Shri Rajnath Singh on December 16 at Jammu.
Terrorism is the biggest challenge facing the country today. There has been a growing sense of outrage and anger against terrorism ever since gross inaction became the main feature of the incumbent Governments.
The gruesome attack on Mumbai has created an unprecedented environment against terrorism in the country and the people want some concrete action against this growing menace. Cutting across party lines the political parties have promised their unequivocal support to any concrete action against the perpetrators of such crimes against humanity.
As we all know almost every terrorist attack carried out in India has a cross border link. It is a fact which is now acknowledged by major global powers like the US and the UK. British Prime Minister Mr. Gordon Brown has recently said that over three fourth of terrorist attacks investigated in the UK had Pakistan and Al-Qaeda links which is clear indication that the world leaders are well aware of Pakistan’s active involvement in terrorist activities carried through out the world.
We also know that the terrorists involved in Mumbai attack came from Pakistan and were Pakistani citizens. The proof of their nationality has been published in many foreign papers and even the terrorist nabbed by the Police has written a letter to the Pakistan Government that he is a Pakistani national. But, it seems, the Pakistan Government is still not convinced and looking for more evidence before it could take any action against people and organisations involved in launching terrorist attacks on India.
Even the UNSC ban on Jamat-ud-dawa has not been executed properly by the Pakistan Government. According to credible media reports the Jamat activists taken in detention by the Police have been released by the Government and they are roaming freely in the PoK.
What is even more disturbing is that the Interior Ministry of Pakistan has directed all four provincial Governments to refrain from taking action against Jamat activists operating from madrasas which is an open violation of United Nation Security Council’s ban on the organisation.
The BJP believes that Pakistan is unwilling to cooperate with India when it comes to war against terror. Pakistan has refused India from allowing it to interrogate any Pakistani national for his role in terrorist attacks in the country because it could expose the nefarious designs of the ISI.
The ISI should be put on ‘International Watch’ for its active involvement in promoting terrorism and launching terrorist attacks on India.
Since India and Pakistan became independent in 1947, there has not been a single criminal case involving a Pakistani citizen in which it has extended mutual legal assistance to India— whether it was a case of terrorism, robbery, narcotics smuggling or even cattle lifting. It has had no hesitation in handing over nearly 200 Pakistani nationals suspected by the US as Al-Qaeda members to the Federal Bureau of Investigation of the US without following the due process of law, but it has never handed over a single Pakistani criminal to India for trial.
The BJP forewarns that in its bid to counter terrorism the UPA Government should not rely much on Pakistan as it is least interested in taking any concrete action against terrorists and their outfits.
India needs an integrated Action Plan based on national consensus and diplomatic skills to decisively defeat terrorism. The opportunity is ripe for India to corner Pakistan for its poor response and track record against terrorism.
I have no hesitation in saying that Pakistan today is the cradle of global terrorism. If Pakistan continues to disregard its international commitments and defy international organisations then India should mobilise the world community and the UNSC to take stern action against Pakistan.
(FOC)
Showing posts with label Muslim Mujahideen. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Muslim Mujahideen. Show all posts
Thursday, December 25, 2008
Taliban will support Pakistan army if India attacks
By Mushtaq Yusufzai
PESHAWAR: Baitullah Mahsud, central head of the banned Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), Monday announced full support to the army against archrival India if it makes any aggression against the country.
“Thousands of our well-armed militants are ready to fight alongside the army if any war is imposed on Pakistan,” Baitullah told this correspondent on telephone from an undisclosed location.
He said the time had come to wage a real jihad they had been waiting for. “We know very well that the visible and invisible enemies of the country have been planning to weaken this lone Islamic nuclear power. But the “mujahideen” will foil all such nefarious designs of our enemies,” said the top militant commander. Baitullah, who is accused by the government of his alleged involvement in assassination of Pakistan People’s Party chairperson Benazir Bhutto in Rawalpindi on December 27 last year, said he wanted to assure the nation, government and army that they should not worry about Pakistan’s western borders with Afghanistan as, according to him, thousands of his armed fighters had already been deployed to safeguard the strategically important frontier.
Besides thousands of armed militants, Baitullah Mahsud said, hundreds of would-be bombers were Monday given suicide jackets and explosives-laden vehicles for protection of the border in case of any aggression by the Indian forces. “Our mujahideen would be in the vanguard if fighting broke out. Our fighters will fall on the enemy like thunder,” he declared.
The militant commander maintained that many a people might say the militants had been fighting the army since long, how it would be possible for them now to fight alongside them. “Therefore, I want to make it clear that the army was acting otherwise. But now it would fight for the protection and survival of the country, which is why we will support them,” he said. Baitullah said that Taliban were ready to fight under the Army command. But it would be better for the armed forces to give them a separate sector or specify special targets for us where they could fight the enemy in a fitting manner.
PESHAWAR: Baitullah Mahsud, central head of the banned Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), Monday announced full support to the army against archrival India if it makes any aggression against the country.
“Thousands of our well-armed militants are ready to fight alongside the army if any war is imposed on Pakistan,” Baitullah told this correspondent on telephone from an undisclosed location.
He said the time had come to wage a real jihad they had been waiting for. “We know very well that the visible and invisible enemies of the country have been planning to weaken this lone Islamic nuclear power. But the “mujahideen” will foil all such nefarious designs of our enemies,” said the top militant commander. Baitullah, who is accused by the government of his alleged involvement in assassination of Pakistan People’s Party chairperson Benazir Bhutto in Rawalpindi on December 27 last year, said he wanted to assure the nation, government and army that they should not worry about Pakistan’s western borders with Afghanistan as, according to him, thousands of his armed fighters had already been deployed to safeguard the strategically important frontier.
Besides thousands of armed militants, Baitullah Mahsud said, hundreds of would-be bombers were Monday given suicide jackets and explosives-laden vehicles for protection of the border in case of any aggression by the Indian forces. “Our mujahideen would be in the vanguard if fighting broke out. Our fighters will fall on the enemy like thunder,” he declared.
The militant commander maintained that many a people might say the militants had been fighting the army since long, how it would be possible for them now to fight alongside them. “Therefore, I want to make it clear that the army was acting otherwise. But now it would fight for the protection and survival of the country, which is why we will support them,” he said. Baitullah said that Taliban were ready to fight under the Army command. But it would be better for the armed forces to give them a separate sector or specify special targets for us where they could fight the enemy in a fitting manner.
Taliban threaten to kill Pakistani schoolgirls: Pakistani officials
ISLAMABAD (AFP) — Taliban extremists in Pakistan's troubled northwest Swat valley have banned girls from attending school, threatening to kill any female students, officials said Thursday.
The threat was delivered this week by local Taliban commander Shah Durran in an address carried on an illegally-run radio station in the area, local officials told AFP.
"You have until January 15 to stop sending your girls to schools. If you do not pay any heed to this warning, we will kill such girls," one official quoted the commander as saying.
"We also warn schools not to enrol any female students; otherwise, their buildings will be blown up."
The mountainous Swat valley was until last year a popular tourist destination featuring Pakistan's only ski resort.
But the region has been turned into a battleground since radical cleric Maulana Fazlullah, who has links to Pakistan's Taliban movement, launched a violent campaign for the introduction of Islamic Sharia law in the valley.
Durran said local Taliban leaders were determined not to allow girls to attend school, saying: "We want to enforce the true Sharia in the area -- for this, we are fighting and laying down our lives."
Swat residents said Taliban fighters had already destroyed scores of government-run schools, leading some to set up private schools in their homes to educate girls.
An official at the Pakistani education ministry said there are about 1,580 schools registered in Swat -- once known for its top-flight schools.
But the official, Naeem Khan, told AFP: "Already Taliban militants have destroyed 252 schools, mainly those where girls and boys were studying together."
Education has suffered badly in Swat as a result of the ongoing fighting between Taliban-linked militants and security forces, with only a handful of schools still open in the region's main city Mingora, Khan said.
The government had reached a deal with the rebels in May to gradually pull out troops and introduce an Islamic justice system in exchange for an end to rebel attacks, but the violence eventually resumed.
The threat was delivered this week by local Taliban commander Shah Durran in an address carried on an illegally-run radio station in the area, local officials told AFP.
"You have until January 15 to stop sending your girls to schools. If you do not pay any heed to this warning, we will kill such girls," one official quoted the commander as saying.
"We also warn schools not to enrol any female students; otherwise, their buildings will be blown up."
The mountainous Swat valley was until last year a popular tourist destination featuring Pakistan's only ski resort.
But the region has been turned into a battleground since radical cleric Maulana Fazlullah, who has links to Pakistan's Taliban movement, launched a violent campaign for the introduction of Islamic Sharia law in the valley.
Durran said local Taliban leaders were determined not to allow girls to attend school, saying: "We want to enforce the true Sharia in the area -- for this, we are fighting and laying down our lives."
Swat residents said Taliban fighters had already destroyed scores of government-run schools, leading some to set up private schools in their homes to educate girls.
An official at the Pakistani education ministry said there are about 1,580 schools registered in Swat -- once known for its top-flight schools.
But the official, Naeem Khan, told AFP: "Already Taliban militants have destroyed 252 schools, mainly those where girls and boys were studying together."
Education has suffered badly in Swat as a result of the ongoing fighting between Taliban-linked militants and security forces, with only a handful of schools still open in the region's main city Mingora, Khan said.
The government had reached a deal with the rebels in May to gradually pull out troops and introduce an Islamic justice system in exchange for an end to rebel attacks, but the violence eventually resumed.
Monday, December 22, 2008
Go get Pakistan: "YOU IMPOTENT INDIAN LEADERS"
Go for Pakistan’s jugular now
Friday, 19 December , 2008, 22:30
Last Updated: Friday, 19 December , 2008, 22:49
Arvind Lavakare may be 71, but the fire in his belly burns stronger than in many people half his age. The economics post-graduate worked with the Reserve Bank of India and several private and public sector companies before retiring in 1997. His first love, however, remains sports. An accredited cricket umpire in Mumbai, he has reported and commented on cricket matches for newspapers, Doordarshan and AIR. Lavakare has also been regularly writing on politics since 1997, and published a monograph, The Truth About Article 370, in 2005.
Call it bravura, if you will, or the suicidal act of a fool, but you must hand it to the failed Islamic state of Pakistan that it hasn’t gone down on its knees before the so-called international diplomatic pressure coming on it after 26/11 from the tough talk of the US Secretary of State, the British Prime Minister, the French President, the German Interior Minister et al. The failed state has simply used one pretext or other to avoid taking meaningful action against its terrorist components. In fact, 26/11 has only made Pakistan show the kind of gumption which India has never displayed in its six decades of independence.
Special: Mumbai under siege
Behind this impunity with which Pakistan has treated all the western world’s covert warnings is geographical blackmail: till the NATO forces open up the Central Asian route to the war theatre in Afghanistan, Pakistan knows it holds the trump card. As Gordon Brown, Britain’s Prime Minister disclosed the other day, Britain, America and the international community “increasingly” recognise that “we cannot deal with Afghanistan in isolation from Pakistan.” (The Indian Express, Mumbai, December 17, 2008.)
It’s no wonder then that the fundamentalist peacenik, Manmohan Singh, even today talks of wanting normal relations with Pakistan and our Defence Minister says that our nation has no intention of going to war with the nation whose mercenaries only recently delivered some of the thousand cuts that Pakistan’s old policy intends to inflict on India as a prelude to death.
Yes, our External Affairs has been the exception, using strong, warning language to Pakistan, but there’s been no threat issued of any kind. And when our Sports Minister said he didn’t want our cricket team to play in a land from where came those murderers, promptly came the voice of another Congressman, the president of Indian Olympic Association, saying sports must not be allowed to mix with politics.
