We will take corruption headon err Sonia headon !!!

Take corruption headon. Sure, take Sonia G headon to rid the nation of corruption.
From: hilda raja
Sonia’s “we will take corruption head on”sounds brave. It brought to my mind my little granddaughter while playing with her dolls would turn the heads of a few backwards. I hope SG’s head can be turned backwards to face herself from behind and the party lined up behind her .Then this ‘head on business’ will show her as the first casualty for denigrating every constitutional post and foisting herself as an extra constitutional power., undermining the PM’s post and actions, and constituting her own Parliament called the NAC. The Congress is corruption and corruption is Congress - the twain can never be parted.

Not to be left behind P.Chidambaram wants us to close our eyes and attune our antennae to the audio sounds emanating from Rahul Gandhi - he tells us that we can hear Rajiv Gandhi’s voice. Granted it is true - so what is the big deal? Rajiv Gandhi was taking the Congress not to the 21st century but down slide –his death came in handy for the Congress fortunes to be revived and the States which went to the polls after his assassination won on sympathy vote - not on the 21st century vision. To continue PC’s closed eyes listening ‘Millions are not connected to our economic system not because they do not want to but have no opportunity to. Why is the per capita income so low at the bottom 20 percent of India ”. We need to imagine a lot of things. One, to whom is he addressing to close the eyes? The PM seems always to have both his eyes and ears closed hence he needs to be charged for his silence and inaction. To whom is PC asking why the bottom of the 20 percent population of India ’s income is so low- That must be attributed to the economist Prime Minister of ours and the Congress party. It needs to be addressed by the Finance Minister who keeps asking us to live in hope - that the prices of essential commodities will come down. Can PC tell us why onions are being sold today for more than Rs 80 per kilo? Then the séance continues - he has put everyone on the couch and is performing a psycho analysis- start imaging he tells us with eyes closed and ears opened. ‘Imagine we heeded the call of Rahul Gandhi… imagine every child in school vaccinated and inoculated, imagine leaving school with skills… imagine everyone out of the college with a job” Then the analyst is suddenly pushed off his feet by the awakened tranced people and confronted with the question why have you failed to achieve all this? You think you can take us always on an imaginary trip - -Yes why did you not achieve this - why have you kept us in a trance and why the hell are you the Home Minister and why is the Congress in power which failed to achieve all this.- Damn it and be off. PC winds up his séance by predicting that the Opposition turn will not come for the next ten years- because they have still to wind up the hustle and the bustle of corruption activities and gather what remains. PC thinks he is smart – he who lost the last election by the whisker - thanks to an ever understanding EC and the ever honest MKarunanidhi who did what had to be done – so that in the third round of recounts he won by a few hundreds of votes. Shame on PC, he is making sure that his position will be safeguarded and hence this close eyes and open ears like open sesame and shut sesame. Only he will get shut within his own guilty conscience. His open ears had not heeded the wails and cries of those gunned down by the Islamic terrorists- his closed eyes see only ‘saffron ‘ for he is color blind and his great task of fulfilling the vision of Rahul Gandhi is limited to the exchanging of dossiers with Pakistan. Which is having the last laugh. Remember the WilkiLeaks referring to PC as demanding the interview with Headley for saving his face.

