Thursday, November 13, 2008
Rubin: Bedu tribe in Galilee reveals links to Obama
Tabrik, Shaikh Obama. It seems they may be Druze, not Muslims, so there should not be any negative reaction.
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48 comments:
I assume the Druze-Muslim comment is meant as a joke. I am not laughing.
Obama has turned away from Muslims continually, which is disgraceful. Am I supposed to find this comical, then?
As if the people who are bigots against Muslims know the difference between Muslims and Druze....
I apologize for this displaced comment but I wanted to inquire as to how I can comment on Phillip Cunningham's entry on "Yes We Can What?"
I would greatly appreciate any advice you can give me.
Sorry once again. I appreciate it.
Sincerely,
Gitanjali
The point is for the President, or any political leader, to show that prejudice is a terrible wrong, but I am still waiting in vain to find this from Obama with regard to Muslims.
http://angryarab.blogspot.com/2008/11/obama-will-apologize-to-rashid-khalidi.html
November 4, 2008
Obama will apologize to Rashid Khalidi--5 years after his retirement from public life, not a day earlier.
-- As'ad AbuKhalil
Gitanjali,
Please add your comment here, if Mr. Rubin kindly allows, for I at least am interested in responses to Cunningham's article.
I can't speak for Obama, but I am happy to pal around with Rashid Khalidi. Anyway I've been doing it for years, so it's too late now. Have no idea why the comments don't work on Phillip's post.
Regarding the tendency for some people to be critical of others just because of whom they're descended from, this article on Slate.com says that, if you go back 3000 years, everyone alive today is descended from everyone alive then who had descendants at all.
http://www.slate.com/id/2138060/
Mullah Omar didn't bite.. Any expert comments?
Taliban spurn Afghan president's offer for talks
By NOOR KHAN – 50 minutes ago
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (AP) — Taliban militants rejected an offer of peace talks with Afghan President Hamid Karzai, saying Monday there would be no negotiations until foreign troops leave Afghanistan.
Karzai offered Sunday to provide security for reclusive Taliban leader Mullah Omar if he enters negotiations and said the U.S. and other Western nations could leave Afghanistan or oust him if they disagree.
But Zabiullah Mujahid, a Taliban spokesman, said there could be no talks while foreign troops are in the country.
"The Taliban's (leadership) decided they will not take part in any peace talks with Karzai or Karzai's administration until such a day when foreign forces leave Afghanistan," Mujahid told the Associated Press...
No need to discuss the recent blinding of school girls in Kandahar by acid throwers - since we already know that the solution is to address the 'sense of seige' felt by poor poor Pak elite in their Islamabad and Lahore drawing rooms.
I mean who did those Afghan girls blinded by acid think they were anyway, to be going to school when Pakistani generals and multimillionaire feudals(and their platoons of servants) are so insecure?
Karzai’s reaction on Kabul University Signboard:
http://afghancitizen.blogspot.com/
Well, Pakistan is not getting enough aid from the US, thats why this act originated in Pakistan, right? Or Pakistan has a sense of seige by India so Pakistani citizens pay thousands of rupees to throw acid on Afghan girls, right? Its so understandable.
http://edition.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/
asiapcf/11/25/afghan.acid.attack/index.html
Taliban militants arrested in acid attack on Afghan girls
KABUL, Afghanistan (CNN) -- Afghan authorities have arrested 10 Taliban militants in connection with this month's acid attack on schoolgirls, a provincial governor said Tuesday.
Schoolgirls visit a 17-year-old victim of this month's acid attack at a hospital in Kabul, Afghanistan.
Schoolgirls visit a 17-year-old victim of this month's acid attack at a hospital in Kabul, Afghanistan.
The militants confessed and said they were paid 100,000 Pakistani rupees ($1,265) to carry out the acts, said Rahmatullah Raufi, governor of Kandahar, where the November 12 attack occurred.
The men said high-ranking Taliban officials in Pakistan paid them to cross the porous border to carry out the attack, Raufi said.