Complete coverage of Mumbai terror drama | The Terror Saga
Bollywood loudmouth Mahesh Bhatt added his little bit when he opposed the discontinuation of even cultural ties with Pakistan, saying that we must not cut what we have so painfully built over the last few years.
Journalists have debated some available options such as a limited war but have thrown them out as impracticable because of Pakistan’s nuclear capabilities. And even the Commerce Minister’s suggestion to stop of all trade ties with Pakistan has reportedly been declined by our Prime Minister without either of the two giving us a reason for the decision.
What is making India impotent is its unthought out belief that only a stable Pakistan is in our interest. What, pray, is our fear? Are we such cowards as to be afraid of Pak’s nuclear missiles falling in the hands its terrorists? Whatever it be, it’s agonizing to find a senior journalist of ours advocating more financial aid to our enemy.
Here’s what Gautam Adhikari advocated in The Times of India of November 29, 2008 in order to transform “bad boy” Pakistan into a “good boy”:
“A concerted global effort, at ensuring, first, the sustainability of Pakistan's democratic experiment. And, second, pouring in as much assistance as required, under strict supervision of …a specially designed international political-economic authority that would oversee the country's direly needed transition from military domination to democratic viability. In short, the world, under the newly assertive leadership of an Obama-led United States, must devise a Marshall Plan for Pakistan.”
So what do such Adhikaris and Antonys and Manmohan Singhs want the Indian people to be left with even after 26/11? Nothing more than anger, frustration, a new central investigative agency and a tougher law against acts of terrorism on various national subjects such as atomic energy. We must twiddle our fingers and let Pakistan’s terrorism continue being given bail.
It need not be so at all.
Consider our trade ties with Pakistan where we gave a valuable concession years ago by granting it the Most Favoured Nation clause benefit under which we agreed that duties on our imports from Pakistan will not be different from the rate applied to other nations --- in short no discrimination against Pakistan imports. Pakistan has not reciprocated despite such a request several times. In the process, it’s the Pakistan Army which has gained more muscle because, as R.Vaidyanathan, Professor of Finance and Control, Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore, tells us, more than 75% of Pak’s economy is owned/ controlled by its Army through institutions like Fauji Foundation and a significant portion of its GDP is due to army-controlled entities. Actually, as the Professor says, “Pakistan Army is the only Army in the world owning a country.”
Read all columns by Lavakare
It follows, therefore, that any continuation of so-called economic cooperation with Pakistan will only benefit its Army which controls the Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) agency that has nourished terrorism against India because the Pakistan Army along with all its Generals, without exception, has long had a pathological hatred for India.
It again follows, therefore, that it would be in India’s interest to destabilise the Pak Army through economic tactics. Do that and Pakistan itself is destabilized as a prelude to gaining sense. If the latter doesn’t happen, we will have to work with other world powers to split Pakistan into many countries rather than help it in vain to be a true democracy.
To accomplish this without causing a nuclear conflict demands that we act like Chanakya, use brains rather than brawn or rhetoric.
For example, take the trade route. Since we cannot now withdraw the MFN treatment we gave to Pakistan under the World Trade Organisation covenant, we will have to go on the export path. Nothing prevents us from making Pakistan’s exports costlier for other countries, so let’s do it. Let us totally remove any export tax on such Indian products that compete with Pakistan’s in the world market. Let us even subsidise the export of such goods of ours as internationally compete with those of Pakistan. Basmati rice, textiles, carpets and tea come readily to mind in this regard. In short, do everything to hurt Pakistan’s export front.
Further, let us put a ban on export of sugar to Pakistan. Let the price of sugar go up and up in that country. In fact, let’s ban all export to Pak; if our exporters complain, so be it, because a sacrifice here and there to debilitate our incorrigible enemy is worth any price.
There are some other economic measures through which we can screw Pakistan without creating a war of any sort. Arm-twisting foreign investors providing aid or arms to Pakistan is one way; opposing IMF loans to Pak is another.
The jugular, however, is Pakistan’s dependence on India for water to its agriculture.
Water from tributaries of the Indus river is the Pakistan economy’s lifeline. Farmers of the area have used Indus waters since prehistoric times. Irrigation from the Indus tributaries makes possible the cultivation of the arid land along their courses. Besides the irrigation, the Indus Basin generates almost half of the electricity produced in Pakistan.
Admittedly, that flow of river waters into Pakistan is governed by the Indo-Pak Indus Water Treaty of 1960, under which all the waters of Indus River’s eastern tributaries, Sutlej, Beas and Ravi taken together, shall be available for the unrestricted use of India. And all the waters of Chenab and Jhelum tributaries and of any tributary which in its natural course joins the Sutlej main or the Ravi main after these tributaries have crossed into Pakistan shall be available for the unrestricted use of Pakistan.
But, ah --- and this is the critical issue to know --- the flow of river water into Pakistan lies in India’s hands! It is in the India-controlled part of Kashmir where lie the origins and passage of the five river tributaries because the Boundary Award of 1947 meant that the headworks of the chief irrigation systems of Pakistan were left located in Indian Territory. Pakistan has been apprehensive that in a dire need India would use its strategic advantage and withhold the flow to choke Pakistan’s agriculture. In fact, an issue of Pak’s Defence weekly last year cited a particular water resources minister of India as saying that if India decides to scrap the treatyPakistan will face a drought and Pakistanis will beg for every drop of water.
Interestingly, though Pakistan regards India's control of the Jhelum as a threat to its security, the Indus Waters Commission has failed to resolve the issue and it has been on the agenda of the Indo-Pak talks at Lahore in February 1999, the Agra Summit of July 2001, and part of the composite dialogue initiated in January 2004.
India must now act on that apprehension of Pakistan as never before. It’s believed that a unilateral termination of the Indus Water Treaty is not legally permissible and that such an action might be considered a legitimate justification for war. But there are enough Chanakyas in our land who can stop the Jhelum and Chenab waters from flowing downward west to Pakistan without officially terminating the water sharing treaty. It is these Chanakyas who must be tapped by our country when going for Pakistan’s jugular.
by the same author: It was a national humiliation
(The views expressed in the article are the author’s and not of Sify.com.)
Friday, 19 December , 2008, 22:30
Last Updated: Friday, 19 December , 2008, 22:49
Arvind Lavakare may be 71, but the fire in his belly burns stronger than in many people half his age. The economics post-graduate worked with the Reserve Bank of India and several private and public sector companies before retiring in 1997. His first love, however, remains sports. An accredited cricket umpire in Mumbai, he has reported and commented on cricket matches for newspapers, Doordarshan and AIR. Lavakare has also been regularly writing on politics since 1997, and published a monograph, The Truth About Article 370, in 2005.
Call it bravura, if you will, or the suicidal act of a fool, but you must hand it to the failed Islamic state of Pakistan that it hasn’t gone down on its knees before the so-called international diplomatic pressure coming on it after 26/11 from the tough talk of the US Secretary of State, the British Prime Minister, the French President, the German Interior Minister et al. The failed state has simply used one pretext or other to avoid taking meaningful action against its terrorist components. In fact, 26/11 has only made Pakistan show the kind of gumption which India has never displayed in its six decades of independence.
Special: Mumbai under siege
Behind this impunity with which Pakistan has treated all the western world’s covert warnings is geographical blackmail: till the NATO forces open up the Central Asian route to the war theatre in Afghanistan, Pakistan knows it holds the trump card. As Gordon Brown, Britain’s Prime Minister disclosed the other day, Britain, America and the international community “increasingly” recognise that “we cannot deal with Afghanistan in isolation from Pakistan.” (The Indian Express, Mumbai, December 17, 2008.)
It’s no wonder then that the fundamentalist peacenik, Manmohan Singh, even today talks of wanting normal relations with Pakistan and our Defence Minister says that our nation has no intention of going to war with the nation whose mercenaries only recently delivered some of the thousand cuts that Pakistan’s old policy intends to inflict on India as a prelude to death.
Yes, our External Affairs has been the exception, using strong, warning language to Pakistan, but there’s been no threat issued of any kind. And when our Sports Minister said he didn’t want our cricket team to play in a land from where came those murderers, promptly came the voice of another Congressman, the president of Indian Olympic Association, saying sports must not be allowed to mix with politics.
Complete coverage of Mumbai terror drama | The Terror Saga
Bollywood loudmouth Mahesh Bhatt added his little bit when he opposed the discontinuation of even cultural ties with Pakistan, saying that we must not cut what we have so painfully built over the last few years.
Journalists have debated some available options such as a limited war but have thrown them out as impracticable because of Pakistan’s nuclear capabilities. And even the Commerce Minister’s suggestion to stop of all trade ties with Pakistan has reportedly been declined by our Prime Minister without either of the two giving us a reason for the decision.
What is making India impotent is its unthought out belief that only a stable Pakistan is in our interest. What, pray, is our fear? Are we such cowards as to be afraid of Pak’s nuclear missiles falling in the hands its terrorists? Whatever it be, it’s agonizing to find a senior journalist of ours advocating more financial aid to our enemy.
Here’s what Gautam Adhikari advocated in The Times of India of November 29, 2008 in order to transform “bad boy” Pakistan into a “good boy”:
“A concerted global effort, at ensuring, first, the sustainability of Pakistan's democratic experiment. And, second, pouring in as much assistance as required, under strict supervision of …a specially designed international political-economic authority that would oversee the country's direly needed transition from military domination to democratic viability. In short, the world, under the newly assertive leadership of an Obama-led United States, must devise a Marshall Plan for Pakistan.”
So what do such Adhikaris and Antonys and Manmohan Singhs want the Indian people to be left with even after 26/11? Nothing more than anger, frustration, a new central investigative agency and a tougher law against acts of terrorism on various national subjects such as atomic energy. We must twiddle our fingers and let Pakistan’s terrorism continue being given bail.
It need not be so at all.
Consider our trade ties with Pakistan where we gave a valuable concession years ago by granting it the Most Favoured Nation clause benefit under which we agreed that duties on our imports from Pakistan will not be different from the rate applied to other nations --- in short no discrimination against Pakistan imports. Pakistan has not reciprocated despite such a request several times. In the process, it’s the Pakistan Army which has gained more muscle because, as R.Vaidyanathan, Professor of Finance and Control, Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore, tells us, more than 75% of Pak’s economy is owned/ controlled by its Army through institutions like Fauji Foundation and a significant portion of its GDP is due to army-controlled entities. Actually, as the Professor says, “Pakistan Army is the only Army in the world owning a country.”
Read all columns by Lavakare
It follows, therefore, that any continuation of so-called economic cooperation with Pakistan will only benefit its Army which controls the Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) agency that has nourished terrorism against India because the Pakistan Army along with all its Generals, without exception, has long had a pathological hatred for India.
It again follows, therefore, that it would be in India’s interest to destabilise the Pak Army through economic tactics. Do that and Pakistan itself is destabilized as a prelude to gaining sense. If the latter doesn’t happen, we will have to work with other world powers to split Pakistan into many countries rather than help it in vain to be a true democracy.
To accomplish this without causing a nuclear conflict demands that we act like Chanakya, use brains rather than brawn or rhetoric.
For example, take the trade route. Since we cannot now withdraw the MFN treatment we gave to Pakistan under the World Trade Organisation covenant, we will have to go on the export path. Nothing prevents us from making Pakistan’s exports costlier for other countries, so let’s do it. Let us totally remove any export tax on such Indian products that compete with Pakistan’s in the world market. Let us even subsidise the export of such goods of ours as internationally compete with those of Pakistan. Basmati rice, textiles, carpets and tea come readily to mind in this regard. In short, do everything to hurt Pakistan’s export front.
