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Dear AM,

Does this not point in one direction only ? Lack of proper education. See the scandanavian countries they are perfect examples of happiness. If you can seperate education from religion you have found success as they have done.

Regards

Which brings us back to the fact that Religion/Ideology is a huge motivator. Ask any politician.
A country needs to motivate its people to perform better.
China does it by a combination of pervasive propaganda and harsh punishments for defaulters.

How will India/Pakistan motivate its bureaucracy?
 
Which brings us back to the fact that Religion/Ideology is a huge motivator. Ask any politician.
A country needs to motivate its people to perform better.
China does it by a combination of pervasive propaganda and harsh punishments for defaulters.

How will India/Pakistan motivate its bureaucracy?


Dear SA,

Please watch an election in Europe. Not one party has ever won having religion as its agenda. BNP tried it and failed.

Education means I need a guy who represents me to be available to me and listen to me.

I don't need anyones help to get me time with my councilor. I just call his office state my business and his office calls me back even though I did not vote for him.

So maybe thats the model for India and Pakistan. I mean religion should never be state business.

Regards
 
Dear SA,

Please watch an election in Europe. Not one party has ever won having religion as its agenda. BNP tried it and failed.

Education means I need a guy who represents me to be available to me and listen to me.

I don't need anyones help to get me time with my councilor. I just call his office state my business and his office calls me back even though I did not vote for him.

So maybe thats the model for India and Pakistan. I mean religion should never be state business.

Regards

AN, its easier said than done. South Asia never had a renaissance.

If you have studied European history, you will see that there is a long line of anti-religion movements. The French were especially brutal against the priests and clergy.

South Asians are religious people, and that isn't going to change in a hurry. After all, we have to work with what we have got.

So we either overhall society by teaching a secular curriculum in schools, which will be ill-received, especially in Pakistan, or we stick to religious thought, but tweak it to suit our agenda.
 
AN, its easier said than done. South Asia never had a renaissance.

If you have studied European history, you will see that there is a long line of anti-religion movements. The French were especially brutal against the priests and clergy.

South Asians are religious people, and that isn't going to change in a hurry. After all, we have to work with what we have got.

So we either overhall society by teaching a secular curriculum in schools, which will be ill-received, especially in Pakistan, or we stick to religious thought, but tweak it to suit our agenda.

Dear SA,

South asians are always known for spirituality. Heck I know 10 people who have gone to Goa or Cochin or Manali (spelling could be wrong) and have grassed their brains before returning and getting back to normal life. Its actually not the people of Asia which have a problem but the leaders they elect. Narrow minded self centered people who use religion to further their narrow interests.

Regards
 
NATO, Pakistan troops kill Taliban on Afghan border
01 Jul 2008 05:42:29 GMT
Source: Reuters
KABUL, July 1 (Reuters) - NATO troops in Afghanistan and Pakistani soldiers together killed a number of militants along the rugged border, the NATO force said on Tuesday, in a rare show of close cross-border military cooperation.

Afghan officials have for the last month showered Islamabad with accusations it was aiding Taliban insurgents against Kabul, and NATO said on Sunday there could be no peace in Afghanistan as long as militants have sanctuaries in Pakistan.

But Afghan, Pakistani and NATO's troops do have regular and open lines of communication to try to coordinate actions along the long and porous border.

Taliban insurgents fired rockets and rocket-propelled grenades at an outpost of troops from NATO's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in the Spera district of Khost province in eastern Afghanistan on Monday.

The troops responded with mortar, artillery fire and air strikes and the militants fled across the border.

"ISAF forces thus coordinated with the Pakistan military border area counterparts; and the Pakistan border force subsequently fired artillery on the retreating insurgents inside Pakistan," ISAF said in a statement.

ISAF does not disclose Taliban casualty figures.

Pakistani military spokesmen were not immediately available for comment.

The coordinated attacks contrast with a border clash on June 10 in which Pakistan said 11 of its soldiers were killed in an airstrike by U.S. forces in the border area.

U.S. officials have ordered an investigation into the incident, but say those killed were firing on U.S. forces and there were no Pakistani military units in the area at the time.

