Terrorist Islamic Republic of Pakistan (TSP): Aug 09, 2010

SSridhar · Post by **SSridhar** » 13 Aug 2010 06:31

Pakistan is immune to charges of terrorism

As for the former Minister of State for External Affairs, Shashi Tharoor, blaming Pakistan for instigating violence in Kashmir and exporting terrorism to India, Mr. Basit {Foreign Office spokesman Abdul Basit} said this was not the first time such a charge was made against Islamabad.{So, we no longer care as we have become immune to such charges flying in our face from all corners of the world}

shiv · Post by **shiv** » 13 Aug 2010 06:42

Ambar · Post by **Ambar** » 13 Aug 2010 07:04

Going by the pictures posted above,it does appear that the most affected ones are the poor.Most of those buildings that have collapsed ( or will collapse in future) are made from clay.Oh well,with World bank pledging 900m$ + other aid running up to 120+m$,the corrupt paki elites have atleast 1 billion+ $ to buy new weapons,fill their coffers and rebuild the damaged infrastructure of 'Fauji' industrial conglomerate.

Pulikeshi · Post by **Pulikeshi** » 13 Aug 2010 07:12

shiv wrote: Minor correction. India's space program has always been about civilian applications. Communication. Weather forecasting. Crop management. Disaster relief. Flood surveillance. Fisheries forecasts. Long distance education. It ties in very well with the stated goals of getting every Indian "developed". It is also inextricably linked with roti, kapda, makan and sadak. Chandrayaan etc are only icing on the cake. India's space program has to be the most non militarized space program on the planet.

Shiv,

We are talking in parallel
If the logic is "India has million poor - Why space program"
By similarly logic is "India has million poor - Why desire to manage Indian-Subcontinent"
Both are flawed, as either the space program or managing the subcontinent, both
lead eventually to better lives for the million poor.
Even if both seem non-obvious to a lot of folks....

shiv · Post by **shiv** » 13 Aug 2010 07:50

Pulikeshi wrote: If the logic is "India has million poor - Why space program"
By similarly logic is "India has million poor - Why desire to manage Indian-Subcontinent"
Both are flawed, as either the space program or managing the subcontinent, both
lead eventually to better lives for the million poor.
Even if both seem non-obvious to a lot of folks....

Pulikeshi - the topic started with the question you posted

Pulikeshi wrote: I for one have not heard one Indian politician or babu articulate what they want the Indian-Subcontinent to look like 5, 10, 25 years from now.
All this is perhaps, the Indian citizen could care less what the Indian-Subcontinent looks like... and has more important priorities.
Be glad to stand corrected....

You said that you had not heard the a politcian or babu articulate a future and I pointed out that I have heard that. On the question of what the Indian citizen might desire I pointed out electricity as one example.

Arun Gupta brought up the "India has million poor - Why space program" argument.

Don't you think that it is curious (or in fact not at all curious) that the Indian citizen asks less about management of the subcontinent and more about his personal circumstances. And that demand from the Indian citizen is directly linked to the politician and babu spending more money and effort on responding to the demand of the Indian citizen rather than responding to a virtually non existent demand to manage the subcontinent.

I think we are talking about the structure of the Indian nation. The states manage virtually everything except foreign policy and defence. So at the state level foreign policy and defence are unimportant subjects. They are important only at the federal (centre) level. But the states end up electing the very people who form the central government - which invariably includes politicians who are very very clued in to the very local demands of voters at a state level i.e. "improve our lives" (eg SM Krishna) and are not clued in to the defence/foreign policy challenges of managing the subcontinent. the only people who have some grasp of those subjects are the defence forces and the bureaucracy (babus) who rank lower than ministers in all cases and are at their beck and call.

So my personal viewpoint on this is that as an educated Indian who has some direct contacts in government, armed forces and bureaucracy (many of us older Indian citizens do) we should be looking at teaching the politicians the nuances of geopolitical power. I can understand the child like "I hate my history teacher and will curse him" attitude that is there on the forum - which consists mainly (IMO) of people who can only sit and watch the GoI and have no direct contact and therefore curse them without having the need, incentive or means of interacting with senior political and bureaucratic officials, or even young politicians who come around for votes.

Unfortunately a viewpoint such as mine ends up becoming a lungi dance where people who have no means of interacting with anyone only end up thinking that any statement that does not curse the GoI enough is an apology for the GoI. The GoI consists of unsophisticated village/small town level people who are unexposed to the chicanery and perfidy of geopolitics. Like many of us they have been brought up in district schools to admire the west and believe in friendship towards all, They do not need cursing , they need an education. Sometimes I believe the attitudes we find on this forum are akin to my grandmother cursing her servant for being stupid, when in actual fact he was merely unaware of what she knew.

JMT

PS: I want to point out that in terms of education it is virtually certain that I rank in the top 5 % of Indians. But yet, it was here on BR (maybe 13-14 years) that I learned about geopolitics, Islamism and world power. Such knowledge does not come automatically and our nation is only now setting up educational institutes and think tanks to talk about these things and teach others.

Rahul M · Post by **Rahul M** » 13 Aug 2010 07:57

A_Gupta wrote:Yes, that is exactly why India funds a space program - because the Indian citizen could care less about the future, and the neta/babu has no clue.

Haathi ke daanth kuchch dikhane key, etc.

pardon me for the OT q, but if the citizens didn't care and the neta/babu is clueless, who exactly decides to fund the space program for India ?

abhishek_sharma · Post by **abhishek_sharma** » 13 Aug 2010 08:01

Disaster Politics

http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/ ... r-politics

And whereas a 2001 earthquake in democratic India killed more than 20,000 people, a slightly smaller 2005 earthquake in nondemocratic (and then slightly wealthier) Pakistan killed more than 80,000.

abhishek_sharma · Post by **abhishek_sharma** » 13 Aug 2010 08:02

U.S. and Pakistani extremists in PR war

http://www.politico.com/blogs/lauraroze ... R_war.html

SSridhar · Post by **SSridhar** » 13 Aug 2010 08:03

A strategy gone awfully wrong - Praveen Swami, The Hindu
Excerpts

If there is one thing the complex story of the HuJI illustrates, it is this: unless the U.S. finds a way of compelling Pakistan to act against the jihadist groups it has nurtured for so long, its cities and citizens will continue to be at risk.

In 1991, the HuJI initiated operations against India. It also, analyst Muhammad Amir Rana has recorded in his book A-Z of Jihadi Organisations in Pakistan, set up sister networks in Bangladesh, Chechnya and Uzbekistan.

For years, the U.S. ignored groups like the HuJI, trusting the ISI to ensure that their India-focussed energies never turned to the West. That strategy, Illyas Kashmiri's story makes clear, has comprehensively failed.

shiv · Post by **shiv** » 13 Aug 2010 08:03

Ambar wrote:Going by the pictures posted above,it does appear that the most affected ones are the poor.