Further, let us put a ban on export of sugar to Pakistan. Let the price of sugar go up and up in that country. In fact, let’s ban all export to Pak; if our exporters complain, so be it, because a sacrifice here and there to debilitate our incorrigible enemy is worth any price.
There are some other economic measures through which we can screw Pakistan without creating a war of any sort. Arm-twisting foreign investors providing aid or arms to Pakistan is one way; opposing IMF loans to Pak is another.
The jugular, however, is Pakistan’s dependence on India for water to its agriculture.
Water from tributaries of the Indus river is the Pakistan economy’s lifeline. Farmers of the area have used Indus waters since prehistoric times. Irrigation from the Indus tributaries makes possible the cultivation of the arid land along their courses. Besides the irrigation, the Indus Basin generates almost half of the electricity produced in Pakistan.
Admittedly, that flow of river waters into Pakistan is governed by the Indo-Pak Indus Water Treaty of 1960, under which all the waters of Indus River’s eastern tributaries, Sutlej, Beas and Ravi taken together, shall be available for the unrestricted use of India. And all the waters of Chenab and Jhelum tributaries and of any tributary which in its natural course joins the Sutlej main or the Ravi main after these tributaries have crossed into Pakistan shall be available for the unrestricted use of Pakistan.
But, ah --- and this is the critical issue to know --- the flow of river water into Pakistan lies in India’s hands! It is in the India-controlled part of Kashmir where lie the origins and passage of the five river tributaries because the Boundary Award of 1947 meant that the headworks of the chief irrigation systems of Pakistan were left located in Indian Territory. Pakistan has been apprehensive that in a dire need India would use its strategic advantage and withhold the flow to choke Pakistan’s agriculture. In fact, an issue of Pak’s Defence weekly last year cited a particular water resources minister of India as saying that if India decides to scrap the treatyPakistan will face a drought and Pakistanis will beg for every drop of water.
Interestingly, though Pakistan regards India's control of the Jhelum as a threat to its security, the Indus Waters Commission has failed to resolve the issue and it has been on the agenda of the Indo-Pak talks at Lahore in February 1999, the Agra Summit of July 2001, and part of the composite dialogue initiated in January 2004.
India must now act on that apprehension of Pakistan as never before. It’s believed that a unilateral termination of the Indus Water Treaty is not legally permissible and that such an action might be considered a legitimate justification for war. But there are enough Chanakyas in our land who can stop the Jhelum and Chenab waters from flowing downward west to Pakistan without officially terminating the water sharing treaty. It is these Chanakyas who must be tapped by our country when going for Pakistan’s jugular.
by the same author: It was a national humiliation
(The views expressed in the article are the author’s and not of Sify.com.)
Bal Thackeray to govt: Attack Pak, don't warn
22 Dec 2008, 1803 hrs IST, PTI
MUMBAI: Describing the present regime at the helm of affairs in the country as "impotent", Shiv Sena chief Bal Thackeray on Monday stressed the
need for imposition of emergency.
"Only Indira Gandhi had the guts to handle threats which endangered national security. There is no use of issuing just warnings to Pakistan. The government should have the daring to attack it," Thackeray told his party mouthpiece 'Saamna' in an interview.
On his self imposed exile from public life, Thackeray said he did not wish to be a part of the present day politics. "I have made a deliberate decision to stay away. Mine is not a political 'sanyas'. You never know what happens in coalition politics," he added.
He said Shiv Sena was making good progress under his son Uddhav Thackeray, also the executive president.
"I have handed over the charge to him. He consults me whenever necessary for advice," Thackeray added.
MUMBAI: Describing the present regime at the helm of affairs in the country as "impotent", Shiv Sena chief Bal Thackeray on Monday stressed the
need for imposition of emergency.
"Only Indira Gandhi had the guts to handle threats which endangered national security. There is no use of issuing just warnings to Pakistan. The government should have the daring to attack it," Thackeray told his party mouthpiece 'Saamna' in an interview.
On his self imposed exile from public life, Thackeray said he did not wish to be a part of the present day politics. "I have made a deliberate decision to stay away. Mine is not a political 'sanyas'. You never know what happens in coalition politics," he added.
He said Shiv Sena was making good progress under his son Uddhav Thackeray, also the executive president.
"I have handed over the charge to him. He consults me whenever necessary for advice," Thackeray added.
Sunday, December 21, 2008
A monster out of control: Pakistan secret agents tell of militant links
From The Times
December 22, 2008
Jeremy Page in Muridke
The Islamic fundamentalists who run the Markaz-e-Taiba complex near Lahore like to boast that it was inspired by Aitchison College, Pakistan's poshest private school. It is, as they describe it, the Eton of Wahhabi Islam, complete with polo ponies and a swimming pool.
Yet when it comes to their links to Pakistan's intelligence service and Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), the militant group blamed for last month's attacks in Mumbai, they seem to suffer from collective amnesia. “We've never had any connection to either,” Mohammed Abbas, the administrator of the complex, told The Times.
But it was here, in April 2001, that Hafiz Mohammed Saeed, LeT's leader at the time, called a meeting of his supporters in the 75-acre complex of red-brick buildings and neat lawns. Most of the visitors wore the obligatory long beards, but among them was an elderly man with no beard, only a thin, military-style moustache.
He was Hamid Gul, the former head of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency. “Yes, I visited there,” General Gul told The Times. “Retired army officers used to go, too. They used to hold annual fixtures to raise funds and motivate people.”
General Gul, 72, was the ISI chief from 1987-89 and had long since retired by 2001. Since the attacks in Mumbai, however, such meetings have added weight to India's assertion that Pakistani intelligence has close ties to LeT and other militant groups involved in attacks on Indian soil.
Pakistan's Government is under unprecedented international pressure to sever any such links and “rein in” an intelligence agency that is widely regarded as a law unto itself. Indian officials say that the ISI was complicit in Mumbai, and that the one captured militant has confessed to receiving training from a former ISI officer.
Washington wants four former ISI officers, including General Gul, to be added to the UN terrorist list. Senator John Kerry, the new head of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, also made a direct appeal to President Zardari on a visit to the region last week. “It is imperative that the intelligence service of Pakistan [is not able] to make its own choices or operate outside of the standards that we have a right to expect,” Mr Kerry said.
The question is whether Mr Zardari is strong enough to comply: the ISI vetoed his efforts to place it under the Interior Ministry and to send its chief to India after the Mumbai attacks. Many Pakistanis also feel that the Government cannot comply without undermining their strategic interests in Kashmir and Afghanistan.
The ISI makes no secret of its former support for LeT and other militants as proxies to fight Indian rule in Kashmir and to offset India's influence in Afghanistan. “These jihadis were there and we supported them. I think any intelligence agency worth its name would have done the same,” one senior ISI officer told The Times.
His next remark summed up much of today's relationship between the ISI and the likes of LeT: “It's a monster we created and now we can't get it back in the bottle.”
The ISI had forged ties with jihadist groups throughout the 1980s when the CIA used it to support the Mujahidin against the Soviet Army in Afghanistan. When an uprising began in Indian-ruled Kashmir in 1989, the ISI saw an opportunity to weaken its neighbour. General Asad Durrani, ISI chief from 1990-92, denied supporting LeT in his tenure, but admitted that Pakistan had an interest in supporting such groups. “Given Kashmir's history, we can't be expected to remain uninterested,” he said.
The ISI officially severed links with LeT in 2002 after the group attacked India's Parliament, but Indian and US intelligence believe that it maintained covert support, probably through ex-ISI officers. Generals Gul and Durrani and the serving officer all admitted that some retired ISI agents may have shared the ideology of the militants.
All three said that it would be impossible to channel serious support to militants from inside or outside the ISI without the knowledge of the agency's leadership. As for the Mumbai attacks, they said that it was not in the ISI's interests to antagonise Washington and provoke another conflict with India during an economic crisis.
Many Indian and Western analysts agree, saying that the ISI probably trained LeT militants but was not directly involved in Mumbai. “There almost certainly are still ISI links to LeT, but the question is how much operational control does the ISI have?” Lisa Curtis, a former CIA analyst and South Asia expert at the Heritage Foundation, said.
She and other experts are urging Mr Zardari to appoint a civilian head of the ISI and dismantle all the militant groups it has supported. The ISI is unlikely to accept either solution until the international community also addresses Pakistan's concerns in Kashmir and Afghanistan. “Cleansing the ISI is America's dream, but this is Pakistan's first line of defence,” said General Gul. “It keeps the country united.”
Controversial ISI leaders
Hamid Gul 1987-89: admits ties to LeT leadership; banned from travel to Britain
Asad Durrani 1990-92: admits support for militant groups; fierce critic of US
Javed Nasir 1992-93: now belongs to an Islamic missionary movement
Nasim Rana 1995-98: began arming and training the Taleban in Afghanistan
Ziauddin Butt 1998-99: maintained close relationship with the Taleban government
Mahmood Ahmed 1999-2001: dismissed under pressure from the US after the September 11 attacks because of his Taleban links
Ashfaq Parvez Kayani 2004-07: favoured by the US, went on to become current Army chief
Ahmad Shuja Pasha 2008: formerly oversaw operations against militants in northern Pakistan
HAVE YOUR SAY
Pakistan's denying what the world sees is true will lead to India defending itself. It begs the question:why is Pakistan baiting India;not taking responsibility for a problem unequivocally Pakistan's?Is war what Pakistan intends?Against India and its allies,the US,UK,China,Russia? Islam vs. world?
Daryl Atamanyk, Victoria, Canada
Why is world community not acting or UN not taking any strong action aginst Pakistan's ISI which continues to harbour terrorists and talibans till date. Why world has forgotten that taliban were ISI's brain child.
Sam, hayes, U.K
December 22, 2008
Jeremy Page in Muridke
The Islamic fundamentalists who run the Markaz-e-Taiba complex near Lahore like to boast that it was inspired by Aitchison College, Pakistan's poshest private school. It is, as they describe it, the Eton of Wahhabi Islam, complete with polo ponies and a swimming pool.
Yet when it comes to their links to Pakistan's intelligence service and Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), the militant group blamed for last month's attacks in Mumbai, they seem to suffer from collective amnesia. “We've never had any connection to either,” Mohammed Abbas, the administrator of the complex, told The Times.
But it was here, in April 2001, that Hafiz Mohammed Saeed, LeT's leader at the time, called a meeting of his supporters in the 75-acre complex of red-brick buildings and neat lawns. Most of the visitors wore the obligatory long beards, but among them was an elderly man with no beard, only a thin, military-style moustache.
He was Hamid Gul, the former head of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency. “Yes, I visited there,” General Gul told The Times. “Retired army officers used to go, too. They used to hold annual fixtures to raise funds and motivate people.”
General Gul, 72, was the ISI chief from 1987-89 and had long since retired by 2001. Since the attacks in Mumbai, however, such meetings have added weight to India's assertion that Pakistani intelligence has close ties to LeT and other militant groups involved in attacks on Indian soil.
Pakistan's Government is under unprecedented international pressure to sever any such links and “rein in” an intelligence agency that is widely regarded as a law unto itself. Indian officials say that the ISI was complicit in Mumbai, and that the one captured militant has confessed to receiving training from a former ISI officer.
Washington wants four former ISI officers, including General Gul, to be added to the UN terrorist list. Senator John Kerry, the new head of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, also made a direct appeal to President Zardari on a visit to the region last week. “It is imperative that the intelligence service of Pakistan [is not able] to make its own choices or operate outside of the standards that we have a right to expect,” Mr Kerry said.
