com/2012/ ... istan.html
The steady decline of Pakistan

For 65 years Pakistanis have been conducting one of modern history’s great experiments: Can a nation conceived as Islamic be free and democratic-- the vision of Pakistan’s founding father, Muhammad Ali Jinnah? Or will Pakistan’s identity be defined by “forces that want us to live in fear—fear of external and internal enemies."The words quoted above were spoken by Husain Haqqani to the Wall Street Journal’s Mira Sethi. Until November, Haqqani was Pakistan's ambassador to Washington where he was a popular figure, a proud Pakistani patriot and a liberal-democratic Muslim intellectual tirelessly making the case that Pakistan should be seen as an important ally deserving of respect, moral support and material assistance.When I was last in Pakistan, two years ago, on a visit sponsored by the State Department, the U.S. Congress had just approved – thanks in large measure to Haqqani’s efforts – a $7.5 billion aid package. To my shock, this elicited little gratitude and much grumbling. Why? Because American envoys were to ensure that American taxpayer dollars would be spent to alleviate poverty and fight terrorists -- not for other purposes. People were angry with Haqqani for having accepted such “conditionality.”I recall the U.S. ambassador getting grilled on a Pakistani television program and sounding apologetic. I told anyone who asked – and some who didn’t --- that aid is not an entitlement; that we Americans have every right to specify how our money should be spent; that Haqqani was correct not to complain about such commonsensical restrictions; and that if other Pakistanis disagree they can tear up our checks. No hard feelings....During my last visit, however, Pakistan was different. Over the course of a single week, four terrorist attacks were carried out -- one of them targeting the Pakistani equivalent of the Pentagon where Taliban insurgents, armed with automatic weapons, grenades, and rocket launchers, fought for 22 hours. I expected such violence to outrage Pakistanis – to make them implacable foes of terrorism and the ideologies that drive it. But that was not necessarily the case.
A too-common view: The Taliban that attacks Pakistanis should be condemned but the Taliban that attacks Americans may be condoned. America, after all, had wronged Afghanistan by abandoning it after the Soviet defeat, and then had wronged it a second time by returning. The self-contradiction in these indictments generally went unrecognized.

[Agnimitra]

Carl, Its in TSP the Kabila meme is strong. Afghansitan is paying the price for that.

Ramana ji, yes, this is also Western-funded garrison culture at work. TSP is able to maintain and nurture the qabila meme because of the violence of partition and all the historical violence that has gone before. The public there is given the feeling of being threatened by India all the time. In addition, they are told gory tales of killing and rape by India's 700 million soldiers stationed in Kashmir, whose people are supposed to be one with TSP in body, mind and soul. So this constant feeling of war and violence is needed to keep the qabila meme alive, whether in TSP or Afghanistan.

In order to perpetuate war, the West is going to have to keep pumping in money, bolstering the TSPA, etc. Remains to be seen how much longer that can go on. If that can be reduced to a trickle, then a new iteration in TSP may be possible.

[RamaY]

OK. I got new ideas.

First of all the Kabila meme is not that new. Various Asuras in Indic history used this approach before from a IEDeological as well military strategy perspective. Bharat resolved those problems, periodically in its eternal history. We can learn from the old examples (Mahishasura, Raktabija, Ravana, Tripurasura etc.,) if we want, are willing to realize what we are and are capable of doing the right thing. Asuric forces are part of humanity and certain ideologies and religions represent those forces in certain times/places.

Secondly, few refreshing ideas to manage Pakistani failure

[Serious]

1. Entire Bharat converts to Islam - That would remove the religious angle from this problem and make it a pure law-and-order issue and GoI can resolve this issue as per Shariah laws.

2. Declare Pakistan as a stream of Hinduism - It would transform the Paki issue into a saffron terror issue, which can be suppressed easily by a secular GoI

3. Declare Bharat as a Christian nation - This will earn many western supporters and hopefully west will stop sponsoring Pakistan, leading to a peaceful submission of Pakistan or even better return of Jesus.

[\serious]

[ramana]

India already declared itself to be a secular nation state in 1975 and that didn't solve the problem of perception as Dar Ul Haram! And secularism is Christianity without Church.


So those ideas wont work.

[ShauryaT]

And secularism is Christianity without Church.

Pls repeat this everywhere a million times.