Almost all ISAF troops in eastern Afghanistan are American.

Poor relations and mutual distrust between Pakistan and Afghanistan have dogged efforts to undermine the hardline Islamist insurgency which now threatens both countries along the Pashtun belt on both sides of the border. (Writing by Jon Hemming; Editing by Ben Tan)

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/ISL312586.htm

Good to see more cooperation between the two sides.

Hopefully one of these days Mehsud and company will be amongst the "leaders" killed - though knowing the MO of the Extremist leadership, they are too big of cowards to go fight themselves.

"Indispensable to the cause" and whatnot.
 
Pakistan Says Army to Be Used Against Militants as Last Option

By Paul Tighe

July 1 (Bloomberg) -- Pakistan will use its army to combat militants in tribal areas as a last option and will let local authorities lead efforts to tackle extremism in the region bordering Afghanistan, Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani said.

The army will be called on only when the local governments ask for help, the official Associated Press of Pakistan cited Gilani as saying in Multan yesterday.

Renewed efforts to combat extremists aren't being taken at the behest of the U.S. or Afghanistan, Gilani said. ``Our own international security needs the ongoing civilian government action against the militants,'' he said.

Gilani's government began truce talks with Taliban groups in the tribal region in April, prompting concern from the U.S. that militants will use the negotiations to step up attacks on U.S.- and NATO-led forces in Afghanistan. Afghan President Hamid Karzai last month said he wanted to deploy troops on Pakistani soil to attack Taliban fighters.

Gilani took office after February's general elections when opposition parties defeated supporters of President Pervez Musharraf, a key ally of the U.S. in its fight against terrorism.

The government in Islamabad has said it wants to emphasize negotiations, rather than military force, in dealing with Taliban militants and their allies.

The tribes, in cooperation with security forces, must be responsible for stopping fighters crossing the border, the government says. They must understand that the military will be justified in using force if tribesmen act against their pledges, political and security leaders said at a meeting hosted by Gilani in the capital last week.

Afghan Border

Pakistan and Afghanistan blame each other for failing to stop al-Qaeda and Taliban fighters crossing the 2,430-kilometer (1,510-mile) border they share. Gilani said yesterday he talked with Karzai recently and both leaders have the same views on security, APP reported.

Karzai's comments last month were taken out of context and didn't pose a threat to Pakistan, the prime minister said, according to APP. Pakistan's government will continue to hold talks with those who want to give up militancy, Gilani added.

The Ministry of Interior yesterday banned three groups in the tribal area, APP reported. Lashkar-e-Islam led by Mangal Bagh, Ansar-ul-Islam led by Mahboob-ul-Haque and the Haji Namdar Group were banned under the Anti-Terrorism Act.

The ban has the support of local tribal leaders and is part of an operation that respects tribal sensitivities, according to the report. Local security forces recently cleared and demolished a base where between 150 and 200 supporters of Bagh gathered, APP cited unidentified ministry officials as saying.

Paramilitary troops were deployed last week in North West Frontier Province to combat Islamic militants threatening the provincial capital, Peshawar. Taliban fighters have increased operations inside Peshawar, a city of 3 million people that lies on the Pakistan side of the Khyber Pass, a supply route for U.S. and NATO forces fighting in Afghanistan.

To contact the reporter on this story: Paul Tighe in Sydney at ptighe@bloomberg.net

Bloomberg.com: Asia
 
Some of us refuse to see the US for it's game in our region is, this is a tragic short coming, ideology must never be allowed override experience.



Durand Line & geopolitics

Wednesday, July 02, 2008
Zeenia Satti

When has a state ever been able to curb an insurgency without firm control over its borders? Under the guidance of the Pentagon's planners, Pakistan and Afghanistan are in the process of making history. Each seeks to curb the insurgency within its territory while keeping open its border with the other, ostensibly the very source of insurgency.

The current insurgency notwithstanding, the Pakistani-Afghan border, the Durand Line, is contested since 1947. Pakistan upholds the 1893 demarcation while Afghanistan claims more territory. The UN uses the Afghan maps. The US and NATO use the Pakistani map but mouth the Afghan view.

