Afghan-Pakistan Relations After Rabbani Assassination

[Neo]

Pakistan should take the fight into Afghanistan with its Army.

That will solve the whole issue!!

Thats what I've been saying for years, what are we affraid of?
Afghanistan has become a concern of national security, if US has the right to invade Afghanistan so do we!

 

[Xeric]

Pakistan should take the fight into Afghanistan with its Army.

That will solve the whole issue!!

Shabash sir! ap jalti per tale ka kaam karo....

 

[Xeric]

Thats what I've been saying for years, what are we affraid of?
Afghanistan has become a concern of national security, if US has the right to invade Afghanistan so do we!

I dont say that we cant fight these illtrained, illequiped and divided bunch of ragged soldiers of Afghanistan...but if u can kill a bird with a bullet dont fire a canon for it. If we can shout their beaks with are strict statments as President Musharaf has been doing there is no need to fight with them unnecessarily. We dont want to be sandwiched between India n Afganistan..although tht is the current situation but still we are not committing are actual resources toward our western side (now dont ask me which are those actual resources ). Subtract the forces commited in Wana n Balochistan.

 

[asaad-ul-islam]

Thats what I've been saying for years, what are we affraid of?
Afghanistan has become a concern of national security, if US has the right to invade Afghanistan so do we!

wow dude, i didn't really think you were like that! I guess i mistook you for your soft approach on things. nonetheless, i agree with your idea.

that's why i say pakistan should have absorbed afghanistan. in fear of loosing our western parts to afghanistan, we did not name NWFP and FATA, afghania. Even Chaudhry Ali Rehmat did not favour this idea, he thought it was proper to name these provinces afghania or at least sarhad.

the main idea, was to get afghanistan to form a confederation between pakistan. eventually, it would be absorbed ending the border dispute and pleasing the pashtun population.

we had the chance to absorb afghanistan when the taliban took over, yet it was benazir bhutto who turned down the offer.

 

[indiapakistanfriendship]

Thats what I've been saying for years, what are we affraid of?
Afghanistan has become a concern of national security, if US has the right to invade Afghanistan so do we!

Interesting point NEO, but is it feasable , I think invasion would be the last thibg in GOP's mind , given the nature of fighting that Afghanistan has been experiencing , is it possible to mount a fll scale operation given the vagaries of the terrain and the large scale presence of hardened millitants, wont PA be facing what Soviets were facing in their hayday or will there be different doctrines and stratergies employed in this case, also would like to know whether a full scale attack on Afghanistan unite the tribes across both the borders as according to my interpretation Pashtuns and tribes from both the sides are already floating the idea of independent land, also wont the attack increase the risk of terrorist attacks within Pakistan boundary. I would like to know from you

Cheers

 

[haviZsultan]

I dont say that we cant fight these illtrained, illequiped and divided bunch of ragged soldiers of Afghanistan...but if u can kill a bird with a bullet dont fire a canon for it. If we can shout their beaks with are strict statments as President Musharaf has been doing there is no need to fight with them unnecessarily. We dont want to be sandwiched between India n Afganistan..although tht is the current situation but still we are not committing are actual resources toward our western side (now dont ask me which are those actual resources ). Subtract the forces commited in Wana n Balochistan.

I agree that will deal with aggressive afghan designs against us. After all afghans have been our traditional enemies. In 48 we also had minor skirmishes over pashtunistan issue when they sent a force. Najibullah supported terrorists and the islamabad arms depot incident by afghans. Also many pilots of ours downed afghan warplanes when they tried to infiltrate into pakistani airspace. Liaqat Ali Khan our first Pashtun Prime Minister was mercilessly murdered by a dirty afghan dog just because Liaqat was patriotic pakistani who did not believe Pashtun areas within afghanistan should be united into Afghanistan. We have more than enough beef with afghanistan and i believe we should get done with the dirty afghans

Kharzai kusfarosh has brought up the dumb pashtunistan issue and is blaming every problem on us and there have been constant accusations against him that he is supporting waziristan insurgency to bring up pashtunistan issue and bring US war into Pakistan so that he can get control of our areas.

Action against Afghanistan will also kill off the pashtunistan issue once and for all as pashtuns will be united and the drunk afghans won't be telling 33 million pakistani pashtuns to come to a lower standard of living where there are 14 million pashtuns and live as cattle farmers and barely practice pashtunwali and speak farsi:

Afghanistan's pashtuns are mostly cattle farmers who take their flocks place to place looking for better grazing grounds

The richest and most powerful group in Pakistan, the Pakistani pashtuns that make up 30% of our army and 22% govt officials would want to go to afghanistan to be cattle farmers. Afghanistan has a brilliant future to offer us

 

[ak56]

Afghanistan's problems are war lords, corruption, unemployment, drugs and foreign troops. Karzai has failed badly and the easiest way to avoid taking responsibility is to blame it on Pakistan.

Rightly said. Karzai is an incapable leader and is running like a dog for his life.
In spite of receiving hell of aid from US, it has failed to curb terrorism and blames Pakistan for what is their national failure.