[harbans]

Ramay Ji, why not declare India a Dharmic state constitutionally. Not Hindu, Chrisitian, Islamic, Secular..but Dharmic? Fundamentals behind a Dharmic state will be a simple constitution based on Truth, Equality, Compassion, Humility and Equanimity. Do you think Muslims in India or Christians in India will oppose these fundamentals? Will anyone say they are not Dharmic? Dharma will certainly unify Sikhs, Dvaita, Advaita, Jain, Shaivites, Vaishnavites all sections of Indics. A constitution based on Dharma will not derail pluralism, but will set limits based on Truth, Equality, Compassion, Equanimity and Humility. Judgements will not be delivered with a rag on one's eyes, it will be based on all the fundamental values that constitute Dharma. Why not give more meaning to the Chakra in our flag and our national motto Satya Meva Jayate..?

[member_20617]

Carl, Its in TSP the Kabila meme is strong. Afghansitan is paying the price for that.

Ramana ji, yes, this is also Western-funded garrison culture at work. TSP is able to maintain and nurture the qabila meme because of the violence of partition and all the historical violence that has gone before. The public there is given the feeling of being threatened by India all the time. In addition, they are told gory tales of killing and rape by India's 700 million soldiers stationed in Kashmir, whose people are supposed to be one with TSP in body, mind and soul. So this constant feeling of war and violence is needed to keep the qabila meme alive, whether in TSP or Afghanistan.

In order to perpetuate war, the West is going to have to keep pumping in money, bolstering the TSPA, etc. Remains to be seen how much longer that can go on. If that can be reduced to a trickle, then a new iteration in TSP may be possible.

Carl

TSP is playing a two fold game:

(1) As you have written above, Pakis are constantly told lies about rape & killing by Indian soldiers as well as threat from Indian army.

(2) But there is also an Islamic agenda to subdue India through '1000' cuts and ultimately convert India to an Islamic state. This is their ultimate goal.

[RajeshA]

USA-Taliban Moves

Just some thoughts on a possible evolution of American policies in Pakistan.

I have been seeing some additional American interest in Baluchistan lately. Secondly I see that USA has opened a dialogue with the Taliban ostensibly to try to ease the departure of American forces from Afghanistan, and I see that USA has built up ANA and even some special forces of Afghans which work directly under the American command.

All this has started me thinking, that there is another game for America in this whole business.

What has been clear as the sun in the sky is the alliance between USA and the Pakistani Kabila aka Pakistani Army. USA could use the Kabila for its various projects in Central Asia as well as a pressure point against India. But since the last 6-7 years, the Pakistani Kabila has completely moved out of American control into the hands of Islamists who do not like to work with America, and in fact are willing to harm USA.

So if this Kabila in which USA has invested so much does not measure up to America's demands, can America just adopt another Kabila and dump the Pakistani Kabila.

After all, the alliance between USA and Saudi Arabia is intact and strong. Through Saudi Arabia, UAE, Qatar, various Islamists living in London and elsewhere in the West, USA can hope to extend control over another Kabila!

As ANA is being built up, this possibility does rise, that ANA could be that Kabila, but ANA is under control of Americans independently of Saudi Arabia. America may like to get control over another more virulent Kabila, and for that Taliban does fit the bill! But bringing the Taliban to America's side is tricky, as it has had a very close relationship with Al Qaeda, America's sworn enemy.

So for a USA-Taliban understanding these assorted Al Qaeda people would have to be deposed. To a large extent, at least in the past, when Musharraf was President, Pakistan has helped USA do just that.

So here is the deal that America is offering to the Taliban:
a) They put a stop to drone attacks on the Taliban. To some extent the drone attacks have already come down, even if that is being explained as either to assuage Pakistan's feeling post-Salala incident or to facilitate talks with the Taliban in Qatar.
b) They give the Taliban a piece of the pie in Afghanistan. Some power-sharing arrangement in Kabul, and according to the Blackwill plan, the Americans retreat to Non-Pushtun Areas of Afghanistan giving the Taliban more or less control over the Pushtun areas.
c) They could entice the Taliban with encouraging a split in Pakistan with the Pushtun areas (perhaps together with Baluch areas) separating from Pakjab and Sind!
d) Financing of Taliban's new Emirate in Pushtun areas of Afghanistan and Pakistan.

