Ten Fictions that Pakistani Defense Officials Love to Peddle

An old topic son but something that will keep cropping up. Pakistan has at least got a civilian system which is good but the problem is the Pakistani army which is like a giant parasite on the country region and the world. 

We will have serious issues with Pakistan as we did before and with nuclear weapons it's dangerous. But some signs of intelligence are still there like the recent neutrality proposal for the stupid Yemeni issue. 

Still read the history son. This is as much as about history as its about politics and philosophy and diplomacy and terrorism. Sad

Love

Baba

Ten Fictions that Pakistani Defense Officials Love to Peddle
http://warontherocks.com/2014/01/ten-fictions-that-pakistani-defense-officials-love-to-peddle/
(via Instapaper)

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Ten Fictions that Pakistani Defense Officials Love to Peddle

The U.S.-Pakistan “strategic dialogue” has restarted yet again.  I would be remiss if I did not point that it has never been strategic and it has certainly not been a dialogue.  No doubt the Pakistanis are worried that wary American taxpayers and their congressional representatives may close the checkbook for good when the last U.S. soldier departs from Afghanistan.  In the spirit of perpetual rent-seeking, Pakistani defense officials have recently alighted upon Washington to offer the same tired and hackneyed narratives that are tailored to guilt the Americans into keeping the gravy train chugging along.

Here are the top ten ossified fictions that Pakistani defense officials are pedaling and what you need to know to call the “Bakvas Flag” on each of them.

1.  “Our relationship should be strategic rather than transactional.”

Nonsense and here’s why.  For the U.S.-Pakistan relationship to be “strategic,” there should be a modicum of convergence of interests in the region if not beyond.  Yet, there is no evidence that this is the case.  In fact, Pakistan seems most vested in undermining U.S. interests in the region. In the name of the conflict formerly known as the Global War on Terror (GWOT), the United States has given Pakistan some $27 billion in military and financial aid as well as lucrative reimbursements.  However, during these same years, Pakistan has continued to aid and abet the Afghan Taliban and allied militant groups such as the Haqqani Network.  These organizations are the very organizations that have killed American military and civilian personnel in Afghanistan along with those of our allies in the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) and countless more Afghans, in and out of uniform.  This is in addition to the flotilla of Islamist militant groups that Pakistan uses as tools of foreign policy in India. Foremost among them is the Lashkar-e-Taiba, which is proscribed by the United States and which is responsible for the most lethal terror operations in India and, since 2006, has openly operated against Americans in Afghanistan.

Birangonas

So I went to this quiz yesterday. The team came second. I was invited by Salil my friend who has just written a book on Bangladesh and in particular the killing of sheikh mujibur in 1974. So the quiz was for raising money so that this team can help make a documentary on the birangonas. An estimated 200000-400000 women were raped by the razakars and Pakistani army during the operation searchlight and then the war of independence in 1971.
These poor women were damaged twice. First by the Pakistani soldiers and razakars first. And then second by their Bangladeshi men and society who shunned them, abandoned them, murdered them. About 50000 women were forcibly impregnated. I met with an old Australian doctor who carried out late term abortions on these women. If they had given birth to children of their rapists, then the child would have been killed along with the mother or would've gone through pain.
The women suffer silently. They don't have a channel to express their grief. Nor does the society care. For them they are a reminder of their fragility and weakness and honour. And now, 44 years later, they are dying off. Without their stories being told.
So what these 4 women are doing is to make a documentary on them to show off their stories and try to change society. An extraordinary mission
Just 4 women. Came together and decided to do something. That's what I like. People who DO. Not just talk about it. Or press the like button on Facebook. Oh and sheikh mujibur named them birangonas. War women. Aptly named.
So I've offered my help with fundraising or photography or historical research but looks like they are well covered in that area. So let's see how I can help. But it was an amazing evening son. Seriously affected me.
There was one photograph in particular about a birangona. She was holding a rifle in one hand, a baby in her arms and a small child was holding on to her Aanchal. She was silhouetted against the sky. A black and white photo. Looking off into the direction of where the soldiers had gone. And that was a punch in the gut. She was woman. Who fought to protect her kids. And got raped. And would be abandoned by her husband. But if you want to think of raw courage that's it son. For her to keep loving her kids, living in abject poverty, but in silence. Now there is courage for you.
Anyway. I came out and went for a walk along the 10pm night time next to the Thames. The tide was in and the lights of the O2 and other areas were glimmering on the wind swept surface of the river. Curious son curious. Events of nearly 50 years back and echoing across all those years and so many kilometres.
Made many new friends and a new avenue to explore and learn.
Love
Baba

Rusting anchor: The creation & mutation of a national ideology

Son

We just came through a rather bruising election. I was supporting Nicola Sturgeon heavily. For couple of reasons. First I firmly believe that people have the right to craft out their own identity. Form their groups. And that's why I strongly support them. Second is that the country is too centralised in Westminster and it requires this kind of a shakeup to really focus minds on what exactly is the United Kingdom for?