The attackers used water pistols to spray acid on girls walking to school in the southern Afghan city of Kandahar, blinding at least two of them, U.S. military officials said at the time.
Kandahar government spokesman Parwaz Ayoubi gave different figures on the number of girls injured, saying that six were burned, including one severely. He called the attackers "enemies of
education."
Mr. Barnett Rubin I would like to ask you one question:
Two weeks ago president Karzai were in London and meet with Prim minister Gorden Brown, as of the sources in Afghanistan president office most of Karzai and Brown speech were about the Taliban
Speeches started from Negotiations with Taliban and fallowed by having them in the power, sharing of the power with them and and and
After president Karzai returned Back from London, he had a press conference in presidential place and gives a Surprise to Afghan citizens and to the united state officials about the leader of Taliban mullah Omer, Karzai Loudly announced that if Mullah Omer wants to return he well completely protect him
It was clear who encouraged Hamid Karzai for such a speech
From where he returned
What is the relation of that country with Taliban
The Karzai Surprise for United state officials was unlikely and they does not wanted to hear it from Karzai, white house reaction to Karzai invites to Mullah omer was clear , white house spokesmen’s announced that Taliban leader is on the Black list of CIA and united nation most wanted and No negation with him will be in united stat favorite
This action from Karzai and reaction from the White house, faced with the third country reaction and with the David Miliband Surprise visit to Kabul, Britain’s cleared that they well stand with Karzai for his talk with Mullah Omer. However it is not a US favorite action
What do you think Sir, am I right?
What is you opinion about Miliband Visit to Kabul in this Time.
http://angryarab.blogspot.com/2008/11/how-does-christopher-hitchens-prove.html
November 26, 2008
How does Christopher Hitchens prove that Muslims are anti-Semitic? Here, he presents the evidence and documentation: "I have myself heard this alleged at elite dinner parties in Islamabad." *
* http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/the_tls/article5186954.ece
-- As'ad AbuKhalil
[Barnett Rubin's favored source, Christopher Hitchens.]
http://www.democracynow.org/2008/11/26/headlines#6
November 26, 2008
Karzai Calls on Timeline To End War in Afghanistan
By Amy Goodman
Afghan President Hamid Karzai has called on the international community to set a timeline to end the war in Afghanistan. Karzai said: "This war has gone on for seven years, the Afghans don't understand anymore, how come a little force like the Taliban can continue to exist, can continue to flourish, can continue to launch attacks." Karzai also accused the U.S. and other foreign countries of creating a "parallel government" in parts of Afghanistan.
[What about those 20,000 more troops Obama and Gates are busily preparing to send to Afghanistan?]
Lets try this now extending the logic behind violence in Afghanistan and Kashmir to Mumbai. Pakistani Army feels itself under seige from India, so it needs to be satisfied before attacks in Mumbai like the latest one can be expected to cease. Yes?
OK, as an Indian, I am waiting for various American thinktanks to tell us Indians what these terrorists who struck Mumbai(and those who sent them) want.
I mean American thinktanks often explain to the world and Pakistan's uncooperative neighbours(who can't be attacked enough) for what precise reason Pakistani Army gets its jihadist organisations to perpetrate violence, right?
In India, ordinary people can't afford AK-47s to protect themselves like the 'insecure' Pakistani elite can. Ordinary Indians sleep and work in the open not behind high walls like the 'insecure' Pakistani elite. Yet we have subject experts lecturing Indians on the need to make the Pakistani elite feel safer.
Does the sympathy which subject experts have for Pakistani elites' mental state as compared to total disdain for the physical state of the rest of the region's population, have anything to do with the lavish hospitality offered by the Pakistani elite behind those high walls, something ordinary Indians can't offer said subject experts?
Just curious.
I think India should break off relations with the US - which is the problem not the solution as far as Pakistani terrorism is concerned. Indians don't need jobs resulting from American tieups if American hypocrisy on Pakistani terrorism is part of the package.