The grand finale of the whole theatrics of the drama enacted by the Congress and staged at Burari was good entertainment. For a moment one thought it was the BJP’s when we closed our eyes and opened our ears it sound like the BJP’s voices against corruption. Then when we got out of the trance and opened our eyes it was all Congress faces - faces of the corrupt and the leaders of the corrupt. The puppeteer had a break and the Puppet of the PM spoke. He invoked Caesar’s wife to be above suspicion. It was more a soliloquy. He has nothing to hide and is magnanimous to offer to be enquired by the Public Accounts Committee. The PM must know very well that the PAC has no powers to probe into a wide spectrum of the 2G spectrum except look into the accounts. So why should he offer to be probed by a PAC which is not empowered to probe him or the other aspects in which he is involved? If the PM is innocent as he wants us to believe then he should bravely declare that the JPC can be constituted and he is prepared to appear before it. The fact that the Congress is shying from the JPC itself reveals that it has and the PM has something to hide. What is the use of a fig leave to cover up? Finally the PM’s assertion that he did no wrong must be proved by the probing machinery. He cannot give himself a clean chit. Even a child in India will know that the PM’s silence - his appointed of Adhimuthu Raja as the Minister for Tel Com –the PM’s silence for three years - his refusal to sack the minister are the areas where he failed to perform his constitutional duties and when he failed to uphold the oath he had taken when he took over office.
Mr Manmohan Singh must also be answerable why he appointed PJ Thomas as the Chief Vigilant Commissioner. Does all this prove that like Caesar’s wife he is above suspicion? Come on Mr Prime Minister, and prove those brave words by asserting that you will face any probe by any constitutionally constituted mechanism and which is the best-the Joint Parliamentary Committee which comprises the elected representatives of the people. That is democracy. That the JPC is useless and that it will not lead to anything and that it is unnecessary etc are vague excuses-then why earlier were there JPCs? Let the useless JPC become useful this time, and if it does not, all the more better for the Congress for the PM will be proved to be like Caesar’s wife-above all suspicion.
Mrs Sonia Gandhi and her son Rahul must realize that this nation is not one of zombies. We are a people capable with tremendous common sense and are highly intelligent politically and socially. They cannot try and replay the ‘God Father’ story in India . So they cannot take us for a ride all the time. There is a limit to tolerance. When she handpicked a PM she threw to the winds democracy. As it is Manmohan Singh is a Rajya Sabha member and hence strictly speaking he does not have the vote of the people. This is his biggest liability and Mrs Sonia Gandhi who does not understand an iota of democracy handpicked him to be the PM. That was an insult to the people. Even the President was her choice and it was made clear when she stood before No 10 Janpath holding the hand of the President. Body language is a strong non verbal communication - whether in holding hands or when like the mother hen she ushers and leads the PM
She has rubbed salt in our wounds when she formed the National Advisory Council-this to advise her and in turn the PM. It is a clear indication that she wants the PM to act in accordance to the decisions taken at the NAC which she chairs. So what is Parliament meant for when she has constituted a parallel Parliament with her at its head? Is this not denigration of the PM’s post and of Parliamentary democracy? What credibility and moral authority has Mrs Sonia Gandhi - the defaulter to preach, ‘we will not allow the PM’s post to be denigrated?
The latest dent to democracy is Rahul telling the ambassador of the USA That India is more threatened by Hindu extremists than by Islamist terrorists. Rahul is only an MP and one of the General Secretaries of the Congress party-why has he made such a statement and who authorized him to do so? Is this democracy? Is this not denigration of everything democratic in the GOI’s functioning? We have the PM, The Home minister, the minister for Foreign Affairs and also our own ambassadors where does Rahul come in the picture to make such a false allegation against the Hindu extremists when here there are hundreds of terrorists’ attacks by Islam terrorists. Is this democracy?
I plead to Mrs Sonia Gandhi and her son not to take the nation for a ride - it will be at their own costs. People are awakening and will not tolerate this nonsense no matter how high they consider themselves to be. It is the people of India to whom they should be ever so grateful for their immense tolerance of such inexcusable denigration of all that is democratic - but there is a limit to tolerance and the people will reach the zero tolerance of such puppettering of governance in the name of democracy.
Dr Mrs Hilda Raja Vadodara.

Don’t confuse, Rahul Gandhi is no “Bacha”
http://www.haindavakeralam.com/HKPage.aspx?PageID=12868&SKIN=B