 

[IceCold]

Interesting point NEO, but is it feasable , I think invasion would be the last thibg in GOP's mind , given the nature of fighting that Afghanistan has been experiencing , is it possible to mount a fll scale operation given the vagaries of the terrain and the large scale presence of hardened millitants, wont PA be facing what Soviets were facing in their hayday or will there be different doctrines and stratergies employed in this case, also would like to know whether a full scale attack on Afghanistan unite the tribes across both the borders as according to my interpretation Pashtuns and tribes from both the sides are already floating the idea of independent land, also wont the attack increase the risk of terrorist attacks within Pakistan boundary. I would like to know from you

Cheers

Pashtuns from our side is supporting nothing, its only from that the afghan side and we know why is that. The point is we know afghanistan more then anyother country, soviets suffered a defeat because we were behind the afghans and supporting them in every way that we could. Now the time has changed, we need to take care of this afghan **** once and for all, GOP unfourtantely does not seem to have the gutts to do it, a leader like musharraf is required for this to happen. I am more of a opinion that instead of capturing it, we need to airstrike the governmentals areas more and more often, this way afghan government will realize that pakistan too means business. We need to apply the same approach israel adobts in palestine case. And by the way we do need to fence and mine the damn border.

 

[sohailbutt]

Karzai plot 'hatched in Pakistan'

Intelligence reports indicate Taliban masterminded the assassination attempt on Karzai [AFP]

The weekend assassination attempt on Hamid Karzai, the Afghan president, was masterminded by al-Qaeda-linked groups based in Pakistan, officials have said.

A spokesman for the Afghan intelligence service said on Thursday that one of plotters killed on Wednesday during a raid on a hideout in Kabul was also linked to an attack on a hotel in Kabul.

Saeed Ansari identified one of the four people killed in Wednesday's Kabul home raid as Humayun.

Intelligence officials have previously said he supported the assault on Serena Hotel in January by dropping off the the suicide attackers outside its gates.

Humayun had links to a network led by Siraj Haqqani, intelligence officials said after the Serena attack that killed eight people.

US bounty

Afghan officials say Haqqani is based in Pakistan's tribal region of North Waziristan.

The US military has a $200,000 bounty out on him. His network is associated with Taliban and is also believed to have links to al-Qaeda members.

It is part of a myriad of groups supporting Afghanistan's former hardline Islamist regime and bent on toppling Karzai's Western-backed government.

"There (is) very, very strong evidence suggesting that Pakistan's soil once again has been used to inflict pain on our nation"

Amrullah Saleh, Afghan intelligence chief

Amrullah Saleh, the intelligence chief, said those killed in the raid on Wednesday - and three other gunmen who tried to assassinate Karzai on Sunday - were all in contact with fighters inside Pakistan's tribal regions, including in North Waziristan.

"We have no evidence whether ... the operation has had any mercy or go-ahead from the government of Pakistan and (its) special agencies," Saleh said on Wednesday.

"There (is) very, very strong evidence suggesting that Pakistan's soil once again has been used to inflict pain on our nation."

Pakistan denial

Although not directly implicating Pakistan's government, Saleh's comments will irk Islamabad and could dampen recently improved relations between the two countries.

Relations are often strained over allegations that Pakistan helps the Taliban and other groups.

Major General Athar Abbas, a Pakistani army spokesman, called the allegation "baseless".

"Anybody can say that militants (in the tribal areas) have done this or that," Abbas said. "How can one validate such claims?"

The Taliban, ousted from power by the 2001 US-led invasion, has claimed responsibility for the attempt on Karzai.

Afghan legislators passed a vote of no-confidence on Tuesday against the country's three top security officials, including Saleh. They had revealed they were aware of the assassination plot against Karzai but failed to stop it.

The officials, however, retained their jobs.

Al Jazeera English - News - Karzai Plot 'Hatched In Pakistan'

i dont understand this karzai and his idiot officials, he has failed his country now he starts blamin Pakistan for attacks on him, i think it is high time our President stands up n give him a message to stop this BS!!!!!!

This is really pathetic, we supported Afghans for 20 years, without even askin them for anythin in return, n is this wut they have to give bak to us, this is wut is called BACKSTABBING!!!!!!!

i think PAK-afghan border should be sealed permanently after sending their refugees bak to their country so that we r not blamed regardin suicide attacks/assasination attempts carried out in afghanistan!!!!!!!!!

 

[Neo]

wow dude, i didn't really think you were like that! I guess i mistook you for your soft approach on things. nonetheless, i agree with your idea.

that's why i say pakistan should have absorbed afghanistan. in fear of loosing our western parts to afghanistan, we did not name NWFP and FATA, afghania. Even Chaudhry Ali Rehmat did not favour this idea, he thought it was proper to name these provinces afghania or at least sarhad.

the main idea, was to get afghanistan to form a confederation between pakistan. eventually, it would be absorbed ending the border dispute and pleasing the pashtun population.

we had the chance to absorb afghanistan when the taliban took over, yet it was benazir bhutto who turned down the offer.

No, absorbing is not the sollution it will only hold us back and create more problems than we already have. Afghanistan is ethnically a devided country, she could never integrate into Pakistan.

