I will take you up on your offer the next time I visit that beautiful city, but I warn you my views about politics and religion are pretty radical.

Here is a refreshing development, finally, somebody in the print media had the guts to say, what should have been said a long time back:

http://www.jang.com.pk/jang/sep2008-daily/23-09-2008/col8.htm

till then keep sharing your thoughts and keep Pakistan in your prayers.

That’s my opinion, also I am entitled to my opinion of the bloggers and to express it, and they can comment on it like you have done here. I have a high regard for Hassan and he knows me from my previous posts, but then I am angry, and sometimes one should write in anger, the time for being politically correct has gone.

As far as me and you are concerned , wehave our history right except for the issue of Osama’s money being used in our politics, I agree with you on Talibaan & Afghan history and assure you my sources on my “assertion” are very “well placed”. I didn’t need any confirmation but then COWASJEE also wrote about it, you can go talk to him, write to him or dig up his articles. True that jihad against USSR was a tactical necessity but nurturing & exporting that Jihaad was our own choice. By the way the other stake holders like UAE, Saudia, USSR , USA and the whole wide Islamic don’t give a damn about us, they have their interests on the other hand it seems that we want to carry the burden of the whole ummah on our weak shoulders, we are bound to get crushed.

In the end I guess we are all worried about the future and have our notions of how it should unfold. Before this latest explosion the world stock market rebounded from a slide and there was an average increase of 400 – 600 points in the markets around the world. The same day I had a look at KSE and was literally shocked that it just managed a ONE point increase with trading volumes much below than 1999. This shows how long it takes to build and how quickly one can descend into abyss.

9/11 was a blessing in disguise; otherwise we were very close to a silent take over of our society by these mad men. Don’t you remember the wall chalkings at that time, This Kafir and that Kafir. They used to have large public gatherings in our cities like Lahore & Karachi, where people wearing commando shalwar Kameez and carrying KK’s use to yell open threats on the loud speakers. Hotel, consulates and what not was being bombarded even then. After 9/11 clean up of the cities was largely successful until 2007 where they again went on an offensive this time focussing on the Capital.

This is a deep rooted cancer and cannot be treated with an Ostritch approach. The nations who have fought and won against worst terrorism have done so by presenting a united front despite internal differences. If we cannot mange this, then I agree with what the author is advocating i.e. surrender.

It’s a fact that the tribal area have always been independent, they have always had the same customs and rituals practised within their boundries. But the arrival of Arabs has changed all that. In plain words “writ of the Govt of Pakistan cannot be imposed on the Tribal regions”, OK all right. But in the same vain there writ cannot be allowed to be imposed on the settled areas of independent Pakistan.

I have noticed your posts on other MBs as well I can’t speak for others, but on LMB I would request that you change the tone of your comments (Are all our bloggers deaf / blind or they are just plain chicken?)

No one is chicken here and everyone is entitled to his/her opinion so please be respectful to others when posting.

Pakistan participated in Soviet war for her own interest…had we not done the Soviet would have attacked us next after Afghanistan. Would you have liked that? And it is no secret that we always wanted to protect the Afghan border and so when Taliban came to power there we never felt threatened by them. And btw, it wasn’t us only who backed them…..what about UAE and KSA?

Secondly, when you make vague and irresponsible statements like ‘Who accepted money from Osama to destabilize our own governments?’ you need to provide some credible source. you just can’t come up with conspiracy theories here and hope that others would believe you.

So this is not our war, we are just innocent beings caught unknowingly in the middle of somebody else’s doing. Bravo! Hats off to this latest revelation. But if this is the case then what we were doing in Afghanistan in the last three decades?

Who marketed the Jihaad against USSR to US and asked them to join in?

Who continued with this screwed up philosophy long after the retreat of USSR?

Who setup training camps where these mad cow boys continued to receive military training?

Who created Taliban?

Who accepted money from Osama to destabilize our own governments?

Who amongst us had dreams of exporting this Jihaad all over central Asia including China & India?

Why do we not condemn or even talk about bearded rats like Osama & Zawahiri? Why can’t we have blog posts about them? Why can’t media make them a topic of a talk show?

How come we splatter our presidents and politicians with mud and ridicule and dare not utter a single word about these crack pots? Are all our bloggers deaf / blind or they are just plain chicken?

before 9/11 did you know what was going in FATA and other northern areas of Pakistan? maybe even back then there was no music, no internet, no tv there? we all know the history of FATA…it has always been a state within a state, but prior to 9/11 they never created any problems for us. let me ask you this? do you think tomorrow if NATO and the US forces decide to leave Afghanistan will the Pakistan army still continue its operation madness? I bet the Pak army will be the first to retrieve because it will no longer be on payroll ($$$$$$$$$$).

The Talibans are not on a mission to spread Talibinaztion in Pakistan, but rather at WAR with the state of Pakistan, which first created them and when no longer required started killing them left and right! The Americans will eventually leave the region, maybe soon, but its Pakistan that will have to encounter the post American scenario similar to the post Afghan-Russian war.

If the US can have a peace treaty with Muqtada in Iraq why can’t we have peace with the Talibans????? We MUST not further aggravate the situation and STOP the military operation.