It was very instructive during the Scottish referendum as to what the Scots were saying they wanted. They actually wanted to pretty much everything to remain the same. Queen. Taxation. History. BBC. Education. Ideology. International membership. But they wanted to be ruled by themselves.

But there is a problem with this Scottish nationalism. It's defined as opposed to Westminster. Not so much as what's Scottish. See above. There is no difference son. So ultimately when push comes to shove, there is no hard core reason to separate. Think about Wales or Northern Ireland. Same with Pakistan below. It keeps on having existential debates.

Every country which bases itself on religion first of all is run by idiots. Frankly morons. Secondly they are incoherent. And finally religion is a hugely pathetic way of organising a modern country which is why most religiously oriented countries like Israel, most Muslim countries keep on having functions. There's academic research backing this up as well. The Buddhist nations also learnt it the hard way.

Anyway one to read. Also read Seymour Hersh's report on Osama's death in the London review of books published yesterday. It's shocking to read the way the Americans and Pakistanis went about this. This will have long term repercussions. Not good.

Love

Baba

Rusting anchor: The creation & mutation of a national ideology
http://www.dawn.com/news/1160202
(via Instapaper)

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For decades certain sections of the Pakistani intelligentsia have been insisting on the importance of changing the country’s national narrative (to better fight the social aspects of Pakistan’s war against religious extremism).

They are correct in suggesting that the more militant ogres now at war with the state of Pakistan are armed expressions and projections of a rather myopic national narrative.

This narrative, to them, is the result of whatever that was concocted in the name of a national ideology many years ago and then proliferated through school text books and the state-owned media until it began to inform the political, constitutional and social mind-set of the Pakistani polity as a whole.

Today, it is largely being blamed for popularising a peculiar idea of nationhood engineered through the state’s many experiments that seeded a non-organic ideology - a dogma that has contributed the most in whatever that has gone down in this country in terms of faith-based violence and the ever-increasing episodes of bigotry.

So what was this idea? And why today even the military and political establishments of the country are finally looking to tweak it, if not outright replace it?

The paradox

Pakistan had come into being in 1947 on the back of what its founders called the Two Nation Theory.

The Theory was culled from the 19th Century writings of modernist Muslim reformers in India who, after the collapse of the Muslim Empire in South Asia, began to explain the region’s Muslims as a separate political and cultural entity (especially compared to the Hindu majority of India).

This scholarly nuance gradually evolved into becoming a pursuit to prepare a well-educated and resourceful Muslim middle-class in the region.

Eventually, with the help from sections of the Muslim landed elite in India, the emerging Muslim middle-classes turned the idea into a movement for a separate Muslim homeland in South Asia comprised of those areas where the Muslims were in a majority.

This is what we today understand to be the Pakistan Movement.

The British and their pen

Some maps which show the very long term implications of the British and their blasted pens.

The Durand Line

The Sykes Picot Treaty line.

The McMahon Line in East India. There are debates about loads of little pockets between India and Bangladesh.

Birth of a country

Kannu

You missed a great afternoon, when Salil uncle read from his book, the Colonel who would not repent. About the death of Bangabondhu, Mujibur Rahman, the President of Bangladesh, and the history of this great but truly god-forsaken country. He mentioned about this book of photographs, by Kishor Parekh, which I am enclosing. Don’t read it if you have a bit of a sensitive tummy because there are very distressing photographs in here. But it’s not a big book, hardly 40 odd pages, but very powerful photographs, son. Sometimes photographs can be truly heart wrenching. Two of which I have written about before.

1. Bhopal: http://piquancy.blogspot.co.uk/2004/07/for-every-glance-behind-us-we-have-to.html. Here is the photograph in question.

 

2. Vietnam: http://piquancy.blogspot.co.uk/2004/02/chemical-warfare-is-not-all-hot-air-my.html. Here is the photograph

I have mentioned to you about my memories of this refugee issue, son. I was in Calcutta when this happened, hardly 4 years or so old, but I can still remember the cries of “phan de go” “please give me phan” echoing in the nights in the roads of Tollygunj which is a Calcutta neighbourhood…Phan is the water which remains after you decant the rice after cooking. People were so poor that they wanted that rice water. There were 10 million people who got into India in a matter of months, you cannot have an organisation which can handle this load of refugees so they were all in huge trouble despite all the help that the Indian government and civil society gave. Plus the second memory I have is of these refugees fighting over the garbage bins where people had thrown their left over food, fighting with dogs. Truly barbarian situation. Bangladesh is where our ancestors came from, son, so they are our people in a way. You are a Bengali and despite you not knowing Bengali, there are roots here. So you need to know because people who forget their history do not have a future. Remember what I told you about the Russian Georgian Girl? She said that you Indian/English people are lucky, you have a history to remember and be proud of.