Pakistan had an opportunity to secure Kabul's endorsement of the Durand Line when the Taliban ruled Afghanistan from 1996-2001. Because all three of the current incumbents, the PPP, the PML-N and Musharref held office during this period, each is to blame for missing the most expedient geopolitical moment to secure bilateral settlement of the Durand Line. In 1998 Jalaluddin Haqqani's appointment as minister for border affairs in the Taliban government meant that the key portfolio in the matter was held by the ISI's protégé. During the time in question, a nuclear-capable Pakistan, oblivious to the geostrategic implications of the 1991 invasion of Iraq, remained preoccupied with conventional strategic depth, vis-à-vis India, through Afghanistan, and failed to secure its immediate border interest.

The United States' invasion of Afghanistan turned Pakistan's "strategic depth" into a strategic nightmare. Pakistan faces a myriad of geostrategic hazards which include the cross-border infiltration of insurgents who are frequently bombed by the US in Pakistan's "lawless" areas. The locals feel terrorised and unprotected as their civilian casualties mount. Musharref's combat with the insurgents as U.S proxy provoked their incitement of the Pakhtuns against the "foreign yoke." The emotive cry of Pakhtun dignity under attack is echoed within the NWFP by groups such as the Pakistani Taliban and the Pakhtun Democratic Council. This has given rise to a Pakistani insurgency akin to the Afghan one.

India's influence in Afghanistan's Pakhtun region is enormous. Pakistan's policy has alienated everyone in Afghanistan, including Tajiks, Hazaras and Uzbeks, as well as the Pakhtuns. Pakistan-Afghanistan relations are at their worst, which makes the Durand Line a possible flashpoint of the future. Washington's declaration that FATA is a threat to US security magnifies the danger.

The current environment renders even positive developments vulnerable to manipulation by Islamabad's detractors. The ANP's victory exposes the marginality of extremism, legitimising Islamabad's fight against it. Paradoxically, while extremism serves the Taliban's purpose, the ANP gives the Karzai government an opportunity to woo Pakhtun nationalism. Both the Afghan contestants now have other avenues in the NWFP to exploit.

The Pentagon labels the Afghan insurgency "Taliban resurgence." US civil society follows suit. During a briefing in Washington's Woodrow Wilson Centre on April 18, a Rand Corporation associate and a Georgetown University professor lamented that NATO's goal in Afghanistan is complicated by a highly decentralised enemy. They called the enemy "multiple Taliban, with varying loyalties, depending on their geographic locations." The academicians failed to explain the logic through which a variety of insurgent groups are given a title that until 2001 identified a distinct Afghan faction.

Because the Afghan insurgents wear baggy clothes and do not shave regularly does not hoodwink the US commanders into believing all are Taliban. There are reasons why the insurgents are labelled so. The US intelligence seeks to shape political realities through political articulation. It seeks to isolate the population from the insurgents by identifying them as a discredited group. It also seeks the international community's acquiescence in the insurgents' massacre. Further, it triggers the resurgence of the Northern Alliance, which crystallised in 2006 as the "United Afghan National Front Opposition Group." The northern warlords' partnership with Karzai is insincere. He is considered a US puppet, just as the Taliban were considered Pakistani puppets. Karzai's appeasement of the moderate Taliban makes the northerners dread a government dominated by undesirable Pakhtun elements, motivating the northerners' reorganisation. Karzai's presence and the hoax of Taliban resurgence create fissiparous fissures in Afghanistan, straining its nationalism. If Iraq is any example to go by, this tendency will intensify under US occupation.

The Pakistani Pakhtuns left to the political and economic periphery hitherto defined themselves as peripheral. The war on terror is pressuring them into separatism. It is a maxim that in common catastrophe men move into unison. The brutality of the Afghan war is a common catastrophe for the Pakhtuns. Unless Islamabad bifurcates its Pakhtuns from the Afghan ones, their struggle to protect themselves and their interests may lead them to seek strength in cross-border territorial unison. Kabul has every incentive to fan separatism in the NWFP.