Sorry to nitpick. If you place all Pakis in a bag and mix them up and then pick out 4 of them at random, 3 will be poor. So the poor being affected in Pakistan is not news in my view. The wealthy too have been hit, as well as urban areas.

As usual, the wealthy will recover quickly. The poor will be left to do what they like. Even the Islamists of Pakistan do not have the money and power to do much more than create jihadis and provide madrasa lunch. But I'll say this much for the Islamists - in a country where the federal govt cannot collect taxes, the islamists are successful in collecting Islamic tax or zakat.

Vivek K · Post by **Vivek K** » 13 Aug 2010 08:11

Pakistan seems to be heading towards an Iran type future. It may actually be better if that happens. All nations will be able to see them for they are and not what they pretend to be.

shiv · Post by **shiv** » 13 Aug 2010 08:19

SSridhar wrote:A strategy gone awfully wrong - Praveen Swami, The Hindu

I have a question about a statement that Praveen Swami makes. The point is highly relevant to whom Pakistani nukes will be pointed at when Pakistan is found to be openly Islamized/Talibanized.

I have made the following assertion myself, but is it correct. Why does Praveen Swami say the following? Could it be rubbish?

If there is one thing the complex story of the HuJI illustrates, it is this: unless the U.S. finds a way of compelling Pakistan to act against the jihadist groups it has nurtured for so long, its cities and citizens will continue to be at risk.

abhishek_sharma · Post by **abhishek_sharma** » 13 Aug 2010 08:22

Helping Pakistan, despite its government

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

The 1,800 or so deaths so far may seem small compared to the 222,000 killed by the tsunami in 2004, but the floods have directly or indirectly affected the lives of over 14 million. There will be devastating economic drop-off in the months to come as most of the crops near the Indus delta -- central Pakistan -- have practically vanished and hundreds of thousands of tons of wheat stock continue to sit soaked in water.

The United Nations may have launched an initial $459 million flood appeal to meet the needs of 560,000 people affected by the overflowing rivers, but the worst of the disaster still awaits: food, vegetable and fuel; shortages, power outages because of closure of water-affected power plants; diminished import incomes because of loss of the near-ready cotton crop. Epidemics like cholera and hepatitis are the next immediate dangers looming over all the inundated areas.

krisna · Post by **krisna** » 13 Aug 2010 08:30

Why is the world unmoved by the plight of Pakistan?

"It is a test for the pious. For those who are not pious, it is a punishment."

total sob story and Not one proper para as to why the world is unmoved by pakis plight.

abhishek_sharma · Post by **abhishek_sharma** » 13 Aug 2010 08:32

Pakistan must stop terrorist attacks from its soil: Krishna

http://www.hindu.com/2010/08/13/stories ... 241200.htm

shiv · Post by **shiv** » 13 Aug 2010 08:36

Pakistan irrigation system:
http://www.country-data.com/cgi-bin/query/r-9832.html

In the early 1990s, irrigation from the Indus River and its tributaries constituted the world's largest contiguous irrigation system, capable of watering over 16 million hectares. The system includes three major storage reservoirs and numerous barrages, headworks, canals, and distribution channels. The total length of the canal system exceeds 58,000 kilometers; there are an additional 1.6 million kilometers of farm and field ditches.
....
The urgent need in the 1960s and 1970s to increase crop production for domestic and export markets led to water flows well above designed capacities. Completion of the Mangla and Tarbela reservoirs, as well as improvements in other parts of the system, made larger water flows possible. In addition, the government began installing public tube wells that usually discharge into upper levels of the system to add to the available water. The higher water flows in parts of the system considerably exceed design capacities, creating stresses and risks of breaches.
....
Water management is based largely on objectives and operational procedures dating back many decades and is often inflexible and unresponsive to current needs for greater water use efficiency and high crop yields. Charges for water use do not meet operational and maintenance costs, even though rates more than doubled in the 1970s and were again increased in the 1980s. Partly because of its low cost, water is often wasted by farmers.

Good water management is not practiced by government officials, who often assume that investments in physical aspects of the system will automatically yield higher crop production. Government management of the system does not extend beyond the main distribution channels. After passing through these channels, water is directed onto the fields of individual farmers whose water rights are based on long-established social and legal codes. Groups of farmers voluntarily manage the watercourses between main distribution channels and their fields. In effect, the efficiency and effectiveness of water management relies on the way farmers use the system.

http://www.eoearth.org/article/Water_pr ... f_Pakistan

Waterlogging, Drainage, Salinity, and Flood Protection

The increasing diversion of river flows has significantly changed the hydrological balance of the irrigated areas in the past century. Initially, irrigation systems were developed without any provision for drainage. Seepage from irrigation canals and watercourses, and the deep percolation of this water have gradually raised the groundwater table, causing waterlogging and salinity.

It is estimated that about 2.39 million ha had water tables within 1.5 meters of the surface level in June 1989 (which resulted in 4.92 million ha in October 1989, just after the monsoon season), such areas being considered as "disaster areas" by the government and given high priority for drainage. Since the 1960s, great efforts have been made to provide drainage in the irrigated areas. In 1992, the total drained area was estimated at 5.10 million ha.

According to the Soil Survey of Pakistan (1985-1990), 1.78 million hectares are considered as severely saline, and 0.18 million hectares as very severely saline, but the survey does not indicate which part is due to irrigation. From 1959 onwards, about 50 Salinity Control and Reclamation Projects (SCARPs) have been initiated to provide a lasting solution to the problem of waterlogging and salinity through subsurface drainage.

There are about 5,200 km of flood control works, whose maintenance falls under the responsibility of the PID.

Sorry the picture is a lousy one
Canal system of Pakistan

Klaus · Post by **Klaus** » 13 Aug 2010 08:45

RamaY wrote:
Their god brings the wrath.

The spiritual father doesn't even make it to the list
The foster-father is no 3?
The dupel-powel friend stands behind Finland
The half-father still stands tall - perhaps to keep his own house safe

But both white paki lands are the chief contributors, shows that they share a lot of inner-pakistaniyat with the bakis!

A_Gupta · Post by **A_Gupta** » 13 Aug 2010 08:46

Rahul M wrote:
A_Gupta wrote:Yes, that is exactly why India funds a space program - because the Indian citizen could care less about the future, and the neta/babu has no clue.

Haathi ke daanth kuchch dikhane key, etc.
pardon me for the OT q, but if the citizens didn't care and the neta/babu is clueless, who exactly decides to fund the space program for India ?

So you got the point! There is forward thinking, it may not be debated in public or even be widely accessible.

Shiv wrote: The GoI consists of unsophisticated village/small town level people who are unexposed to the chicanery and perfidy of geopolitics.

The rough and tumble of democratic, "democratic" politics, makes the people who reach the top of the Indian system quite the champions at chicanery in a way that those born to high position (like the RAPE) can never achieve.