Instead we should apply the age old tactic of Devide and Rule, create one or two satellite states in area's bordering Pakistan and install a Pakistan friendly government.

 

[asaad-ul-islam]

No, absorbing is not the sollution it will only hold us back and create more problems than we already have. Afghanistan is ethnically a devided country, she could never integrate into Pakistan.

Instead we should apply the age old tactic of Devide and Rule, create one or two satellite states in area's bordering Pakistan and install a Pakistan friendly government.

I understand what you're trying to get at. Really, this is nothing more than an idea. However, it has the potential to become a great idea. I'll explain my post a little more later. unfortunately, i'm going thru exam week soon.

here is a nice article written by Abid Ullah Jan, the same guy who wrote the book, From BCCI to ISI: The Saga of Entrapment Continues.

Greater Afghanistan or Great Pakistan
By ABID ULLAH JAN


All these plans of dividing Afghanistan and Pakistan notwithstanding, historical, social, economic, political and even security factors indicate that formation of Greater Afghanistan is inevitable.

However, what the Afghans view as greater Afghanistan is not very dissimilar to the vision of a great Pakistan to most Pakistanis.

Interestingly, all the forces aimed at causing disintegration are releasing forces that would hasten moves towards unification of Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Pakistan’s policy since its inception has been focused on maintaining a situation that could help it avoid controversy over the Durand Line. It has been trying to force a fusion of communities along this line and a separation from those on the other side of the line. It has been sensitive to their being identified as Pakhtun as if by merely calling their province Pakhtunistan or Pakhtunkhwa it would secede.

Even though there are more Pakhtun in Pakistan than in Afghanistan and Pakistani Pakhtuns are better educated and more affluent, Pakistan has always been nervous about its Pakhtun population. It has allowed itself to be continually blackmailed by ethnic zealots, not only in the NWFP but also in Sindh and Balochistan.

The question arises, why is Afghanistan not wary of Pakistan claiming Pakhtun majority area to be included in Pakistan. There are reasons for it.

One, Pakistan calls itself an Islamic Republic but does not conduct itself like one. Two, tribal bonds are brotherly and feudal bonds are exploitery; feudal Punjab and Sindh are wary of tribal Frontier and Balochistan. Three, India did succeed in sowing suspicion and discord between East and West Pakistan and used it to invade and separate East Pakistan. But what is the answer?

Would Pakistan and Afghanistan forever remain condemned to instability and seeking security by dependence on outside forces that have not hesitated to occupy their countries and devastate their peoples? Is it not better to unite and form whatever the majority like to call it - Greater Afghanistan or Great Pakistan?

For its security, Pakistan has depended throughout its existence on major power wielders. This dependence is getting so perilous that Pakistan has to sacrifice its raison d’être and Islamic identity to maintain itself in favor with them and even court its nemesis.

Cooperation with the US during the anti-Soviet war was justified in the name of Islam and the US kept on feeding Pakistan because it was fighting its war.

In the post 9/11 environments, Pakistan has to fight the US wars for domination and colonization if it has to remain in Washington’s good books. It has to get approval from Washington as to what kind of Islam it can follow. Pakistan has to live under perpetual dictatorship under the pretext of “assurance against possible Talibanisation of the governance system”?[8][8]

According to the same report the U.S. will accept “limited Islamization” in Pakistan. It is the US that would approve the teachings of Islam that it deems to be ‘Islamic’ and reject those it sees to be ‘un-Islamic’. It would be something to laugh about if it was not true. But it is! And it is not funny!

It means Pakistan’s security and survival is conditional upon the pleasure of Washington. If it could please it, it will live; otherwise, there is no guarantee of its existence.

Internally, except the opportunist politicians, people from almost all segments of the society are against the US sponsored rule, which keeps the state unstable and its leaders on probation. Pakistan’s deepening involvement in the hoax US war on terrorism against its own citizens further alienates its government from the public. Externally, the arms gap with India is widening. Furthermore, India’s alliance with Israel makes the situation even worse for Pakistan.

As early as October 1995, Sandy Gordon predicted that in the 21st century,

India is poised to emerge... as a far more important and influential power in the Indian Ocean region, and even globally, than it was in the latter part of the 20th. Some of the constraining factors in India’s rise to power, particularly domestic and regional South Asian instability, are still present and will continue to snap at India’s heels for some years to come. But the end of the Cold War has also enabled India to jettison some of the more burdensome foreign and economic policies that had constrained it in the past.... [whereas] Pakistan, which has long been India’s only serious competitor in South Asia, has lost out seriously as a result of the end of the Cold War. While India suffers from internal instability, Pakistan’s problems are potentially far more serious.’”[9][9]

The incidents of 9/11 in particular have changed the view that Gordon may be overstating India’s ability to take advantage of the potential benefits to it of the Cold War’s end. Today, Pakistan’s diplomatic position both on the Afghan and Kashmir front is very weak in the sense that no one is ready to listen to its point of view. Just as the world is silent over Israel’s nuclear and chemical programs and issuing warnings and deadlines to Iran, Pakistan pleas for addressing the ever-worsening human rights situation in Kashmir are falling on deaf ear. On top of it, enormous problems of rural poverty, disease, environmental degradation, and overpopulation remain largely un-addressed.