The question is whether Mr Zardari is strong enough to comply: the ISI vetoed his efforts to place it under the Interior Ministry and to send its chief to India after the Mumbai attacks. Many Pakistanis also feel that the Government cannot comply without undermining their strategic interests in Kashmir and Afghanistan.
The ISI makes no secret of its former support for LeT and other militants as proxies to fight Indian rule in Kashmir and to offset India's influence in Afghanistan. “These jihadis were there and we supported them. I think any intelligence agency worth its name would have done the same,” one senior ISI officer told The Times.
His next remark summed up much of today's relationship between the ISI and the likes of LeT: “It's a monster we created and now we can't get it back in the bottle.”
The ISI had forged ties with jihadist groups throughout the 1980s when the CIA used it to support the Mujahidin against the Soviet Army in Afghanistan. When an uprising began in Indian-ruled Kashmir in 1989, the ISI saw an opportunity to weaken its neighbour. General Asad Durrani, ISI chief from 1990-92, denied supporting LeT in his tenure, but admitted that Pakistan had an interest in supporting such groups. “Given Kashmir's history, we can't be expected to remain uninterested,” he said.
The ISI officially severed links with LeT in 2002 after the group attacked India's Parliament, but Indian and US intelligence believe that it maintained covert support, probably through ex-ISI officers. Generals Gul and Durrani and the serving officer all admitted that some retired ISI agents may have shared the ideology of the militants.
All three said that it would be impossible to channel serious support to militants from inside or outside the ISI without the knowledge of the agency's leadership. As for the Mumbai attacks, they said that it was not in the ISI's interests to antagonise Washington and provoke another conflict with India during an economic crisis.
Many Indian and Western analysts agree, saying that the ISI probably trained LeT militants but was not directly involved in Mumbai. “There almost certainly are still ISI links to LeT, but the question is how much operational control does the ISI have?” Lisa Curtis, a former CIA analyst and South Asia expert at the Heritage Foundation, said.
She and other experts are urging Mr Zardari to appoint a civilian head of the ISI and dismantle all the militant groups it has supported. The ISI is unlikely to accept either solution until the international community also addresses Pakistan's concerns in Kashmir and Afghanistan. “Cleansing the ISI is America's dream, but this is Pakistan's first line of defence,” said General Gul. “It keeps the country united.”
Controversial ISI leaders
Hamid Gul 1987-89: admits ties to LeT leadership; banned from travel to Britain
Asad Durrani 1990-92: admits support for militant groups; fierce critic of US
Javed Nasir 1992-93: now belongs to an Islamic missionary movement
Nasim Rana 1995-98: began arming and training the Taleban in Afghanistan
Ziauddin Butt 1998-99: maintained close relationship with the Taleban government
Mahmood Ahmed 1999-2001: dismissed under pressure from the US after the September 11 attacks because of his Taleban links
Ashfaq Parvez Kayani 2004-07: favoured by the US, went on to become current Army chief
Ahmad Shuja Pasha 2008: formerly oversaw operations against militants in northern Pakistan
HAVE YOUR SAY
Pakistan's denying what the world sees is true will lead to India defending itself. It begs the question:why is Pakistan baiting India;not taking responsibility for a problem unequivocally Pakistan's?Is war what Pakistan intends?Against India and its allies,the US,UK,China,Russia? Islam vs. world?
Daryl Atamanyk, Victoria, Canada
Why is world community not acting or UN not taking any strong action aginst Pakistan's ISI which continues to harbour terrorists and talibans till date. Why world has forgotten that taliban were ISI's brain child.
Sam, hayes, U.K
Saturday, December 20, 2008
How to Fix a Problem called Pakistan...?
by Dr. Rajesh K. Bhatia
1. Deploy army all along Pakistan border and ask them to keep on staring at Pakis for few weeks, they will have to deploy in response. They won't be able to feed their forces for more than few weeks. They will be ruined financially. Don't be afraid of bogus nuclear power. Don't get blackmailed into submission. Tell them clearly that any misadventure with nuclear bombs will wipe out the name of Pakistan and Pakistanis from History even.
They are the descendants of ruthless,aggressive attackers,killers, murderers, looters and rapists who have been terrorizing us for the last 1300 years. Learn their mentality from the history of last 1300 years and Teach them a hard lesson.
2. Flush Pak with fake currency which they have been doing in India since long. Pak won't be able to withstand the pressure for long and will collapse.
3. Grant Indian citizenship and passport to good Pakistanis and Business men , so that they can live and work in India and at least declare internationally that they are Respected Indians instead of degraded and hated Pakistanis now. Otherwise also Nice Pakistanis are ashamed to declare themselves Pakistanis and usually hide their nationality.
4. Send all Antulays, Terrorists and traitors across the border or ask them to swim across Arabian sea to some safe haven for Hindu and Hindustan haters. If they are terrorists, we should be mad. We should not differentiate between the terrorists and those who harbor them. Eliminate/Eradicate this deadly disease of terrorism with same ruthlessness as they show towards fellow human beings.
5. Stop all non sense illusion of business or sports relations with a failed state and a failed faith. There can not be any sincere or fruitful long term relation with the enemies of the mankind. We should deal strictly with these bigots and fanatics.
6. Tell the world that there is going to be a definite war between Islam and Humanity, so they have to decide on which side they want to be; Islam or so called Kafirs. And one of these two is going to be destroyed. So ask all Muslim countries that Kafirs have equal rights to live a peaceful life. And if you give shabby treatment to Non-Muslims, don't expect better in return.
7. Indian people have to decide which party can deliver the needful. Congress & BJP, both have proved to be a bunch of Impotents. Promote or accept some new nationalistic force. Role models should be like Subhash Chander Bose and Sardar Patel and not like Gandhi and Nehru.
1. Deploy army all along Pakistan border and ask them to keep on staring at Pakis for few weeks, they will have to deploy in response. They won't be able to feed their forces for more than few weeks. They will be ruined financially. Don't be afraid of bogus nuclear power. Don't get blackmailed into submission. Tell them clearly that any misadventure with nuclear bombs will wipe out the name of Pakistan and Pakistanis from History even.
They are the descendants of ruthless,aggressive attackers,killers, murderers, looters and rapists who have been terrorizing us for the last 1300 years. Learn their mentality from the history of last 1300 years and Teach them a hard lesson.
2. Flush Pak with fake currency which they have been doing in India since long. Pak won't be able to withstand the pressure for long and will collapse.
3. Grant Indian citizenship and passport to good Pakistanis and Business men , so that they can live and work in India and at least declare internationally that they are Respected Indians instead of degraded and hated Pakistanis now. Otherwise also Nice Pakistanis are ashamed to declare themselves Pakistanis and usually hide their nationality.
4. Send all Antulays, Terrorists and traitors across the border or ask them to swim across Arabian sea to some safe haven for Hindu and Hindustan haters. If they are terrorists, we should be mad. We should not differentiate between the terrorists and those who harbor them. Eliminate/Eradicate this deadly disease of terrorism with same ruthlessness as they show towards fellow human beings.
5. Stop all non sense illusion of business or sports relations with a failed state and a failed faith. There can not be any sincere or fruitful long term relation with the enemies of the mankind. We should deal strictly with these bigots and fanatics.
6. Tell the world that there is going to be a definite war between Islam and Humanity, so they have to decide on which side they want to be; Islam or so called Kafirs. And one of these two is going to be destroyed. So ask all Muslim countries that Kafirs have equal rights to live a peaceful life. And if you give shabby treatment to Non-Muslims, don't expect better in return.
7. Indian people have to decide which party can deliver the needful. Congress & BJP, both have proved to be a bunch of Impotents. Promote or accept some new nationalistic force. Role models should be like Subhash Chander Bose and Sardar Patel and not like Gandhi and Nehru.
Thursday, December 18, 2008
AR Antulay on ISI and Dawood Ibrahim's pay role !
If Pakistani/Muslim Terrorist Or any other Idiot talks this non-sense and rubbish, that is understandable, but if a union minister talks like this, he should be asked to explain this serious charge or should be kicked on ass, shunted out of ministry with his face blackened and put in jail for misleading the nation.
In the light of full media attention and international investigations, even UNO is pointing somewhere, but Antulay would not like to see it because either he is on the pay role of Dawood Ibrahim or is sympathizing with his Muslim brothers.
Idiot AR Antulay's statement is foolish enough to suggest the following:
-First Hindu militants killed Karkare and then handed over the charge to Lashkar to kill other innocents.
-Or Hindu Militants killed Karkare at one spot and Pakistani Muslim Terrorists did the random shooting at Busy markets, Railway Station and Airport.
-Or whole operation was done by Muslim terrorists at the behest of Pakistani involvement.
-Or whole operation was done by Hindu militants.
So, it is your pick who was behind the whole episode.
In the light of full media attention and international investigations, even UNO is pointing somewhere, but Antulay would not like to see it because either he is on the pay role of Dawood Ibrahim or is sympathizing with his Muslim brothers.
Idiot AR Antulay's statement is foolish enough to suggest the following:
-First Hindu militants killed Karkare and then handed over the charge to Lashkar to kill other innocents.
-Or Hindu Militants killed Karkare at one spot and Pakistani Muslim Terrorists did the random shooting at Busy markets, Railway Station and Airport.
-Or whole operation was done by Muslim terrorists at the behest of Pakistani involvement.
-Or whole operation was done by Hindu militants.
So, it is your pick who was behind the whole episode.
Monday, December 15, 2008
U.S.: India prepared for strike on Pakistan
From Barbara Starr
CNN Pentagon Correspondent
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WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The United States believes that India's air force began preliminary preparations for a possible attack against Pakistan in the immediate aftermath of the recent massacre in Mumbai, CNN has learned.
One U.S. official said India's air force "went on alert" following the attacks in Mumbai.
One U.S. official said India's air force "went on alert" following the attacks in Mumbai.
Three Pentagon officials have individually confirmed to CNN that the United States has information indicating that India began to prepare air force personnel for a possible mission.
The officials offered very few details, but one said India's air force "went on alert." This is the first publicly known indication that perhaps the two nuclear powers were closer to conflict in the days after the Mumbai attacks than previously acknowledged.
A second official said the United States concluded these preliminary preparations would have put India quickly in the position to launch airstrikes against suspected terrorist camps and targets inside Pakistan. During these preparations, a number of senior U.S. officials were urging India to exercise restraint -- which apparently it did.
Wing Cmdr. Mahesh Upasani, an Indian air force spokesman, said the service had no comment on the report. Video Watch Miss Pakistan talk about the Mumbai attacks »
Since the Mumbai attacks, Pakistani security forces raided a camp near Muzaffarabad, the capital of Pakistani-controlled Kashmir, according to military sources. It was the first sign of government action against Lashkar-e-Tayyiba -- the Pakistan-based Islamic militant group India says was behind the killings of more than 160 people in Mumbai -- since the attacks.
Also, Pakistani authorities have banned a charity linked to last month's Mumbai attacks and placed its leader under house arrest. The move came after the U.N. Security Council designated the charity, Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD), a terror organization because of its links to Lashkar-e-Tayyiba.
Indian police say the only surviving suspect, identified by Indian authorities as 21-year-old Mohammad Ajmal Kasab, is from Pakistan's Punjab province and the nine other alleged attackers were also from Pakistan. Pakistani officials have denied that assertion, blaming instead "stateless actors."
Until now, the Bush Administration has publicly said it saw no signs of military movement by India and no indication that the Indian government was preparing any type of retaliation.
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The Pentagon officials broadly described the activity as checking on the status of crews, fighter jets and weapons that were available. The extent of the reported preparation was not immediately known.