From: Chand K Sharma
Congress Cat is out of the Bag
Ever Since Congress Party came under the influence of Gandhi, the party adopted anti Hindu stance. To prop his own ideology, Gandhi always emotionally blackmailed his colleagues, sacrificed Hindu interests and pleased the Muslims. Finally he gave his life for the interest of Pakistan at the cost of Hindus.
His prodigal political heir Nehru also followed his footsteps. He took pride in saying that he was Hindu by accidental mistake (on the part of his parents!), he was bodily Muslim and an Englishman in tastes. It was India 's misfortune that he happened to be the PM. Nehru and Gandhi, betrayed the interests of India in Kashmir and Tibet , the problems we are grappled with. The made Hindu hater Muslims equal partners in truncated India , when they had already taken away one third part of India as Pakistan .
Indira, without solving the Kashmir problem gifted away the territory to Pakistan and nullified the sacrifice of our Jawans.
Rajiv Gandhi got Indian soldiers killed for nothing in Sri Lanka and destroyed the constitutional institutions. His widow is now embarked upon on completing the left over task of destroying India and her culture.
Most of the coterie around Sonia and Rahul are Christians retaining their Hindu names to camouflage their real identity.
It is high time that Hindus should individually pledge to shun Congress party and identify it as totally anti Hindu out fit and unite their democratic efforts to throw Congress regime out of power for ever at the earliest Electoral opportunity.
Chand K Sharma
Sonia Gandhi and the hidden trail
http://expressbuzz.com/edition/print.aspx?artid=233507
By John MacLithon
The Indian media has begun even doubting Manmohan Singh’s integrity — mental, at least — as he must have been knowing for nearly two years that the Indian exchequer was defrauded of `1.76 lakh crores. But so far, Sonia Gandhi has been spared.
Yet, if you are an observer of Indian politics, as I have been, since I landed back in India in the early ’Sixties, you have to come to the conclusion that most of the funds of scams end up in the coffers of political parties, particularly of the Congress.
Today the DMK is taking the brunt of the blame, but actually political parties have been forced to follow suit after the grand old party of India’s independence, began using percentages allotted by foreign companies on mega deals, military and otherwise, to secretly fund its election campaigns and give freebies to poor villagers. Of course, Bofors was the first one of the big scams to be uncovered.
I remember in the mid-Eighties a Swiss radio colleague of mine from Radio Suisse Romande, telling me that Amitabh Bachchan’s brother, Ajitabh, (when the Bachchan family was still close to the Gandhis), was one of the first safe keepers of the kickbacks of the Swedish canon makers. Exposes of Swedish newspaper, Dagens Nhyeter further confirmed it, though Ajitabh went to court against them.
There is no doubt, further says my Swiss friend, that part of the Bofors money is still in Switzerland . Indeed, we are all waiting for the Swiss banks to reveal (under US pressure) the names of all the dictators, thieves, dishonest rulers of so many countries in the world, who have stashed their ill-gotten money in UBS bank or Credit Suisse.
Meanwhile, all roads seem to lead to Sonia Gandhi: she is the first Lady of India , although she is a simple MP like hundreds of others, the ultimate arbiter, and nothing of importance is decided without her caveat. The immense power she wields within the Congress cannot be only due to her charisma, of her having the Gandhi name or having brought cohesion in the Congress.
It is also, and perhaps mainly, because she holds the purse strings of tremendous amounts of money. These party funds are overt: all the foundations, Rajiv, Indira, Nehru, etc, which store thousands of crores; and covert, starting with the Bofors scam. Where are the secret bank accounts where the scam money is stored? Under whose names are they operated? How is the money brought back to India ? Who will answer all these questions?
We know that Quattrochi, the man who could have spilt the beans, was shamelessly let off the hook, not only by the CBI which today is conducting — two years late — the investigation on the 2G scam, but also by the then law minister who is today the governor who pretends to be after corruption in Karnataka! Not only was Quattrochi spared, but was allowed to take the money he had looted from India and which was frozen in British banks, so that he would not talk.
Will Raja talk, if he is arrested, as it is rumoured? Surely he knows a lot of secrets,as some of the 2G, Adarsh CWG money, and other unknown scams, must also have gone into the Congress coffers. That is the question that the Congress leadership should debate instead of going after ‘Hindu terror’, a misnomer if there is one.
If you look at statistics for the last 1,000 years, it is Hindus who have been at the receiving end of terror — millions of them have died, including in Kashmir in the late ’Eighties, when Benazir Bhutto launched her ‘Azad Kashmir’ movement (I was there).
Yet Sonia Gandhi remains a mystery for many of us, even for me who has known her for a long time.
I found her quite likable when she was just Rajiv Gandhi’s (the pilot) spouse, a loving wife, who had adopted the Indian way of life; a good daughter -in-law: Indira Gandhi died on her lap on the way to the hospital, after being shot by her Sikh bodyguards; and more than everything, a good mother, who doted on her children and tried all her life to protect them.
I then knew that she had kept her Italian passport, even after taking the Indian nationality (India does not allow you to hold two passports), but I have met quite a few foreigners in Delhi who also retained their origin passports after having obtained the Indian one.
I myself toyed for some time with the idea of taking the Indian nationality, as I speak Hindi quite fluently, but it is too difficult to travel with an Indian passport. I do not mind also her remaining a Christian: after all, I am still one myself. Indeed, one of my Italian journalist friends told me that he prayed with her, along with Rajiv Gandhi, at a mass in Calicut with the bishop officiating — that is
her private business.
But after her husband was blown to pieces by the LTTE, I observed a drastic change in her: she did not seem to trust anybody anymore, became aloof and suspicious. I also watched with dismay how the Congress leaders, some of them men and women of substance, whom I knew personally, applied pressure on her to enter politics for years.
Furthermore, I thought that in her fortress of Janpath, surrounded twenty-four hours by security, she gradually lost touch with the reality of India . Despite the fact that I met her a few times after Rajiv’s death, I thus took discreetly my distances with her. It is then that I came up with my famous phrase on Sonia, for which she never forgave me: “the moribund and leaderless Congress party has latched on to Sonia Gandhi who is Italian by birth and Roman Catholic by baptism”.
John.maclithon@gmail.com
John, who was a radio journalist covering South Asia for 30 years, is the author of Hindutva, Sex & Adventures (Roly Books, Delhi)

