Where i Stand by Imran Khan....

[fatman17]

Howzzat?!!
"Ihope all concerned read my brilliant piece in the news called "where i stand" should not be confused with my other piece "where i grandstand". nobody realises that i am twice as smart as everybody else and i can smell a *** from silly mid-on if not from silly mid-off. all this is happening because we chose to bat instead of bowl, which is wrong as a whole.

it was a tragic mistake to undertake this brutal army action against al-qaeda and taliban in swat. reason and rationale have been set aside to use brute force and awful weapons against the gentle, unassuming, reasonable and rational taliban and even more gentler, unassuminger, reasonabler and rationaler al-qaeda.

my whole point is that al-qaeda-taliban should have been reasoned with, not attacked like this. i would have urged the taliban not to close down barber shops and CD shops. i would have gently urged them to try and resist the urge to kill people. and i would have assured them that next time i go to the US, i will myself plant the green flag of the TTP in disneyland next to spinning teacups.

shakespeare once said, "where are you going to my pretty maid"?. this is exactly what i've been asking General Kiyani for weeks. and he said to me "winnie the pooh is lost in hundred acre wood and nobody knows how cold are my toes, tiddly pom" what a wise a nd deep statement from one so young. here i could quote something from hamlet except that ham is not allowed in islam.

jemima's coming to pakistan to write a book - past present and future - its going to take her four whole days because pakistan is such a young country. has she been writing about italy, the costa del sol or other mediterranean hot spots, it would have taken her at least a week. my own memories are still a work in progress. i'm drawing upon my formidable memory with a red crayon.

my next piece is going to be "whose side am i on?" followed by "which side is up?" concluding with "tales from the crypt". my current observations are that although NS has been restored, nothing else has, electricity has not been restored, water has not been restored, cricket has not been restored, and whats worse shariah has not been restored. in such a situation, what can a monument such as i do? loved by most, ignored by all, i must plod on in the words of the great bunny rabbit, thumper. or the other way round, which is "i must plod on in the words of thumper, the great bunny rabbit"

IM the DIM

FT

 

[Bane Blade]

^^^^^^^^^^^
Did you manage to write that all yourself or is it a joke you got from somewhere?

 

[quest]

He is an emotional man and needs to understand that the sensitive matters can't be handled by emotional mind. He says that the government must discuss with the Taliban in Waziristan and Swat , now although i respect him due to his achievements for Pakistan in Cricket and also the Cancel hospital but i respectfully say that he must be out of his mind. Unless a person is a traitor which he is not , the only other possibility is that a very foolish man can say like that in the current circumstances.
In the past whenever the government talked and reached to an agreement with taliban, they used it to their benefit by making themselves more strong by getting more weapons and terrorists which our "kind friends and neighbors" were and are still providing to them.
Who broke the agreement in Swat, within 24 hours Taliban moved to Buner and now Imran says more time should have been given to the agreement , ho w come any mature person say that.Ask Imran we should have given time to Taliban so that they can reach Mardan and other areas.
Taliban are a cancer being spread by our "eternal friends" in Pakistan and led by Bait-ullah-Mehsood. They must be crushed this time to their graves.
Although i belong to Rawalpindi but i must thank the ANP , i really thank them. They risked their ideology by going for agreement with Taliban. Its only because of them , now the whole Pakistan knows that what's the reality of Taliban. Before the agreement, i was also of the same view like other pakistanis that Taliban in Swat are innocent people who just want justice in Swat and every thing will be fine after that but my eyes got opened wide after seeing the reality.
Now Taliban are naked and whole Pakistan is under one umbrella with Army to destroy these non sense traitors and criminals and the fact is that they have nothing to do with Islam.
In the end , i don't know how and from where Imran khan thinks but surely he has lost a precious vote and that's mine. Long Live Pakistan

 

[nwmalik]

there can be no excuse to kill civilians, worshippers in the mosques. children in school buses.
and the excuse used is the presence of USA
for gods sake
each one of them should be hanged

 

[pak-marine]

he was alright all along but he cocked it up when he didnt support the war on Taliban he has to change his stance on the war backed by the whole nation.