Also, one of the Pentagon officials confirmed that the United States has intelligence indicating a single Indian aircraft violated Pakistani airspace twice on Saturday. The United States believes the incursion was inadvertent, the official said, adding that there is no information to indicate it was planned.
CNN Pentagon Correspondent
Decrease font Decrease font
Enlarge font Enlarge font
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The United States believes that India's air force began preliminary preparations for a possible attack against Pakistan in the immediate aftermath of the recent massacre in Mumbai, CNN has learned.
One U.S. official said India's air force "went on alert" following the attacks in Mumbai.
One U.S. official said India's air force "went on alert" following the attacks in Mumbai.
Three Pentagon officials have individually confirmed to CNN that the United States has information indicating that India began to prepare air force personnel for a possible mission.
The officials offered very few details, but one said India's air force "went on alert." This is the first publicly known indication that perhaps the two nuclear powers were closer to conflict in the days after the Mumbai attacks than previously acknowledged.
A second official said the United States concluded these preliminary preparations would have put India quickly in the position to launch airstrikes against suspected terrorist camps and targets inside Pakistan. During these preparations, a number of senior U.S. officials were urging India to exercise restraint -- which apparently it did.
Wing Cmdr. Mahesh Upasani, an Indian air force spokesman, said the service had no comment on the report. Video Watch Miss Pakistan talk about the Mumbai attacks »
Since the Mumbai attacks, Pakistani security forces raided a camp near Muzaffarabad, the capital of Pakistani-controlled Kashmir, according to military sources. It was the first sign of government action against Lashkar-e-Tayyiba -- the Pakistan-based Islamic militant group India says was behind the killings of more than 160 people in Mumbai -- since the attacks.
Also, Pakistani authorities have banned a charity linked to last month's Mumbai attacks and placed its leader under house arrest. The move came after the U.N. Security Council designated the charity, Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD), a terror organization because of its links to Lashkar-e-Tayyiba.
Indian police say the only surviving suspect, identified by Indian authorities as 21-year-old Mohammad Ajmal Kasab, is from Pakistan's Punjab province and the nine other alleged attackers were also from Pakistan. Pakistani officials have denied that assertion, blaming instead "stateless actors."
Until now, the Bush Administration has publicly said it saw no signs of military movement by India and no indication that the Indian government was preparing any type of retaliation.
advertisement
The Pentagon officials broadly described the activity as checking on the status of crews, fighter jets and weapons that were available. The extent of the reported preparation was not immediately known.
Also, one of the Pentagon officials confirmed that the United States has intelligence indicating a single Indian aircraft violated Pakistani airspace twice on Saturday. The United States believes the incursion was inadvertent, the official said, adding that there is no information to indicate it was planned.
Sunday, December 14, 2008
'Sir, why are all terrorists Muslims?'
Monday, 15 December , 2008, 10:58
'Sir, why are all terrorists Muslims?'(Firoz Bakht Ahmed is a commentator on social and religious issues and the grandnephew of Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, the freedom fighter.)
"Sir, why is it that all terrorists are Muslims?" Prajvi Bagga Malhotra, a Class 11 student of Modern School, asked me this question during a discussion about current events. This was a very timely, bold but sensible question and being a Muslim, I was accountable to address the curiosity in the minds of a class of 52 students.
Prajvi isn't the only one to have alluded to the Western media coined statement that all terrorists are Muslims but all Muslims are not terrorists. With so many voices stating that the religion advocates violence, Islam is today under the scanner. Not all of them can be wrong - people judge by what they see and today these terrorists speak and act violently in the name of Islam.
I told Prajvi that the guiding themes of every religion are the same. Islam too has the same theme and ideology as other religions but a few people misled some of its followers in the name of god.
26/11 (Mumbai), Kafeel in Glasgow, Mumbai blasts by the Memons and others in India, the jehadis in Kashmir, 9/11, 7/7 (London), 13/12 (Delhi), 29/10 (Delhi) and the Al Qaeda at a global level - all these make my head go down in shame.
It's so embarrassing that each time a Muslim name is found attached with the inhuman and insane acts of terrorism.
Note that jehad is the most misunderstood and misconstrued concept by our non-Muslim brethren and even Muslims. The true concept of jehad in Islam is not to be against other communities, groups or religions but to be against one's own selfish nature, vices and shortcomings within Muslim society in order to fight evil, injustice, inequity, illiteracy and ignorance. First an individual fights jehad against himself to get cleansed. After that he continues the efforts with his wife, family, locality and the whole community. This is Jehad-e-Akbar, the right meaning of jehad.
JuD, Hafiz Saeed added to UN terror list
Terrorism is a political process and religion or a religious community has nothing to do with it. Neither does any religion teach to kill innocents (that is what the terrorists do) nor are the terrorists the people chosen by that religious community to undertake such ghastly acts on their behalf.
Nevertheless, an average Muslim's fears are hate crimes, difficulty in finding jobs, admissions and residential accommodation, unwanted repercussions, distrust and other such things that always get exacerbated by such incidents. Muslims also fear a backlash like the 1984 Sikh riots against them. Terrorists should not be helped in creating a rift between communities.
The Mumbai attackers did try to create a cleavage between Hindus and Muslims. However, though a tragic incident, it did have a silver lining in that it cut across religious lines and saw people uniting in their horror and outrage.
‘Lakhwi to be tried only if India gives evidence’
But leaders of some parties have even begun to think that any criticism of Pakistan would not be relished by this country's Muslims.
I still remember that during the last general elections in India, to appease Muslims the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) boasted of the Lahore bus and improving relations with Pakistan as one of its major achievements. It's so sad that these people still treat Indian Muslims as Pakistan's stooges.
Though all Indians know that a few terrorists do not tarnish a whole community, the government for fear of losing votes will not take the matter up with the Pakistani government seriously and will just resort to rhetoric.
Captured attacker is my son: Pakistani man
It is quite clear now that Indian politicians of all shades were somehow living under an illusion that if they were to turn harsh against acts of terror, they would alienate the Muslims of this country.
When will they ever realize that by doing so they are clearly reflecting their perverted psyche of labelling all Indian Muslims as pro-Pakistanis, which is the worst abuse for any Indian Muslim.
Going soft on terror will not make Muslims happy as the perpetrators of such acts do not segregate their targets by religion. If the politicians of this country think that by shying away from taking on terrorists directly and by going soft on terror they will get kudos from Muslims, they are sadly mistaken.
The public in general has now had enough of those who exploit religious sentiment in order to gain electoral and political mileage. The recent poll results in Delhi are an indication of that.
Full coverage: Mumbai terror attack
The rider is: let us save Islam from "the Muslims", Hinduism from "the Hindus", Christianity from "the Christians", Judaism from "the Jews" and Sikhism from "the Sikhs" and other zealots as religion is a very personal matter and as humans, we are all same.
'Sir, why are all terrorists Muslims?'(Firoz Bakht Ahmed is a commentator on social and religious issues and the grandnephew of Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, the freedom fighter.)
"Sir, why is it that all terrorists are Muslims?" Prajvi Bagga Malhotra, a Class 11 student of Modern School, asked me this question during a discussion about current events. This was a very timely, bold but sensible question and being a Muslim, I was accountable to address the curiosity in the minds of a class of 52 students.
Prajvi isn't the only one to have alluded to the Western media coined statement that all terrorists are Muslims but all Muslims are not terrorists. With so many voices stating that the religion advocates violence, Islam is today under the scanner. Not all of them can be wrong - people judge by what they see and today these terrorists speak and act violently in the name of Islam.
I told Prajvi that the guiding themes of every religion are the same. Islam too has the same theme and ideology as other religions but a few people misled some of its followers in the name of god.
26/11 (Mumbai), Kafeel in Glasgow, Mumbai blasts by the Memons and others in India, the jehadis in Kashmir, 9/11, 7/7 (London), 13/12 (Delhi), 29/10 (Delhi) and the Al Qaeda at a global level - all these make my head go down in shame.
It's so embarrassing that each time a Muslim name is found attached with the inhuman and insane acts of terrorism.
Note that jehad is the most misunderstood and misconstrued concept by our non-Muslim brethren and even Muslims. The true concept of jehad in Islam is not to be against other communities, groups or religions but to be against one's own selfish nature, vices and shortcomings within Muslim society in order to fight evil, injustice, inequity, illiteracy and ignorance. First an individual fights jehad against himself to get cleansed. After that he continues the efforts with his wife, family, locality and the whole community. This is Jehad-e-Akbar, the right meaning of jehad.
JuD, Hafiz Saeed added to UN terror list
Terrorism is a political process and religion or a religious community has nothing to do with it. Neither does any religion teach to kill innocents (that is what the terrorists do) nor are the terrorists the people chosen by that religious community to undertake such ghastly acts on their behalf.
Nevertheless, an average Muslim's fears are hate crimes, difficulty in finding jobs, admissions and residential accommodation, unwanted repercussions, distrust and other such things that always get exacerbated by such incidents. Muslims also fear a backlash like the 1984 Sikh riots against them. Terrorists should not be helped in creating a rift between communities.
The Mumbai attackers did try to create a cleavage between Hindus and Muslims. However, though a tragic incident, it did have a silver lining in that it cut across religious lines and saw people uniting in their horror and outrage.
‘Lakhwi to be tried only if India gives evidence’
But leaders of some parties have even begun to think that any criticism of Pakistan would not be relished by this country's Muslims.
I still remember that during the last general elections in India, to appease Muslims the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) boasted of the Lahore bus and improving relations with Pakistan as one of its major achievements. It's so sad that these people still treat Indian Muslims as Pakistan's stooges.
Though all Indians know that a few terrorists do not tarnish a whole community, the government for fear of losing votes will not take the matter up with the Pakistani government seriously and will just resort to rhetoric.
Captured attacker is my son: Pakistani man
It is quite clear now that Indian politicians of all shades were somehow living under an illusion that if they were to turn harsh against acts of terror, they would alienate the Muslims of this country.
When will they ever realize that by doing so they are clearly reflecting their perverted psyche of labelling all Indian Muslims as pro-Pakistanis, which is the worst abuse for any Indian Muslim.
Going soft on terror will not make Muslims happy as the perpetrators of such acts do not segregate their targets by religion. If the politicians of this country think that by shying away from taking on terrorists directly and by going soft on terror they will get kudos from Muslims, they are sadly mistaken.
The public in general has now had enough of those who exploit religious sentiment in order to gain electoral and political mileage. The recent poll results in Delhi are an indication of that.
Full coverage: Mumbai terror attack
The rider is: let us save Islam from "the Muslims", Hinduism from "the Hindus", Christianity from "the Christians", Judaism from "the Jews" and Sikhism from "the Sikhs" and other zealots as religion is a very personal matter and as humans, we are all same.
Pakistan is totally exposed; naked, liar and shameless country
S Gurumurthy
First Published : 13 Dec 2008 02:34:00 AM IST
Last Updated : 13 Dec 2008 10:50:37 AM IST
NON-STATE Actors”. This new clone from the US diplomatic thesaurus has occupied the centrestage in the Indo-US dialogue on the jihad that maimed Mumbai on November 26-28.
Condoleezza Rice, the American Secretary of State, managed to smuggle some anonymous “non-state actors” into the diplomatic theatre of US and India when she came to Delhi on December 3.
By “non-state actors” she meant not just the 10 jihadis who killed 200 and injured 300 in three days, but all those who had conspired, trained, equipped, financed, transported and guided them into Mumbai all the way from Karachi.