There are no economic and political boundaries in FATA. Once such boundaries are established, ethnic identities will cease to exist as "autonomous" and will become "relational" instead. The politico-economic boundaries will define the Afghan and Pakistani Pakhtuns vis-à-vis each other. With the advent of rapid development through mining, the border citizens of Arizona began to identify themselves as Mexican Indians and American Indians vis-à-vis each other, whereas in the pre-development stage they looked upon each other as one. There is a consensus among anthropologists and sociologists that ethnic identities are not static but dynamic and are socially constructed and politically contingent.

Whereas the Afghan insurgency goes beyond the Taliban, the Pakistani insurgency does not. It is peripheral and can be controlled. The first step towards the goal is to impede the Taliban mobility to and from Afghanistan. Since late August 2006, Pakistan has conducted patrol of its border jointly with the Afghan military and NATO under a tripartite agreement. This would have sufficed, but for latent interests that have pushed Pakistan in the line of fire.


The way out of this peril is the sealing of the Durand Line and its high-tech monitoring, the integration of FATA into NWFP and its rapid rural development under a robust security network. The United States' hunt for Osama bin Laden through aerial bombardment is a gimmick. Dangerous individuals are apprehended covertly, not through bombardment. Actionable intelligence on Al Qaeda should be responded to by Pakistani covert forces in the field. Withdrawing forces from FATA is a blunder equivalent to fighting the insurgency on the neocons' terms. The mess they have made on foreign lands is unacceptable even to Americans. Pakistan's leadership needs to act like Russia's Putin to prevent its fissiparous fissures from deepening.


The writer, based in Washington, is an energy consultant and analyst of energy geopolitics. Email: zeenia.satti@ yahoo.com
 
The way out of this peril is the sealing of the Durand Line and its high-tech monitoring, the integration of FATA into NWFP and its rapid rural development under a robust security network.


Hmmm, this sounds very familiar to me! who said it? lets see.....oh yeah Mr. Musharraf!!! and everyone said he has lost his marbles.
 
Muse have you seen pictures of the Durand line?

Its mountainous terrain which is very difficult to seal in the manner you are talking about.
 
Seen some of it, worked some of it. You may have misunderstood, neither the article nor the President of Pakisan have suggested that it is possible or desirable to mine every inch of the border with Afghanistan -- but it is possible to close down a significant chunk - ofcourse we are reminded about the US-Mexico border and how dificult that is to control -- on the other hand we cannot just sit on our thumbs and repeating a lie that nothing can be done because the terrain is harsh -- Indians have fenced parts of the line of control - and infiltration rates are down significantly - and that too, is some harsh terrain, is it not?

I can't really figure out you lot are so...resigned, so lethargic, as if you have all the luxury of time and options. Every option that involves great effort is dismissed as "undoable", without even trying -- this is regretable.

This is more like it - :

Bazaar of storytellers —Mahmud Sipra


Go ahead with your long marches to have the judges restored while Kalashnikov-wielding vigilantes of the Tehreek-e Taliban swagger through the streets of the capital of the NWFP.

Carry on with your political posturing, bickering and your political chicanery while the country’s towns and resorts are torched and businesses, schools and homes are plundered and shut down.

Don’t cancel your parties and dinners and fashion shows while the Taliban insidiously creep into your residential boulevards, case your commercial areas, and mentally mark the areas they are going to bomb next.

Sit in the air-conditioned luxury of your homes and watch mindless serials on television channels, and listen to the wise political pundits hold forth on talk shows and current affairs programmes while the Taliban brutally slit the throats of more than 27 elderly peacemakers.

Don’t let anyone stop you from planning, plotting, writing and speaking about the newfound obsession of ousting, impeaching President Musharraf!

There are those who will flood me with emails asking how dare a person like me highlight these exaggerated reports and make up stories about what is going on right under their nose. Others will remind you of the “solah crore awam” who have “spoken”.

This kind of misplaced arrogance, malaise and apathy it seems has become part of the psyche of the Pakistani. Those that will smirk at my use of the word “psyche” here are invited to look to the origin of this word and its history in Roman mythology.