So some of the photographs are really wrenching. People do not see this level of destruction, son. Why do you think I hate war? That’s why when people go all gung ho about war, I hate it. Absolutely hate it. Just saw a great cartoon, 2500 people died in 9/11 and 2.5million people died in wars which were launched because of 9/11. See? everybody has a reason to fight and kill, but when will it stop? We thought after the cold war, peace will break out but no, more and more wars have happened, and that’s why we need to stop people from fighting, starting with our own country, United Kingdom. Its stupid, its expensive and it creates havoc far beyond and for much longer than the people who did it will remember.

So read and weep for our compatriots, son. And think about not letting this happen again, as much as possible.

Love

Baba

PS: Here are some of the photographs which were totally brilliant

Pakistan needs to delve deep to fight terrorism

after the Peshawar attack, I remembered that I had some books on this area..and this one in particular jumped to my mind, its a wee bit old, about 8-10 years, but still broadly accurate, it lists the major jehadi organisations in the country. the details of the groups, the financing, the real estate footprint, the wide-spread foot soldiers and sympathisers, the ideologies and state support. it is bloody worrisome. Pakistan is showing good signs of tackling this but you have to know the enemy..

 

check out the sheer diversity of terrorist groups there, and yes I know there are many more in India, but Indian terrorism has much wider, different and more historical backgrounds..and its diffused, but Pakistan has existential issues here…she has focussed groups committed to overthrow or amend the population. And it doesnt have the functioning democracy (its doing great by the way, but from a low starting point) that other countries had…

tough times.

Why the West craves materialism & why the East sticks to religion: By Imran Khan

Here is an article by the most amazing Pakistani Leader of Opposition. A beautiful example of how ignorance mixed with a stupid idea of religion mixed in the crucible of politics makes you come across as a blithering idiot. Lets not forget that this man, for all his new found piety, abandoned his daughter. So the very idea of hearing about how good a Muslim he is, is anathema to my ears. 

Second, as an example of muddled thinking, he mixes east, religion, family, Pakistan, all into this incredibly stupid mess. He forgets that the east was the place where a religion came to being without a concept of a god like Jainism. Or charvakya in Hinduism. But then again, for him to admit that India or anything pertaining to India exists will be difficult. And he takes off on the Ahmadi's. 

finally, this man has an execrable sense of history if he thinks that religion hasn't killed in the east. Do you know son, Muslims have killed far more Muslims than any non Muslims? Or the huge religious wars in Asia? Heck, does he forget the terror wars in Pakistan against the Shia? 

This is what happens when religion goes into the brain son. Stay away from organised religion. Stay away from people who bang on about how good their religion is. More importantly, stay away from the useful idiots who look up to excrescences  like this fellow. They suck out intelligence from their surroundings leaving a fact and smartness and intelligence barren scorched landscape behind. And this is for all religions. The Catholics who protest against abortion or contraception or Hindus who bang on about maryada or Santan Dharma without having even read one book or behave like hooligans or these kinds of Muslims who think like this. 

Bah

Love

Baba

Why the West craves materialism & why the East sticks to religion: By Imran Khan > Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf > Insaf News
http://www.insaf.pk/News/tabid/60/articleType/ArticleView/articleId/1305/Why-the-West-craves-materialism-why-the-East-sticks-to-religion-By-Imran-Khan.aspx

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My generation grew up at a time when colonial hang up was at its peak. Our older generation had been slaves and had a huge inferiority complex of the British. The school I went to was similar to all elite schools in Pakistan. Despite gaining independent, they were, and still are, producing replicas of public schoolboys rather than Pakistanis.

I read Shakespeare, which was fine, but no Allama Iqbal — the national poet of Pakistan. The class on Islamic studies was not taken seriously, and when I left school I was considered among the elite of the country because I could speak English and wore Western clothes.

Despite periodically shouting ‘Pakistan Zindabad’ in school functions, I considered my own culture backward and religion outdated. Among our group if any one talked about religion, prayed or kept a beard he was immediately branded a Mullah.

Because of the power of the Western media, our heroes were Western movie stars or pop stars. When I went to Oxford already burdened with this hang up, things didn’t get any easier. At Oxford, not just Islam, but all religions were considered anachronism.

Science had replaced religion and if something couldn’t be logically proved it did not exist. All supernatural stuff was confined to the movies. Philosophers like Darwin, who with his half-baked theory of evolution had supposedly disproved the creation of men and hence religion, were read and revered.

Of Religion and Redemption: Evidence from Default on Islamic Loans

I think I am getting religion. Fascinating study

We compare default rates on conventional and Islamic loans using a comprehensive monthly dataset from Pakistan that follows more than 150,000 loans over the period 2006:04 to 2008:12. We find robust evidence that the default rate on Islamic loans is less than half the default rate on conventional loans. Islamic loans are less likely to default during Ramadan and in big cities if the share of votes to religious-political parties increases, suggesting that religion – either through individual piousness or network effects – may play a role in determining loan default.

Looks like a great idea to me, I wonder why banks aren't cottoning on to this fact :) :P

Wavell and the Dying Days of the Raj: Britain's Penultimate Viceroy in India

Kannu

We walked about in sunny old Delhi. The city where one set of imperialists and colonisers, the Mughals, were overthrown by the next lot, The British. 