The US has been the biggest funder and arms source of the Pakistani Army esp since 9/11, and has consistently empowered the Pakistani establishment to indulge in foreign adventures instead of attending to internal Pakistani matters.
For a start, India needs to expel all American citizens and send back the American ambassador as well. India must not tolerate such funders and patrons of terrorists whether they are American taxpayers or decisionmakers in the US government.
Please explain more clearly, with no sarcasm for the moment, what points you are trying to make regarding Pakistan and India. I want to understand, but the sarcasm makes no sense.
Is the problem American military support for Pakistan? Arms shipments to Pakistan? Please explain.
Dear Anonymous
It is not just military support, it is billions of dollars of aid or grant from the US. It is US government officials vouching for Pakistani Army's good intentions about jihadi attacks on India while ignoring the jihadi groups operating freely.
The Pakistan and Bangladeshi militaries with their support for terrorist groups made up of their citizens and large amounts of fake Indian currency pushed into India, are waging what is in effect a military war on India. Meanwhile the US not only keeps the Pakistani Army in paint and powder it also keeps blathering on the need for India to improve relations with it.
The Pakistani Army has gotten away scot free from responsibility for thousands of deaths in Afghanistan and India, because the US takes it at its word and rains down more money on it.
Pakistan gets to keep groups like Lashkar e Taiba and HUJI in full form and not suffer any consequences of such mass murders against Afghans and Indians because the US enables Pakistan to do so by having a double standard - murderous attacks on Westerners are labelled terrorism, murderous attacks on Indians and Afghans are explained as understandable political violence due to Pakistani Army's 'insecurity'.
As I said as far as Pakistani terrorism is concerned, the US, its aid to Pakistan and its hypocrisy is now the biggest problem for India, not the solution. India needs to send a strong signal that it will not acquiese in the US's self-serving framing of the issue.
And apologists for Pakistani Army's sponsorship of violent groups like Barnett Rubin and Ahmed Rashid should be denied visas if they are ever interested in visiting India(which I doubt they are). I am sorry to say this about two people I admire but enough is enough.
How do you know who the Deccan Mujahideen are? or whether they have any links of any kind to Pakistan?
Accusations against Pakistan are at best premature and unconvincing. I would like to have America uninvolved with Pakistan militarily, but the dreadful attack on India cannot now be attributed to Pakistan or to American military involvement in Pakistan.
Understanding what happened will be long in coming.
Well, given that Lashkar e Taiba is almost an adjunct of the ISI, it is primarily the US taxpayer who has funded this Mumbai attack.
"Well, given that Lashkar e Taiba is almost an adjunct of the ISI, it is primarily the US taxpayer who has funded this Mumbai attack."
Where are the exact references?
Without references there is no reason to believe so serious an accusation against another government or portion of government. Where are the references tying Pakistan's government in any way to terrorism?
Dear Anonymous,
Here are some references in successive posts.
1. Amir Mir's book
The True Face of Jehadis: Inside Pakistan's Network of Terror, Amir Mir, Roli Books.
Excerpts:
http://www.tribuneindia.com/2006/20060402/
spectrum/main1.htm
Review:
http://www.hindu.com/lr/2006/05/07/
stories/2006050700080300.htm
Excerpts:
The Islamabad agreement between India and Pakistan in January 2004 came as a blow to even the most optimistic among the Pakistan-based militant groups waging an armed struggle against India in Jammu & Kashmir. But the leaders of the most feared among these, Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT), and its parent organization, Jamaat-ul-Dawa, are still hopeful about the future of jehad and are keeping their fingers crossed.
***
As the world applauded the sagacity of the two nuclear-armed neighbours in signing the Islamabad accord in January 2004, most of the jehadi groups bristled with rage at Gen Pervez Musharraf’s agreeing not to permit any territory under Pakistan’s control to be used for carrying out acts of terrorism of any kind.