And having reached the top, the toppers can think in one of two ways. The more productive way is "I'll have a lot more for my Swiss account if I can take my cut from a rapidly growing economy. A percentage loot from the "Hindu rate of growth" is no fun.". All the evidence is that the Indian politician who reaches the national level is mostly thinking in this more productive way. The backwardness lies in some of the states where the corruption is of the nature "let me be king of this eternal pig sty; nothing can ever change here, so why bother?".

Klaus · Post by **Klaus** » 13 Aug 2010 08:58

Vivek K wrote:Pakistan seems to be heading towards an Iran type future.

How exactly? Even with Ahmadinejad's rule in the theocracy, Iran is doing better than Pukeland. They are having a stand-off with the rest of ME and USA and are able to withstand it, so far atleast.

It may actually be better if that happens. All nations will be able to see them for they are and not what they pretend to be.

Has this first statement been made because you imply the 2nd or is there something else you are implying as well? Because I fail to understand how TSP (even if 100% Islamised and made into a theocracy) will be anything like Iran. Moreover, isnt the Islamisation happening already with the Wikileaks reports showing the true face to ROW?

Pulikeshi · Post by **Pulikeshi** » 13 Aug 2010 09:12

A_Gupta wrote: A percentage loot from the "Hindu rate of growth" is no fun.". All the evidence is that the Indian politician who reaches the national level is mostly thinking in this more productive way. The backwardness lies in some of the states where the corruption is of the nature "let me be king of this eternal pig sty; nothing can ever change here, so why bother?".

The more productive way is indeed not....
If you get my drift, if only the dacoits turned into 'pirates', then we'd have a foriegn policy

Shiv,

No arguments with your post above...

CRamS · Post by **CRamS** » 13 Aug 2010 09:19

abhishek_sharma wrote:Pakistan must stop terrorist attacks from its soil: Krishna

http://www.hindu.com/2010/08/13/stories ... 241200.htm

Another way of saying Mumbai is history. Its laughter time at GHQ. Thoo.

Pratyush · Post by **Pratyush** » 13 Aug 2010 09:41

Pulikeshi wrote:
The more productive way is indeed not....
If you get my drift, if only the dacoits turned into 'pirates', then we'd have a foriegn policy

Well said, but add marauders in forign lands as well, to launch Jeehard in TSP and further west.

BijuShet · Post by **BijuShet** » 13 Aug 2010 09:47

Klaus wrote:How exactly? Even with "I'm a dinner jacket" rule in the theocracy, Iran is doing better than Pukeland. They are having a stand-off with the rest of ME and USA and are able to withstand it, so far atleast.
...

Apologies for an OT post in advance.

Klausji, Is there any reason for you to refer to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in such a casual and jocular manner of writing and that too in the TSP dhaga?

India counts Iran among its friends and it's leader deserves to represented in a dignified manner. I do not think we would take kindly to an Iranian poster here who would talk about the Indian PM is a less than dignified manner. Admin, of late I have seen a growing tendency among posters of referring to the Iranian president in such manner. I hope you will take note and put an end to this. I also pray that posters realize that insulting and being critical are 2 separate things. Just my 2 paisa worth.

asprinzl · Post by **asprinzl** » 13 Aug 2010 09:52

Get this folks...Uncle Obama is quietly talking about giving a couple of hundred green cards to Pakis effected by the flood...uncle's way of showing how caring uncle is. Similar stuff have been done to Afghans in the past and more recently to a whole bunch of Iraqis. Some amazing future awaits this land. The Time Sqr incident a few months ago has not taught some idiots any lessons.

So i was looking at the pictures in the Boston Globe's big picture link. Is that Chewbacca in picture 17? Noticed a woman praying to the sun. What? I thought they are all pure and pious. And...soooo many SDREs in a land of TFTA. What gives?

For months every sundry politician and talking heads have been bickering about how India is witholding water....now Allah has heard their plight and sent in a whole bunch of water..for Allah is most merciful and knows all. What a blessing indeed to have faith in such a merciful and all knowing deity that sends such a blessing in the most holy month of Ramadhan.

shiv · Post by **shiv** » 13 Aug 2010 10:25

asprinzl wrote: Is that Chewbacca in picture 17? Noticed a woman praying to the sun. What? I thought they are all pure and pious. And...soooo many SDREs in a land of TFTA. What gives?

Chewbacca appears in 2 pictures. One in a helo and another one he is carrying someone.

He he - I saw the deadly pagan ritual too.

Mauli · Post by **Mauli** » 13 Aug 2010 10:25

India falls behind in Pak aid race
OUR SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT

India may have missed a golden opportunity to impart tangential impetus to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s dogged bid for lasting peace with Pakistan by not extending a helping hand in the neighbour’s flood relief effort.

Flash floods in Pakistan’s north-west have left more than 1,100 dead and hundreds of thousands injured and homeless; the scale of the devastation has been such that relief has become a global effort spearheaded by the United Nations (UN).

New Delhi, though, has been conspicuous by its absence among those queuing up to become part of what has become a humongous humanitarian effort. Much less a formal offer for aid and assistance, the Indian government has not even sent out a message of anguish and solidarity to the neighbour, usually a routine first step to offering assistance in the face of natural calamity.

New Delhi’s silence on the flood devastation in the neighbourhood has not only been noted by influential sections in Pakistan but also rankled sections of the Indian establishment. Some, in fact, have begun to rue missing what they call a “great opportunity” to reach out to the Pakistan people in their hour of need. The Prime Minister has repeatedly spoken of “walking more than half the way” to negotiate peaceful ties with Pakistan and India’s neutral response on the recent floods has left many perplexed.

“We should have made a public offer whether bilaterally or through the UN. It would have been a great way of exhibiting our intentions at a humanitarian level and would have sent the right kind of message to the Pakistani people, particularly since we support democracy,” said retired diplomat Arundhati Ghose.

She said New Delhi’s helping hand would have also countered Jamaat-ud-Dawa’s anti-India propaganda. With the civilian government in Pakistan failing to provide succour in time to the victims, the Jamaat has managed to exploit the situation, as it had done during the 2005 earthquake in Pakistan Occupied Kashmir (PoK). It has alleged that the floods have been occurred because India released excess water.

However, sources in the ministry of external affairs suggested that the government had yet to make up its mind. An offer for aid, though belated, may yet come but no decision has eventually been taken.

India has in the past been quick to respond in times of natural disasters and has dispatched aid on a number of occasions to Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and even Pakistan — at the time of the 2005 quake. One planeload of relief material was sent to the quake victims in PoK. Pakistan had at the time refused the aid, possibly because relief was meant for PoK.

“The government should still think of doing something about it because at times of such crisis, it is odd for neighbours to remain silent,” said another retired diplomat.

http://www.telegraphindia.com/1100813/j ... 806763.jsp

SSridhar · Post by **SSridhar** » 13 Aug 2010 10:28

shiv wrote:
SSridhar wrote:A strategy gone awfully wrong - Praveen Swami, The Hindu

I have a question about a statement that Praveen Swami makes. The point is highly relevant to whom Pakistani nukes will be pointed at when Pakistan is found to be openly Islamized/Talibanized.