The Kabila in Rawalpindi has been flirting with the Chinese, and now that the Chinese have become competitors for American power, America might have thought that it is best to break Chinese power projection over the region by taking down its own paltu kutta - the Pakistani Army, and instead build up another Kabila which is outside the control of China, and can be controlled only by those who have an alliance with Saudi Arabia - the home of Wahhabi Islam.

Control over the Pushtun may be the better option than say control over the Pakjabis. The Pushtun fight. The Pakjabis have only Fauji Cement factories and produce corn-flakes. So what use is a Muslim Army which does not like to get its hands dirty, has become a nuisance for 'American partners like India', and is flirting with a strategic competitor - China?

But the Pakistani Army has made itself useful too for the Saudis by giving them the option of having a nuclear arsenal! Now if USA wants to disarm Pakistan of its nuclear arsenal, it first has to convince the Saudis that they do not need their own nuclear arsenal to defend itself. So the Saudis say, "what about Iran?" And the Americans say, we will take care of Iran! Thus there is an understanding between GCC, Israel and USA that Iranian nukes would have to go!

Question is: does this understanding extend to Indians as well? It is hard to say, because India is not ready to move against the Iranians. We think, we need Iran to have an independent policy option in Afghanistan! Pakistan too thinks it needs Iran to have its own nukes, so that Pakistan becomes indispensable to the Saudis. That is why A.Q. Khan gave the Iranians that nuclear tech!

Basically India is still not convinced about this project, even though it would entail USA splitting Pakistan down the middle and letting Indians handle a watered-down version of the Pakjabi Army!

[RajeshA]

USA-Taliban Moves

X-Posting from TIRP Thread

Top US envoy 'met Taliban leaders in Qatar': Telegraph UK

The delegation includes Tayeb Agha, former secretary to Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar, who has acted as go-between with American and German diplomats for more than a year.

Mr Grossman’s meeting, if confirmed, would be the first known contact made between the Taliban and a senior, named member of the Obama administration since the start of the Afghanistan war over ten years ago.

Rights violations shame Pakistanis at Congress hearing: Dawn

Code: Select all

http://www.dawn.com/2012/02/09/rights-violations-shame-pakistanis-at-congress-hearing.html

WASHINGTON: Guilt and shame were the two dominant feelings that overwhelmed many Pakistanis at a US congressional hearing room on Wednesday as witnesses detailed human rights abuses in Balochistan. Some were also troubled – while some felt elated – as all five US lawmakers who attended this unusual hearing of the House Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations stressed the Baloch right to self-determination.

But this emotive session – which often drew warm applause from Baloch nationalists – offered little insight into how to resolve this difficult issue. Perhaps, that’s not even the intention of those who had organised the meeting. They wanted to highlight Balochistan as a possibly explosive spot close to a US war-theatre and they succeeded in doing so.

There was some score-settling as well, particularly from US lawmakers upset with Pakistan over Osama bin Laden’s discovery in Abbottabad and with Islamabad’s decision to close Nato’s supply lines to Afghanistan.

“They sheltered the man who master-minded the slaughter of 3,000 Americans. Those who still believe Pakistan is a friend, they need to wake up,” said Congressman Dana Rohrabacher, a Republican, who organised and chaired the hearing.

Dr. M. Hosseinbor, a Baloch nationalist scholar, assured the Americans that the Balochs were natural US allies and would like to share the Gwadar port with the United States, would not allow the Iran-Pakistan gas pipeline through their lands and will fight the Taliban as well.

Ralph Peters, a retired US military officer, urged the US administration to break up its ties with Pakistan and support the Baloch struggle for freedom.

C. Christine Fair, an assistant Professor at Georgetown University, in her written statement, disagreed with the suggestion, saying that given the ethnic diversity of the province, its complicated history, and the existing geographic constraints, an independent Balochistan was untenable.

But such comments on Baloch politics were not what shamed the Pakistanis, and others, in the room. It was rampant human rights violations by both sides that shamed them.

According to the statistics submitted at the hearing, around 6,000 people were displaced and scores killed in 2005 around Dera Bugti district alone.

...

Congressman Rohrabacher declared that the hearing was no stunt, and that they wanted to start a national dialogue on what US policy should be in that part of the world.

What the US wants in the region is a Muslim Army at America's beckon and call, using which America can influence the dynamics of Central Asia and the Asian Periphery (Russia, China, India, Iran), and which allows America some plausible deniability.