Interestingly, however, unlike other militant leaders, Saeed, the most vocal proponent of the Kashmir Jehad, decided to abstain from issuing any further statements criticising the Islamabad accord.
According to those close to Hafiz Saeed, he was asked by the establishment to remain silent in order to avoid possible action against Jamaat-ul-Dawa and LeT. He was also promised that there would be no restriction on the activities of the two groups, be it the collection of funds and organising public rallies or the recruitment of jehadi cadres.
***
According to Hafiz Saeed’s close aides, the Islamabad agreement between India and Pakistan would not greatly affect their activities in the Kashmir valley as they had sufficient arms and ammunition in the valley to resist the India security forces for at least the next six months. They further claimed that young jehadis from various parts of Pakistan continue to throng their training camps in Azad Kashmir before being pushed across the Line of Control into Jammu & Kashmir. LeT is the only jehadi group operating from Azad Kashmir, which still keeps a comparatively larger number of activists at its Muaskar-e-Toiba and Muaskar-e-Aqsa camps in Muzaffarabad where young jehadis are reportedly sent after having been trained at Jamaat-ul-Dawa’s Muridke headquarters.
Even before the Islamabad agreement, activists of Dawa and LeT had never been obliged to observe the ban imposed by General Musharraf himself, which prevented the jehadi groups from collecting funds and holding public rallies. While banning LeT and a few other militant groups in January 2002, General Musharraf had declared he would remain firm in his stand against terrorism and extremism. However, in practical terms, no step had ever been taken to dismantle or even disarm LeT which carried out the infamous 22 December 2000 attack at the Red Fort in New Delhi.
Columbia University Press, 2004, Mariam Abou Zahab and Olivier Roy, ’Islamist Networks -The Afghan-Pakistan connection’,
page 54
’..the ISI wanted movements active in Kashmir to attack the Hindus of Jammu and Buddhists of Ladakh and so frighten them into leaving Kashmir. The Hizb-ul-Mujahiddin was reluctant to do this, since it wished to restrict its operations to Kashmir, but other movements, such as the Harakat ul Mujahidin and the Laskhar-i-Taiba, were prepared to extend their activities
beyond Kashmir and therefore became, after 1994, the groups favoured by the ISI.
General Pervez Musharraf, then chief of staff, called on the Lashkar-i-Taiba to reinforce his offensive in Kashmir in the spring of 1999 in the Kargil sector..."
"...80 percent of the combatants of the Lashkar-i-Taiba are Pakistani.
The social profile of the mujahidin is identical to that of non-commissioned officers in the army, since recuitment is carried out - principally in the towns of the Punjab such as Gujranwala, Lahore and Multan,-principally among families of the lower middle
class who, contrary to what is generally supposed, are not of Indian or Kashmiri origin.
The majority of the mujahidin emerge from the Urdu-language system of public education,
while only 10 percent come from the madrassas. They are most frequently young town-dwellers who have left school without qualifications, and are either without work or are in
low-paid employment which offers them few prospects for the future. Lashkar-e-Taiba has also made an effort to recruit in the universities and high schools..."
page 40
"...The objective of the fidayin is not to martyr themselves in their first operation. On the contrary, they aim to do as much damage as possible to the enemy to inspire
fear in both present and future generations.
This is why Laskhar-i-Taiba operations against the Hindus are so savage. Women and babies are killed, and victims are beheaded
and enviscerated. The ultimate intention is always martyrdom, and families know that mujahidin leave their homes with the intention of dying. They return to combat
repeatedly until they achieve martyrdom, the most sought-after death. Only a martyr speaks directly to God, and can intercede on behalf of his family and enable its members to enter directly into paradise.[For them the martrydom is the sole guarantee of entry
to paradise:the observance of the pillars of Islam(the profession of faith, prayer, the pilgrimage, fasting, and the donation of alms) are not sufficient]...."
