HindooHeathen

Let me be clear about one thing first. I condemn those barbaric attacks on innocent civilians and I want those responsible for these crimes against humanity be brought to justice at the earliest and be given an exemplary punushment.
But unfortunately the whole US reaction has become reduced to hunt down one person.Consider the following (highly unlikely) scenario:

Taliban suddenly accepts what US states and hands over Osama Bin Laden to US. On the way to his trail Osama somehow manages to kill himself. Nothing else can enhance the cause of Jihad than these chain of events.
Osama is a hero to millions of teenagers in the Islamic world today. He is an icon adorned. Of course it is inconceivable as to how a mass murderer can be hailed as a hero even by women and children - in fact many televised Osama support rallies showed frenzied women equalling the AK-47 taunting men.
How does one fight this terror and deal a death blow to its roots? What is happening right now in the so-called "operation Infinite Justice" is just prunning. The US once supplied arms to what is today known as Taliban. To curb the Soviet power then US maintained a studied silence when even liberal humanitarian native Afghan voices were brutally eliminated by the fundamentalist US armed Mujahideen. Pakistan saw in all these its own advantages -visa vis- Kashmir.
What if US has waited and allowed the Marxist regime die its own natural death through the awakening of Afghan's own secualr humanist flowering? Sure it would have been a long process. But the inevitable fall of the Soviets would have accelarated the process. But anyway we would not have had the monster we have right now at our backyard.
Perhaps US wanted to make Soviets face their own Vietnam at Afganistan for an ego satisfaction or propaganda symmetry?
Even today US cannot win the war against terrorism with the Pakistani support
First, Pakistan itself will not provide any valuable intelligence when it comes to Taliban despite its assurances of cooperation.
Second, there is no reason why a theocratic dictatorship should see common cause with a democracy in which secular huamnism is in the rise.
Third,there are more reasons to suspect Pakistan as the epicenter of International terrorism than poverty-struck Afganistan. Most of Taliban fighters are Pakistanis.

See also the link:Pakistan - Terrorism as State Ideology
So if US trusts and appeases Pak to win the current battle it may loose the long lasting war which has been waged against freedom and democracy.

[ September 30, 2001: Message edited by: HindooHeathen ]

DMB

HindooHeathen: You say
OK Pakistan is currently a dictatorship, but how do you reckon it as a theocratic one?

Musharaff, unlike Zia, appears to be anything but an islamic fundamentalist. He has inherited a country that messed up its original secular constitution and introduced Shari'a law under Zia. I see plenty of signs that he is very cautious in dealing with fundies, but not that he shares their ideology.

I can understand how any non-muslim Indian will be very mistrustful of Pakistan. But if one tries to be pragmatic, what would you like to see happen over the next 10 to 20 years in Pakistan? If Musharaff falls, I very much fear that Pakistan will go in the direction of the Taleban. That would make it a far worse neighbour for India than it is likely to be under Musharaff.

HindooHeathen

DMB,

Historically Pakistan is a Muslim state. It was declared so on Aug-14 1947. Since then it has systematically taken up religicide of minority Hindus. Hindus who constituted more than 20% in these provinces as on 1948 amount to less than 3% today. The world as usual turned a blind eye. After all Hindus are not Christians or Europeans nor do they own any oil wells. I do not undersatnd what do you mean by 'secualr law' which explicitly makes a Kaffir half an eye-witness as against the Muslim eye-witness which is considered as one full human eye-witness?

Gen. 'Perverse' Musharaff is a man who knows his chess pieces well. He was the one who masterminded the Kargil intrusion even as Vajpayee was shaking hands with Nawaz Shariff. Today to Musharaff the Jehadis are a hindrance to the long term vision which is the same as Jehadis, only the Jehadis lack the skill and vision of 'Perverse' Musharaff.
Also dead Indian soldiers were returned with their bodies mutilated.
If today pakistan is a nuclear power it is because it has strong ties with both China and North Korea. America , (Pakistan knows very well),its way of life and values, is against Islam as pakistan understands it. For more details read 'Road to Freedom' (or a similar title) by late Bhutto a more sobre man than all recent Pak leaders. (Incidentally Bhutto called Indians 'dogs' in the floor of UNO. Yet of all Paki leaders he was the mildest of them all.)
The ground reality of Pakistan is that to be a nation it has to have anti-India feeling. For example, take missile/rocket technology. India has been having an ambitious space programme of which missile technology is part. In other words Indian space/rocket programme is not Pak-centric. After all China has always been a threat to Indian safety.But see the pak nuclear tech build up (often stolen from the West and obtained from China). It is extremely Indo-centric.
Mark my words. Gen. Musharaf knows what he is doing and deep inside his heart beats in unison with Jehadis - the kind that destroyed NY WTC.
Unless otherwise the WTC at Islamabad (World Terrorist Center)is destroyed the danger of terrorism will always be growing.
Did you go through the link?

