Terrorist Islamic Republic of Pakistan - November 06, 2009

Ameet · Post by **Ameet** » 18 Nov 2009 01:09

Not sure where to post this, but thought its relevant here as well.

Online Maps

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/17/techn ... .html?_r=1

Google is increasingly bypassing those traditional map providers. It has relied on volunteers to create digital maps of 140 countries, including India, Pakistan and the Philippines, that are more complete than many maps created professionally.

Some of the most remarkable efforts of amateur map makers are in countries where few, if any, digital maps existed. Google first tested a tool called Map Maker in India, where people immediately began tracing and labeling roads and buildings on top of satellite images provided by Google.

When Google released the tool more broadly last year, Faraz Ahmad, a 26-year-old programmer from Pakistan who lives in Glasgow, took one look at the map of India and decided he did not want to see his homeland out-mapped by its traditional rival. So he began mapping Pakistan in his free time, using information from friends, family and existing maps. Mr. Ahmad is now the top contributor to Map Maker, logging more than 41,000 changes.

Maps are political, of course, and community-edited maps can set off conflicts. When Mr. Ahmad tried to work on the part of Kashmir that is administered by Pakistan, he found that Map Maker wouldn’t allow it. He said his contributions were finally accepted by the Map Maker team, which is led by engineers based in India, but only after a long e-mail exchange.

At his request, Google is now preventing further changes to the region, after people in India tried to make it part of their country, Mr. Ahmad said. “Whenever you have a Pakistani and an Indian doing something together, there is a political discussion or dispute.”

A Google spokeswoman, Elaine Filadelfo, said Google sometimes blocked changes to contentious areas “with an eye to avoiding back-and-forth editing.”

Charlie · Post by **Charlie** » 18 Nov 2009 02:33

Kati wrote:UK arrests five in anti-terror sweep
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1258393 ... ions_world

...But why so hush hush? .... not wanting to hurt TSP feelings? ......

Does anyone have latest information on these UK arrests. The article mentioned the arrested Pakis were planning an attack in a foreign country. Which country is that?

Charlie · Post by **Charlie** » 18 Nov 2009 03:00

I dont know if this is the right forum..But anywayz

Go through this article by Riaz Haq, President Pak Alumni Worldwide. Its is like the Pan IIT that we have. This guy worked in Intel and retired. Now he runs propaganda articles against Indians on websites. His western living, education have not UnPakified him. He is core closet Jihadi focussed heavily on India. He time to time warns Indians of more terror attacks.

http://chowk.com/ilogs/74861/48173

Go through the comment section as well.

"I dont know if this kind of stuff should be posted here."

Anujan · Post by **Anujan** » 18 Nov 2009 03:14

Charlie wrote:I dont know if this is the right forum..But anywayz
He is core closet Jihadi focussed heavily on India. He time to time warns Indians of more terror attacks.

Ah the dilbert argument

anupmisra · Post by **anupmisra** » 18 Nov 2009 03:40

Easy Visa

India to ease visa policy for businessmen

ISLAMABAD: The Indian High Commission in Islamabad will facilitate Pakistan businessmen to promote bilateral trade relations and relaxations will be given in terms of visa policy, said a High Commission official on Monday.

At the same, businessmen visiting India would not be required for police reporting, Mr Kashif explained.

OK, where's the disconnect here? History, I guess, has not taught anything to Indians.

MurthyB · Post by **MurthyB** » 18 Nov 2009 05:30

Pakis like him are the overwhelming majority.

A much more difficult exercise is to find Pakis who are not Pakis.

Nearly impossible. This is why smart Indians know that a talibanized Pakistan will be far less dangerous for India than a Pakistan of these types of Rapes who can be cozy with the west while plotting against India.

Paki watchers know that the English speaking, internet using, "bheshtern" types are so crazy and delusional, that one can only imagine what the 80% who are illiterate are like. That's why they accuse each other of being CIA/RAW/Mossad/MI6 agents and blow each other up, just like the homo ga***dus in AllFackedUpIstan dress up their little boys like girls to indulge in their pedophilic homosexuality.