3.http://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1248573/posts
Brigitte spills beans on Aussie terror plan
Herald Sun (Australia) | 10/18/2004 | Ben English
The camp was run by Lashkar e Toiba or Army of the Pure, an al-Qaida affiliated terror network that emerged in the late 1980s from an insurgency campaign to wrest Kashmir from Indian control.
Brigitte said LET was filled with soldiers from the Pakistani Army whose government has vowed
to lead the battle against terrorism in this strife-torn tribal region.
But Brigitte said the Pakistani soldiers worked to sabotage efforts by the West to fight bin Laden and his allies.
"There was complete complicity between Lashkar e Toiba and the Pakistani Army," Brigitte said
in a secret interrogation in the Paris judicial chambers of Mr Bruguiere on December 3 last year.
"Furthermore, the weapons were provided by the army. The munitions were brought in by night between the first and second levels (of the camp).
"There was everything – munitions, arms and food. We had the feeling that these weapons came from the Pakistani Army.
"There were American M16s, French FAMS, kalashnikovs and makarovs. All the identification numbers had previously been removed."
Brigitte said that, on several occasions, he was ordered to remove any evidence of military activity. The camp leaders had been warned a raid by a coalition of CIA agents and Pakistani soldiers was imminent.
"I can remember four raids by the Pakistani Army," Brigitte said. "They always asked the foreign volunteers, of whom I was one, to clean up the camp and particularly to collect the cartridge cases and cartridges.
"There were no more than 15Pakistani soldiers who came tocarry out these checks with the
same number of Americans.
"We were told that they were CIA agents who had come to check for the presence of foreign
mujahidins."
Brigitte stayed at the camp for six weeks before returning to Paris early in 2002.
...
Brigitte was acting under orders from his mentor at the LET camp, known as Sajid Abu Braa, a 30-year-old Pakistan Army soldier in charge of foreign recruits.
Abu Braa, who travelled with two personal bodyguards, was a close associate of the camp’s leader, known only as Zakerahmane. In Afghanistan, he was bin Laden’s right-hand man.
...
4.Incidentally, once you accept mass murder as legitimate instrument in public affairs,
you can use it anywhere, even in Pakistani Kashmir, even on a four month old baby:
http://www.thefirstpost.co.uk/
2549,features,islamist-spies-with-a-licence-to-kill
Islamist spies with a licence to kill
Pakistan’s intelligence service is implicated in a series of brutal murders in Kashmir, writes Scott Atran
In early May[2006], seven months after an earthquake killed more than 70,000 people and left 3 million homeless, the Pakistani army pushed out almost all remaining foreign relief
workers from the still-devastated region of Azad Kashmir, the Pakistan-controlled part
of Kashmir.
Then, between May 13 and 16, a series of 38 throat slittings and beheadings occurred in villages of southern Azad Kashmir. The youngest victim was four months old.
The army immediately blamed infiltrators from India.
But on the morning of May 17, two men said to be armed with Sten guns and daggers accosted girls on their way to school in the village of Sanghola. Alerted by the girls' screams, villagers armed themselves with whatever weapons were at hand and surrounded the school.
The two men ran to the nearby forest where they were captured by villagers. The men claimed to be road workers but a body search revealed ID cards of the kind carried by the Pakistan Army's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI). Villagers identified both as Punjabi by their accents.
Around noon, an estimated 100 villagers escorted the two men, on foot, to local police at Rawalakot. At 11:30 pm, six army officers, including a colonel and a brigadier, took the captured men from the police at gunpoint.
Whereas most local police are Kashmiri, most army personnel at the ISI headquarters, down the road from Rawalakot, are Punjabi.
The next day, the Prime Minister of Azad Kashmir, Sardar Sikandar Hayat, declared that his government was "unable to protect you [the people of Kashmir]".
On May 19 thousands of people demonstrated in Rawalakot, and protests also occurred in Kotli,Mirpur and Bhimbar. On May 24, protests were apparently lodged by Kashmiris at the Pakistani consultate in New York City and at the embassies in London and Brussels. On June 9, thousands demonstrated in Khaigala as the killings continued.
