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| India-Pakistan |
| Just whose side is Pakistan really on? |
| 2006-08-13 |
| For budding suicide bombers all roads seem to lead to Pakistan — and last week’s global alert over a suspect massive terrorist attack did nothing to dispel that view. “The moment I heard the first news about the airline plot, I knew it was just a matter of time until we heard the word Pakistan,” said a US intelligence agent. “Whether it’s 9/11, the Bali bombs, 7/7 and now this, Pakistan is always the connection. That’s gotta raise some questions." The roots of Pakistan’s reputation as a haven for jihadists run deep. It was, after all, in the city of Peshawar that Al-Qaeda was born after ISI, Pakistan’s military intelligence, started to recruit Arabs to fight in the Afghan jihad. It was ISI that turned the Taliban from a bunch of religious students into a movement that took over Afghanistan. According to Hamid Karzai, president of Afghanistan, ISI continues to provide a safe haven, training them to fight British soldiers in Helmand. |
| Posted by:john |
| #6 "Just whose side is Pakistan really on?" Their own. |
| Posted by: Barbara Skolaut 2006-08-13 15:51 |
| #5 That is exactly how VS Naipaul described Pakistan Few writers have offended their readers as regularly as V.S. Naipaul has. From his first travel book, which disparaged the West Indies as a "dot on the map" where "nothing was created," to his most recent, in which he dismissed Pakistan as a "criminal enterprise," the Trinidad-born author of Indian ancestry has shown a staggering capacity for insensitivity and prejudice. Africa is filled with "bow-and-arrow people." India is "an area of darkness." "V.S. Nightfall," Derek Walcott has called him; like a man who turns his back to the sun, Naipaul sees the world through his own shadow. |
| Posted by: john 2006-08-13 11:06 |
| #4 Not much different than a criminal organisation. |
| Posted by: Fordesque 2006-08-13 10:34 |
| #3 Simple. They are on their own side, trying to play the West against their homegrown monsters for cash. If it is lucrative for them in some way to turn some of the monsters over, they will do it. If it is more convenient for them to let them run amok, they will do that. Convince them there is something in it for them and they will be your "friend". |
| Posted by: Swamp Blondie 2006-08-13 08:32 |
| #2 KSM was picked up in the military cantonment of Rawalpindi. Probably a neighbor of Perv. Makes you wonder where in 'pindi Osama is living |
| Posted by: john 2006-08-13 08:21 |
| #1 He points out that many senior figures in Pakistan’s military establishment had probably run camps: “The attitude of condoning extremist behaviour is so pervasive that it may be difficult for people to adjust to a new attitude of cracking down on them.” "New attitude"? If you ran a terrorist training camp, you're a terrorist yourself. You can't "crack down" on anything. In the Islamic Republic of Pakistan (its official name, seldom mentioned in the media), these camps are funded by the army. Let me repeat the offical motto of the Pakistani Army "Iman-Taqwa-Jihad fi sabilillah "(Faith, Fear of Allah, Jihad in the way of Allah) If your motto is Jihad in the way of Allah, will you fight jihadists? |
| Posted by: john 2006-08-13 08:19 |