Why can't many Pakistanis see extremists are an existential threat?

[MrConcerned]

What are the mindset blockages that prevent many Pakistanis to see this?

1. If extremists take over, that is the end of the dream of tolerance and unity that the creators had when they fought for the country to be formed.

Not only that, the extremists will drop the idea of nationhood altogether and use the country merely as a resource base and manpower pool to attack other countries int the vicinity, including, I suspect, the Western part of China.

2. If the chaos don't wreck the country, the response from other, more powerful neighbours will, and it will be coordinated. Do we really want to see China and India ganging up to blow things up in the country?

3. Yes, extremists are an existential threat also because their intentions are so out of this world. No longer satisfied with 'taking back their country', although most people voted in the Afghan elections, and that Pashtuns are only 48% of the country, they see parts of Pakistan as their own Emirate too. Didn't you see the Emirate of Waziristan they formed? They may not defeat the PA now, but as can be seen from the slow corruption of the border regions from as long as the end of the Soviet occupation, they could make a good fist of it in the next decade as their numbers grow and their ***** teachings keep spreading as a form of propaganda.

4. We should not take the presence of NATO as an irritant in dealing with this people, in fact, we should be 'grateful' that there is a partner who can supply needed resources. For it was by the thinness of a hair that Bin Laden, who appears to have a megalomanical complex, decided that to flaunt his power by attacking America was the best move instead of consolidating the Taliban in Central Asia. If they had made concerted efforts in the border regions with their 50, 000 troops and tens of thousands of 'international volunteers' (who were eventually massacred by NATO), the disruption would have been far greater for Pakistan, and we would have foreign troops on our soil to cope, probably Chinese, who knows.

5. I cannot imagine an industrialized country, which Pakistan needs to be to feed its 160 million population, can have this people running around in the country. It has never happened before and why is Pakistan so special as to buck this trend. Without industrialization, Pakistan is toast.

6. If India is hosting hundreds of thousands of fighters who are launching cross border attacks into Pakistan, and refusing to do anything about it, Pakistan would have declared war. Yet the Mehsud tribe is doing this and we're accusing Afghanistan of being rude and aggressive?

Musharaff has done a lot for the country but I'm not sure I can personally forgive his lackadaisical and arrogant attitude towards the extremists believing he control them and crush them easily. We cannot crush them easily, recent operations has shown. He has been proven wrong on this matter, and how many innocents have died because of his mistake. Remember, he ordered planes into Kabul to evacuate Pakistani tribesmen and ISI and brought them back, where they now began to plot against the state.

Enough of this. I have never seen a modern country that uses religious fanatics against another country or undermine its neighbours who are good partners for wealth-building trade. May Pakistan prevail, inshallah.

 

[MrConcerned]

Musharaff is continually taking the rest of us as fools. Either that or he is not in control of the situation at all. What good is he then?

Al-Qaeda Commander Moved Freely in Pakistan

Libyan Killed Last Week Operated Openly

By Imtiaz Ali and Craig Whitlock
Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, February 4, 2008; A01

PESHAWAR, Pakistan, Feb. 3 -- A Libyan al-Qaeda commander who was killed last week in northwestern Pakistan had lived there for years and, despite a $200,000 U.S. bounty on his head, felt secure enough to meet officials and visit hospitals, according to officials and residents of this city.

As he organized suicide bombings and other attacks in neighboring Afghanistan, Abu Laith al-Libi found a comfortable refuge in Pakistan's border region, the sources said in interviews. He met openly with a Pakistani politician and a Libyan diplomat and called on foreign fighters recovering from their wounds.

The Pakistani government contends it has been doing everything possible to capture al-Qaeda figures within its borders. But Libi, who was killed in a missile attack last week, moved unchallenged around the heart of Peshawar, a city of about 1.2 million people, underscoring how freely he and other al-Qaeda leaders have been able to operate in Pakistan.

One day in 2006, Libi strode into the central prison in Peshawar, the administrative capital of North-West Frontier Province. As another Libyan fighter sat nearby behind bars -- in the custody of Pakistani authorities -- Libi, the politician and the Libyan diplomat argued over whether the man should be deported against his wishes to Libya or released to fight another day, according to Javed Ibrahim Paracha, the politician who helped arrange the meeting.