I have made the following assertion myself, but is it correct. Why does Praveen Swami say the following? Could it be rubbish?

If there is one thing the complex story of the HuJI illustrates, it is this: unless the U.S. finds a way of compelling Pakistan to act against the jihadist groups it has nurtured for so long, its cities and citizens will continue to be at risk.

Shiv, there is absolutely no question about the Caliphate radiating from Pakistan actually lobbing the atomically radiating weapons at the US of A. IMHO, it is putative. The order of attack will be first India though.

All the Pakistani terrorist tanzeems can be classified into one of the two: either sectarian or India-centric. The Sunni sectarian groups, chiefly SSP, were formed to fight Ahmedi, Shi'a and Berelvi groups. The jihadi groups were fathered by the Sunni SSP. The India-centric jihadi groups generally started off as Afghan jihad fighters. However, the PA and the 'Establishment' always knew what the ultimate theatre where these jihadi terrorists would be deployed, India. Afghanistan was a training ground and the first stop. Jihad and terrorism against India ran successfully for slightly more than a decade. The US, after having even been involved in terrorism against India in the Punjab along with Pakistan, withdrew from the scene by the 90s and the PA managed the India projects single handedly.

Specifically about HuJI, one of its founders is Maulana Fazlurrehman Khalil (not to be confused with the chief of Jama'at-Ulema-e-Islami-F party). Maulana Fazlurrehman Khalil is now under the benign protective custody of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan. Later, he split from HuJI and formed the Harkat-ul-Mujahideen (HuM) which is credited with extensive terrorism. Fazlur Rehman Khaleel fought under Jalaluddin Haqqani as a mujahid in the Afghan jihad and he is also a founding Member of Osama's IIF (International Islamic Front for Jihad against the Crusaders and the Jewish people). As is true with the leaders of all Pakistani jihadi groups, they were all part of the Afghan jihad, had fought shoulder-to-shoulder, have the same unassailable desire to establish the Caliphate, and consider the Jews, Christians and the Hindus as the enemy to be defeated. The HuM, HuJI, another splinter group Al Faran (which kidnapped and killed five Westerners in Kashmir) and yet another splinter group Harkat-ul-Ansar (HuA) are all different sides of the same face. The most recent splinter group is Jaish-e-Muhammad (JeM). Some say, they split on sharing the booty and the resources and yet others say that the ISI splits them deliberately so that no one group becomes too big for its boots. Whatever may be the reason, their lethality and their worldview are the same. So, one realizes that all these various groups are one and the same.

As usual, all the best plans have a tendency to go awry at some point. The Kenyan/Tanzanian bombing was the first major event for this. The retaliatory cruise missile attacks by the US on the training camps at Khost killed several HuM cadres. That was the first conclusive proof that the Al Qaeda and the India-centric groups share the same training camps, trainers and other resources. The US banned HuM in c. 1999. The HuM chief, Maulana Fazlurrehman Khalil, vowed to take revenge on the US for the Khost cruise missile attack. One of the very first attacks by B2s after the 9/11 killed even more HuM cadres. HuJI, for its part, claims to have lost hundreds in the Afghan front after 9/11 than in Kashmir.

As Qari Saifullah Akhtar was exiled to Dubai and as Maulana Fazlurrehman Khalil was under 'protective custody' under US pressure, Ilyas Kashmiri who was the HuJI chief in Kashmir took control of the situation for these groups. As usual, a new outfit was formed, Brigade 313 and it comprises of LeT, JeM, HuJI, HMA and LeJ (Lashkar-e-Jhangvi). Thus, we find that labels change and a new leader emerges but everything else remains the same. Ilyas Kashmiri has also risen to be the operations commander of Al Qaeda, thus proving that the Pakistani terrorist groups have completely integrated themselves with AQ.

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 13 Aug 2010 10:35

Thanks SSridhar. Looks like we need more education of the jihadi factions in TSP and their focus. Maybe a little more time learning than posting....

Raghavendra · Post by **Raghavendra** » 13 Aug 2010 10:38

US reaps goodwill windfall with Pak aid http://www.hindustantimes.com/US-reaps- ... 85904.aspx

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 13 Aug 2010 10:40

Meanwhile, SD webpage....
http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2010/08/145814.htm

Whats with Proctor and Gamble for their excessive donation?

shiv · Post by **shiv** » 13 Aug 2010 10:56

SSridhar wrote:
SSridhar wrote:A strategy gone awfully wrong - Praveen Swami, The Hindu
Shiv, there is absolutely no question about the Caliphate radiating from Pakistan actually lobbing the atomically radiating weapons at the US of A. IMHO, it is putative. The order of attack will be first India though.

Sridhar (and others)

Don't get me wrong. I want to know the basis on which the assertion that India will be the first to be attacked is being made. The reason I say "Don't get me wrong" is because my question is not aimed at looking for reassurance or escape from attack, but to look for what is rational from the point of view of the Islamist groups if they ever get their hands on a nuke or two.

A nuclear bomb is a very precious item. or an Islamist group seeking to create a Calipahte and global domination, survival is the immediate problem. The more risky their behavior, the greater the risk to their survival.

One of the reasons I ask this question is based on the line of reasoning that is common on this forum - as I expressed on the "Two front war" thread in the other forum. There is an automatic assumption of Indian weakness and Indian capitulation. This assumption is made by people who claim to have "deep love and concern for India" and worry that unless they point out India's weaknesses - India will submit, get nuked and lose. This sentiment and belief gets full marks for deshbhakt-ness, but less than pass marks for not going all the way and computing the consequences.

The primary force that is preventing Islamism from coming to power in Afghanistan is the US
The primary force/s that prevent Islamism from coming to power in Pakistan is the US and some elements in Pakistan - possibly even the "Nationalist" factions of the Pakistan army
India is also an impediment to the Caliphate

The first requirement is to remove the US from Afghanistan and Pakistan. The second requirement would be to stop them from coming back. The third requirement would be to survive and stay alive. A fourth requirement would be to stop the US from bandwagoning with India and for joint India-US operations from opposing the Islamists.

None of this is easy for the islamists without nukes. I believe that having nukes will not make it any easier - but will only give others a better excuse to eliminate the Islamists brutally.

So the Islamists have to pick and choose targets judiciously. If they commit soosai by being totally irrational caliphate will be finished.

Venkarl · Post by **Venkarl** » 13 Aug 2010 11:11

shiv wrote:
asprinzl wrote: Is that Chewbacca in picture 17? Noticed a woman praying to the sun. What? I thought they are all pure and pious. And...soooo many SDREs in a land of TFTA. What gives?

Chewbacca appears in 2 pictures. One in a helo and another one he is carrying someone.

He he - I saw the deadly pagan ritual too.

Was it during sunset?? Mecca is west of pukistan na?