And after the divide and rule policy, the British desperately tried to keep India together. And then whilst Gandhi spoke for all Indians, Jinnah and Ambedkar, ironically all liberal lawyers blessed with some of the greatest minds known to India in the recent years, along with Nehru, managed to bollox it all up. There's nothing that irritates people who claim to speak for narrow groups than to be faced with people who speak for all. So for example, if somebody bangs on about nationalism, if you wanted to wind them up, speak to them about children's rights. If somebody talks about religion, cut them off by talking women's rights. At end of the day, see the universal declaration of human rights. That's a good one to memorise and use as principles son. 

In the meantime, read about great men with feet of clay who ended up killing hundreds of thousands of people in the partition of India. You walked in those grounds son, yesterday, where millions were uprooted and in many cases killed for being in the wrong religion. Bah. 

Love

Baba

H-Net Reviews
https://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=37909

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Mohammad Iqbal Chawla. Wavell and the Dying Days of the Raj: Britain's Penultimate Viceroy in India. Karachi: Oxford University Press, 2011. xi + 293 pp. $25.00 (cloth), ISBN 978-0-19-906275-1.

Reviewed by Anirudh Deshpande (Department of History, University of Delhi)
Published on H-Asia (January, 2014)
Commissioned by Sumit Guha

Wavell and the Ironies of India’s Partition in 1947

Lord Wavell was destined to be the second-to-last viceroy of British India. A seasoned British imperialist soldier and an Old India hand, he was appointed to the post in 1943 and remained in office until March 1947 when his flamboyant successor Lord Mountbatten took over. Mountbatten succeeded Wavell in order to supervise the liquidation of the Raj. For various reasons, including his dashing personality and an interesting wife, Mountbatten has managed to attract more than his share of attention from scholars. In contrast, Wavell, who tried in vain to keep India united between 1943 and 1947, is almost a forgotten figure of history.

No doubt, history students know much more about the Mountbatten Plan than the Wavell Plan. The public, in general, has forgotten Wavell and the plans that he devised for India in the twilight of the Raj. In this book, Mohammad Iqbal Chawla highlights Wavell’s plans, which became increasingly impossible to execute in communally charged postwar India. By the time Wavell became the viceroy of Britain’s most important colony, the sun had set on the British Empire. The two world wars exhausted Britain and made it financially and politically subservient to the United States. In 1943, Britain did not have the political, military, and financial means to ensure a smooth and peaceful transfer of power to the Indians in the troubled and anxiety-ridden 1940s. The appointment of a veteran soldier as the viceroy of India, after the Quit India rebellion was quelled by the Raj in 1942, failed to produce a negotiated political settlement between the British and various Indian parties.

Read and Weep from page 203 onwards

The net result of all this is that neither Shias nor Sunnis nor Deobandis nor Ahl-i-Hadith nor Barelvis are Muslims and any change from one view to the other must be accompanied in an Islamic State with the penalty of death if the Government of the State is in the hands of the party which considers the other party to be kafirs. And it does not require much imagination to judge of the consequences of this doctrine when it is remembered that no two ulama have agreed before us as to the definition of a Muslim

Here

Another quote

Pakistan is being taken by the common man, though it is not, as an Islamic State.
This belief has been encouraged by the ceaseless clamour for Islam and Islamic State that
is being heard from all quarters since the establishment of Pakistan. The phantom of an
Islamic State has haunted the Musalman throughout the ages and is a result of the
memory of the glorious past when Islam rising like a storm from the least expected
quarter of the world—wilds of Arabia—instantly enveloped the world, pulling down
from their high pedestal gods who had ruled over man since the creation, uprooting
centuries old institutions and superstitions and supplanting all civilisations that had been
built on an enslaved humanity. What is 125 years in human history, nay in the history of a people, and yet during this brief period Islam spread from the Indus to the Atlantic and
Spain, and from the borders of China to Egypt, and the sons of the desert installed
themselves in all old centres of civilisation—in Ctesiphon, Damascus, Alexandria, India
and all places associated with the names of the Sumerian and the Assyrian civilisations.
Historians have often posed the question : what would have been the state of the world
today if Muawiya’s siege of Constantinople had succeeded or if the proverbial Arab
instinct for plunder had not suddenly seized the mujahids of Abdur Rahman in their fight
against Charles Martel on the plains of Tours in Southern France. May be Muslims would
have discovered America long before Columbus did and the entire world would have
been Moslemised; may be Islam itself would have been Europeanised. It is this brilliant
achievement of the Arabian nomads, the like of which the world had never seen before,
that makes the Musalman of today live in the past and yearn for the return of the glory
that was Islam. He finds himself standing on the crossroads, wrapped in the mantle of the
past and with the dead weight of centuries on his back, frustrated and bewildered and
hesitant to turn one corner or the other. The freshness and the simplicity of the faith,
which gave determination to his mind and spring to his muscle, is now denied to him. He
has neither the means nor the ability to conquer and there are no countries to conquer.
Little does he understand that the forces, which are pitted against him, are entirely
different from those against which early Islam, had to fight, and that on the clues given
by his own ancestors human mind has achieved results which he cannot understand. He
therefore finds himself in a state of helplessness, waiting for some one to come and help
him out of this morass of uncertainty and confusion. And he will go on waiting like this
without anything happening. Nothing but a bold re-orientation of Islam to separate the
vital from the lifeless can preserve it as a World Idea and convert the Musalman into a
citizen of the present and the future world from the archaic in congruity that he is today.