India has evidence, says the media, to prove that the 10 jihadis who were Pakistanis came from Karachi; that through sat-phone, they had kept their masters in Pakistan informed of their movement and action; that the Pakistan navy and the ISI were involved in training them and hundreds more like them who are still in reserve for future jihads on India.
Indian intelligence claims to have more evidence of the guilt of Pakistan as a state. The US intelligence, reports the US media, has even better proof of the ISI role in the jihad on Mumbai. Yet for Condoleezza Rice “non-state actors”, not the state of Pakistan, was guilty of the jihad on India.
As Rice spoke of “non-state actors”, on the same day in Islamabad, Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari blamed some anonymous ‘stateless actors’ - so, not Pakistanis - for the jihad on Mumbai. He said that, as India itself says, Pakistan was as much a victim of jihadis as India.
Which Indian said Pakistan was a terror victim? Believe it. It was the Indian Prime Minister who declared last year that Pakistan too was a terror victim. By this self-goal against India, Manmohan Singh totally destroyed the credible case that India had built over two decades that Pakistan was a merchant of jihad and India, its principal victim.
More. In neither of his two speeches on Mumbai terror, did Manmohan Singh have the guts to say that while the hands that hit India might have been non-state actors’, the brain that directed the jihad was the ISI’s. Even an adversary of India would not have damaged the nation’s interest like the Prime Minister himself has.
Even Pranab Mukherjee would hold the ISI as the brain behind the attack when he addressed the Lok Sabha on December 11. Was this restraint part of the deal with the US that India would not blame Pakistan as terror sponsor? Back to Rice. When she landed in Delhi, the Indian establishment was almost sure - on what basis, God knows - that the US would exert to tell Pakistan to confess its guilt and surrender the 20 fugitive jihadis hiding in Pakistan and what not.
But see what happened. It did not need a seer to say that the mission of Rice was chiefly to console the grieving Indians, clam their anger and finally defuse the rising tension between the hurt India and the guilty Pakistan. Her mission met with total success, thanks to a government that is impotent even in the choice of words. She made ‘the right noises’ and praised our media. She declared that ‘Pakistan needed to mount a robust response’, ‘investigate the role of the nonstate actors in the terror’ against India, and assured Indians that ‘Pakistan would co-operate with India’ in tracking down the jihadi conspiracy.
But see what she did on the very next day, December 4, in Islamabad. She said she was ‘satisfied with Pakistan’s readiness to help India to probe the Mumbai terror attackers’. And on this self-serving satisfaction, she even certified that the ‘Pakistani leadership is focussed and committed to act’. Act against whom? The faceless ‘non-state actors’? More. A day before she visited Islamabad, chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen was in Pakistan’s capital. He had reportedly told the Pakistan government that the US itself had proof of the involvement of the ISI in the attack. Yet Rice talked about ‘nonstate actors’ as the culprits! Why will the state of Pakistan act against the jihadis when, despite its own ISI and Army being involved in jihad on Mumbai, Rice exonerates them both? Most experts on terrorism are stunned at the sophisticated jihad on Mumbai and the original thinking and complicated planning that had gone into it. No one is left in doubt that the logistics for this kind of jihad could only have been provided by Pakistan’s state apparatus. But Pakistan is, as it has always been, in lies and denials. It has even refused to accept the bodies of the killed jihadis, as that may amount to part confession of guilt.
Remember. It had refused to take the bodies of the soldiers in the Kargil war, because it would prove what it was denying, namely that it was the aggressor.
That Pakistan always lies, including now, is not unknown to the US. It suffers Pakistan’s lies. Why? The US needs, so forces, Pakistan to battle the al-Qaeda and Taliban on the western front. Pakistan is keen to escape this forced obligation.
The US can’t talk about it as that would expose the super power’s weakness.
Now, if the US forced Pakistan on India’s behalf on Mumbai jihad, the Islamic ally of US might refuse to do the US bidding on the western front.
The US is keen that Pakistan is not engaged on the east by India as that will give Pakistan an acceptable alibi to escape its obligation to the US to fight the jihadis on the west. The US cannot like it nor afford it. It is virtually held to ransom by its Islamic military ally. Because, for the US, Pakistan fighting the Taliban is more important than preventing Pakistan from doing stealthy jihads on India.
This is the reality. And India must face it.
The ban on Jamat-ud-Dawah in the name of which the banned LeT was functioning, or the house arrest of the LeT chief or declaring Hamid Gul and others as terrorists are just a theatrical show.
The truth is not so well hidden if the history of Islamist terror is recapitulated.
The US encouraged Pakistan’s ISI and its Army to forge the ‘Taliban’ to defeat the Soviets in Afghanistan. Actually, the Taliban is the joint product of the US and Pakistan. As the ISI and Pakistan’s army Talibanised the youth of Pakistan, they too got Talibanised with jihadi mindset. The al-Qaeda is the grandchild through the Taliban.
The Hindu legend of Bhasmasura says that once such a force is created the creator becomes its first victim. So, the Taliban and the al-Qaeda tested their skills on the US on 9/11. The US knows that jihadis constitute a half of Pakistan establishment. It does not mind if that half of Pakistan state targets India in the east, so long as the other half battles the Taliban-al-Qaeda in the west.
QED: Pakistan is sufficiently exposed as a terror merchant. It is the US which needs to be exposed as trader in terror.
comment@gurumurthy.net
First Published : 13 Dec 2008 02:34:00 AM IST
Last Updated : 13 Dec 2008 10:50:37 AM IST
NON-STATE Actors”. This new clone from the US diplomatic thesaurus has occupied the centrestage in the Indo-US dialogue on the jihad that maimed Mumbai on November 26-28.
Condoleezza Rice, the American Secretary of State, managed to smuggle some anonymous “non-state actors” into the diplomatic theatre of US and India when she came to Delhi on December 3.
By “non-state actors” she meant not just the 10 jihadis who killed 200 and injured 300 in three days, but all those who had conspired, trained, equipped, financed, transported and guided them into Mumbai all the way from Karachi.
India has evidence, says the media, to prove that the 10 jihadis who were Pakistanis came from Karachi; that through sat-phone, they had kept their masters in Pakistan informed of their movement and action; that the Pakistan navy and the ISI were involved in training them and hundreds more like them who are still in reserve for future jihads on India.
Indian intelligence claims to have more evidence of the guilt of Pakistan as a state. The US intelligence, reports the US media, has even better proof of the ISI role in the jihad on Mumbai. Yet for Condoleezza Rice “non-state actors”, not the state of Pakistan, was guilty of the jihad on India.
As Rice spoke of “non-state actors”, on the same day in Islamabad, Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari blamed some anonymous ‘stateless actors’ - so, not Pakistanis - for the jihad on Mumbai. He said that, as India itself says, Pakistan was as much a victim of jihadis as India.
Which Indian said Pakistan was a terror victim? Believe it. It was the Indian Prime Minister who declared last year that Pakistan too was a terror victim. By this self-goal against India, Manmohan Singh totally destroyed the credible case that India had built over two decades that Pakistan was a merchant of jihad and India, its principal victim.
More. In neither of his two speeches on Mumbai terror, did Manmohan Singh have the guts to say that while the hands that hit India might have been non-state actors’, the brain that directed the jihad was the ISI’s. Even an adversary of India would not have damaged the nation’s interest like the Prime Minister himself has.
Even Pranab Mukherjee would hold the ISI as the brain behind the attack when he addressed the Lok Sabha on December 11. Was this restraint part of the deal with the US that India would not blame Pakistan as terror sponsor? Back to Rice. When she landed in Delhi, the Indian establishment was almost sure - on what basis, God knows - that the US would exert to tell Pakistan to confess its guilt and surrender the 20 fugitive jihadis hiding in Pakistan and what not.
But see what happened. It did not need a seer to say that the mission of Rice was chiefly to console the grieving Indians, clam their anger and finally defuse the rising tension between the hurt India and the guilty Pakistan. Her mission met with total success, thanks to a government that is impotent even in the choice of words. She made ‘the right noises’ and praised our media. She declared that ‘Pakistan needed to mount a robust response’, ‘investigate the role of the nonstate actors in the terror’ against India, and assured Indians that ‘Pakistan would co-operate with India’ in tracking down the jihadi conspiracy.
But see what she did on the very next day, December 4, in Islamabad. She said she was ‘satisfied with Pakistan’s readiness to help India to probe the Mumbai terror attackers’. And on this self-serving satisfaction, she even certified that the ‘Pakistani leadership is focussed and committed to act’. Act against whom? The faceless ‘non-state actors’? More. A day before she visited Islamabad, chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen was in Pakistan’s capital. He had reportedly told the Pakistan government that the US itself had proof of the involvement of the ISI in the attack. Yet Rice talked about ‘nonstate actors’ as the culprits! Why will the state of Pakistan act against the jihadis when, despite its own ISI and Army being involved in jihad on Mumbai, Rice exonerates them both? Most experts on terrorism are stunned at the sophisticated jihad on Mumbai and the original thinking and complicated planning that had gone into it. No one is left in doubt that the logistics for this kind of jihad could only have been provided by Pakistan’s state apparatus. But Pakistan is, as it has always been, in lies and denials. It has even refused to accept the bodies of the killed jihadis, as that may amount to part confession of guilt.
Remember. It had refused to take the bodies of the soldiers in the Kargil war, because it would prove what it was denying, namely that it was the aggressor.
That Pakistan always lies, including now, is not unknown to the US. It suffers Pakistan’s lies. Why? The US needs, so forces, Pakistan to battle the al-Qaeda and Taliban on the western front. Pakistan is keen to escape this forced obligation.
The US can’t talk about it as that would expose the super power’s weakness.
Now, if the US forced Pakistan on India’s behalf on Mumbai jihad, the Islamic ally of US might refuse to do the US bidding on the western front.
The US is keen that Pakistan is not engaged on the east by India as that will give Pakistan an acceptable alibi to escape its obligation to the US to fight the jihadis on the west. The US cannot like it nor afford it. It is virtually held to ransom by its Islamic military ally. Because, for the US, Pakistan fighting the Taliban is more important than preventing Pakistan from doing stealthy jihads on India.
This is the reality. And India must face it.
The ban on Jamat-ud-Dawah in the name of which the banned LeT was functioning, or the house arrest of the LeT chief or declaring Hamid Gul and others as terrorists are just a theatrical show.
The truth is not so well hidden if the history of Islamist terror is recapitulated.
The US encouraged Pakistan’s ISI and its Army to forge the ‘Taliban’ to defeat the Soviets in Afghanistan. Actually, the Taliban is the joint product of the US and Pakistan. As the ISI and Pakistan’s army Talibanised the youth of Pakistan, they too got Talibanised with jihadi mindset. The al-Qaeda is the grandchild through the Taliban.
The Hindu legend of Bhasmasura says that once such a force is created the creator becomes its first victim. So, the Taliban and the al-Qaeda tested their skills on the US on 9/11. The US knows that jihadis constitute a half of Pakistan establishment. It does not mind if that half of Pakistan state targets India in the east, so long as the other half battles the Taliban-al-Qaeda in the west.
QED: Pakistan is sufficiently exposed as a terror merchant. It is the US which needs to be exposed as trader in terror.
comment@gurumurthy.net
No lawyer can refuse to defend an accused: Jethmalani; Jethmalani out of his senses, unethical, out to protect killers !
Agencies
Posted: Dec 14, 2008 at 1629 hrs IST
New Delhi With certain lawyer bodies declining to take up the case of Mohammad Ajmal Amir Kasab, the lone militant arrested in the Mumbai terror attacks, eminent lawyer Ram Jethmalani on Sunday maintained that no lawyer has the right to say he will not defend an accused.