How often have you heard the phrase “we are fighting America’s war”?

Really? So what are the Taliban doing in and around Peshawar, a grenade throw from one of the country’s most important and strategic airbases? Just because the paramilitary forces have launched their offensive against them finally doesn’t mean they’ve gone away, you know.

Prof Shahida Kazi in a well-researched column titled “the Myth of history” in 2005 observed:

“History is a discipline that has never been taken seriously by anyone in Pakistan. As a result, the subject has been distorted in such a way that many a fabricated tale has become part of our collective consciousness. Does mythology have anything to do with history? Is mythology synonymous with history? Or is history mythology?”

One is tempted to recall Coleridge’s lament here: “If only men could learn from history — what lessons it might teach us.”

Prof Kazi lists a number of commonly held “myths’ that are taught as “history” in the classrooms and have now entered the realm of folklore. Forget the Kissa Khwani of Peshawar — as we knew it — the whole country is now a bazaar of storytellers!

The most common one being the one used by those who will rubbish all warnings by crowing “Oi don’t forget we are a nuclear state and an Islamic one at that!”

What? We are going to use a thermonuclear device on our own people who have been subjugated and terrorised by a group of imported thugs, who would slit your throat as easily as they would a bleating lamb?

We pick up all the right causes. Here are a few:

An independent judiciary. Glad you thought of it, pal. Lofty cause, but there is a sting in the tail: you want the ousted judges back. Is the cause of the restoration of judges more important than the sovereignty and the security of the country? False argument, you say? Fine.

Let us move on to the next one.

President Musharraf should be forced to “resign...then impeached and put on trial”. What is that famous phrase: “We ask for quarter but we’ll give none!”

Now I hold no brief for President Musharraf. Truth be told, I have been informed that he dislikes me. That is fine by me. Considering I’m not looking to be appointed an advisor, an ambassador or director general of the National Shipping Corporation or some other behemoth state-owned enterprise.

But when I saw a news flash on NDTV that “the Taliban have encircled the city of Peshawar and it is about to fall...” I have to admit that alarm bells went off in my head. I found myself reaching for the nearest telephone to call my editors at DT to check on the veracity of the news.

Peshawar is after all the city where I spent some of my years growing up learning to assemble a “crystal radio set”, climbing trees laden with nectarines and taking in the sights and sounds of the Kissa Khwani and other colourful bazaars steeped in history.

But coming back to President Musharraf. I have often wondered how his departure at this particular time of turmoil is going to help put the likes of Mangal Bagh and his ilk back in the bottle.

What a marvellous movement it would have been if the “Long March” had carried a banner that said: “Enough! No more!” and those fiery speeches had been directed at those that are the true enemies of the State, warning them: if you do not desist from desecrating our Faith — the sovereignty of our Land and terrorising our people — We, the People, will take this war to you, wherever you are.

Now that, if it ever came to pass, would be a story worth telling.

Mahmud Sipra is a best selling author and an independent columnist. He can be reached at sipraindubai@yahoo.com
 
Following "Durand Line and Politics" -- see above, below is part 2


US & insurgency in Swat
By Zeenia Satti


SWAT valley’s geo-strategic importance forbids Talibanisation from taking root there. Sufi Mohammad’s demand for the imposition of his version of Sharia law dates back to 1992, a pre-Taliban period.

After 9/11, religious extremism in Swat has taken on horrific proportions under Mullah Fazlullah. The government engaged in dialogue with the Tehrik Nifaz Shariat-i-Muhammadi (TNSM) during the nineties. However, the main thrust of its policy, specifically under Benazir Bhutto, was aimed at squashing the movement through fire power.

I am a witness to one such demonstration called the Buner massacre of May 1994. I was returning from Swat in a convoy, along with foreign diplomats, which was stuck at Buner because Sufi Mohammad’s followers had blockaded the road, vowing to maintain the blockade till Sharia law was enforced in the valley. The paramilitary troops opened fire on the blockaders, killing a majority of participants and injuring all others. Although Qazi courts were also established in response to TNSM’s demand, the gory massacre demonstrated the government’s resolve to curtail the movement, which it was able to do through the nineties.