Who can save India from present slavery under Manmohan' Soniajee and Rahul jee and Priyankajee--?
Is India free from Euopean slavery beginning with Dutch, French, portuguese,English and now Italian with collaboration of Muslims,Communists,secularists, opportunists .
SONIA HATAO------------ iNDIA BACHAO.
SONIA NIKALO-------------BHARAT BACHAO.
SONIA BHAGAO-------------BHARAT SAMHALO.
All scams lead to Sonia And Sonia leads all scams.
As the famous saying goes' All the truth undergoes three stages---------- first it is rediculed, then it is violemtly opposed and finally it is accepted as self evident------------------Time has come. The mass protest and agitation is required.
STOP NOT UNTIL THE GOAL IS REACHED and thegoal is to trace, catch and punish the criminals all criminals without exception to free India now.
TUNE DIYA DES KO JEEVAN DES TUMHE KYA DEGA,
APANI AAG JALA RAKHANE KO NAAM TUMHARA LEGA.

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.)

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

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.

Let's Buy Pakistan's Nukes

OPINION: GLOBAL VIEW DECEMBER 16, 2008

By BRET STEPHENS

Every visitor to Pakistan has seen them: 20-foot tall roadside replicas of a remote mountain where, a decade ago, Pakistan conducted its first overt nuclear tests. This is what the country's leaders -- military, secular, Islamist -- consider their greatest achievement.

So here's a modest proposal: Let's buy their arsenal.

A.Q. Khan, father of Pakistan's nuclear program (and midwife to a few others), likes to point out what a feat it was that a country "where we can't even make a bicycle chain" could succeed at such an immense technological task. He exaggerates somewhat: Pakistan got its bomb largely through a combination of industrial theft, systematic violation of Western export controls, and a blueprint of a weapon courtesy of Beijing.

Still, give Mr. Khan this: Thanks partly to his efforts, a country that has impoverished the great mass of its own people, corruptly enriched a tiny handful of elites, served as a base of terrorism against its neighbors, lost control of its intelligence services, radicalized untold numbers of Muslims in its madrassas, handed the presidency to a man known as Mr. 10%, and proliferated nuclear technology to Libya and Iran (among others) has, nevertheless, made itself a power to be reckoned with. Congratulations.

But if Pakistanis thought a bomb would be a net national asset, they miscalculated. Yes, Islamabad gained parity with its adversaries in New Delhi, gained prestige in the Muslim world, and gained a day of national pride, celebrated every May 28.

What Pakistan didn't gain was greater security. "The most significant reality was that the bomb promoted a culture of violence which . . . acquired the form of a monster with innumerable heads of terror," wrote Pakistani nuclear physicist Pervez Hoodbhoy earlier this year. "Because of this bomb, we can definitely destroy India and be destroyed in its response. But its function is limited to this."