As a reward for Musharraf’s services, Washington’s decision to unclog the aid pipeline to Pakistan, however, scarcely begins to address Pakistan’s security dilemma. After all, Pakistan is still not considered fit for F-b and other major military sales. Furthermore, beyond Islamabad’ s present close relations with Washington, lies the greater security problem for Pakistan: the gradual drying up of any promising alliance prospects to serve Pakistan’s requirement for great-power insurance against joint Indo-Israeli military might. Dream of an “Islamic bloc” solidly aligned behind Pakistan has failed utterly to materialize; and there are signs of etiolation as well in the fidelity to Pakistan even of China.

China’s record from the Gulf War I to war on Serbia, Afghanistan and then Iraq shows that if the going gets really rough, it will not care much for the consistency of support from Pakistan over the past forty years. In recent years, Beijing has retreated to a conspicuously neutral position on Kashmir, unquestionably an important litmus test of friendship from Islamabad’s point of view, and China’s steadily expanding rapprochement with India, as Sandy Gordon has observed, “has provided India with a significant peace dividend in the context of its competition with Pakistan.”[10][10]

On the Afghan front, Pakistan has completely lost the trust of the public in the NWFP and Balochistan, not to speak of the tribal areas. The geopolitical situation in Afghanistan on the other hand is, by any standard, extremely unstable. US and its allies have a very large stake in the stability of Karzai’s puppet regime. Pakistan, at least as much as any of the other external contenders, considers Afghanistan’s stability and its leaders’ pro-Pakistan orientation to be matters of the most vital state interest. However, other than using its armed forces on the directions from Washington, Pakistan is totally marginalized at the moment.

The viable option for addressing Pakistan’s vulnerable political geography and its military-demographic-economic weakness relative to India lies in Pakistan’s union with Afghanistan. Irrespective of the present situation in which both Pakistan and Afghanistan are fully or partially occupied by the US, Pakistan and Afghanistan may apply the central argument of Huntington’s thesis, the “kin-country rallying” for mobilizing of interstate support systems or alliances on religious or civilizational grounds, on the first available opportunity.

In this regard, Pakistan’s past (the secession of Muslim East Bengal) and its present (in regard to Afghanistan, for instance) clearly suggest that merely relying on a trans-state Islamic bond has very definite limits. Every state has its own policies and every state finds itself at odds not only with numerous groups within, but also with other states with which it is allied. Therefore, a symbolic Pak-Afghan Union would not work. It has to be a merger of these states into one greater Afghanistan within its former frontiers that include all the territory presently within Pakistan borders.

An obvious example that paves the way for the confederation with Afghanistan is February 2, 2002 editorial of The Friday Times, where it writes:

“the super-generals... may have been thinking of some such strategic notion when he [Musharraf] recently said that Pakistan had to be friends with the Taliban because they were comprised of ethnic Pakhtuns who formed the main ethnic community of our own NWFP that borders Afghanistan. This leads us to postulate the super-generals’ strategic thinking that a strong Pakhtun state in Afghanistan would suit Pakistan immeasurably more than a weak Pakhtun or non-Pakhtun state. Is that right? No, it isn’t... .a weak non-Pakhtun dominated state in Afghanistan has never posed any threat to Pakistan because it has neither had any ideological bearings or religious extra-national ambitions nor any ethnic or sub-nationalist stirrings. On the other hand, whenever there has been a strong Pakhtun dominated state in Afghanistan, its government has been compelled by the logic of its own composition to pander to ethnic nationalism by supporting Pakhtun separatism (refusal to accept the Durand Line) or try and export religious fundamentalism (Talibanism) to the NWFP and Balochistan... This would suggest that a strong Taliban state in Afghanistan, which combines the worst elements of ethnic Pakhtun nationalism and religious exclusivism, would eventually pose a threat to the territorial integrity and political solidarity of multi-ethnic, multi-sectarian, democratic Pakistan.”

Such bigoted views are completely at odds with the reality on the ground and founding concepts of Pakistan. There is no need to shed light on the obvious anti- Pakistan feelings in the hearts of Persian speaking Afghans. Attitude and policies of pro-Indian Northern Alliance and its leaders are good examples for those who understand.

With regard to Pakhtuns and NWFP, it is worth quoting what Ch. Rahmat Ali - the man who formulated the name and concept of Pakistan, said about ‘NWFP’ and the Pakhtoon people in his book “Pakistan: The Fatherland of Pak Nation” 1940:

North West Frontier Province - is semantically non-descript and socially wrongful. It is non-descript because it merely indicates their geographical situation as a province of old ‘British India’ [which no longer exists]. It is wrongful because it suppresses the social entity of these people. In fact, it suppresses that entity so completely that when composing the name ‘Pakistan’ for our homelands, I had to call the North West Frontier Province the Afghan Province.