It is one of the many paradoxes of Pakistan that under the military government of Musharraf, district after district in Swat valley fell to the militants under the brutal leadership of Mullah Fazlullah. This was in no small measure a consequence of Musharraf’s agreement with Washington to fight the Taliban on Bush’s terms. The terms dictated that the US would not deal with the Taliban as POWs but would drive them into Pakistan, where Musharraf would ambush them if they launched insurgent battles in Afghanistan.

When the inevitable Afghan insurgency began and Musharraf had to fight the Taliban, the Bush administration told the media that the Pakistan army was fighting the Taliban at the behest of the US because the militants threatened US forces in Afghanistan. In other words, the Pakistan army was not killing Muslims that threatened Pakistan. This not only thoroughly delegitimised US ally Musharraf, it also further weakened the already feeble resolve of the soldiers to fight the Taliban.

Conversely, it gave a new lease of life to the Swati Mullah’s movement which was dormant since Sufi Mohammad’s arrest in 2002. US drone attacks in Pakistan which caused large civilian casualties and Musharraf’s Jamia Hafsa debacle that killed hundreds of unarmed civilians fuelled the fires of militancy further. It remains to be investigated as to whether or not a foreign hand is supplying Mullah Fazlullah with the finances he seems to be lavishly using in pursuit of his objectives.

Whatever the causes of Swati insurgency, trying to curb any insurrection by conceding to unreasonable demands is counterproductive. In the case of Swat, it is downright dangerous due to a host of reasons that lie at the intersection of regional and international politics.

The Swat problem is better explained within the larger picture. The rise of Islamic terrorism coincides with the discovery that the world’s oil production has peaked and what remains underground is not going to go round for long. The anxiety produced by this discovery is augmented by the fact that rapid industrialisation in the developing world is jacking up the demand for oil. There is global expectation that a rivalry for access to oil resources will intensify in years to come.

The ownership of most of the world’s oil reserves lies with the Islamic states of the Middle East whose defence capability is not commensurate with their monopoly of a key strategic commodity in the 21st century. Zulfikar Ali Bhutto was cognisant of this gap and tried to prepare the Islamic countries to deal with it as early as 1973.

The intense animosity that Bhutto incurred from the United States was a corollary of this effort on his part. The lavish praise that Benazir got from Washington was due to the fact that she shut the door of this struggle on Pakistan People’s Party, thereby changing the direction of what was hitherto Pakistan’s largest political organisation.

Though the US has been the unquestioned hegemon in the Middle East ever since the Second World War, neocons doubt the hegemonic momentum is sustainable in the long run due to the rise of new centres of Asian power in China and India. Emboldened by their unrivalled military strength during the shake up in the international kaleidoscope caused by the demise of the USSR, they have decided to rearrange the world to their benefit before the pieces settle down.

Lacking imagination, all they could think of was to turn the political clock backwards and reinvent imperialism to safeguard their energy interests. The international consensus that evolved out of humanity’s struggle against imperialism holds the invasion and occupation of foreign lands to be immoral. Hence the neocons had to come up with a strategy for justifying a condemned policy.

Because the rise of Al Qaeda coincides with the above-mentioned development in the world’s economic history, and because it has been used as the pretext for invading countries not involved in 9/11, it is reasonable to assume that a certain degree of political engineering has originally gone into its making. The windfall profits from the dotcom bonanza of the nineties allowed the US intelligence comfortable access to tax payers’ money for financing covert operations that would plant the timed eruptions of terrorism in key strategic locations in the Middle East, thereby producing a moral Disney show that would lead the world to approve of the US invasion and occupation of otherwise much weaker countries in distant lands.

Osama bin Laden was ejected out of Sudan into Afghanistan at the behest of Washington. According to the 9/11 commission report, Sudan offered his custody to the US embassy but the ambassador declined. So did the Saudi government which works in close collaboration with the US in matters related to security. The fact that a dangerous international terrorist who openly called for worldwide attacks on US military and civilian assets, besides his involvement in the assassination attempt on the US ally Hosni Mubarak, was made to leave his known residence for an unknown one — no one yet knew he would land in Afghanistan — that too without the US embassy obtaining as much as even his fingerprints, casts aspersions on the sincerity of CIA’s pursuit of him.