Charlie wrote:I dont know if this is the right forum..But anywayz

Go through this article by Riaz Haq, President Pak Alumni Worldwide. Its is like the Pan IIT that we have. This guy worked in Intel and retired. Now he runs propaganda articles against Indians on websites. His western living, education have not UnPakified him. He is core closet Jihadi focussed heavily on India. He time to time warns Indians of more terror attacks.

http://chowk.com/ilogs/74861/48173

Go through the comment section as well.

"I dont know if this kind of stuff should be posted here."

mayo · Post by **mayo** » 18 Nov 2009 05:38

Pakistani Denial

http://edition.cnn.com/video/#/video/wo ... denial.cnn

mayo · Post by **mayo** » 18 Nov 2009 05:41

NPR Story on India-Pak, Day-2
http://www.npr.org/templates/player/med ... =120448200

Suppiah · Post by **Suppiah** » 18 Nov 2009 05:53

All the ads that appear in that hate mongering Pakbarian jehadi pig's website is of Indian companies - yatra.com, policybazaar etc. We should write to these companies telling them to avoid such jehadi websites or we will avoid them..

MurthyB · Post by **MurthyB** » 18 Nov 2009 06:28

Chowk itself is a site that has all sorts of "south asian" articles. Many BR types there as well to keep the pakis in check; moderation is lax.

Besides, I am sure ads are syndicated by some middleman for all these websites where neither the seller nor the buyer has much control over what appears. That's why on paki newspaper sites dissing India there will be ads for travel to India-dumb keyword based analysis at work!

Suppiah wrote:All the ads that appear in that hate mongering Pakbarian jehadi pig's website is of Indian companies - yatra.com, policybazaar etc. We should write to these companies telling them to avoid such jehadi websites or we will avoid them..

Nandu · Post by **Nandu** » 18 Nov 2009 06:34

Nandu wrote:Nothing new regarding the attitudes of Pakis or naive Western reporters, but the story was published recently, so:

"Pakistan's Enemy? Focus Remains On India"
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/stor ... =120448212

And here comes the inevitable ==.
Part 2. "In Flourishing India, An Old Obsession With Pakistan"
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/stor ... =120470801

shiv · Post by **shiv** » 18 Nov 2009 06:57

Charlie wrote: Pak Alumni Worldwide. Its is like the Pan IIT that we have. "

Oh really?

Do "we" really have a pan IIT like the Paki Alumni worldwide?

shaardula · Post by **shaardula** » 18 Nov 2009 07:15

SSridhar wrote:
Just many in the province ? That is what Gilani, Rehman Malik, Kiyani et al are propagating. That is what the entire Pakistan believes. That was why they sneaked in 'Balochistan and other areas' in the Sharam-el-Sheikh Joint Statement. The PA is fighting, at least seems to be fighting, only because the PA soldiers believe that the murtad 'bad Taliban' are Indian agents and hence kafir enough to be fought against. They would not have taken on even this pretence of fighting had it not been the case, especially after what happened in 2007 & 2008. Kiyani & Co feared the loyalty of PA in any operation against the more pious AQAM. Pakistan is, therefore, once again deliberately spreading falsehood among its people just to save itself from the 'bad apples' so that it can have a go at India later on when the 'good Taliban' regain the strategic depth.

trivial knowledge for brf, but worth mentioning here for the benefit for visitors:
given that majority of pakistani army is punjabi, and given the glorious tradition of pakistani punjabi families contributing one son to jihad and one to army, opening a front in punjab is also likely to create the 'intralinear tensions'. they have managed to shield the pushtuns in the force from their campaigns in the west. whom are they going to send if shit hits the fan in the east?

shiv · Post by **shiv** » 18 Nov 2009 07:38

Johann wrote: I must say however that Pakistan has finally achieved its dream and become part of the Middle East, because that's where every rival radical faction routinely accuses each other of being in the service of the CIA and Mossad.

Me against my brother. My brother and me against our cousin. Brother, cousins and I against our neighbor...

KLNMurthy · Post by **KLNMurthy** » 18 Nov 2009 07:44

Charlie wrote:I dont know if this is the right forum..But anywayz

Go through this article by Riaz Haq, President Pak Alumni Worldwide. Its is like the Pan IIT that we have. This guy worked in Intel and retired. Now he runs propaganda articles against Indians on websites. His western living, education have not UnPakified him. He is core closet Jihadi focussed heavily on India. He time to time warns Indians of more terror attacks.

http://chowk.com/ilogs/74861/48173

Go through the comment section as well.