In 2007, some 1,500 Pakistani civilians were killed in terrorist attacks. None of those attacks were perpetrated by India or any other country against which Pakistan's warheads could be targeted, unless it aimed at itself. But Pakistan's nuclear arsenal has made it an inviting target for the jihadists who blew up Islamabad's Marriott hotel in September and would gladly blow up the rest of the capital as a prelude to taking it over.

The day that happens may not be so very far off. President Asif Ali Zardari was recently in the U.S. asking for $100 billion to stave off economic collapse. So far, the international community has ponied up about $15 billion. That puts Mr. Zardari $85 billion shy of his fund-raising target. Meantime, the average Taliban foot soldier brings home monthly wages that are 30% higher than uniformed Pakistani security personnel.

Preventing the disintegration of Pakistan, perhaps in the wake of a war with India (how much restraint will New Delhi show after the next Mumbai-style atrocity?), will be the Obama administration's most urgent foreign-policy challenge. Since Mr. Obama has already committed a trillion or so in new domestic spending, what's $100 billion in the cause of saving the world?


This is the deal I have in mind. The government of Pakistan would verifiably eliminate its entire nuclear stockpile and the industrial base that sustains it. In exchange, the U.S. and other Western donors would agree to a $100 billion economic package, administered by an independent authority and disbursed over 10 years, on condition that Pakistan remain a democratic and secular state (no military rulers; no Sharia law). It would supplement that package with military aid similar to what the U.S. provides Israel: F-35 fighters, M-1 tanks, Apache helicopters. The U.S. would also extend its nuclear umbrella to Pakistan, just as Hillary Clinton now proposes to do for Israel.

A pipe dream? Not necessarily. People forget that the world has subtracted more nuclear powers over the past two decades than it has added: Kazakhstan, Belarus, Ukraine and South Africa all voluntarily relinquished their stockpiles in the 1990s. Libya did away with its program in 2003 when Moammar Gadhafi concluded that a bomb would be a net liability, and that he had more to gain by coming to terms with the West.

There's no compelling reason Mr. Zardari and his military brass shouldn't reach the same conclusion, assuming excellent terms and desperate circumstances. Sure, a large segment of Pakistanis will never agree. Others, who have subsisted on a diet of leaves and grass so Pakistan could have its bomb, might take a more pragmatic view.

The tragedy of Pakistan is that it remains a country that can't do the basics, like make a bicycle chain. If what its leaders want is prestige, prosperity and lasting security, they could start by creating an economy that can make one -- while unlearning how to make the bomb.