Instead of arresting and interrogating bin Laden about his network, or getting the Saudi government to hang him, the US chose to rain 68 cruise missiles on Afghanistan from the Indian Ocean in 1998 because bin Laden now lived there. It highlights the theatrics that have gone into the making of CIA’s war on terror.[/
B]


The writer is an energy consultant and analyst of energy geopolitics based in Washington DC
 
US asked to let Pakistani forces combat militants

NEW YORK, July 4: A US Congressman has said that the United States should let the Pakistan army combat the resurgent Taliban and Al Qaeda, adding that ‘pressuring the Pakistani government to accept American ground forces is not the answer”.

“Us being on the ground only makes the situation worse,” Congressman Gary Ackerman who returned to United States after two days stay in Pakistan said on Thursday in an interview with New York Newsday.

Mr Ackerman asked the Bush administration to step up equipment supplies and share more intelligence information with the Frontier Corps, the paramilitary force that patrols the treacherous, semiautonomous region between the two countries.

“What we have to do is empower the military,” said Mr Ackerman, chairman of the House Subcommittee on the Middle East and South Asia. “They need help from us to do the job themselves.”

The American presence inside Pakistan has been limited to CIA officers and military liaisons since 2003 when President George W. Bush agreed to end US involvement on the ground under pressure from the Pakistani government.

The Congressman talked with the region’s residents, tribal leaders and troops as well as Pakistani government officials, including Prime Minister Gilani, but refused to meet President Pervez Musharraf, underscoring the complications of collaborating with the country’s fractured government, the Newsday said.

“I deliberately would not meet with Musharraf,” Mr Ackerman said. “In my opinion he’s been a terrible leader.”

US asked to let Pakistani forces combat militants -DAWN - Top Stories; July 05, 2008
 
US asked to let Pakistani forces combat militants

NEW YORK, July 4: A US Congressman has said that the United States should let the Pakistan army combat the resurgent Taliban and Al Qaeda, adding that ‘pressuring the Pakistani government to accept American ground forces is not the answer”.

“Us being on the ground only makes the situation worse,” Congressman Gary Ackerman who returned to United States after two days stay in Pakistan said on Thursday in an interview with New York Newsday.

Mr Ackerman asked the Bush administration to step up equipment supplies and share more intelligence information with the Frontier Corps, the paramilitary force that patrols the treacherous, semiautonomous region between the two countries.

“What we have to do is empower the military,” said Mr Ackerman, chairman of the House Subcommittee on the Middle East and South Asia. “They need help from us to do the job themselves.”

The American presence inside Pakistan has been limited to CIA officers and military liaisons since 2003 when President George W. Bush agreed to end US involvement on the ground under pressure from the Pakistani government.

The Congressman talked with the region’s residents, tribal leaders and troops as well as Pakistani government officials, including Prime Minister Gilani, but refused to meet President Pervez Musharraf, underscoring the complications of collaborating with the country’s fractured government, the Newsday said.

“I deliberately would not meet with Musharraf,” Mr Ackerman said. “In my opinion he’s been a terrible leader.”

US asked to let Pakistani forces combat militants -DAWN - Top Stories; July 05, 2008

Good idea for supporting Frontier Corps though he can stick his opinion where the sun don't shine
 
July 05, 2008 Saturday Rajab 1, 1429

Suicide vests seized, 9 militants arrested

By Alamgir Bhittani

TANK: Security forces have arrested nine suspected militants and seized weapons and ammunition, including vests used by suicide bombers, during a raid on the house of a cleric and a seminary.

Officials said on Friday that army and paramilitary personnel had launched a search operation in the city suburbs near the Jandola Frontier Region on Thursday. Besides three suicide vests, four hand-grenades, two assault rifles and other material were found in the house of Hafiz Ashraf Ali and the seminary in the Manji area.The forces also carried out a search operation in Kari Wam areas of Jandola which had been recently attacked by militants. The assailants had demolished houses were searched to determine the extent of losses. Militants had killed about 40 people, including members of the local peace committee, and set on fire 35 houses of tribesmen on June 25-26.