"I knew Abu Laith for quite some time," said Paracha, a former member of the Pakistan National Assembly who is running for a parliamentary seat again in elections this month.

Paracha called Laith "a good and pious Muslim" and said the Libyan had frequently visited hospitals in Peshawar and the nearby city of Bannu to check on foreign fighters who had been wounded fighting alongside the Taliban and other militant groups.

A Pakistani prison official, speaking on condition of anonymity, confirmed some details of Paracha's account of the gathering and said it occurred at least 18 months ago.

The lack of progress in hunting al-Qaeda commanders such as Libi has fueled frustration among U.S., Afghan and European officials, who say al-Qaeda and its Taliban allies regularly plan operations abroad from havens in Pakistan. The Pakistani government has barred U.S. forces from searching for al-Qaeda leaders on its soil.

It has been nearly two years since Pakistani forces are known to have killed or captured any significant al-Qaeda figures. The last was Muhsin Musa Matwalli Atwah, an Egyptian citizen who had been indicted in the United States in connection with the bombings of two U.S. embassies in East Africa in 1998.

Atwah had been on the FBI's list of most-wanted terrorism suspects, although intelligence analysts did not consider him part of the network's core leadership. He was killed in April 2006 in a Pakistani airstrike in North Waziristan.

Libi's activities in Pakistan had been a particularly sore point between the United States and the government of President Pervez Musharraf.

A few months after Libi visited the Peshawar jail, U.S. military officers said, Libi organized a suicide attack outside Bagram air base in Afghanistan during a visit by Vice President Cheney. At least 23 people were killed in the February 2007 bombing.

Some security officials and analysts said Libi also orchestrated a 2005 prison breakout of four al-Qaeda fighters from the U.S. military's prison at Bagram.

Libi emerged as a major figure among Islamic extremists in 2002, when he announced via videotape that al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden and Taliban leader Mohammad Omar had survived the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan.

Libi's death was reported Thursday in a statement released on an al-Qaeda Web site. Although the statement did not give details, he is thought to have been among 12 people killed in a missile strike Tuesday in a village in North Waziristan.

Intelligence reports indicate that Libi had been on his way to a meeting with Baitullah Mehsud, a Pakistani Taliban commander and tribal leader who has been blamed in the Dec. 27 assassination of former Pakistani prime minister Benazir Bhutto, according to an intelligence official in Europe who spoke on condition of anonymity.

The identities of the other people killed in the missile strike are unknown. Pakistani officials said they have had difficulty gaining access to the scene, but residents have said local Taliban commanders pulled the bodies out of the rubble. Neither U.S. nor Pakistani officials have publicly asserted responsibility for the attack.

Libi's death came two months after he and al-Qaeda deputy leader Ayman al-Zawahiri announced in a joint statement that a Libyan militant network had formally joined forces with al-Qaeda. Libi was a longtime leader in the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, an organization founded in the early 1990s to topple Libyan leader Moammar Gaddafi.

The Libyan government had been trying to persuade members of the group to agree to a truce, which was partly why Libi had agreed to meet at the Peshawar prison with a diplomat from the Libyan Embassy in Islamabad, said Paracha, the Pakistani politician who arranged the meeting.

Paracha said the encounter led to further "interactions" between Libi and the Libyan government, though he declined to give details. At the time, he said, Libi was an independent operator who had not formally pledged allegiance to al-Qaeda, but worked closely with the network and Taliban forces to fight U.S. and NATO troops in Afghanistan.

"He was not directly involved with al-Qaeda but would join the bin Laden forces on a needed basis," Paracha said. "He was leading his own group of Libyan militants."

Paracha is a regional leader in the branch of the Pakistan Muslim League party that is headed by former prime minister Nawaz Sharif. Paracha is known to have close contacts with Taliban leaders and other militants.

He said he has negotiated the release of hundreds of foreign fighters from Pakistani prisons on the condition that they leave the country. "I've been doing this service for four years," he said.

Paracha's efforts to mediate a peace deal between Libi and the Libyan government went nowhere, however, according to a Libyan source familiar with the talks.

"Abu Laith was 100 percent against the negotiations between the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group and the government," said the source, who spoke on condition of anonymity. "He refused to be part of it."

Whitlock reported from Berlin.