Pakistan’s polio war

This was a painful article to read.

Just this bit was painful

This is especially true among Pashtun parents like Usman. A father of four living in the Karachi slum of Bhains Colony, he contracted polio as an infant in the early 1980s. It has left him visibly disabled, his loping gait the result of an almost useless right leg that he must lock out with a rigidly tensed right hand at every step. As a polio victim himself, he insisted that his eldest children be vaccinated. But by the time workers came to inoculate his youngest child, Musharaf, reports of Dr Afridi’s activities on behalf of the CIA had reached him.

“If the incident in Abbottabad did not happen,” he admitted ruefully, speaking of his fellow Pashtuns in general, “and these rumours didn’t spread to us, we would have continued the vaccinations as we had been.” But Usman refused the vaccine drops for Musharaf, and one morning in January the two-year-old woke crying and unable to move his leg. “I was trying to get him to sit and I remember what my mother told me: ‘When you were little I was trying to get you to stand and you couldn’t stand.’” His face is pained as he recounts the episode. “With my mother’s words in my mind I tried to make him stand, but he couldn’t and it hit me hard – that, God forbid, something has happened to him.” Just weeks after the deaths of those vaccination workers, the young child with a winning smile had become Pakistan’s first confirmed polio case of 2013.

“I know if I had given him the vaccine this wouldn’t have happened,” Usman confesses, admonishing himself. “You shouldn’t have been fooled by people.” I follow him as he clambers slowly down the rough concrete stairs out of his house and stops to watch a hobbling Musharaf join a group of children playing with a pink balloon.

What can you say? What can you do? just one of the little tragedies that we have to thank so many people from, ranging from Obama to Osama.

Terror Group Recruits From Pakistan’s ‘Best and Brightest’

Kannu

I've written much about Pakistan before. It's a classic example of the worst that can happen when religion gets mixed up in state matters. Despite encouraging signs like the first democratic govt since independence able to complete its term of office, the state and religious nexus isn't broken and is actually getting stronger. 

For example some of my Pakistani friends on fb are showing an increased religiosity. One prayed to Allah to get Imran Khan elected. This fellow is a blithering nincompoop. He talks absolute rot but to listen to his supporters, the sun shines out of this backside. So to tease, I asked if other Pakistani religious minorities will also be praying to Jesus and Ram and Guru Gobind Singh to get him elected? No response but it was amusing. 

This is one of the reasons why I detest religion in politics and overwhelming state power. The combination is even worse.

These 200000 estimated jehadis in this group are with us, the group is growing and not only I but you will be dealing with this over the next 30-50 years minimum. Joy

Love

Baba

Terror Group Recruits From Pakistan’s ‘Best and Brightest’ - ProPublica
http://www.propublica.org/article/terror-group-recruits-from-pakistans-best-and-brightest/single#republish

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Terror Group Recruits From Pakistan’s ‘Best and Brightest’

Imagine a terrorist group that recruits tens of thousands of young men from the same neighborhoods and social networks as the Pakistani military. A group whose well-educated recruits defy the idea that poverty and ignorance breed extremism. A group whose fighters include relatives of a politician, a senior Army officer and a director of Pakistan’s Atomic Energy Commission.

That is the disconcerting reality of Lashkar-e-Taiba, one of the world’s most dangerous militant organizations, according to a study released today [1] by the Combating Terrorism Center at the U.S. Military Academy in West Point, N.Y. The report helps explain why Pakistan has resisted international pressure [2] to crack down on Lashkar after it killed 166 people in Mumbai — six U.S. citizens included — and came close to sparking conflict between nuclear-armed Pakistan and India.

The Shiite Murders: Pakistan's Army of Jhangvi

That's where it goes off Son. The radicalisation of society. If society stands up and keeps on saying no, then these militants cannot survive. Same thing happens in India. We saw what happened in Northern Ireland where a vicious tit for tat terrorist campaign went on for decades. Still going on a bit. It's a question of hearts and minds but when religion gets inside minds, then the mind rots. So be careful of organised religion kannu. Stay away from the Hindu Christian Muslim organisations or people who profess an undying love for their religion. Or who are proud of their religion. There is only one religion. Be good. Do good. Rest is mere detail. And mostly, the religious idiots aren't good and don't do good. 