It is not necessary for America that that Muslim Army should be TSPA. It can be ANA. It can be Taliban even. What America wants is complete control. TSPA is not amenable for complete control especially as its strategic interests and those of USA differ, especially viz-a-viz War on Terror, India, China, and Nukes.

Through American proxies in the Gulf, USA can control the Muslim Army of any virulence. Virulence is not the issue. Control is the issue. Now the Americans are busy trying to bring Taliban under US control. It could be an interesting situation for India were USA to change their allegiance and dependence from TSPA to the ANA/Taliban!

Ralph Peters Map for Western and Central Asia is the Blueprint. Much thinking has gone into making it! How the USA acts may seem sometimes being contrary to the creation of that map, but the USA is preparing the field in complicated ways with enough smoke and mirrors to claim that not they, but history itself had ordained the creation of that map!

For India of relevance is that Western Pakistan would move away from Indian claims, and not just that but also Gilgit-Baltistan would become part of a Greater Afghanistan. I presume, one reason why USA is interested in Gilgit-Baltistan is because it gives them access to needle China in Xinjiang as and when they please using Taliban-allied assets - ETIM. That may be one of the reasons that China has moved in into Gilgit-Baltistan. Not to mention, that USA would also get to control the temperature in the Kashmir Valley through Afghanistan.

So in many ways, Ralph Peters Map is advantageous for India. We get rid of TSPA and the nuclear threat. On the other hand we lose our civilizational rights to much geography if Pakistan loses its claim to that geography as well. I personally believe that the benefits in the short term are greater for India if the Ralph Peters Map becomes a reality! If India continues to grow at that speed we may still get control over PoK and Afghanistan at some later date when India would be able to challenge American and Saudi hold over the area!

[shiv]

What the US wants in the region is a Muslim Army at America's beckon and call, using which America can influence the dynamics of Central Asia and the Asian Periphery (Russia, China, India, Iran), and which allows America some plausible deniability.

The USA realised, as Britain did earlier, that of all the stupid brainless suicidal groups in the world who will do your job of getting killed Muslims are the most brainless, pliable and useful. Mullahs demand stupidity and death from followers and if you buy up the mullahs - Muslims will die for America.

Congratulations, Pakistan. Congratulations America.

[Agnimitra]

RajeshA ji, that was a wonderful and encouraging news item. Let's hope it translates into concrete action to save the Baluch people from the constant oppression of Pakistan. Stop this slow-motion genocide!

So in many ways, Ralph Peters Map is advantageous for India. We get rid of TSPA and the nuclear threat. On the other hand we lose our civilizational rights to much geography if Pakistan loses its claim to that geography as well.

I don't think we lose any "civilizational rights" to Baluchistan if Pak breaks up. We have civilizational rights to Gandhara too, which is in S. Afghanistan. We have civilizational rights to parts of Tajikistan also. In one sense, we have civilizational rights to the whole Indo-Iranian spectrum.

Its got nothing to do with the legacy of leftovers of the British Indian Empire.

In fact, if Baluchistan becomes independent, India will actually be able to increase its soft power presence in that state. So our civilizational footprint there will expand and deepen.

Ralph Peters map's plan for Gilgit Baltistan is not in India's interest. And if the US makes a tool out of the Taliban, that may not be in India's interests either, IMHO.

[RajeshA]

Ralph Peters map's plan for Gilgit Baltistan is not in India's interest. And if the US makes a tool out of the Taliban, that may not be in India's interests either, IMHO.

Carl ji,

That is however the price!

USA would make that move (splitting Pakistan as per Ralph Peters) only once it is assured/convinced that it has a replacement for TSPA. They would want PoK in order to maximize the uses of that Taliban Army as an access route to China soft underbelly.

You're of course right about Indian presence in Baluchistan. The splitting of Pushtunistan and Baluchistan from Pakistan would however be justified by saying that Pakjab is part of Indian Subcontinent, whereas Pushtunistan and Baluchistan belong more in the Iranic sphere of influence, though not under the influence of the current regime. I was referring to this narrative that Indo-Iranic Region are two separate entities. The narrative would be needed for the split. I've heard such narrative from an American earlier.

Of course, after Pakistan splits, as India grows we can again rubbish this narrative about Indo-Iranic Region being split along Sind-Baluchistan border.