Rudradev · Post by **Rudradev** » 13 Aug 2010 11:38

amit wrote:Rudradev,

However, at the end of the day whichever party is in power, it is a creature of election politics. I doubt that either the Congress or the BJP would commit political harakiri by not reacting to a JDAM. As I said before if whoever is in power can win another election after such an event then India does not deserve to belong to the comity of nations and there is no point of even discussing this because the country would get what it deserves.

I think this is an important point you have raised.

Would lack of retaliation by a GOI to a JDAM attack in one city, perhaps a second-tier city, *really* amount to political hara-kiri?

It's impossible to say, of course. We of the national-security constituency would like to believe that. But we are so tiny a minority as to be infinitesimal. Would the mango Indian also, really, be convinced to vote out of power a GOI that did not react to a JDAM with all out nuclear retaliation on Pakistan?

All we have are a set of data points.

The first is that the Indian electorate has never, in the history of independent India, punished a GOI for a national security failure. They have been strongly supportive of any conventional war effort and completely patriotic... that's not the issue. The point is they've never accorded enough of a priority to national security to throw out a government that failed to protect it, in any measure.

INC did not suffer any electoral consequences after the 1962 debacle. Such retaliation as took place for the Indira Gandhi assassination, unfortunately, was directed against innocent Sikhs within India... and that too by politically motivated goon squads, rather than the general public. The BJP suffered no punishment for the Kargil intelligence failure (leave alone IK Gujral for ensuring an intelligence failure by dismantling our intel apparatus in Pakistan); nor did the BJP suffer for caving in to the IC814 hijackers. On the contrary, had they held out and more hostages been killed by the terrorists, they might have suffered more.

Neither has the Congress government suffered any public opprobrium (other than a few days of intense ill-feeling in the immediate aftermath) for the number of terrorist attacks that have taken place since 2004. Most dramatically, Mumbai 2008... even though no retaliation against Pakistan took place for that, the Congress came back to power not only in Delhi but even in Maharashtra.

I think that this points to a particular mindset among the vast majority of the Indian electorate that we lose sight of in the national-security constituency. Indian voters don't react to these things in the way we're accustomed to perceiving popular reaction in a Western civilizational context, for example... with an upheaval of will to retaliate, an upheaval of such strength and consistency that it threatens to unseat a government if not satiated.

The Indian voter cares above all else for one thing... which party is most likely to furnish the fundamentals of governance, RKM-SBP (roti, kapda, makaan, sadak, bijli, paani.)

Another priority is the cessation of injustice or corruption. But this is definitely a secondary priority relative to RKM-SBP. The Indian electorate proves time and again that it will prefer a corrupt candidate who supplies RKM-SBP rather than an untried new face running on an "anti-corruption" platform. There may be exceptions, but in general, this has been the rule.

After this comes a plethora of local and subregional identity and issue-based agendas which inspire various sections of the Indian public to vote one way or another...regarding ethnicity, language, class, community, caste, tribe, religion and what have you. These agendas can become important, even decisive, when the level of popular disillusionment makes all contenders appear equally bad from the point of view of RKM-SBP or corruption.

National security, however, particularly with regard to Pakistan, is very far down on the list of most voters' priorities. They are far more likely to die of disease or accidents or forces majeure than they are to die from a Pakistani terrorist attack. They have other things that worry them more immediately and more consistently.

Another point to note here is that of all people in the world, Indians have an extremely high threshold of suffering. This has been illustrated several times in history. I don't know that any other population could have been convinced to take on (at a mass level) something like the non-cooperation movement, enduring terrible violence and privation without retaliating against the aggressor.

It's not that Indians won't eventually rise up and fight, even violently, if faced with unbearable oppression. But in contrast to many peoples of the world, it seems to take us not just decades but centuries of suffering before we reach that point. How long had we been living with atrocities, genocide, slavery, with economic, ideological, and social negation by medieval Muslim marauders before resistance movements gathered enough mass momentum to generate the Sikh and Maratha empires?

It is not cowardice, or fatalism, as dismissively described by Western academics and their Thaparite acolytes. It may have to do with a sense of history and a perspective on life that are unique among nations. But the fact is, it takes a lot for the Indian people to say damn the torpedoes and full speed ahead, even when menaced by aggression that other peoples may regard as demanding immediate retaliation. Revenge and retaliation simply have not figured among our priorities, unless the oppression has been of such long-standing intensity that it is impossible for several successive generations to ignore.

This may change in as little as 20 or 30 years from now, as social and economic realities alter the general perspective, and as another generation takes over the reins of the establishment. After all the rate of social change itself is increasing tremendously. But for the present, that's still the way it is.

So for now, what goes through the mind of a GOI in Delhi... of ANY party or coalition... looking at the glowing remains of Jabalpur or some second-tier city where a JDAM has just gone off?

The evidence of history shows them that in independent India, no political party has lost an election for losing a war, or for failing to protect the nation from external attack.

However, many governments have been voted out because of a perceived failure to deliver on RKM-SBP.

What happens if this GOI retaliates with full force against Pakistan? Certainly more Indian cities will come under nuclear attack from Pakistan.

Whatever joy of retaliation is felt by the Indian public will be short-lived. Retaliation has never been that important, or many governments would have taken an electoral hit for failing to retaliate against three decades of Pakistani atrocities.

But once the smoke clears, what will the Indian people be thinking about, especially when the next election rolls around? RKM-SBP, as always.

Supplying RKM-SBP to the vast masses of the Indian electorate is a challenge at the best of times. It will be significantly increased by the damage done to one Indian city, even a second-tier city, by a JDAM. But at least there is little chance that the Indian electorate will blame the GOI for that JDAM attack having occurred. It came from Pakistan, everybody knows that.

In the aftermath of a nuclear war... supplying RKM-SBP all over the country will be a task set back by decades. The elections, however, will be showing up again in five minus years.

So how will the Indian people vote? Will they punish the GOI for not retaliating against the JDAM, and thank the GOI with their votes if it does? Or will they in fact blame the GOI for the RKM-SBP calamity that has befallen them in the aftermath of all-out nuclear war... a consequence of the GOI's decision to retaliate?

I really don't know the answer. I know that during all of our wars, the Indian people have shown courage and resilience second to none. They have been willing to sacrifice and do without for as long as it took to beat back the aggressor, to send their sons to the front in the nation's service, to spare no effort in support of the armed forces and their mission.

However, that has not been how they have reacted (by and large) to terrorism. They may light candles on the anniversary of 26/11, but they also stayed silent while throngs of screaming relatives demanded (in front of TV cameras) that the GOI must cave in to the IC814 hijackers. They may have raged at reporters and camera crews covering the burning Taj Mahal Hotel for three nights in November, but they brought back the state government that responded to the attack with questionable efficiency at best, and brought back the central government that took no measure at all to retaliate against the country which sent the terrorists against us.