Love

Baba

The Shiite Murders: Pakistan's Army of Jhangvi : The New Yorker
http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/newsdesk/2013/03/the-shiite-murders-pakistans-army-of-jhangvi.html

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On the morning of February 18th, Dr. Syed Ali Haider, a forty-six-year-old eye surgeon in Lahore, was driving with his eleven-year-old son, Mustafa Haider from their home in upper-middle class Gulberg, a quiet area of mansions on tree-lined avenues, to Aitcheson College, a high school established by the British, which has groomed a few generations of Lahore élite. As Dr. Haider stopped at a traffic light, armed militants on motorbikes surrounded his car, opened fire, and sped away. His driver, who was in the back seat, escaped unhurt and called the police. The doctor had been shot six times in the head and was dead when help arrived; his son, who had been shot once in the head, died later in a hospital.

Dr. Haider came from a much-regarded Lahore family; his relatives were renowned doctors and members of the judiciary. Nobody claimed responsibility for his killing, but everyone in Lahore suspected the Sunni extremist militant group Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, which has been involved in numerous attacks on Pakistan’s Shia minority. “This is a sectarian killing. Ali had no personal enmity,” Justice Syed Fazal Haider, his uncle and a retired High Court Judge, told the Pakistani press.

A few days after the murders, I met Professor Osama Siddique, who had returned to teach at Lahore University of Management Sciences after getting his doctorate at Harvard Law School. Siddique’s son goes to the same school as the slain boy, and told him, “I knew Mustafa. I used to teach him how to play cricket at school.” Lahore had largely been unaffected by the frequent violence in Pakistan, but the new wave of attacks on the Shia minority, which constitutes around twenty per cent of Pakistan’s population of a hundred and eighty million, had left the city stunned.

World’s largest Porn Collection

Did you know who had this dubious honour? I didn't, its King Farouk of Egypt.

Apparently he was described as a stomach with a head. Then again, once you look back at the list of rulers that Egypt has been blessed over the past couple of centuries after Mohammad Ali, you will find nothing surprising at a country which is ruled by assorted nutters. His descendants were a bunch of dilettantes. Then the British took over and with their customary incompetence and half hearted liberal tyranny, managed to rouse the populace thoroughly. But never let it be said that some people cannot be fooled all the time. Nasser took over and managed to screw up Egypt royally, with misadventures galore with pretty much everybody. After losing big chunks of territory and waging chemical warfare against his fellow Arabs in Yemen, he managed to die, prompting one of the largest funeral processions ever known to mankind. Then Sadat came over and signed a treaty with Israel. <esphoks>. And then Mubarak came in with his kleptocratic views who managed to keep Egypt bumping along till we now have Morsi from the Brotherhood. And the man has a PhD from USA. Why are you surprised? Their flag has the Saladin Eagle on it, the man who managed to impoverish Egypt totally.

Its so sad that its funny.

Incidentally talking about porn and Egyptian Leaders, did you know that the ancient Pharaohs masturbated into the Nile to encourage an abundance of water? I quote:

According to Sex and Society, "even the ebb and flow of the Nile was thought to be caused by Atum's (the god of creation) ejaculation. This concept spurred the Egyptian pharaohs to ritually masturbate into the Nile to ensure an abundance of water."

The ancient Egyptians were so inspired by the act of self-stimulation that at the festival of the god Min, who represented Pharaoh's sexual potency, men masturbated in public.

And to top it all, John pointed me to this news story, you have really reached the pits when even a country like Pakistan doesn't want to be like you.

“He said the Egyptian model of governance cannot be pursued in Pakistan.“If someone thinks that it can be followed, than he is wrong, as it will not work here”, he noted.”

Your empathy isn’t empathy on my money

I loved this quote:

I’m all for empathy as it affects your desire to do nice things for others with your own money. I’m less impressed by you acting on your feelings of empathy by forcing me to do nice things for others. I believe the appropriate term for those who act in the latter way is manipulator.

Did you hear this, politicians and other people who love to decide what to do with my money? you are basically a hypocrite and untrustworthy, lack of principles and frankly a thoroughly bad egg. So since I have managed to piss you off anyway, here’s a letter from the same site..

Alan Blinder writes that Barack Obama is “a gifted orator, and empathy and fairness are in his bones” (“The Case Against a CEO in the Oval Office,” Oct. 2).

Assessments of Mr. Obama’s oratory are matters of subjective tastes.  But the assertion that the President is suffused with “empathy and fairness” can be questioned by pointing to objective facts.

Where, for example, was Mr. Obama’s empathy and sense of fairness in 2009 for Chrysler’s senior creditors – people he bullied into accepting fewer cents on the dollar than they were entitled to receive under long-established tenets of bankruptcy law?  Mr. Obama’s “empathy” for the UAW – junior creditors (and political supporters) who gained what was stripped from the senior creditors – hardly excuses his lack of empathy for the senior creditors (and, by the way, also U.S. taxpayers) victimized by his political opportunism.