"There is the express rule of the Bar Council of India that no lawyer shall refuse to defend a person on the grounds that it will make him unpopular," Jethmalani said.
"That is something that should never worry a lawyer. No lawyer worth the name should even talk about this kind of a thing," Jethmalani said and asked the legal community not to worry about peer criticism while taking up such cases.
"No lawyer has the right to say that he will not defend an accused," the eminent jurist told a television news channel.
Asked whether he had been approached to defend the terrorist, he said, "Has Kasab asked me? Let him ask me and I will tell him. Let the Pakistan High Commission approach me and I will give them a proper reply and advise."
Jethmalani said a lawyer should advise his client on the basis of facts. "The lawyer's duty is to say that on the facts I find no defence. The man is guilty on his own confession... unless he instructs the lawyer, the confession was obtained by some force or fraud or whatever, which is very unlikely".
"A lawyer should be able to tell him (the terrorist) that either hanging or life imprisonment is your option. "If you want me to tell the court that you should receive life imprisonment I am prepared to do my best," Jethmalani said.
On the terror attacks, he said, "According to me, a person who thinks that by doing these actions, he is going to heaven he should be denied the chance to go to heaven, he should remain the rest of life in a jail in India".
Posted: Dec 14, 2008 at 1629 hrs IST
New Delhi With certain lawyer bodies declining to take up the case of Mohammad Ajmal Amir Kasab, the lone militant arrested in the Mumbai terror attacks, eminent lawyer Ram Jethmalani on Sunday maintained that no lawyer has the right to say he will not defend an accused.
"There is the express rule of the Bar Council of India that no lawyer shall refuse to defend a person on the grounds that it will make him unpopular," Jethmalani said.
"That is something that should never worry a lawyer. No lawyer worth the name should even talk about this kind of a thing," Jethmalani said and asked the legal community not to worry about peer criticism while taking up such cases.
"No lawyer has the right to say that he will not defend an accused," the eminent jurist told a television news channel.
Asked whether he had been approached to defend the terrorist, he said, "Has Kasab asked me? Let him ask me and I will tell him. Let the Pakistan High Commission approach me and I will give them a proper reply and advise."
Jethmalani said a lawyer should advise his client on the basis of facts. "The lawyer's duty is to say that on the facts I find no defence. The man is guilty on his own confession... unless he instructs the lawyer, the confession was obtained by some force or fraud or whatever, which is very unlikely".
"A lawyer should be able to tell him (the terrorist) that either hanging or life imprisonment is your option. "If you want me to tell the court that you should receive life imprisonment I am prepared to do my best," Jethmalani said.
On the terror attacks, he said, "According to me, a person who thinks that by doing these actions, he is going to heaven he should be denied the chance to go to heaven, he should remain the rest of life in a jail in India".
Tuesday, December 2, 2008
Spineless, Spermless, Semenless and Spiritless Indian Leaders !
India is a super power but being ruled by super impotent leaders.
Impotent Indian leaders should learn something from the US and Israeli leaders.
Manmohan singh should come out of the saree of Sonia Gandhi and take some independent decision. He has to prove that "Singh is the real King" not just a king
inside the saree.
Even the BJP leadership was hopeless when parliament was attacked. Almost dead PM Vajpayee did not bother to consult semidead DPM Advani and Released top terrorists and asked conscious less Jaswant Singh to accompany them along with a gift of Rs. 500 crores and compromised with the hijackers of air-india plane with bent knees. Now they are demanding the same terrorists back! What non-sense.
When Iran knocked down US plane, then President Reagan had warned Muslim Terrorists that if you are terrorists, we are mad; and we are going to screw you now and right now.
Similarly Bush had warned after 9/11 that we will make no distinction between the terrorists and those who harbor them.
Israel does not give a shit to international opinion when their interests are hurt. They strike with full force and teach those bastards a good lesson.
So wake up Indian leaders ! show that you have some balls and some sperms & semen left or take some viagra or cialis and get going and do the needful. What for these missiles are......to blast yourself inside out ! Shame on Spineless Indian Leaders !
So fire them and blast the training camps of Lashkar-e-toiba and Jaish-e-Moahammad.
Impotent Indian leaders should learn something from the US and Israeli leaders.
Manmohan singh should come out of the saree of Sonia Gandhi and take some independent decision. He has to prove that "Singh is the real King" not just a king
inside the saree.
Even the BJP leadership was hopeless when parliament was attacked. Almost dead PM Vajpayee did not bother to consult semidead DPM Advani and Released top terrorists and asked conscious less Jaswant Singh to accompany them along with a gift of Rs. 500 crores and compromised with the hijackers of air-india plane with bent knees. Now they are demanding the same terrorists back! What non-sense.
When Iran knocked down US plane, then President Reagan had warned Muslim Terrorists that if you are terrorists, we are mad; and we are going to screw you now and right now.
Similarly Bush had warned after 9/11 that we will make no distinction between the terrorists and those who harbor them.
Israel does not give a shit to international opinion when their interests are hurt. They strike with full force and teach those bastards a good lesson.
So wake up Indian leaders ! show that you have some balls and some sperms & semen left or take some viagra or cialis and get going and do the needful. What for these missiles are......to blast yourself inside out ! Shame on Spineless Indian Leaders !
So fire them and blast the training camps of Lashkar-e-toiba and Jaish-e-Moahammad.
'Pakistan will have to pay a heavy price'
M J Akbar is one of India's best-known journalists and commentators, someone with a deep insight into the Indian people and their mindset. In this first-person, as-told-to piece, Akbar discusses the Mumbai attacks and their relevance for India.
Many people forget that India is a tough nation. Toothless leaders have turned India into a soft nation. People forget that India has fought back Muslim terrorism in Kashmir; Sikh terrorism in Punjab, Christian terrorism in Nagaland and Hindu terrorism in Assam, and amongst the Naxalites [Images].
We have had everything thrown at the Indian nation State. Still, we have stood up. The people of India have shown the courage and ability to believe in their nation and to fight back. But the completely impotent leadership of five years have turned a tough country into a soft State.
I am very sad. I keep feeling that if they protect India as they protect their leaders -- whether it is Prime Minister Manmohan Singh [Images] or Congress President Sonia Gandhi [Images] -- I think I would be safe. Today, India's leaders are safe and India is in panic.
On what India's response should be:
India's proper reaction would be possible if we understand the extent of the disease.
If the disease is cancer, you can't apply band aid. After making a complete mess of security issues for five years by asking Shivraj Patil [Images] to go finally we may have a home minister who doesn't comb his hair and change his clothes. But we want something more than that. If it is cancer, we need chemotherapy, a much more serious exercise. It needs a legislative and executive framework. It needs political mobilisation. People are numbed.
The Indian people have no leadership. You have a prime minister. Did you see him when he addressed the nation? Nobody knew if he was addressing the nation or having a cup of tea?
He looked serious, but he didn't talk to us about our anger and about our anguish. I think this administration is tone deaf to the anguish of the people. They just cannot understand what the people are going through. They just don't understand our pain or our anger. The most important thing is that, perhaps, we have politicised not only the instruments of the State like the police but we have also politicised the understanding of the nature of the problem.
I think the very first thing to do is to ensure security so that it prevents the next attack. If any attack takes place under someones job should go. Don't come to me with alibis.
On the terrorists getting local support:
I am an Indian Muslim and I am very proud of both, being an Indian and a Muslim. I do not see any contradictions. This is my land and I have nowhere else to go.
But can I say because I am an Indian Muslim that no Indian Muslim is involved? Can you, because you are a Hindu, say that no Hindu is involved? We have to behave like Indians first. Not as a Muslim or as a Hindu first. Because we need Hindu votes and Muslim votes and because this government thinks that it needs Muslim votes so it has been in complete denial.
Do you think that these people came across from Pakistan and had no support in Mumbai?
It is not possible. It was a huge operation. Ten people hit nine places and you killed nine of them. You want to say that they went from place to place? Who knows some of them must have slipped away to create new sleeper cells to hit us six months later.
They are hiding things. I would like to believe that there was an underworld connection. Because, Karachi and Mumbai are also linked by drug smuggling. The culture of criminals is aggression. It comes naturally to them. It is not easy for you and I to become aggressive, however angry we are. It does not come naturally to us. These are people who are trained psychologically in aggression. They have no respect for the State. They have no love for the country. And they have no respect for authority.
Why? Because the only face of authority is the corrupt policeman. The criminal gives money in the morning and money in the evening. Why should he have respect for somebody he gives bribes to? For the guy from the underworld his understanding of the Indian State and authority is corruption. He has no patriotism to stop him. Why would he not join hands with the terrorists? In any case, he belongs to another world. We have not even begun to address and discuss this.
On the Pakistan factor
I am tired of giving Pakistan a long rope on some excuse or the other. Everybody is saying this will happen if we do this, that will happen if we do this. Our relations with Pakistan will go, then, let them go. What has our relations with Pakistan brought us except violence and terror? Why should we be in charge of saving Pakistan? For what? Every time they turn around and they say they want evidence. Now, finally we have evidence.
I have been an editor for 35 years from the age of 23. From that time on, since the days of General Zia-ul Haq, I have been hearing 'Pakistan is asking for evidence'. We asked for withdrawal of their support to the movement for Khalistan, they said, 'Oh, we don't know anything about it.' On Kashmir, they kept repeating where is the evidence. Benazir Bhutto [Images] came, she asked for evidence. Nawaz Sharif came, he asked for evidence. I think Pervez Musharraf [Images] asked for less evidence. Now again, they are asking for evidence.
There is a terrorist in Mumbai, captured and arrested. How much more evidence do you want? If what he is saying is not evidence, then how can you get more evidence?
This government is in its 11th hour. Now they will bluff the people to protect their votes. There is no time left for them. The agony of departure will be hard from this government.
On the reaction in the West
The US and Britain have a vested interest in telling India to look within. Why? When Americans die then they can send their air force 7,000 miles and bomb every country to smithereens. But when Indians die, they tell us no, no, you must be patient. You must act like a swami and a yogi. Why? Is an American life more precious than an Indian life? Why should we keep listening to them? But we have a government that keeps listening to them all the time. We don't get tough.
The last time we got tough was after the attack on Parliament. We took some tough actions under Operation Parakram and then there was a certain lull. Three years ago, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was able to tell President George W Bush [Images] that there are no terrorists amongst Indian Muslims. That means that lull continued.
Pakistan must be made to realise that it will have to pay a heavy price. Not necessarily through war, but a heavy price will have to be paid in loss in trade, in cancellation of orders and other engagements. They should pay a heavy price in terms of people to people relations. I am not saying you can freeze a relationship to death, but the message must go out that if there is a crime there will be a penalty. You just can't get away with it.
Let the Pakistan government cooperate with us. But look at how the Pakistan government has buckled down and we are sitting here whimpering.
They want to send some lowly officers to India. For what? Even Pakistan is treating the Manmohan Singh and Sonia Gandhi government with total contempt. They know how weak it is.
Delink Hindu-Muslim relations and Pakistan
Look, you must not confuse the Pakistan issue with the Indian Muslims issue. Their so-called alienation or their economic deprivation is not linked to the issue of Pakistan.
Indian Muslims have nothing to do with Pakistan. They have absolutely no sympathy for Pakistan. They know that Pakistan was the biggest mistake committed in the history of Indian Muslims. They know it. You can ask anyone in Baroda, Bihar or Mumbai. They know how they are suffering the backlash of all the consequences of cross-border terrorism.
Today, they fear retribution from the government, they fear retribution from popular disenchantment and anger. They feel helpless. They feel afraid.