Will the Indian people see a JDAM attack as an act of terrorism, or an act of war? The difference may be lost on us BRF-ites and others of the miniscule national-security constituency... to whom all terrorism IS an act of war that merits retaliation. But by and large, terrorism seems to inspire the Indian people to behave and respond very differently than conventional war.

And that is another place where the plausible deniability described in my scenario comes into the picture. Will that initial JDAM be seen by the Indian electorate as terrorism, or as an act of war? Plausible deniability is a tool for the TSPA and ISI to make it appear an act of terrorism over which they *plausibly* had no control (even if in our heart of hearts we know the TSPA/ISI planned it all along.)

How the Indian people perceive that act, and nothing else, will determine how our GOI of the day responds to it.

But more than that we have to consider something else. From my reading of your scenario it seems to me that you are looking at a meticulously planned operation with the active connivance of the TSPA, ISI and the Taliban leadership in Afghanistan. Now such planning is unlikely to be done by mad fundamentalists with soosai tendencies.

TSPA and ISI definitely. The Taliban may not have had any say in making the decisions involved in my scenario, other than simple acquiescence to the plan.

The TSPA and ISI are, in fact, mad fundamentalists. Their version of rationality is severely divorced from that of the rest of civilization, or they would have given up their India obsession long ago to try and make something of themselves. The TSPA/ISI leadership may not have soosai tendencies themselves, and may indeed have a strong sense of self-preservation. But they did calculate that it would not be suicidal to launch the Kargil war, or conduct a full decade of terrorist attacks and nuclear blackmail, against a nuclear-armed country. So in fact there is a precedent of the TSPA and ISI making calculations that most civilized members of the comity of nations might consider suicidal.

They would have to factor in the fact that the plausible denability angle may backfire and India may actually retaliate with a lot of petals bursting over Pakistani cities. And as I wrote in an earlier post, this is not going to be game with three players, Pakistan, Taliban and India.

That is in fact something that was factored in to their nuclear blackmail during Kargil... remember how "nuclear flashpoint" became such a buzzword, and Clinton-Wilsonians implored India to "resolve Kashmir" before it spawned an unthinkable war between the two "nuclear armed neighbours?"

If the Pakis get off a JDAM in an Indian city as per my scenario... they may calculate, perhaps rightly, that Indian retaliation will not be certain or immediate. They may count on international pressure buiilding up on India not to retaliate, PLUS the domestic political calculations of the GOI regarding the cost of retaliation-vs-non-retaliaiton, as described above.

I don't think China and the US would just wring their hands and hope that their pressure works on the Indian leadership and there is no retaliation.

OK, but what do you think China or the US would do in this scenario then?

Would they threaten Pakistan with nukes because some nukes had gone missing and at least one had turned up in Illyas Kashmiri's hands? Even though the ISI remained their best bet to "find and recover" any missing nukes?

It doesn't matter if the Americans truly believe that the ISI is a sincere Western ally actually trying to "find" those nukes... the Americans have no choice but to act as if they believe it. If nothing else, we should learn this from the Kunduz Airlift, the AQ Khan Episode, and the current wealth of Wikileaks information.

The Americans always act as if they do not have any choice but to trust in the best intentions of the ISI and TSPA... in ALL of these situations. Why should a JDAM attack on India be different?

IMHO, the Americans and Chinese will be going overboard threatening India with dire consequences if it retaliates with nukes against Pakistan, for an attack on India by "non-state actors." They might even threaten nuclear retaliation against India if we nuke Pakistan. Their worst nightmare is a situation where not five, but all of Pakistan's nukes become compromised (something which will be the case if those nukes all have to be transported and mated in response to an imminent nuclear attack by India.) If this happens, not five but 150 Paki nukes could end up in the hands of the Taliban and god knows who else.

I may be wrong. There might be circumstances in which the Americans (or even the Chinese) are convinced to threaten Pakistan... or even nuke Pakistan... in response to a Pakistani JDAM attack on India, even WITH the plausible deniability scenario I have described.

Maybe we should try and figure out under what circumstances this might be induced to happen.

We need to look at two points which takes the scenario forward:

a) What happens after Indian petals land in Lawhore, Slumabad and other places? Pakistan would then certainly be launching its missiles and then India may just may land a few in places north of the Himalayas and this would be a contagion that the entire world wouldn't want to happen because our friendly northern neghibour may be tempted to lob some across the Pacific in that case. India would be mortally wounded that's for certain but so would a lot of other countries not to mention the fact that once N-bombs are again used after World War II then it would become much more easier to use by other nations. I state this scenario because this would certainly be gamed in (if not already done) in Washington and Beijing. So as I said it's unlikely that US would just restrict itself to hand wringing.

Not hand wringing, I agree... but specifically what instead? What are their options? What are their choices?

You have portrayed a scenario of consequent secondary retaliation whereby India may launch nukes at China in response to a nuclear attack by Pakistan; and China may then launch nukes at America in response to that.

Not implausible, but here is another plausible scenario. The Chinese and the US have no doubt thought about this possibility, that India will retaliate against a Paki nuclear attack by nuking China. The Chinese will have told the US that if this happens, China will not go down alone, but will nuke the US.

The US and China may very well have decided between them that this chain of events must not be allowed to happen, and they must not be dragged into the outcome of a subcontinental nuclear war under any circumstances. They are the G2 after all.

In fact, the US and China may have decided that their best bet to forestall this "consequent secondary retaliation" chain of events is for them both to nuke India the instant Pakistan nukes India! Thereby making sure that not even one Indian missile gets off the ground, to potentially threaten China and precipitate a situation where China and the US end up launching nukes at each other.

It's a hypothetical scenario, but so is the notion of our retaliating against China for a nuclear attack by Pakistan. There is no reason why the US and Chinese may not nuke India in their mutual interest, to prevent the consequential flow of events you have described.

b) Let's assume India succumbs to pressure and doesn't retaliate and Illyas Kashmiri demands Kashmir on a platter. Now the question is who will get Kashmir? Pakistan or Afghanistan? Or will it be an Independent state? Do you see a smooth transition happening with the Indian army and all Hindus and Sikhs marching out orderly from the state? Again do you think an Indian political party can quietly give up Kashmir for fear of the 25 alleged JDAMs in different cities? Do you see the opposition parties accepting that? Also, even in the event that India does give up Kashmir what happens to these 25 alleged JDAMs? Does valiant "freedom fighter" Illyas Kashmiri tell the Indian government their location and then everyone lives happily ever after? Or does he just say they were all a joke and there were no more JDAMs? And everyone grins, do some backslapping and walk away?

Wait a minute. India not retaliating to the JDAM, does not necessarily mean India will also hand over J&K to anyone. I think in fact that will be the most likely response chosen by our politicians... the safe middle path.

I think the GOI will not retaliate against Pakistan for the JDAM, because under current circumstances it seems very likely that they stand less risk of electoral defeat by not retaliating than by retaliating and forcing the Indian public to live with the consequences of a full-scale nuclear war.