"I dont know if this kind of stuff should be posted here."

He reproduced the full text of Shekhar Gupta's article. Typical Paki ethics.

Anujan · Post by **Anujan** » 18 Nov 2009 07:46

shaardula wrote:given that majority of pakistani army is punjabi, and given the glorious tradition of pakistani punjabi families contributing one son to jihad and one to army, opening a front in punjab is also likely to create the 'intralinear tensions'. they have managed to shield the pushtuns in the force from their campaigns in the west. whom are they going to send if shit hits the fan in the east?

The first indicator of pakistaniyat hitting the fan, is when "paramilitary security companies" (formed by punjabi jihadis) are used to police NWFP/FATA. This is the next logical step. A precursor to this step was to identify "good pashtuns", sign peace treaty with them and hope that they would police the frontier, that didnt work out very well because all pashtuns then banded together.

It is clear that the FC is no good. Pakistan simply cannot sustain regular army deployments for longish periods (> 6 months) on the wild wild west (fatigue, winter) and neither can leave the west unpoliced. They will argue with the Khans that just like khans supplied to "good mujahideen" to fight in tora bora, they will use the good pious to fight the bad pious.

Expect some pious people to be heading to Peshawar/Quetta first.

arun · Post by **arun** » 18 Nov 2009 07:49

More from Myra MacDonald of Reuters.

This time commenting on the general state of paranoia that passes for normality in the Islamic Republic of Pakistan:

17:56 November 17th, 2009

Pakistan’s conspiracy theories

Posted by: Myra MacDonald

If it looks like a duck, swims like a duck and quacks like a duck, then … anyone who tells you it is a duck must be hiding something. So goes the logic of conspiracy theories which are gaining increasing currency in Pakistan because of the wave of gun and bomb attacks in its towns and cities …………………….

Reuters

arnab · Post by **arnab** » 18 Nov 2009 07:49

shiv wrote:
Oh really? Do "we" really have a pan IIT like the Paki Alumni worldwide?

Yes I was wondering the same thing - WTF does Pak alumni mean? I gues IIT is an institution and Pak is a 'mental institution', they are allowed to have a worldwide alumni

Anujan · Post by **Anujan** » 18 Nov 2009 07:53

Anyone notice the spate of "Pakistanis are in denial" articles which seem to be everywhere starting about 2 weeks or so ? Everybody and their grandma in every piece of paper (NYTimes, Reuters, LA Times, Wa Po, Huff Po, practically everywhere) is writing an article on it. Seems to be a well orchestrated psy-ops starting from the conclusion of Kilton Sahiba's visit.

Marriott bombing was blamed on YYY conspiracy, so was the lawyers movement. GWB was a more unpopular president, especially after he showed a finger to Groper during his visit. Anti-americanism was running higher then, than it is now, with people (even Imran Khan) saying that Pakistanis were fighting US war. Why no articles then about Paki state of denial ?

shiv · Post by **shiv** » 18 Nov 2009 08:36

Charlie wrote:Long overdue.

http://www.dnaindia.com/mumbai/report_2 ... ut_1311840.

This is the Paki thread. There is a separate thread for news items such as this one.

svinayak · Post by **svinayak** » 18 Nov 2009 08:42

Anujan wrote:Anyone notice the spate of "Pakistanis are in denial" articles which seem to be everywhere starting about 2 weeks or so ? Everybody and their grandma in every piece of paper (NYTimes, Reuters, LA Times, Wa Po, Huff Po, practically everywhere) is writing an article on it. Seems to be a well orchestrated psy-ops starting from the conclusion of Kilton Sahiba's visit.

What is unsaid is the Pak link to China and what could China and Pak do together now.
US is trying to reassure China about trade and also stability and China is using the blackmail of Pak to keep US under suspense.

Gagan · Post by **Gagan** » 18 Nov 2009 09:19

Suppiah wrote:All the ads that appear in that hate mongering Pakbarian jehadi pig's website is of Indian companies - yatra.com, policybazaar etc. We should write to these companies telling them to avoid such jehadi websites or we will avoid them..