DMB

As your article mentions, Jinnah was not a practising muslim. Pakistan was not a theocracy when it was set up. The Muslim Shari'a law was adopted about 20 years ago under the ghastly dictator Zia al Haq.

There is no evidence that Musharaff is another Zia. Any Pakistani ruler is going to be anti-Indian. You may not like it, nor may I, but that doesn't alter the fact.

You have to appreciate the difficulties of Musharaff's position. Pakistan has become steadily more fundamentalist, although there are still plenty of decent, thoughtful Pakistanis. That doesn't make them anti-Pakistan or pro-India, although I'm sure they would like peace. Since independence, Pakistan has gone steadily downhill in lots of ways. They lost half their country in a bitter war. They have suffered from enormous population growth accompanied by environmental degradation and lack of investment in social development. Their majority religion is one that is basically anti-democratic and intolerant. Their society is feudal and corrupt. They have put a huge proportion of their resources into military expenditure. Economically they are in a terrible position.

I think Musharaff is a pragmatist. I will ask you again, since you didn't answer it the first time:

DChicken

HindooHeathen:

Your whole set of arguments rest on the premises that the public face of U.S. policy is matching its private face or action. That may not be the case. The public focus on bin Laden may be by design.

I think its possible that all Bin Laden did was provide some upfront training, money and inspiration.

The brains and success of the operation probably is the result of a number of known people outside of Afghanistan.

Its possible that the U.S. administration and military is quite happy with the focus on bin Laden because it means they can quietly hunt the people who were more directly responsible for directing the operation.

If that was the case then Pakistan is not as critical to the overall effort as you propose.

DC

[ September 30, 2001: Message edited by: DChicken ]

doodad

I think the US is cozying up to Pakistan because it want the use of Pakistani air space and bases. Afghan is land locked, so coming up thru Pakistan is desirable from a military logistics standpoint.
I hope the promise that we can use the air fields in the former Soviet republics to the north is kept. It is a chance to work with the Russians on world terrorism.

HindooHeathen

I know very well as successive governments come over in Pakistan they can only be more and more anti-Indian. Whoever comes after Musharaf will be more anti-Indian than Musharaf. And that does not mean Musharaf is in anyway a humanist. I donot question his rationality but I question his sincerity in, on the hand supporting terrorism in Kashmir including suicide attacks , and on the other hand joining hands with US in its 'war against the evil of terrorism against the pluralist nature of our society'. If this is not hypocracy tell me what else is?
Or is it that those lives lost in Ksahmir -those of Kashmiri Hindus and Sikhs - less important than those killed in US? A sickening thought that. What US has waged thus gets reduced to a war against some terrorists who struck at WTC, NY and Pentagaon but not a war to fight for freedom and democracy. You simply cannot save democracy by siding with a state that conducts training camps for suicide attacks on civilian targets in the neighboring democracy.

phaedrus

Well nice article on the opportunistic and hypocritical nature of the ties and the pitfalls to look for.........In Pakistan, a grand illusion?

doodad

I think we will have to take it a step at a time as we are not prepared to fight a WWIII on multiple fronts. Getting bin Laden will be only one of several objectives in the war against terrorism.

I share your concern about the help we can receive from Pakistan, but conflict, like politics, makes strange bedfellows. It seems there is an inconsistency in your reasoning that perhaps you can clear up. Your first say let the flowering humanism in Afghanistan take care of the communist oppression, humanism being a secular worldview, and then you wonder how a theocratic country like Pakistan would support our efforts because of our humanist secular behavior. Isn't Afghanistan a theocracy, and weren't the Afghanis Muslim during the Soviet oppression? I don't see how the humanism would have been flowering.
Sorry, I just don't follow you.

HindooHeathen

True most Afghans are born Muslims. Is there any taboo that these Muslims would not become secular humanists. In India we have many Afghan refugees who are surely a minority who despise both Soviet and Taliban. In many East European countries with no US backing of any Christian militia the Communist regimes fell down to the political-economic forces of democracy and need of a free market. I shudder to think what would have happened in east Europe if CIA had identified some fringe Christian militia with medieval mindset and grommed them to become a monster like Taliban.But perhaps US thought about the geo-political importance of Afganistan in case of continued cold war or perhaps a plain ego trip of humiliating USSR with its own Vietnam. Anyway Indian secular democratic polity suffered because of US policies. And to this day Indian population which by any reckoning should find in US a natural ally see it with suspicion (fuelled also by Marxists).