However, I think the GOI will not give up J&K either, because that would destroy their credibility when selling the virtues of restraint to the Indian public... and make them appear to be cowards rather than prudently tactful. Compromising the territorial integrity of the Indian Union goes far beyond non-retaliation against one terrorist attack, even a JDAM attack. That, even the Indian electorate may not be willing to forgive.

So if the GOI did not retaliate against the JDAM AND gave up J&K, they might actually run a risk of massive electoral defeat. But I believe they might calculate that they could get away with non-retaliation as long as they did not also accede to Illyas Kashmiri's demand.

I did not go into much detail in my original scenario as to what specifically Illyas Kashmiri might demand. However, I imagine it would be something like withdrawal of all Indian security forces and government functionaries from J&K by a certain date.

It matters little what political form J&K takes in the immediate aftermath of such a withdrawal, if it actually happened. Either way, Jihadis would pour into the state from Pakistan and turn it into an Islamic paradise. They may decide to pretend it is "independent" or give the appearance of "choosing" an open merger with Pakistan... why does it matter any more than the de-jure status of "Azad" Kashmir today?

If India actually leaves J&K in response to this demand... something, again, that I think is very unlikely... that's probably the last we will hear of the 50 JDAMs mentioned by Illyas Kashmiri in his threat. It may be the last we ever hear of Illyas Kashmiri himself. He may revert to his original name, shave off his beard, put on a suit and meet our FM at Davos the next year for all we know. At the most, maybe the ISI will declare that it has found the fifth and final missing nuclear warhead, to reassure the West that they are safe.

I fail to see how any of that makes a difference. If we actually fall for the blackmail that there are 50 nukes in Indian cities, there is nothing to stop us falling for it again, and the Pakistanis will know it.

I think the total hopelessness of the situation will force the Indian government of the day to retaliate because there is no way it can ride out the consequences.

That's where I don't agree with you. I think it is most likely that the Indian government of the day will not retaliate AND not give up J&K. If an Indian government actually gave up J&K to Pakistani nuclear blackmail in this instance, I think it quite possible that other centres of power that have traditionally stayed away from politics in India might feel compelled to depose them.

But you see... the tragedy is that the damage is already done, even without the GOI actually giving up Kashmir. The very fact of not retaliating to a Pakistani JDAM, lines up the Indian nation for decades' worth of further terrorist atrocities of equal magnitude.

Pakistan had the audacity to plan a Mumbai 26/11 because they concluded that they could get away with a Mumbai 26/11. They concluded this because of all the attacks they had previously conducted and successfully gotten away with. Each time they inflicted greater pain, and we refused to retaliate, holding ourselves to a still greater threshold. Each time their capacity to inflict pain, and our threshold to bear pain without retaliation, increased over the previous time.

I have heard all the arguments for not retaliating to 26/11, and I recognize the value of some of them. But none of those arguments change the basic fact that by not retaliating, we have raised our own threshold of tolerance to Pakistani terrorism by another order of magnitude.

If a JDAM attack comes next, we have only our "restraint" following 26/11 to blame.

Once again remember horrific as Mumbai was it was pretty clear that the Indian government could ride it out, just as it has wriggled out of countless other humiliations/disasters such as Kandahar, Parliament, Akshardham etc. (Please note that does not justify the pathetic response after Mumbai but I state this because it's a fact of life, however unpalatable it may be).

Yes, to anybody who thought about it for a while, it was pretty clear that they could ride it out. And that's because of the priorities according to which the Indian electorate, by and large, exercises its franchise... as I have explained at the top of this post.

A JDAM would be the endgame. And the Pakis would certainly take this into consideration if they have the wherewithal to launch what would be a "brilliant" strategic maneuver that you outlined. I'm not too sure the fat jarnails of Slumabad have soosai tendencies. They like others to do the job. This scenario would have a good chance that they would be in the frontline.

Again, I do not see that it is necessarily any "endgame". A nuclear weapon is after all a weapon. It is only the mountains of propaganda that have built up around nuclear weapons over the last 60 years... non-proliferation propaganda, US propaganda against the Soviets, Soviet propaganda against the West, Islamist propaganda against everyone else... that we have come to regard them, within our national-security constituency as some sort of special thing which "completely and entirely changes the game."

That assumption may have been valid for classic deterrence models like the US-Soviet equation during the cold war, where each side had arsenals large enough to completely devastate the other's territory and assets. It does not hold together as well for nations with arsenals smaller than the size required to completely wipe each other out, because such nations can in fact think in terms of "life after a nuclear war." It won't be anything like the same quality of life before the war, but it won't be armageddon either.

And it does not hold true when nuclear weapons become viewed as instruments of terrorism... bigger, better, IEDs or car-bombs used to inflict very extensive destruction on civilian targets in pursuit of a political agenda.

In that case, why are these weapons representative of an "endgame"? They are simply new technology being brought to an old game, one in which
1) the aggressor continually makes demands,
2) the victim continually refuses the demands,
3) the aggressor responds by causing terrorist carnage of a new and unprecedented degree, and
4) the victim does not retaliate, increasing his threshold of tolerance to absorb the new and unprecedented degree of carnage.

What's so special about a new kind of bum being brought into this game, other than the fact that it will vastly increase the quantum of damage caused to us by the aggressor? Why is it unthinkable that our response will not stay the same as before, i.e. vastly increasing our threshold of tolerance to match?

PS: The Indian nuclear doctrine clearly states that there will be overwhelming response to a nuclear attack. I think its farfetched to think that the entire strategic community which crafted the doctrine (not just the political leadership, please note) would wring their hands and do nothing because there's a small matter of plausible denability which nobody in the world buys.

The authority of the strategic community within the Indian administration, is not very different from the electoral power of the national-security constituency (including BRFites and other jingo-vadis) within the broader Indian electorate. The strategic community cannot do much without the express wishes of the political leadership... just as we cannot do much to bring electoral defeat to a GOI whose Pakistan policy we do not like.

Also, it is quite unrealistic to suggest that "nobody in the world buys" Pakistan's plausible deniability. All the global powers that be are buying it, for all practical purposes. Whether they believe in it or not, the fact remains that they are continuing to buy it. This has been the case since the 1960s and it is no less the case today, in the era of the "AQ Khan network" and Wikileaks.

AKalam · Post by **AKalam** » 13 Aug 2010 11:44

Two most venerable figures responsible for the foundation of Pakistan. Iqbal and Jinnah.

Iqbal was the architect of two nation theory and convinced Jinnah to come back from London to take up the torch.