 

[fatman17]

^^^^^^^^^^^
Did you manage to write that all yourself or is it a joke you got from somewhere?

get a subscription to Friday Times on-line!

 

[Bane Blade]

get a subscription to Friday Times on-line!

Well I will say that you didn't leave any link so I though that you might have suddenly gained some typing talent.

 

[fatman17]

Well I will say that you didn't leave any link so I though that you might have suddenly gained some typing talent.

that i do!

 

[Bane Blade]

Lets hope Imran Khan can actually do something worthwhile for his constituents.

 

[niaz]

An article dealing with Imran Khan's stand on Swat.

Ostrich Nation



The Pakistan report card

Thursday, June 04, 2009
Fasi Zaka

The ostrich is an awkward bird. It has a massive body, powerful legs to run away when it feels danger and a small brain for its size. When it feels fear, it sticks its head in the sand hoping threats will magically go away. Maybe the ostrich is related to the Pakistani government somehow?

We have ostriches in mosques and chowks. When Lal Masjid was emerging as a problem the government did nothing, it let it escalate to the point that a violent showdown was inevitable. The same is true of Swat and its khooni chowk. Pakistan may not be a failed country, but it definitely is always in a belated state. The real threat to this country is the inability of the government to establish law and order beyond the remit of individual isolated cases. If the challenge to the writ of the government is organized, it cocoons itself until there is no choice but to act.

Be it Musharraf or Zardari, Swat is as much a victim of the Taliban as it is of apathy. The problem was clear years ago but the stomach to fight was wanting. Fear of action was so prevalent that the assembly happily passed resolutions into the hands of the Taliban, and that too under threat. No voices calling for sanity were there to be heard, on that day the shame was on the parliamentarians who let it be known whose interest they truly had in their hearts.

The soldiers and civilians dying today could have lived their natural lives if only we had chosen to act, and avoided romanticizing the Taliban. They became the vultures who created carrion to feed on it, they poisoned the waters of our religion and culture to breed.

The Imran Khans and Ansar Abbasis of this world say they wanted to make peace with the Taliban. They say this while their children have the benefit of the best of what Pakistan has to offer for their children here and abroad. When they say they want to make peace, what they are really saying is that they want the people of Swat to make peace with their lot in life of beheadings, fear, a lack of education and being robbed of their dignity. For a while it seemed that the only party in the country who had gotten it right was the MQM in raising the alarm over the creeping Talibanization from the fixed trouble spots in the country. Unfortunately when the time came to put their money where their mouth was, they too demonstrated a sharp lack of vision by demanding an unconstitutional ban on movement of the refugees, inflaming ethnic tensions. Since we are speaking of avian species anyway, the MQM ought to know that birds nurture and protect their young, and in some cases even raise them even if the eggs are of a different species of bird.

At least now, when it is clear beyond any reasonable doubt that the Taliban cannot be negotiated with, the media commentators need to be responsible and no longer push their erroneous Islamic revivalism on the backs of terrorists. The unfortunate young army men are in an unenviable position where they are fighting a war they didn't sign up for.

Despite the major issue of the refugees that we seem woefully unprepared for, there is one part of the dialogue that has not been aggressively pursued. Like the US with Afghanistan and Iraq, we cannot cut and run. Whenever this army operation is over, life will not normalize. In fact if anything, it shall remain traumatized. The army may have to prepare to stay for a while in these areas in a civil-military dictatorship to ensure the complete flushing out of the Taliban and to resume all essential services. Otherwise this will be just a longer-run short-term solution if the operation is cut completely.

I mentioned the famous characteristic of the ostrich in the beginning of this article about putting its head in the sand when it feels threatened. Actually that's just a myth. The ostrich does put its head in the sand, but only to check on the eggs buried in it, before it runs to drive predators behind it to protect its young. This selflessness is where the government and the ostrich differ.



The writer is a Rhodes scholar and former academic. Email: fasizaka@ yahoo.com

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