Saar this means that you are logging on to that site from India. These days the websites put on ads according to your IP address. If your IP address reads India, Indian ads appear, If you log on from Britain, I am sure you will see British Airways there in the adspace.

kasthuri · Post by **kasthuri** » 18 Nov 2009 10:47

Pakistan creates its own enemy

The morning after the rockets I walked to the local market to buy tanoori bread. Once sold for Rs 2, it now sells for Rs 15. Wages have stagnated and inflation and unemployment are high. On the street there was no talk of the threat to lives. Everyone complained about the impossible cost of living.

Suppiah · Post by **Suppiah** » 18 Nov 2009 11:05

Sorry to be OT, but just curious, does that mean advertiser has no means of preventing certain sites from hosting ad (and thereby paying for it?)...means to say ad for my company can appear in anything from Ku Klux Clan to Maoist websites and I have to pay

ArmenT · Post by **ArmenT** » 18 Nov 2009 13:00

^^^^
Normally, ad-serving engines match advertiser categories to publisher site categories when deciding which ads to show where. For instance, the advertiser may have indicated that they want to show their ads on any publisher site that belongs to the "South Asia" category. However, the categorization is often too broad and the matching sometimes suffers. That is why most good online advertising engines also have controls to allow advertisers to blacklist a group of publisher sites and vice-versa. Otherwise you could have a website that deals with Harley motorcycles show a bunch of Honda ads, or a Harley ad showing up in a Honda motorcycles discussion site etc. Hence, good ad serving companies allow both publishers and advertisers to manually block ads/websites as needed.

All that is needed is a few words of complaint to the advertiser and they'll flip the necessary switches from their end to block their ads from showing on Paki websites.

Aditya_V · Post by **Aditya_V** » 18 Nov 2009 13:29

Pakistan has more nuclear weapons than India, claim US experts

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/indi ... 242757.cms

If after this doesnt wake up the Indian people and pressurise them to remove the NDTV types, nothing will

sreeji · Post by **sreeji** » 18 Nov 2009 13:37

Link

while groups as disparate as mullahs and rock musicians rant and rave against the US, the lines outside the American embassy continue to be yards long

Link

Pakistani journalist Rahman Bunairee was detained because he applied for political asylum upon his arrival at the Dulles International Airport in Washington

Abandoning Ship.

shiv · Post by **shiv** » 18 Nov 2009 14:37

sreeji wrote:Link

This central conundrum lies at the heart of the baffled confusion that typifies US reaction to the news of the ever-increasing tide of anti-Americanism in Pakistan: do they love us or do they hate us?

How much time is spent worrying whether a whore loves you or not?

anupmisra · Post by **anupmisra** » 18 Nov 2009 18:22

sreeji wrote:Abandoning Ship.

Or, spreading a communicable disease called pakistaniyat in other lands. You can take a pooki out of pukistan but you cannot take ......(you know the rest).

anupmisra · Post by **anupmisra** » 18 Nov 2009 18:29

I swear I didn't make up this headline. Meter reader pays for Musharraf, other’s sins
His other sin was being a paki.

SSridhar · Post by **SSridhar** » 18 Nov 2009 18:59

Here is confirmation of what I posted yesterday

Muslim identity is deemed essential to fight Hindu India and vice versa. An anti-India religious identity has been made so pivotal that to fight the Taliban, the military has to dub them as Indian agents.

harbans · Post by **harbans** » 18 Nov 2009 19:02

^^ However the Taliban and assorted groups of terrorists also call the Paki govt being allied to the Kufr YYY etc. So each is essentially playing the more 'pious' game. Idea is to use hatred against Kufr against each other for power, hooris and more.

anupmisra · Post by **anupmisra** » 18 Nov 2009 19:38

Pakjabi Logic

India involved in Balochistan, Waziristan: Shahbaz Sharif

Speaking at a news conference in Quetta, he said India is trying to defame Pakistan on an international level by claiming its interference in its internal affairs and support to terrorism.

Wha...!!

Wait. He's not done yet. The esteemed CM goes on to state:

He, however, urged that there is a need for mutual understanding between the two countries to ensure peace in the region.