Sources said that during a search operation in the Khaichai village in Jandola, the house of a local militant ‘commander’ Asmatullah Shaheen was also raided.

Suicide vests seized, 9 militants arrested -DAWN - Top Stories; July 05, 2008
 
Maqsad,

The Daily Times editorial is right on the spot. At this moment in time it is not important that we determine who is sponsoring these people, it is enough to know that these people are Pakistanis, and are threatening to unleash waves of suicide bombings in Pakistan if their demands are not met. Baitullah Mehsud just issued another threat to that effect.

Baitullah Mehsud is a sponsor, he needs to be arrested with as many accomplices as possible and fully debriefed and interrogated.

And Pakistanis continue to blame the "agencies, Musharraf and the Easter Bunny".

Its time to open our eyes - this is the guy that said he would killl BB, and she was assassinated, and the media (bar the Daily Times, to their credit) decide to go along with his denial in the aftermath.

Yet nobody has any proof except some audio recording which was such bad quality it could have been faked? Solution then is to arrest the prime suspect Baitullah Mehsud and question him.

The LM mullahs were on record threatening to unleash thousands of suicide bombers (before the operation), and the media and Pakistanis ignored it. The TTP and other Taliban carried out bombing after bombing last year, destroyed schools and "immoral" businesses, and Pakistanis blame the "agencies" and "foreign conspiracies" and still want us to "talk to out Muslim brothers".

The reason all these mullahs are infesting society are twofold, firstly because the government is not doing it's job which among many many many other things is to make clear to everyone that the state is secular and only certain types of legal jurisdiction can be given to mullahs. Sort of like a municipality versus a provincial authority where each has it's zones of operation and authority.

Secondly this mental illness is a direct result of Zia ull Haq and all the mullah infested jihadi crew that has diseased the army, government and mass media in pakistan. The army created this festering piece of gangerine in Pakistani society so it is fair to ask the army to become the first institution that removes this retarded nonsense from within it's own ranks completely and completely removes it from the ISI and MI and then figures out a way to get rid of this sickness slowly from the mainstream educational system also. A start would be requiring all schools that offer islamiyat to simultaneously offer philosophy even if they teach the regular science, arts stuff.

This is how to get rid of the domestic problem, through education and sanitization of existing institutions, not the crazy insane path that Mushy took with killing hundreds of girls in a masjid and creating support for a caliphate. The reason many people approved of Musharaff was because he was going to be pakistans mustafa kamal. Well he failed, miserably and through his idiotic(or deliberately subversive?) acts like lal masjid and the bugti killing has created a furor in balochistan and NWFP. Pakistan does not need another partition so a proper and sane solution is needed. Cowboys like Musharaff have failed and caused too much damage, that approach is finished. Some people even suspect he is a foreign agent trying to split pakistan vertically, so retarded are some of his actions. No to cowboys and partition, yes to dialogue and healing wounds.

If there is one thing that is clear, it is that the Pakistanis that are murdering other Pakistanis, that are destroying the fabric of the State, that are pushing our nation to the brink of economic and political disaster, need to be stopped. There is no other choice.

If you believe India or the US or Israel are pushing money into this, fine, but we should at least act against those vile creatures that are within our grasp who would take that money and sell out and destroy their nation.

I rage not against those who fund them, but against those traitors who have betrayed our nation, our people and our faith.

You don't seem to get my point. I am not saying local militants should be ignored, I am saying a multipronged approach needs to be taken and both the local as well as all foreign collaborators need to be targetted simultaneously. You are making this into a debate about going after one and leaving the other versus going after the other and leaving the one alone. No. Go after both. I have a hunch perhaps the ISI and the army is scared of going after the higher ups because they feel higher ups within their own ranks may be targetted? Other than that I cannot think of a legitimate reason why the authoroties would hesitate to hunt down the masterminds.

You can't just keep chasing the cannon fodder because that is just like a dog perpetually chasing it's own tail.
 
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