We must understand finally that it is not so much the 'local people', it is the local underworld that is involved in anti-India activities. In 1993, who were involved in terrorism? The underworld. Why have you not done anything about it? The State turns a blind eye to the police and corruption. I don't know how many readers smoke hashish and other stuff, but I am accusing them of cross-border terrorism. Drugs come to India from Afghanistan via Karachi.
What we can do as individuals
If whoever is responsible for protecting the nation fails, then he or she should not be allowed to continue in power. That is the toughest and sharpest message we can give. You can tell that you may be a soft State, but we are a hard people and we are hard voters.
We are not going to forgive you for your lies and deception and for your waffling. How many blasts do we need to understand that? When Jaipur [Images], Ahmedabad [Images], Mumbai and Delhi [Images] happened no one who was genuinely guilty was caught.
We have to understand now that corruption has eaten away vitals of this nation. It is the biggest danger to the security of India. It is not just the case of some spectrum being sold to someone by some minister in. Everyone who is corrupt get out!
It Is a failure all around. We have to be extremely practical and pragmatic. There is great deal to be depressed about as an Indian. Frankly speaking, I feel very angry and upset. I am never upset by the behaviour of our enemies. I am only upset by the betrayal of those I trust.
M J Akbar, editor-in-chief, Covert magazine, spoke to Sheela Bhatt
Many people forget that India is a tough nation. Toothless leaders have turned India into a soft nation. People forget that India has fought back Muslim terrorism in Kashmir; Sikh terrorism in Punjab, Christian terrorism in Nagaland and Hindu terrorism in Assam, and amongst the Naxalites [Images].
We have had everything thrown at the Indian nation State. Still, we have stood up. The people of India have shown the courage and ability to believe in their nation and to fight back. But the completely impotent leadership of five years have turned a tough country into a soft State.
I am very sad. I keep feeling that if they protect India as they protect their leaders -- whether it is Prime Minister Manmohan Singh [Images] or Congress President Sonia Gandhi [Images] -- I think I would be safe. Today, India's leaders are safe and India is in panic.
On what India's response should be:
India's proper reaction would be possible if we understand the extent of the disease.
If the disease is cancer, you can't apply band aid. After making a complete mess of security issues for five years by asking Shivraj Patil [Images] to go finally we may have a home minister who doesn't comb his hair and change his clothes. But we want something more than that. If it is cancer, we need chemotherapy, a much more serious exercise. It needs a legislative and executive framework. It needs political mobilisation. People are numbed.
The Indian people have no leadership. You have a prime minister. Did you see him when he addressed the nation? Nobody knew if he was addressing the nation or having a cup of tea?
He looked serious, but he didn't talk to us about our anger and about our anguish. I think this administration is tone deaf to the anguish of the people. They just cannot understand what the people are going through. They just don't understand our pain or our anger. The most important thing is that, perhaps, we have politicised not only the instruments of the State like the police but we have also politicised the understanding of the nature of the problem.
I think the very first thing to do is to ensure security so that it prevents the next attack. If any attack takes place under someones job should go. Don't come to me with alibis.
On the terrorists getting local support:
I am an Indian Muslim and I am very proud of both, being an Indian and a Muslim. I do not see any contradictions. This is my land and I have nowhere else to go.
But can I say because I am an Indian Muslim that no Indian Muslim is involved? Can you, because you are a Hindu, say that no Hindu is involved? We have to behave like Indians first. Not as a Muslim or as a Hindu first. Because we need Hindu votes and Muslim votes and because this government thinks that it needs Muslim votes so it has been in complete denial.
Do you think that these people came across from Pakistan and had no support in Mumbai?
It is not possible. It was a huge operation. Ten people hit nine places and you killed nine of them. You want to say that they went from place to place? Who knows some of them must have slipped away to create new sleeper cells to hit us six months later.
They are hiding things. I would like to believe that there was an underworld connection. Because, Karachi and Mumbai are also linked by drug smuggling. The culture of criminals is aggression. It comes naturally to them. It is not easy for you and I to become aggressive, however angry we are. It does not come naturally to us. These are people who are trained psychologically in aggression. They have no respect for the State. They have no love for the country. And they have no respect for authority.
Why? Because the only face of authority is the corrupt policeman. The criminal gives money in the morning and money in the evening. Why should he have respect for somebody he gives bribes to? For the guy from the underworld his understanding of the Indian State and authority is corruption. He has no patriotism to stop him. Why would he not join hands with the terrorists? In any case, he belongs to another world. We have not even begun to address and discuss this.
On the Pakistan factor
I am tired of giving Pakistan a long rope on some excuse or the other. Everybody is saying this will happen if we do this, that will happen if we do this. Our relations with Pakistan will go, then, let them go. What has our relations with Pakistan brought us except violence and terror? Why should we be in charge of saving Pakistan? For what? Every time they turn around and they say they want evidence. Now, finally we have evidence.
I have been an editor for 35 years from the age of 23. From that time on, since the days of General Zia-ul Haq, I have been hearing 'Pakistan is asking for evidence'. We asked for withdrawal of their support to the movement for Khalistan, they said, 'Oh, we don't know anything about it.' On Kashmir, they kept repeating where is the evidence. Benazir Bhutto [Images] came, she asked for evidence. Nawaz Sharif came, he asked for evidence. I think Pervez Musharraf [Images] asked for less evidence. Now again, they are asking for evidence.
There is a terrorist in Mumbai, captured and arrested. How much more evidence do you want? If what he is saying is not evidence, then how can you get more evidence?
This government is in its 11th hour. Now they will bluff the people to protect their votes. There is no time left for them. The agony of departure will be hard from this government.
On the reaction in the West
The US and Britain have a vested interest in telling India to look within. Why? When Americans die then they can send their air force 7,000 miles and bomb every country to smithereens. But when Indians die, they tell us no, no, you must be patient. You must act like a swami and a yogi. Why? Is an American life more precious than an Indian life? Why should we keep listening to them? But we have a government that keeps listening to them all the time. We don't get tough.
The last time we got tough was after the attack on Parliament. We took some tough actions under Operation Parakram and then there was a certain lull. Three years ago, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was able to tell President George W Bush [Images] that there are no terrorists amongst Indian Muslims. That means that lull continued.
Pakistan must be made to realise that it will have to pay a heavy price. Not necessarily through war, but a heavy price will have to be paid in loss in trade, in cancellation of orders and other engagements. They should pay a heavy price in terms of people to people relations. I am not saying you can freeze a relationship to death, but the message must go out that if there is a crime there will be a penalty. You just can't get away with it.
Let the Pakistan government cooperate with us. But look at how the Pakistan government has buckled down and we are sitting here whimpering.
They want to send some lowly officers to India. For what? Even Pakistan is treating the Manmohan Singh and Sonia Gandhi government with total contempt. They know how weak it is.
Delink Hindu-Muslim relations and Pakistan
Look, you must not confuse the Pakistan issue with the Indian Muslims issue. Their so-called alienation or their economic deprivation is not linked to the issue of Pakistan.
Indian Muslims have nothing to do with Pakistan. They have absolutely no sympathy for Pakistan. They know that Pakistan was the biggest mistake committed in the history of Indian Muslims. They know it. You can ask anyone in Baroda, Bihar or Mumbai. They know how they are suffering the backlash of all the consequences of cross-border terrorism.
Today, they fear retribution from the government, they fear retribution from popular disenchantment and anger. They feel helpless. They feel afraid.
We must understand finally that it is not so much the 'local people', it is the local underworld that is involved in anti-India activities. In 1993, who were involved in terrorism? The underworld. Why have you not done anything about it? The State turns a blind eye to the police and corruption. I don't know how many readers smoke hashish and other stuff, but I am accusing them of cross-border terrorism. Drugs come to India from Afghanistan via Karachi.
What we can do as individuals
If whoever is responsible for protecting the nation fails, then he or she should not be allowed to continue in power. That is the toughest and sharpest message we can give. You can tell that you may be a soft State, but we are a hard people and we are hard voters.
We are not going to forgive you for your lies and deception and for your waffling. How many blasts do we need to understand that? When Jaipur [Images], Ahmedabad [Images], Mumbai and Delhi [Images] happened no one who was genuinely guilty was caught.
We have to understand now that corruption has eaten away vitals of this nation. It is the biggest danger to the security of India. It is not just the case of some spectrum being sold to someone by some minister in. Everyone who is corrupt get out!
It Is a failure all around. We have to be extremely practical and pragmatic. There is great deal to be depressed about as an Indian. Frankly speaking, I feel very angry and upset. I am never upset by the behaviour of our enemies. I am only upset by the betrayal of those I trust.
M J Akbar, editor-in-chief, Covert magazine, spoke to Sheela Bhatt
Friday, November 28, 2008
US daily blames squabbling Indian leaders' for terror attacks
New York (PTI): A leading US daily has blamed "squabbling" Indian political leaders' failure to put national security above partisan politics for a series of terrorist attacks that the country has witnessed, saying its approach to terrorism has consistently been "haphazard and weak-kneed."
"When faced with fundamentalist demands, India's democratically elected leaders have regularly preferred caving to confrontation on a point of principle. The country's institutions and culture have abetted a widespread sense of Muslim separateness from the national mainstream," the Wall Street Journal said in a stinging commentary.
"The country's anti-terrorism effort is reactive and episodic rather than proactive and sustained. Its public discourse on Islam oscillates between crude, anti-Muslim bigotry and mindless sympathy for largely unjustified Muslim grievance-mongering. Its failure to either charm or cow its Islamist-friendly neighbours -- Pakistan and Bangladesh -- reveals a limited grasp of statecraft," the Journal said.
The country's diplomats and soldiers have failed to stabilize the neighborhood, it said, adding that the ongoing attacks in Mumbai underscores the price both Indians and non-Indians caught unawares must now pay.
India's leaders "who invariably swan around with armed guards paid for by the taxpayer" - can't even agree on a legal framework to keep the country safe, it says, adding that on taking office in 2004, one of the first acts of the ruling Congress Party was to scrap a federal antiterrorism law that strengthened witness protection and enhanced police powers.
The Congress, it says, has stalled state-level legislation in Gujarat, which is ruled by the opposition BJP. And it was a Congress government that kowtowed to fundamentalist pressure and made India the first country to ban Mumbai-born Salman Rushdie's "Satanic Verses" in 1988.
"When faced with fundamentalist demands, India's democratically elected leaders have regularly preferred caving to confrontation on a point of principle. The country's institutions and culture have abetted a widespread sense of Muslim separateness from the national mainstream," the Wall Street Journal said in a stinging commentary.
"The country's anti-terrorism effort is reactive and episodic rather than proactive and sustained. Its public discourse on Islam oscillates between crude, anti-Muslim bigotry and mindless sympathy for largely unjustified Muslim grievance-mongering. Its failure to either charm or cow its Islamist-friendly neighbours -- Pakistan and Bangladesh -- reveals a limited grasp of statecraft," the Journal said.
The country's diplomats and soldiers have failed to stabilize the neighborhood, it said, adding that the ongoing attacks in Mumbai underscores the price both Indians and non-Indians caught unawares must now pay.
India's leaders "who invariably swan around with armed guards paid for by the taxpayer" - can't even agree on a legal framework to keep the country safe, it says, adding that on taking office in 2004, one of the first acts of the ruling Congress Party was to scrap a federal antiterrorism law that strengthened witness protection and enhanced police powers.
The Congress, it says, has stalled state-level legislation in Gujarat, which is ruled by the opposition BJP. And it was a Congress government that kowtowed to fundamentalist pressure and made India the first country to ban Mumbai-born Salman Rushdie's "Satanic Verses" in 1988.
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