Essentially what Rahmat All is saying is that the NWFP is a gross distortion because it is the British term for the North Western region of the Indian empire that no longer exists. Also, NWFP is not a Frontier as far as the indigenous population, the Pakhtuns, are concerned. Rahmat All wrote, “It must be remembered that the Pathans are a great, gifted, and Pan-Islamic people. This is borne out by history which records that they were the first to accept Islam and lay the foundations of its twelve- century rule in India; that they were the last to stop the fight against the British and the first to resume that fight on the Afghan and Baloch frontiers; and that they are the people one of whom, the writer, however unworthy, was blessed by Allah to create the Ideal of Pakistan itself and start the fight for the realization of that Ideal - the Ideal which so inspired all Muslims as to make them join the fight and establish this Fatherland which is the home and heritage of all Paks”.

Finally, in his book, Ch. Rahmat Ali advocates a family re-union of our Asian and Indian homelands i.e. Pakistan, Afghanistan and Central Asia.

The views expressed by people associated with domestic secular-liberal movement and people advocating South Asian regional cooperation are indirectly paving the way for this reunion.

The UN sanctions on Afghanistan, western attitude towards the Taliban and Pakistan, and now the seemingly indefinite occupation of Afghanistan, are advertised as measures to prevent the disintegration of Pakistan and Afghanistan even though that is their objective. But it may lead to their Union and create enthusiasm for further federation with the neighboring and ancestral Muslim homelands of Central Asia, Iran, etc.

Commenting on the issue of pan-Islamic federation, Robert G Wirsing writes:

“This idea has gestated in Pakistani minds that both its vulnerable political geography and its military-demographic-economic weakness relative to India could be compensated for, at least to an extent, by expanding and deepening its ties to the many coreligionist States of the Islamic world... [However] the pan-Islamic option, for all its bluster and for all its promise, is for most practical purposes (and certainly for Pakistan's basic security requirements) a fiction.”[11][11]

It might appear that under the present circumstances, Pakistan is coming up short of reliable Islamic allies. However, the attitude of the ‘liberal’ elite in Pakistan, and policies and actions of the western nations suggest that the same forces are indirectly leading to developing a mindset among Pakistanis and Afghans that they are the same people facing common problems and sharing a common destiny that reinforces the trans-state Islamic bonds between them. Besides the undeniable civilizational, political and security need for Pakistan’s reunion with Afghanistan, there is plenty of evidence that the rallying of Muslims to pan-Islamic causes has become a matter of some significance in the South Asian environment, particularly in a situation where the western powers are bent upon prematurely turning India into super power of the 2l century.

According to a report by Jyoti Malhotra, the British are now talking of a partnership of equals’ between Britain and India in the new century.[12][12]

To directly challenge the Indian and western efforts, Pakistan would be well advised to move towards substantive initiatives such as the notion of a Community of Power to be evolved between Iran and Pakistan to begin with and gradually fanning out into Afghanistan and other Muslim states to form the eastern flank to the heart of Islam as it had been, before it was broken up through the Mongol invasions beginning in 1221; then through infighting by the Afghans, Moghuls and Safavids; and finally by the colonial legacy of the McMahon, Durand and Goldsmith Borders.

Bibliography

[8] Alam Absar. “US okays MMA, Musharraf alliance,” The Nation, June 02, 2003.

[9] Sandy Gordon, “South Asia After the Cold War: Winners and Losers,” Asian Survey 35 (October 1995): 894-95. For an extended discussion of the themes in this article, see Gordon’s recent study, India’s Rise to Power in the Twentieth Century and Beyond (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1995). Gordon is a Fellow at the Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies, Australian National University.[10] Gordon, “South Asia After the Cold War,” 881.

[11] Robert G Wirsing, Asian Affairs, an American Review, Washington; Summer 1996

[12] Published in the Indian Express, November 1999.

[13] On June 26 of this year, the magazine India Reacts reported more details of the
cooperative efforts of the US, India, Russia and Iran against the Taliban regime. “India and Iran will ‘facilitate’ US and Russian plans for ‘limited military action’ against the Taliban if the contemplated tough new economic sanctions don’t bend Afghanistan’s fundamentalist regime,” the magazine said. The BBC’s George Arney reported September 18 that American officials had told former Pakistani Foreign Secretary Niaz Nailc in mid-July of plans for military action against the Taliban regime.

 

[asaad-ul-islam]

back to my post, pakistan was and is meant to be a federation. as some of us may know, that pashtuns can also call themselves as afghanis and vice versa. it would be ideal if we can take in afghanistan.

that would re-unite the pashtuns on both sides of the border. better yet, pashtuns won't be dominating the land that was formerly known as afghanistan, right? tajiks, hazaras, uzbeks would be at more ease since we have more ethnicities to throw in our salad bowl. as you may know, we already have a hazara population, not to mention ayub khan(according to some) was a hazara.

of course afghan(istanis) wouldn't be able to take digest that would they? Yet, do they have any better options? everytime there is a govt. independent of pakistan's influence, it has been tajik dominated. history is repeating itself here. just as the soviets took over, nato taking over is followed by northern alliance domination.

pashtun afghanis do not always abhor pakistan, the fact that our country is flooded by them can be taken into account. if we push for this motion for forming a massive pan-islamic landmass, it can and WILL get through. it's not like afghanis have the luxury to decide. every day passes by, with growing indian influence in the region.

whenever we have a pashtun and pakistan-backed govt. there, we have always been at peace. of course, we had to deal with our blood-sucking politicians. islam is the only religion that has ever been able to hold so many different races and ethnicities together. why should we deny this, when our biggest trump card is right in front of us?