Avinash R · Post by **Avinash R** » 18 Nov 2009 20:03

Could Pakistan Dissolve Altogether?
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/200 ... an-problem

Interview: Afghanistan scholar Thomas Barfield on Pashtun rebels, a nuclear Punjab, and how Islamabad played Americans for suckers.

Boston University anthropologist Thomas Barfield has been publishing relentlessly ever since the mid-1970s, when he wandered northern Afghanistan doing doctoral fieldwork. He has since emerged as one of America's foremost experts on the region, focusing on political development, provincial-state relations, and customary law. In 2006, Barfield, now president of the American Institute of Afghanistan Studies, received a prestigious Guggenheim Fellowship to complete his upcoming book on the changing concepts of political legitimacy in Afghanistan. I caught up with the professor to discuss the P-word—Pakistan—and its role in our current predicament. At the time of our interview, Pakistan's government had not yet signed its agreement with the Taliban that allowed for the imposition of strict Islamic law in six northwestern regions, including Swat.

Mother Jones: To what degree does future Afghan stability depend on reconciliation between India and Pakistan?

Thomas Barfield: The India/Pakistan relationship is probably central. Pakistan has from its inception defined itself in opposition to India, and that makes it difficult. But Kashmir needs to be reconciled. Pakistan could also dissolve: The four provinces have very little holding them together.

MJ: Dissolve into what?

TB: Four ministates or something, in which case your policy changes radically. If you're dealing with rump nuclear-armed Punjab and three separate, independent nations, then reconciliation almost becomes a moot point.

MJ: Can you make peace in Afghanistan without dealing with Kashmir?

TB: Yes, you can. Kashmir's a separate issue, and settling it would not necessarily stop the Pakistanis from meddling in Afghanistan—which they used to talk about as their fifth province.

MJ: And also an extension of their battle with India.

TB: They view everything as an extension of their battle with India. They bought our tanks and planes so that they could fight India, with which they have lost three wars. It's totally not in Pakistan's self-interest to do this, and yet they're utterly driven by it. But if you solve the India thing, I presume that would go a long way to providing regional peace.

MJ: What can the US do to facilitate this, given that India doesn't want outsiders involved in the Kashmir dispute?

TB: It's not clear Pakistan's military can survive without our subsidies—it's a bankrupt country. One of the things for us to tell Pakistan is that we may not want to get involved in this directly, but we want to see this problem solved. And in this the US is probably neutral, because there's no constituency in the United States that's keen on Kashmir one way or the other. Most people don't even know where it is.

MJ: Pakistan's army and ISI, its military intelligence service, basically made the Taliban what it is. Was this support driven by ideology or India strategy?

TB: Part of it was its India strategy, this "strategic depth" they talk about. The Pakistani belief was, "What if the Indians overran the plains? We would regroup in Afghanistan and drive them out." But one look at Afghanistan and you say, "Wait a minute, how are you going to move your equipment?" It's ridiculous. It's not strategic depth. It's nothing. The Pakistanis also have a paranoia—which they actually now might make true—that India is trying to surround them, since India has always had good relations with Afghanistan, and Afghanistan and Pakistan have always had bad relations.

MJ: How come?

TB: Afghanistan was the only state that voted against Pakistan's admission to the United Nations on the grounds that it was an illegitimate state, it shouldn't be allowed to exist. With Partition there were only two options: Join India or join Pakistan. The Afghans said there should be two more options, that the Northwest Frontier province and Baluchistan should be able to vote to become independent or join Afghanistan—they said people weren't given those options and therefore it was an unfair process. If you look at Afghan maps of Pakistan, they always include what they call Pashtunistan, which runs to the Indus River. As you can imagine, Pakistan is not real pleased to see maps like that, which give away half its territory. So there's been this hostility. And essentially, because India's been opposed to Pakistan, Afghanistan has had good relations with Delhi. But the big thing is that Afghans hold Pakistan responsible for most of the trouble in their country.

MJ: India has also been visibly doing good things in Afghanistan.

TB: Oh, a lot. When the truck bomb went off at the Indian Embassy last July in Kabul, the Indians saw that as a calling card from ISI saying, "Get out. This is our territory." And they responded by saying, "We're going to give Afghanistan another $400 million."

MJ: Wasn't Jalaluddin Haqqani the bomber?