Write to bstephens@wsj.com

Voices from Pakistan

Voices from Pakistan by Anees Jillani

A friend recently organised a candlelight vigil in solidarity with the Mumbai attack victims last Wednesday in Islamabad. I received several SMSes and emails asking me to join but I could not go.
I am glad I did not in this cold weather, as less than 15 people in the city of more than 1.5 million turned up to show solidarity with the Mumbai victims. The fate of another function to deplore the Mumbai attacks organised by another peace activist, Liaqat Ali, in Lahore was no different.
One can partly attribute it to the general apathy in Pakistani society in general about any issue, what to talk of one related to India, in this tense situation. Newspapers periodically make fun of civil society demonstrations stating that there were more fancy cars parked at a demonstration venue than protesters but the turnout at these symbolic vigils to show solidarity with the Mumbai victims is still pathetic.
There are a few expressing positive feelings for the victims and this category generally falls in the class that frequently visits expensive restaurants like the ones located in Oberoi and Taj. Many also associate Mumbai with the September blast at the Marriott Hotel. It is possible that more people would have shown sympathy for the Mumbai victims and would have shown solidarity with the people of India at this juncture, if India had not upped the temperature by blaming Pakistan and the ISI.
One may find it hard to believe but a sizeable section of the educated class in Pakistan seriously adheres to the view that 9/11 was the product of a Zionist-cum-CIA conspiracy to malign Muslims, and consequently to topple the Taliban and Saddam’s regimes.
I thus found it hard to convince a friend, a senior executive in a multinational, while the Mumbai holdup was continuing, that the attacks were unlikely to have been perpetrated by RSS, VHP or BJP.
This line of reasoning is becoming more prevalent, with the Pakistani electronic media taking the lead in forming it. It must again be stated here that we never see the Pakistani media adopt this attitude when an act of terrorism takes place in India, and it can thus be described more as a reaction to the perceived Indian media hype against Pakistan.
Public opinion is growing for a call to ask India to extradite Colonel Srikanth Purohit and Sadhvi Pragya Thakur (arrested in connection with the Malegaon blasts) for being responsible for killing Pakistanis in the Samjhauta Express blast (February 18, 2007), and other Muslims elsewhere in India.
This is a reaction to the old Indian demand to hand over 20 terrorists said to be living in Pakistan.
Indian news channels are not shown on cable television anywhere in Pakistan, although the entertainment ones are widely watched and admired. And it goes without saying that people, notwithstanding the hype, regularly continue to watch Indian soap operas and movies on TV and their DVDs. Despite lacking access to news channels, it is widely reported by all local TV channels that the Indian media started to blame Pakistan within minutes of the first attack in Mumbai.
One small TV channel has gone to the extent of constantly playing national and martial songs sung by Noor Jehan during the 1965 War, which the majority of Pakistanis feel they won. India attacked Lahore on September 6, 1965, and this day is celebrated as Defence Day and a national holiday.
The most popular TV channel other than the government owned PTV as it is a terrestrial channel, is Geo, owned by the Jang Group of Newspapers. Its viewership is said to total that of all the other channels put together, except PTV. Geo News has been constantly covering the Mumbai attacks for the past few days, blaming the Indian government for failing to anticipate it, and mishandling the rescue operation.
Clips about the Mumbai police running from the Victoria Station are being shown and the likes of Hamid Gul, former ISI chief, and Shirin Mazari, former DG of the Institute of Strategic Studies, can be seen and heard on almost all channels.
There is hardly a person on the talk shows who even alludes to the likelihood of the Indian claims of the involvement of Pakistani militants being true. The Mumbai attackers are classified by these hawks as either being Indian Hindu militants, or maybe Indian Muslims, but never Pakistanis.
A lot is made of one of the militants seen in a photograph with an orange thread tied to his right wrist. Pakistanis do not generally tie such threads; and it is thus taken as clear evidence that the attack was by a non- Muslim group. They find it hypocritical that the Indian media has not picked this up at all. Or they accuse it of deliberately ignoring this pointer.
Mercifully, the country has not yet started air raid rehearsals, but it is in martial mood, although almost everybody believes that there won’t be war, thanks to the American presence. It is a sad reflection on the state of Indo-Pakistani relations that we are proud of our status as nuclear powers, but unable to sort out our differences bilaterally. Our leaders hug and indulge in double-handshakes in front of cameras but react emotionally at the first tense moment.
Dr Mubeshir Hasan, a well-known peace activist associated, with the non-governmental Human Rights Commission and India Pakistan People’s Forum, is of the opinion that “the peoples and the governments of India and Pakistan are well on their way to improve relations between the two countries. There are hiccups now and then but they will be overcome. The two governments face insurgency situations, and as such are not in full control of the elements who take up arms against their own state or other states.” He is obviously an optimist! Thomas Friedman recently asked an interesting question in an article in The New York Times. How would the Pakistanis or, for that matter, the Muslim world have reacted if the attackers had been Hindu militants, and the venue Karachi instead of Mumbai? You need not waste time trying to calculate the reaction, as Muslims would have reacted, even if not on the streets. This is a basic problem in trying to improve relations between the communities.
Relations can only genuinely improve when people of the Muslim community, or the Hindus, for that matter, regard the others as enjoying the same rights and being part of the overall community going by the name of humans. When the tsunami hit parts of Southeast Asia and South Asia on December 26 2004, common Europeans gave millions in charity during the Christmas festivities that year, without pondering for a moment if the victims were Muslims, Hindus or Christians. We in South Asia would be eligible to belong to the civilised world when we in Pakistan genuinely sympathise with the Mumbai victims, and the Indians do the same with the Gujarat or Orissa riot victims. Mahatma Gandhi could do it. Why can’t we?
About the author:
Anees Jillani is a prominent Pakistan Supreme Court lawyer

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.

'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.

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

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".