Much worse: where is Mr. Obama’s “empathy” for the hundreds of innocent Pakistanis killed – and the thousands daily terrorized – by the drone strikes that he authorizes?  As The Atlantic‘s Conor Friedersdorf now-famously explained, “Women cower in their homes.  Children are kept out of school.  The stress they endure gives them psychiatric disorders.  Men are driven crazy by an inability to sleep as drones buzz overhead 24 hours a day, a deadly strike possible at any moment.  At worst, this policy creates more terrorists than it kills; at best, America is ruining the lives of thousands of innocent people and killing hundreds of innocents for a small increase in safety from terrorists.  It is a cowardly, immoral, and illegal policy, deliberately cloaked in opportunistic secrecy.”*

What’s in Mr. Obama’s bones isn’t “empathy and fairness.”  Instead, the only motive forces seemingly operating in his bones are those that infect nearly every politician’s marrow: a disgraceful lust for power, pomp, and office.

So how did the IAF perform during the Kargil War?

an excellent overview of the performance of the IAF during the Kargil War. Here is the summary:

High in the mountains of Indian-controlled Kashmir in 1999, India and Pakistan fought in an intense border clash for limited but important stakes. Overshadowed by NATO’s higher-profile air war for Kosovo, the Kargil War ensued for seventy-four days at a cost of more than a thousand casualties on each side. Yet it remains only dimly appreciated by most Western defense experts—and barely at all by students and practitioners of airpower. Nevertheless, it was a milestone event in Indian military history and one that represents a telling prototype of India’s most likely type of future combat challenge. !e Kargil conflict was emblematic of the kind of lower-intensity border skirmish between India and Pakistan, and perhaps also between India and China, that could recur in the next decade in light of the inhibiting effect of nuclear weapons on more protracted and higher-stakes tests of strength.

The experience offers an exemplary case study in the uses of airpower in joint warfare in high mountain conditions and is key to a full understanding of India’s emerging air posture. It is the one instance of recent Indian exposure to high-intensity warfare that provides insights into the Indian Air Force’s (IAF’s) capabilities, limitations, relations with its sister services, and interactions with India’s civilian leadership.In the Kargil War, the IAF rapidly adapted to the air campaign’s unique operational challenges, which included enemy positions at elevations of 14,000 to 18,000 feet, a stark backdrop of rocks and snow that made for uncommonly difficult visual target acquisition, and a restriction against crossing the Line of Control that forms the border with Pakistan. Without question, the effective asymmetric use of IAF airpower was pivotal in shaping the war’s
successful course and outcome for India. Yet the conflict also highlighted some of India’s military shortcomings. !e covert Pakistani intrusion into Indian-controlled Kashmir that was the casus belli laid bare a gaping hole in India’s nationwide real-time intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance capability that had allowed the incursion to go undetected for many days. It further brought to light the initial near-total lack of transparency and open communication between the Indian Army’s top leaders and the IAF with
respect to the gathering crisis.

All things considered, the conflict was a poor test of India’s air warfare capability. Despite the happy ending of the Kargil experience for India, the IAF’s fighter pilots were restricted in their operations due to myriad challenges specific to this campaign. They were thus consigned to do what they could rather than what they might have done if they had more room for manoeuvre. On a strategic level, the Kargil War vividly demonstrated that a stable bilateral nuclear deterrence relationship can markedly inhibit such regional conflicts in intensity and scale—if not preclude them altogether. In the absence of the nuclear stabilizing factor, those flash points could erupt into open-ended conventional showdowns for the highest stakes. But the Kargil War also demonstrated that nuclear deterrence is not a panacea. The possibility of future conventional wars of major consequence along India’s northern borders with Pakistan and China persists, and the Indian defense establishment must plan and prepare accordingly

The Subramanyam Committee was asked to review the war, here is its report. Typically, the implementation was crap but here’s a review based upon an interview of Mr. Subramanyam.

Imran Khan just cannot win

heh, Imran Khan is going off on a crusade (yes, i meant this word) to protest against the American drone attacks which are killing the Taliban.

On the other hand, the Taliban say that Imran Khan is an agent of Israel, USA and Europe.

The government is also upset with Imran Khan for obvious reasons.

heh, seriously funny..

More clowns at the gate

So for some reason, the All India Christian Council has seen fit to include me on its mailing list. I tell you, the chaps who run this are basically clowns. If I was an Indian Christian and I was going to rely on these muppets to represent me, I would convert to being a Muslim. Or give it up completely. Here is an example of their utter stupidity.