TB: Yeah. But he's an Afghan who fights for the Taliban, and this wasn't a Taliban operation. This was a message from Islamabad to India. The bomb went off as India's military attaché was coming to work, so it wasn't just a bomb; it was an assassination specifically targeting one of their high military officials.

MJ: Does Pashtun nationalism play any role in Pakistan's military activities?

TB: Pashtuns are a small minority—something like 15 percent—so their nationalism is looked upon very critically. The government and military are dominated by people from the Punjab.

MJ: Right. In fact, many Pashtuns basically live on reservations, the tribal areas, that operate under a 1901 law.

TB: Yes, the Frontier Crimes Regulation Act. Some of the Pashtuns feel like they are a colony of Pakistan. They're not full citizens, and the act gives the Pakistani government the right to collective punishment, to burn down villages, to ban trade, and even to put whole tribes under interdict—even if they're not living in the area. So it's fairly draconian, and it comes directly out of British colonial rule.

MJ: So if the army isn't Pashtun, how does a smaller element like the ISI exert so much control?

TB: A lot of people in the ISI are Pashtuns because they had the language skills. During the Soviet War period, [Mohammad] Zia ul-Haq began Islamizing the army. Before, the army was fairly resolutely secular, but since the '80s you saw a greater and greater influence of Islamists in the army as well as the ISI. By the time they were helping the Taliban, some [army officials] were highly sympathetic to this idea of a Wahhabi-style Islamic state. Pakistan was formed as a state for Muslims separated off from India—it's name means "land of the religiously pure"—and it's always been like, "Well, are we Muslim enough?" All states founded as places to protect a religious group run into that problem. Israel has that problem with its right wing, and in Pakistan it's even stronger.

MJ: How has army support of the jihadis imperiled the Pakistani government?

TB: The easiest example: The jihadis took over Swat Valley, which is full of Pashtuns, but was under the direct rule of the government and always had been. It had become one of the more secular, progressive areas of the Pashtuns, because it was a resort. It had ski lodges, and was a big tourist place for foreigners in the '70s and '80s. Swat is only a couple hours drive from Islamabad. This is like rebels taking Fredericksburg and sending their representatives to Washington saying, "We want autonomy. Northern Virginia isn't good enough for us."

MJ: And Pakistan has basically bent over.

TB: Yes, it really has. They have trained their troops to fight conventional warfare on the plains with tanks, with missiles, against India. So in a place like Swat, where you've got guys with guns fighting in mountains, and who are experts on ambush, they have just trounced the Pakistan army. The army is able to take back the major roads, the major towns, but its people are not trained and they don't seem to have the stomach for taking these guys on in essentially a counterinsurgency.

MJ: Yet we've given the Pakistanis more than $10 billion, some $6 billion for the Federally Administered Tribal Areas and the border, ostensibly to fight the jihadis. Has Pakistan taken us for a ride?

TB: Oh sure. But they took us for a ride during the Soviet War, too. They feel they're experts at playing us for suckers. A lot of these problems were evident, three, four, even six years ago, but nobody, including the Bush administration, was particularly interested. All the attention has been on Iraq. So this gave the Pakistanis a lot of flexibility to cause mischief. As far as they were concerned, at some point the US was going to get out of there; their whole strategy was to keep the Taliban in reserve and keep their own options open. Now people are seeing that the whole region could go up. Pakistan has nuclear weapons. It has 173 million people. It's big. So the focus and the context—even the appointment of [US diplomat Richard] Holbrooke to be special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan—implies that both countries are part of the problem.

MJ: So what happens if Pakistan dissolves?

TB: There will probably be an independent Pashtun state, unlikely to join with Afghanistan, because for all the lip service Afghans give to Pashtunistan, they can count. If they were part of this state, they would be a minority, and that's probably not a good idea from their point of view. There could be an independent Baluchistan. That's Pakistan's major gas producing area, and there's been an insurgency there for a long time. Some people say Baluchistan might join with Sindh, the other major populated area. Sindh is mostly Shia, and they feel persecuted by these radical Sunnis. There's really a large number of Shias in Pakistan that these radical Sunnis consider to be heretics—they are mostly in the south. Also in the south, in Karachi, you have all the so-called Muhajirs, the people who left India to resettle in Pakistan. So effectively you'd get three or four states. The most powerful would still be the Punjab. That would be the one holding the nuclear arms—Islamabad, Lahore, that area.