Let us assume one sunny morning the Americans and NATO decide to pack-up and leave from Afghanistan. Does any one believe the Taliban would just say, “Ok, that’s done now. Let us brush up our CVs and start going through the employment pages for a decent 9 to 5 job.” No, not really. The Taliban won’t stop until they turn whole of Pakistan into another Talibanistan a la Afghanistan. They won’t spare anyone – pro or anti-Taliban. No TV, no Internet, no music, no picture, no ads, no films, no cricket, no women on streets, no minorities, no nothing, back to the caves. They won’t merely stop at enslaving otherwise hardworking Pakistanis. They will use their technical acumen to further their own nefarious and inhuman agenda worldwide.

Pakistan is fighting a war of its survival. It is our own war, make no mistake about it.

22 Sep 2008

Editorial: Admit it: this is Pakistan’s war

Twelve hours after the blasting of the Marriott Hotel in Islamabad, the flames had still not been doused. The medium-sized Shehzore truck, packed with 600 kg of RDX explosives, drove up to the hotel barrier and exploded, setting the hotel on fire. It is more than likely that, just as he was “pleasantly” surprised by the result of the attack on the World Trade Centre in New York in 2001, Osama bin Laden must have been “happily” surprised by the total annihilation of the hotel with a truck that, according to the owner Mr Sadruddin Hashwani, was not even allowed to enter the premises but stopped at the barrier near the main road by the hotel guards.

Islamabad has received major attention from Al Qaeda after the elections in 2008, at the rate of almost once a month. Al Qaeda has acknowledged bombing the Danish embassy while letting its Taliban minions accept responsibility for others. And Al Qaeda is not new to the task. In 1995, by his own admission, Aiman al Zawahiri had proclaimed his theory of al adu al qarib (the near enemy) by bombing and completely destroying the Egyptian embassy in Islamabad. However, despite all this special attention from Al Qaeda, the security agencies have not been able to “secure” Islamabad. One reason is obvious. Suicide bombers are virtually unstoppable. Another is the existence of Al Qaeda sympathisers and facilitators at every level of Pakistani society, but especially at the lower level. A third is the lack of anti-terrorist training in our civilian intelligence agencies which are ill-staffed and ill-equipped. Low levels of pay account for low levels of motivation too.

The target may have been the parliament building where President Asif Zardari made his speech in the presence of all the important personages of the state. A truck laden with explosives was allowed to move on the roads of the capital city without sufficient checking. One reason is that it was camouflaged as a contruction-goods carrier, which made it congruous with the construction sites across the city. Apparently it was “checked” a short distance from the Marriott but the checking was confined to diverting it in one sensitive area rather than examing its contents. According to former secretary FATA, Brigadier (Retd) Mehmood Khan, the explosives could be from the Wah munitions factory, contents of a truck hijacked by Al Qaeda not long ago. Al Qaeda was thus using local resources.

The Marriott Hotel was probably the secondary target. Unfortunately, no one in Islamabad possessed the imagination to visualise what Al Qaeda could do with suicide-bombing. The hotel had received three hits before this, once clearly threatened by the clerics of Lal Masjid who boasted having many suicide-bombers in reserve, an oblique reference to the destructive ability of Al Qaeda, the patron of the growing strength of violent clergy in Islamabad, with nearly a hundred madrassas, many of them illegal. The seizure of Islamabad is on the drawing board of the leaders of Al Qaeda.

Regrettably, there was some “deflective” journalism in evidence soon enough. One commentator said President Zardari should go to the US, stare President Bush in the eye and challenge him. Another seriously wondered if the blast might actually have been caused by “foreign” powers, a reference that could embrace anyone from India, Afghanistan, Israel and Russia to the United States. One journalist alleged that the Marriott was a target because some American Marines had secretly holed out there during Admiral Mike Mullen’s visit to Islamabad last week. A cleric in Quetta said he could not condemn the attack because it was a fidai hamla (suicide attack) aimed at “America and its accomplices”. A leader of Jama’at-e Islami thought it could be a sequel to blasts in India, meaning that it could be a tit-for-tat incident from India and not from someone inside Pakistan. It is amazing how these people are deceiving themselves and the people of Pakistan by not calling a spade a spade —Al Qaedi did it — because of their anti-Americanism, however justified that may be.

Thankfully, it was Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani who was direct and clear in his designation of the enemy. He said the attack had come from Al Qaeda and its thousands of “foreign” terrorists now located in the Tribal Areas. President Zardari was more exhortative when he said he and the people of Pakistan would together face the onslaught of terrorism and referred to “the wife that he had buried” after she fell victim to the same terrorists not too far from Islamabad last December. It was also good to see Rehman Malik, the advisor to the interior ministry, arrive at the site and take charge minutes after the incident and facilitate the treatment of the casualties in the various hospitals of the city.

Let us admit it. This is Pakistan’s war that Pakistan’s army is fighting. Let us also admit that Pakistan needs alignments at the global level to even diagnose what is happening to it, apart from the crucial intelligence about the movement and intent — through tapped phone calls — of Al Qaeda and those who serve it. And let us admit that, given its economic crisis, Pakistan cannot even deploy the muscle it possesses against the terrorists unless it is assisted with funds, expertise and technology from its friends abroad. *