 

[roadrunner]

From your article

Paracha is a regional leader in the branch of the Pakistan Muslim League party that is headed by former prime minister Nawaz Sharif. Paracha is known to have close contacts with Taliban leaders and other militants.

This is all politics, my Indian friend. It is idiots like you that believe 900 soldiers have been sacrificed on the Pakistani side in some sort of double game played out by the Pakistani government.

 

[Spring Onion]

From your article



This is all politics, my Indian friend. It is idiots like you that believe 900 soldiers have been sacrificed on the Pakistani side in some sort of double game played out by the Pakistani government.

RR why one should bother to reply idiots in the first place
i avoided replying to some fiction based idiotic thoughts.

 

[hoodhood1]

The people of Pakistan are sitting with there "Eyes wide Shut". Because majority are uneducated.
Just ask anyone in PK, they will tell you it's our neighbour who is creating all this s--t, but they still watch there movies, TV channels and above all our Media is sitting and doing nothing. Maybe they are on there Payroll too.

 

[Cheetah786]

The people of Pakistan are sitting with there "Eyes wide Shut". Because majority are uneducated.
Just ask anyone in PK, they will tell you it's our neighbour who is creating all this s--t, but they still watch there movies, TV channels and above all our Media is sitting and doing nothing. Maybe they are on there Payroll too.

People of USA are sitting with there "Eyes wide Shut". because minority is controlling them just ask any one in USA and they will tell ya Iraq's Saddam was responsible for 911.and all problems in Middle east is cause of Muslims and have nothing to do with Americans inter fearing with peoples lives and there countries.they still watch there Hollywood movies and TV channels and above all Media is doing every thing to hide the truth ''10trillion dollars in debt economy almost bankrupt dollar on the slide'' and Saddam's drones(model planes) of chemicals are own there way to attack who's pay roll they are ON.

Extremist are getting there financing from outside Pakistan by the billions from Americans allies and its a well known fact not hidden from them. Raw is training and arming BLA Americans are quite about that .Americans are closing there eyes to drug lords in Afghanistan who are arming and training terrorist to fight Pakistan army.But people like you have the nerve to blame Pakistan for all problems.
we have lost over 900 of our soldiers fighting the war NATO has out right refused to send more troops to fight in Afghanistan.and if they have any troops they stay on there safe camps.

We are doing the best we can with resources we have question one should ask whats the rest of the world is doing in Afghanistan with all there resources they still haven't won in Afghanistan yet they want Pakistan to pull a miracle and solved decades old problem with a snap of fingers.

 

[Neo]

People of USA are sitting with there "Eyes wide Shut". because minority is controlling them just ask any one in USA and they will tell ya Iraq's Saddam was responsible for 911.and all problems in Middle east is cause of Muslims and have nothing to do with Americans inter fearing with peoples lives and there countries.they still watch there Hollywood movies and TV channels and above all Media is doing every thing to hide the truth ''10trillion dollars in debt economy almost bankrupt dollar on the slide'' and Saddam's drones(model planes) of chemicals are own there way to attack who's pay roll they are ON.

Extremist are getting there financing from outside Pakistan by the billions from Americans allies and its a well known fact not hidden from them. Raw is training and arming BLA Americans are quite about that .Americans are closing there eyes to drug lords in Afghanistan who are arming and training terrorist to fight Pakistan army.But people like you have the nerve to blame Pakistan for all problems.
we have lost over 900 of our soldiers fighting the war NATO has out right refused to send more troops to fight in Afghanistan.and if they have any troops they stay on there safe camps.

We are doing the best we can with resources we have question one should ask whats the rest of the world is doing in Afghanistan with all there resources they still haven't won in Afghanistan yet they want Pakistan to pull a miracle and solved decades old problem with a snap of fingers.

Awesome reply mate!
Repped you up

 

[hoodhood1]

Well Cheetah 786, don't get so emotional. I am also a Pakistani and have love for for my Motherland. I was simply telling that what RAW is doing in Baluchistan and N/S Waziristan. Rumors are that they are buying Suicide bombers to create panic in Pakistan.
Yes! you are right the minority here is quite strong as they learnt the lesson from WWII, that is why they rule the Media and propaganda machinery and are teaching the same to the Indians.