MJ: Who would be in charge?

TB: The Punjabis. They see themselves as the dominant group in Pakistan. They're more moderate on the religious and political spectrums—as long as they can be in charge. The army that you see now is mostly Punjabi, so you'd have this large army overlooking this rump state with lots of nukes. The other thing to consider is the elites are highly modern and moderate, highly westernized: Could a social revolution break out in which the elites who have run the place since it was founded are displaced by an entirely different social class that is more radical—that doesn't have the same vested interests or education? The army has always stood to prevent that, so presumably if they would hold on to the army, the army would hold on to Punjab and prevent things from getting out of hand. But then the question would be, if it starts to fall apart like that, would India feel the need to make a preemptive strike to go after the nukes?

MJ: Yikes!

TB: Yes. They do not want to see it that way, because when people start planning three or four moves ahead and worrying about preempting this and that, things can get pretty dangerous pretty fast.

SSridhar · Post by **SSridhar** » 18 Nov 2009 20:34

Gilani's Uvacha

Gilani said an overwhelming majority of the area was peace loving, but terrorists from Uzbekistan, Chechnya and Arab countries had created a situation where the government was forced to use military force.

So, who are Ilyas Kashmiri, Qari Akhtar, Fazlullah, Abdullah Mehsud, Hakeemulah Mehsud, Qari Hussain, Maulana Qazi Mehboob-ul-Haq, Umar Khalid, Shah Khalid et al ?

Anujan · Post by **Anujan** » 18 Nov 2009 20:36

SSridhar wrote:So, who are Ilyas Kashmiri, Qari Akhtar, Fazlullah, Abdullah Mehsud, Hakeemulah Mehsud, Qari Hussain, Maulana Qazi Mehboob-ul-Haq, Umar Khalid, Shah Khalid et al ?

Patriots ?

anupmisra · Post by **anupmisra** » 18 Nov 2009 20:44

Anujan wrote:
SSridhar wrote:So, who are Ilyas Kashmiri, Qari Akhtar, Fazlullah, Abdullah Mehsud, Hakeemulah Mehsud, Qari Hussain, Maulana Qazi Mehboob-ul-Haq, Umar Khalid, Shah Khalid et al ?
Patriots ?

"Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel" - Samuel Johnson

shiv · Post by **shiv** » 18 Nov 2009 21:18

Avinash R wrote:
Could Pakistan Dissolve Altogether?
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/200 ... an-problem

Good article by and large. But one more thing that Americans need to understand is that the Kashmir problem cannot be solved between India and Pakistan, because it's not about Kashmir, it's about Islamic exclusivism and purity versus kafir India as far as Pakistan is concerned.

shravan · Post by **shravan** » 18 Nov 2009 22:29

Death of 6 civilians in Pakistan sparks protest

By HUSSAIN AFZAL , 11.18.09

PARACHINAR, Pakistan -- Dozens of people staged a sit-in on a highway in northwestern Pakistan on Wednesday after the army accidentally hit a house with an artillery shell, killing six people, while it was attacking suspected militant hide-outs.

The dead included three women, two children and a man, said a local police official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the media. The accident occurred in Shahukhel, a town in the Hangu district of North West Frontier Province, he said.

The protesters placed the bodies of the victims on the main highway that runs through the province, blocking traffic, said Hashim Khan, a local resident who attended the demonstration.

The participants chanted "stop the killing of innocent people" and "stop this cruelty," said Khan. The protest lasted about two hours and then dispersed peacefully, he said.

KaranR · Post by **KaranR** » 18 Nov 2009 22:49

MJ: India has also been visibly doing good things in Afghanistan.

TB: Oh, a lot. When the truck bomb went off at the Indian Embassy last July in Kabul, the Indians saw that as a calling card from ISI saying, "Get out. This is our territory." And they responded by saying, "We're going to give Afghanistan another $400 million."
TB: Oh sure. But they took us for a ride during the Soviet War, too. They feel they're experts at playing us for suckers.

Good article. Found it very amusing; India's reply after the bomb.