The following is from wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muhammad_Iqbal

"Allama Iqbal was born in Sialkot, Punjab, British India; the eldest of five siblings in a Kashmiri rajput family.[6][7] Iqbal's father Shaikh Nur Muhammad was a prosperous tailor, well-known for his strong devotion to Islam, and the family raised their children with deep religious grounding. His grandfather Sahaj Ram Sapru was a Kashmiri Pandit from Srinagar who converted to Islam with his family, adopting the Muslim name of Shaikh Muhammad Rafiq in the process. After conversion, he moved with his family to Sialkot in the west of Punjab."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sahaj_Ram_Sapru

"Sahaj Ram Sapru was the grandfather of the British-Indian Muslim philosopher Sir Muhammad Iqbal, who was an official in Kashmir during the administration of the Afghan Governor Azim Khan (1809–1819). According to R.K. Parimu, the author of History of Muslim Rule in Kashmir, and Ram Nath Kak, writing in his autobiography, Autumn Leaves, Sapru had embezzeled state funds, and, when his guilt was established, Azim Khan gave him the choice of death or conversion to Islam. Sahaj Ram Sapru chose life, and he and his family assumed new names and moved from Srinagar to Sialkot in the Punjab. After conversion, Sapru became known by his new Islamic name of "Sheikh Muhammad Rafiq"."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muhammad_Ali_Jinnah

"Jinnah was the eldest of seven children born to Mithibai and Jinnahbhai Poonja. His father, Jinnahbhai (1857–1901), was a prosperous Gujarati merchant who had moved to Sindh from Kathiawar, Gujarat before Jinnah's birth.[11][12] His grandfather, Poonja Gokuldas Meghji,[13] was a Hindu Bhatia Rajput from Paneli village in Gondal state in Kathiawar. Jinnah's ancestors were Hindu Rajputs who had converted to Islam.[12] Jinnah's family belonged to the Ismaili Khoja branch of Shi'a Islam,[1] though Jinnah later converted to Twelver Khoja Shia Islam.[4][14][15]"

I thought this was a bit strange co-incidence. Both of these gentlemen had Hindu (one Kashmiri Pandit, the other Gujarati Rajput) grandfathers which is quite remarkable. I am not sure how many people knew about this before 1947 and I am not sure how many people know even today. Its probably safe to assume that none belonged to the traditional Muslim elite, but both were newly Anglicized (British educated) and came from prosperous Muslim families in late 19th century.

Probably OT, but just wanted to point out.

Manishw · Post by **Manishw** » 13 Aug 2010 12:12

Vivek K wrote:Pakistan seems to be heading towards an Iran type future. It may actually be better if that happens. All nations will be able to see them for they are and not what they pretend to be.

Vivek Ji That is an generous view.My 2 cents says that there will be pockets , some resembling eye-ran while others(vast majority) resembling Afghanistan.
please remember that Pakistan does not have oil- gas reserves as eye-ran does.

BhairavP · Post by **BhairavP** » 13 Aug 2010 12:25

AKalam wrote:Two most venerable figures responsible for the foundation of Pakistan. Iqbal and Jinnah.

Iqbal was the architect of two nation theory and convinced Jinnah to come back from London to take up the torch.

The following is from wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muhammad_Iqbal

"Allama Iqbal was born in Sialkot, Punjab, British India; the eldest of five siblings in a Kashmiri rajput family.[6][7] Iqbal's father Shaikh Nur Muhammad was a prosperous tailor, well-known for his strong devotion to Islam, and the family raised their children with deep religious grounding. His grandfather Sahaj Ram Sapru was a Kashmiri Pandit from Srinagar who converted to Islam with his family, adopting the Muslim name of Shaikh Muhammad Rafiq in the process. After conversion, he moved with his family to Sialkot in the west of Punjab."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sahaj_Ram_Sapru

"Sahaj Ram Sapru was the grandfather of the British-Indian Muslim philosopher Sir Muhammad Iqbal, who was an official in Kashmir during the administration of the Afghan Governor Azim Khan (1809–1819). According to R.K. Parimu, the author of History of Muslim Rule in Kashmir, and Ram Nath Kak, writing in his autobiography, Autumn Leaves, Sapru had embezzeled state funds, and, when his guilt was established, Azim Khan gave him the choice of death or conversion to Islam. Sahaj Ram Sapru chose life, and he and his family assumed new names and moved from Srinagar to Sialkot in the Punjab. After conversion, Sapru became known by his new Islamic name of "Sheikh Muhammad Rafiq"."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muhammad_Ali_Jinnah

"Jinnah was the eldest of seven children born to Mithibai and Jinnahbhai Poonja. His father, Jinnahbhai (1857–1901), was a prosperous Gujarati merchant who had moved to Sindh from Kathiawar, Gujarat before Jinnah's birth.[11][12] His grandfather, Poonja Gokuldas Meghji,[13] was a Hindu Bhatia Rajput from Paneli village in Gondal state in Kathiawar. Jinnah's ancestors were Hindu Rajputs who had converted to Islam.[12] Jinnah's family belonged to the Ismaili Khoja branch of Shi'a Islam,[1] though Jinnah later converted to Twelver Khoja Shia Islam.[4][14][15]"

I thought this was a bit strange co-incidence. Both of these gentlemen had Hindu Rajput (one from Kashmir, the other from Gujarat) grandfathers which is quite remarkable. I am not sure how many people knew about this before 1947 and I am not sure how many people know even today. Its probably safe to assume that none belonged to the traditional Muslim elite, but both were newly Anglicized (British educated) and came from prosperous Muslim families in late 19th century.

Probably OT, but just wanted to point out.

Sahaj Ram Sapru was a Pandit, not a Rajput.
nitpick over

Dilbu · Post by **Dilbu** » 13 Aug 2010 13:36

Raghavendra wrote:US reaps goodwill windfall with Pak aid http://www.hindustantimes.com/US-reaps- ... 85904.aspx

Obviously washpost has not heard of taqqiya and hudaibiya. All this goodwill they are talking about can be easily spun by the local mulla as plot by satan to corrupt local minds. Anyway this flash flood itself is a punishment for fighting against pious talibs on the side of amirkhani kaffirs.

AKalam · Post by **AKalam** » 13 Aug 2010 13:38

Thanks for pointing out the mistake, just corrected previous post

Willy · Post by **Willy** » 13 Aug 2010 16:14

This thread should be renamed from TSP to Po**istan keeping in mind recent reports placing our neighbour as the no 1 lover of p**n

A_Gupta · Post by **A_Gupta** » 13 Aug 2010 16:17

Rudradev wrote:INC did not suffer any electoral consequences after the 1962 debacle.

As per Wiki, the national elections were in April 1962, before the debacle and next in April 1967, after the victory/stalemate with Ayub Khan's Pakistan.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elections_in_India

The country had its fourth outing at the hustings since Independence in April 1967. For the Congress which till now had never won less than 73 per cent of the seats in Parliament, it was more bad news ahead.

Congress' internal crisis stared at its face in the results of the 1967 elections. For the first time, it lost nearly 60 seats in the Lower House, managing to win 283 seats. Until 1967, the grand old party had also never won less than 60 per cent of all seats in Assembly elections. It also suffered a major setback as non-Congress ministries were established in Bihar, Kerala, Orissa, Madras, the Punjab and West Bengal.

I don't know if there were mid-term state elections.