A book on Dalits by a Christian Author has won an award. I quote:

New Delhi, September 27, 2012 - Noted Indian freelance journalist and human rights activist Oliver D’Souza has won the prestigious London Institute Of South Asia (LISA) Book Of The Year Award for 2011-12 for his book ‘Truth About Dalits’ conferred at its annual Seminar and Book Award ceremony.
Drawing from a short-list of global entries for the award, the award committee narrowed down on ‘Truth About Dalits’ as the winner for the award. Commenting on the criteria for conferring the award, Saeed Ismat Director of LISA said “ Oliver D’Souza has done a commendable job writing such an analytical and unbiased book on the Dalits. The institution considers the book of great value."
“The Truth about Dalits' is an eye opener and a remarkable research work. The author has spoken the truth with no prejudice, favour or fear.”
Truth About Dalits was first published as an Ebook and later on as a hardback by the institute itself and has received outstanding reviews from activists, scholars, academicians and critics alike.
The earlier Indian winners of the award include renowned writers, thinkers and ideologues Dr V T Rajshekar (2005) and Dr Kancha Ilaiah (2008).

previous winners were these two worthies? hahahahahah

So who is this London Institute of South Asia? Quite a good body, and I quote:

At the London institute of South Asia (LISA) we are determined to combat the tsunami of disinformation and propaganda brainwashing our minds so successfully. LISA is mindful of the influences corporate controlled mainstream media bears on the ordinary mind. At LISA we do not seek assistance or support from any foundation, government, or mainstream media since they are driven by their corporate masters or their specific agendas. We have reasons to believe that mainstream media is controlled by governments and owned by corporate elite and world bankers. It is not just a commonly known fact but a historical and universal truth that government secret agencies (either your own or that of foreign powers) have managed to exercise leverage in mainstream media in order to deceive the public at large and to further their agenda with full impunity.

We are an independent voice determined to speak the truth and provide an alternative source of information and ideas for our readers. LISA needs your support in that we are looking forward to benefit from your candid view and your efforts to spread the truth wherever and how- so- ever you can.

heh, the board of directors has Mr. Rajshekhar, and yes, that’s right, this LISA awarded a prize to one of its directors. Once you trawl through the site, its clear that this is a Pakistan hosted and sponsored site. Its verbiage against India, Dalits, Assam, etc. etc. are fulsome but does it have anything about the Baloch? nope, anything about the Northern Areas? nope. Nothing about Christians in Pakistan or the Hindus there.

Just click on some of the news items on the LISA site, they even have a story from George Galloway saying that the Syrian Rebels are on the side of the Crusaders. Now you see why I think the AICC are clowns and morons? To associate with dictators, army people and most importantly George Galloway and and is stupid.

But good for a laugh, how amusing. Every time Madhu Chandra sends me one of his PR’s, its great for a giggle. What a bunch of muppets.

What happened to General Zia?

General Zia of Pakistan casts a very long shadow. His Islamisation programme of Pakistan has turned that country into a progressively fundamentalist country. I get an email copy of the Dawn newspaper every day. Every day, the entire newspaper is full of doom and gloom, killings and robberies, corruption and pain. Zia has much to blame for. And then you have the killings of Palestinians on his shoulders in Jordan.

He was killed in a plane crash. Here is a long news paper item on the circumstances his death. Go read it, fascinating how there was a giant cover up. But don't be surprised, when Pakistan treats its living with such disdain, why are you concerned about its dead? Jinnah, one of the greats in the world, was treated atrociously and now his country is a blot on his ideas and dreams. And so on and so forth.

Killing the future

You must have heard about how the Islamist rage boys are rampaging around in India, Yemen,  Afghanistan and Pakistan, blowing up schools and poisoning girls? Here is a good article on what happens when schools are targeted. So the solution?

First punish the bastards. I quote:

To this end Zama Coursen-Neff, chairperson of the Global Coalition to Protect Education from Attack and children's rights director at Human Rights Watch, has welcomed the inclusion of parties guilty of attacks on schools on the UN's new "list of shame".

She said: "From now on, warring parties who target schools, students, and teachers should know that they will land on the Security Council's radar and could face targeted sanctions."

The Security Council may also refer them to the International Criminal Court for investigation and possible prosecution.

Second tack, try the soft approach:

The other avenue is to ensure better steps are taken to prevent the targeting of education and ensure timely recovery once conflicts are over.

The global Education Cluster, a UN body that co-ordinates and guides education responses in conflicts and other crises, is working with humanitarian agencies and government officials in countries affected by conflict to pilot training in how to protect education.

Measures include improving community defence of schools, encouraging armed forces and armed groups to avoid using schools in the battlefield, changing unfair education policies that provoke ethnic tension and can make schools a target for attack.

They could also change the curriculum to ensure that education works for peace and ensure adequate support is provided to help children and teachers cope with stress and trauma.

At a piloting session in Pakistan, education and development officials simulated negotiations between leaders of a village, teachers, religious leaders and the local Taliban commander.

Their mission was to reach agreement that locals schools should not be blown up - or attacked in any other way.

More than 1,200 schools have been damaged or destroyed in their country in the past few years and mostly in the north-west, where Taliban groups have been fighting the Pakistan army and retain a strong influence in some areas.

Unbelievable, 1200 schools targeted. What kind of children are going to come out of that area in Pakistan for the next generation?

Did you know that 258 schools have been destroyed by Naxalites in just 3 states in 2011 in India? Not that the schools were good in the first place, but at least something is better than nothing.

Still, going after these morons and bastards is good. Ideological morons, these Islamists, Naxalites and and and. May their groins be infested with hungry dung beetles