 

[asaad-ul-islam]

NOW OR NEVER: ARE WE TO LIVE OR PERISH FOR EVER?

[Document is headed by Arabic script from the Qur'an, 13:11: "Verily, Allah does not change the condition of a people unless they change their inner selves".]

At this solemn hour in the history of India, when British and Indian statesmen are laying the foundations of a Federal Constitution for that land, we address this appeal to you, in the name of our common heritage, on behalf of our thirty million Muslim brethren who live in PAKSTAN - by which we mean the five Northern units of India, Viz: Punjab, North-West Frontier Province (Afghan Province), Kashmir, Sind and Baluchistan - for your sympathy and support in our grim and fateful struggle against political crucifixion and complete annihilation.

Our brave but voiceless nation is being sacrificed on the altar of Hindu Nationalism not only by the non-Muslims, but to the lasting disgrace of Islam, by our own so-called leaders, with reckless disregard to our guture and in utter contempt of the teachings of history. The Indian Muslim Delegation at the Round Table Conference have committed an inexcusable and prodigious blunder. They have submitted, in the name of Hindu Nationalism, to the perpetual subjection of the ill-starred Muslim nation. These leaders have already agreed, without any protest or demur and without any reservation, to a Constitution based on the principle of an All-India Federation. This, in essence, amounts to nothing less than signing the death-warrant of Islam and its future in India. In doing so, they have taken shelter behind the so-called Mandate from the community.

But they forgot that that suicial Mandate was framed and formulated by their own hands. That Mandate was not the Mandate of the Muslims of India. Nations never give Mandates to their representatives to barter away their very souls; and men of conscience never accept such self-anhilating Mandates, if given - much less execute them. At a time of crisis of this magnitude, the foremost duty of saving statemanship is to give a fair, firm and fearless lead, which, alas, has been persistently denied to eighty millions of our co-religionists in India by our leaders during the last seventy-five years. These have been the years of false issues, of lost opportunities and of utter blindness to the most essential and urgent needs of the Muslim interests. Their policy has throughout been nerveless in action and subservient in attitude. They have all along been paralysed with fear and doubt, and have deliberately, time and again, sacrificed their political principles for the sake of opportunism and expediency. To do so even at this momentous juncture of Bedlam. It is idle for us not to look this tragic truth in the face. The tighter we shut our eyes, the harder the truth will hit us.

At this critical moment, when this tragedy is being enacted, permit us to appeal to you for your practical sympathy and active support for the demand of a separate Federation - a matter of life and death for the Muslims of India - as outlined and explained below.

India, constituted as it is at the present moment, is not the name of one single country; nor the home of one single nation. It is, in fact, the designation of a State created for the first time in history, by the British. It includes peoples who have never previously formed part of India at any period in its history; but who have, on the other hand, from the dawn of history till the advent of the British, possessed and retained distinct nationalities of their own.

In the five Northern Provinces of India, out of a total population of about forty millions, we, the Muslims, contribute about 30 millions. Our religion, culture, history, tradition, economic system, laws of inheritance, succession and marriage are basically and fundamentally different from those of the people living in the rest of India. The ideals which move our thirty million brethren-in-fath living in these provinces to make the highest sacrifices are fundamentally different from those which inspire the Hindus. These differences are not confined to the broad basic principles - far from it. They extend to the minutest details of our lives. We do not inter-dine; we do not inter-marry. Our national customs, calendars, even our diet and dress are different.

It is preposterous to compare, as some superficial observers do, the differences between Muslims and Hindus with those between Roman Catholics and Protestants. Both the Catholics and Protestants are part and parcel of one religious system - Christianity; while the Hindus and Muslims are the followers of two essentially and fundamentally different religious systems. Religion in the case of Muslims and Hindus is not a matter of private opinion as it is in the case of Christians; but on the other hand constitutes a Civic Church which lays down a code of conduct to be observed by their adherents from birth to death.

If we, the Muslims of Pakstan, with our distinct marks of nationality, are deluded into the proposed Indian Federation by friends or foes, we are reduced to a minority of one to four. It is this which sounds the death-knell of the Muslim nation in India for ever. To realise the full magnitude of this impending catastrophe, let us remind you that we thirty millions constitute about one-tenth of whole Muslim world. The total area of the five units comprising PAKSTAN, which are our homelands, is four times that of Italy, three times that of Germany and twice that of France; and our population seven times that of the Commonwealth of Australia, four times that of the Dominion of Canada, twice that of Spain, and equal to France and Italy considered individually.

These are facts - hard facts and realities - which we challenge anybody to contradict. It is on the basis of these facts that we make bold to assert without the least fear of contradiction that we, Muslims of PAKSTAN, do possess a separate and distinct nationality from the rest of India, where the Hindu nation lives and has every right to live. We, therefore, deserve and must demand the recognition of a separate national status by the grant of a separate Federal Constitution from the rest of India.

In addressing this appeal to the Muslims of India, we are also addressing it to the two other great interests - British and Hindu - involved in the settlement of India's future. They must understand that in our conviction our body and soul are at stake. Our very being and well-being depends upon it. For our five great Northern states to join an All-India Federation would be disastrous, not only to ourselves, but to every other race and interest in India, including the British and the Hindu.

This is more especially ture when there is just and reasonable alternative to the proposed settlement, which will lay the foundations of a peaceful future for this great continent; and should certainly allow of the highest development of each of these two peoples without one being subject to another. This alternative is a separate Federation of these five predominantly (sic) Muslim units - Punjab, North-West Frontier (Afghan Province), Kashmir, Sind and Baluchistan.

The Muslim Federation of North-West India would provide the bulwark of a buffer state against any invasion either of ideas or arms from outside. The creation of such a Federation would ot materially disturb the ratio of the Muslim and Hindu population in the rest of India. It is wholly to the interest of British and Hindu statesmanship to have an ally a free, powerful and contented Muslim nation having a similar but separate Constitution to that which is being enacted for the rest of India. Nothing but a separate Federation of homelands would satisfy us.

This demand is basically different from the suggestion put forward by Doctor Mohammed Iqbal in his Presidential address to the Al-India Muslim League in 1930. While he proposed the amalgamation of the provinces into a single state forming a unit of the All-India Federation, we propose that these Provinces should have a separate Federation of their own. There can be no peace and tranquility in the land if we, the Muslims, are duped into a Hindu-dominated Federation where we cannot be the masters of our own destiny and captains of our own souls.

Do the safeguards provided for in the Constitution give us any scope to work for our salvation along our own lines ? Not a bit. Safeguard is the magic word which holds our leaders spellbound, and has dulled their consciences. In the ecstasy of their hallucinations they think that the pills of safeguards can cure nation-anhilating earthquakes. Safeguards asked for by these leaders and agreed to by the makers of the Constitution can never be a substitute for the loss of separate nationality. We, the Muslims, shall have to fight the course of suicidal insanity to death.

What safeguards can be devised to prevent our minority of one in four in an All-India Federation from being sacrificed on every vital issue to the aims and interests of the majority race, which differs from us in every essential of individual and corporate life ? What safeguards can prevent the catastrophe of the Muslim nation smarting and suffering eternally at the frustration of its every social and religious ideal ? What safeguards can compensate our nation awakened to its national conscious for the destruction of its distinct national status ? However effective and extensive the safeguards may be, the vital organs and proud symbols of our national life, such as army and navy, foreign relations, trade and commerce, communications, posts and telegraphs, taxation and customs, will not be under our control, but will be in the hands of a Federal Government, which is bound to be overwhelmingly Hindu. With all this, how can we, the Muslims, achieve any of our ideals if those ideals conflict - conflict as they must - with the ideals of Hindus ?

The history of the last century, in this respect, is full of unforgettable lessons for us. Even one who runs may read them. To take just one instance. Despite all these safeguards and gurantees we have enjoyed in the past, the very name of our national language - URDU, even now the lingua franca of that great continent - has been wiped out of the list of Indian languages. We have just to open the latest census report to verify it. This by itself is a tragic fall. Are we fated to fall farther ? But that too is dust in the scales by comparison with the tremendous national issues involving our whole future as a nation and a power not only India but also in the whole of Asia.

In the face of these incontrovertible facts, we are entitled to ask for what purpose we are being asked to make the supreme sacrifice of surrendering our nationality and submitting ourselves and our posterity to Non-Muslm domination ? What good is likely to accrue to Islam and Muslims by going into the Federation is a thing which passes our understanding. Are we to be crucified just to save the faces of our leaders or to bolster up the preposterous that India can be a single nation ? Is it with a view to achieve a compromise at all costs, or is it to support the illusion that Hindu nationalism is working in the interests of Muslims as well as Hindus ? Irony is flattered to death by a mental muddle of such a nature and on such a scale. We have suffered in the past without a murmur and faced dangers without demur. The one thing we would never suffer is our own strangulation. We will not crucify ourselves upon the cross of Hindu nationalism in order to make a Hindu-holiday.

May we be permitted to ask of all those statesmen - Muslim or British or Hindu - supporting the Federal Constitution, if it is really desirable to make our nation sacrifice all that Islam has given us during the last fourteen hundred years to make India a nation ? Does humanity really stand to gain by this stupendous sacrifice ? We dare say that still in Islam the ancient fire glows and promises much for the future, if only the leaders would let it live. Whilst in Europe, excluding Russia, in about the same area as that of India and with about the same population, there live and prosper as many as twenty-six nations, with one and the same religion, civilisation and economic system, surely it is not only possible but highly desirable for two fundamentally different and distinct nations, i.e. Muslim and Hindu, to live as friendly neighbours in peace and prosperity in that vast continent. What bitter irony is it that our leaders have not the courage to stand up and demand the minimum for our political salvation.

We are face to face with a first-rate tragedy, the like of which has not have been seen in the long and eventful history of Islam. It is not the question of a sect or of a community going down; but it is the supreme problem which affects the destiny of the whole of Islam and the millions of human beings who, till quite recently, were the custodians of the glory of Islam in India and the defenders of its frontiers. We have a still greater future before us, if only our soul can be saved from the perpetual bondage of slavery forged in an All-India Federation. Let us make no mistake about it. The issue is now or never. Either we live or perish for ever. The future is ours only if we live up to our faith. It does not lie in the lap of the gods, but it rests in our own hands. We can make or mar it. The history of the last century is full of open warnings, and they are as plain as were ever given to any nation. Shall it be said of us that we ignored all these warnings and allowed our ancient heritage to perish in our hands ?

Rahmat Ali (Choudhary).
Mohd Aslam Khan (Khattak). President, Khyber Union.
Sheikh Mohd Sadiq (Sahibzada).
Inayat Ullah Khan (of Charsaddah). Secretary, Khyber Union

Rahmat Ali's Pakistan Declaration, Now or Never

 

[Xeric]

The Associated Press: Afghan gov't employees nabbed over Karzai plot

Afghan gov't employees nabbed over Karzai plot
By RAHIM FAIEZ – 9 hours ago

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — Authorities have arrested two Afghan government employees for alleged involvement in last week's plot to kill President Hamid Karzai, top officials said Sunday.

But the government maintained that al-Qaida-linked militants based in neighboring Pakistan masterminded the April 27 attack on a military parade in Kabul. Karzai escaped unharmed but three others were killed.

"Al-Qaida was involved in the attack. That is very clear from us," intelligence chief Amrullah Saleh told a news conference.

Defense Minister Abdul Rahim Wardak identified one of the arrested government employees by a single name, Jawed, and said he had worked at a Defense Ministry factory repairing weapons. He allegedly provided two AK-47 assault rifles and a machine-gun to the three gunmen.

Wardak identified the second as a police nurse, Zalmay, who was allegedly in contact with one of the key plot leaders.

He declined to give further details about the rank of the two men, but disclosed that the two AK-47s used by the attackers were government-issued weapons. Authorities were still trying to determine where the machine-gun came from, he said.

Despite the two arrests made in Kabul after the attack, intelligence chief Amrullah Saleh again pointed to Afghanistan's neighbor, Pakistan, as the source of the plot.

Saleh said Afghanistan has provided information on the militants' whereabouts to "relevant international sources" who have the capacity to "put pressure on those people who are outside our borders."

He did not elaborate on who the international sources were.

Pakistan has sometimes nabbed Taliban and al-Qaida suspects on its soil. The U.S. has also launched missile strikes on suspected al-Qaida hideouts inside Pakistan, although Islamabad condemns it as a breach of its sovereignty.

Saleh said a raid Wednesday by security forces on a hideout in Kabul killed a militant who was also involved in the January suicide raid on the city's Serena Hotel that killed eight people.

The militant, known as Humayun, had escaped to Pakistan after that attack but returned to support the attack on Karzai, he said.

Intelligence officials have said that Humayun had links to a network led by a militant leader Siraj Haqqani.

The network is associated with Taliban and is also believed to have links to al-Qaida members. It is part of a myriad of militant groups supportive of Afghanistan's former hardline Islamist regime and bent on toppling Karzai's Western-backed government.

The U.S. military has a $200,000 bounty out on Haqqani, who is believed to be based in Pakistan's North Waziristan tribal region.

The Taliban has claimed responsibility both for the Serena attack and the attempt on Karzai's life.

Last week, Afghan lawmakers passed a vote of no-confidence against Wardak, Saleh and the interior minister after they revealed they had been aware of the plot against Karzai but failed to stop it. The officials, however, retained their jobs.

Are they actually idiots or do they think people around them are mad...
They reallu are blindd...
All the proofs are agianst them still they cant stop pointing fingures at Pakistan...

 

[Neo]

I understand what you're trying to get at. Really, this is nothing more than an idea. However, it has the potential to become a great idea.

Asad,

Quite an intresting article and quotes from Ch. Rahmat Ali and his book indeed and I now understand what you're trying to say.

Still I think that reunification with Afghanistan and Central Asia is a distant dream based on overestimated might of Pashtun ethnical ties with Kabul.
Afghanistan is a home to many ethnicities and only Pashtuns have affinity with Pakistan whereas Hazara's, Tajiks and Uzbeks are a very small entity in Pakistan and should not be considered as threat which leaves us with the Pashtuns on both sides to deal with.

NWFP is is more developped and resourcefull and has larger economy than Afghanistan as a whole, Pashtun's on our side have integrated well into Pakistani society and embraced modernisation compared to the other side.
They're loyal to Pakistan and anyone who believes that 25+ million Pak Pashtun's would rather live under Kabul is ignorant on facts and doesn't understand that dynamics of Pakistan and NWFP.

Compare Mohajirs and Punjabi's who migrated from India to Pakistan and have integrated into the society. They're no longer Indians but Pakisatni's and have no desire to be reunited with India. Same applies in Pashtun's, ethnic ties may be strong but they're overestimated. Even Afghan 3.5 million refugees in many parts of NWFP and Balochistan are considered to be foreigners, aliens to the Paksiatni Pashtun community.