The last killing I am aware of occurred on June 10 in Gulpur. I was compelled to cut short my investigation when ISI agents began following me and interrogated my hosts about any interest I might have in the chura ("daggers" - meaning the recent killings) and "camps" (meaning jihadi activities).
While no direct evidence links ISI to the killings, many native Kashmiris I talked to and most nationalists (banned from elections as they advocate a Kashmir independent from Pakistan and India) believe ISI is behind the killings.
Two troubling facts lend credence to this argument: first, there have
been no reports of the incidents in the mainstream Pakistani press; second, while the army initially promised the police and people of Rawalakot an investigation, they've done nothing. If there had been evidence to support the army's line that Indians were to blame, it would have made headlines in Pakistan.
(read rest of article in the link)
5.September 30, 2008:
http://www.dnaindia.com/report.asp?newsid=1194581
ISLAMABAD: The Pakistan government has granted permission to the chief of the Pakistan-based terrorist group, Lashkar-e-Toiba, Hafiz Mohammad Saeed, to import a duty free bullet-proof Land Cruiser, worth Rs 25 million.
According to the interior ministry sources in Islamabad, the LeT chief, who fears a possible attempt on his life by his “external enemies”, had sought the government permission to import a duty free bullet proof Land Cruiser in view of the rising number of terrorist acts across Pakistan.
The sources said that after some lengthy deliberations on the issue, the government has decided to give him a go ahead to import a fully armoured Land Cruiser for his use from Dubai. It was for the first time that the leader of a banned jehadi group had made such a request to the government and it is also for the first time that the government has acceded to such a request.
Thank you for the references which are chilling but necessary so that we can better understand the problem that have developed.
Wow.
[Problems that have developed, that is.... We have got to stop arming Pakistan.]
Dear Anonymous,
You are very welcome.
Hopefully it also makes clear which side 'foreign experts' are on, who lecture Indians that they(Indians) must behave better (or hand over territory to Pakistan, etc) in order to stop being killed by these compulsive mass murderers sponsored by the Pakistani state.
What we have done with our support not of Pakistan as such but of the Pakistani military, support for decades, is the tragedy. I had too little sense of how threatening our military support always was and remains.
http://www.weeklystandard.com/Utilities/printer_preview.asp?
idArticle=15888&R=13D36F40
Pakistan's Jihad
In the war on terror, Islamabad is both with us and against us.
by Bill Roggio & Thomas Joscelyn
12/15/2008, Volume 014, Issue 13
Just two days after the gunmen's siege in Mumbai ended, Pakistani president Asif Ali Zardari went on CNN's Larry King Live to plead his case. Even before the Indian authorities had brought the rampage to an end, they were laying blame on their neighbor to the north. And Zardari wanted the world to know they were wrong. "This is not the time to point fingers," Zardari protested. "The state of Pakistan is in no way responsible."
Instead, Zardari said, "I think these are stateless actors who have been operating all throughout the region. . . . The gunmen plus the planners, whoever they are, [are] stateless actors who have been holding hostage the whole world."
Zardari was partly right. In all likelihood, neither he nor his supporters had anything to do with the attacks. So, if you define the "state of Pakistan" as the president and his immediate cohorts, his words ring true. Of course, there is more to Pakistan's government, including its Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), the powerful military intelligence organization over which Zardari exerts little control. And there are good reasons to suspect that the ISI had a hand in the Mumbai attacks, which killed more than 180 people and wounded nearly 300.
The United States and India have named the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba (LET) terror organization as the main perpetrator of the attacks. Indian authorities captured the lone gunman to survive the assault, and he reportedly admitted being trained by the LET. India also claims to have intercepted phone conversations between the Mumbai attackers and one of the LET's leaders in Pakistan. The full investigation will take some time to unfold, so it is too early to name all of those responsible. It is, however, a safe bet that the LET was heavily involved.
Contrary to President Zardari's claims, the LET is no "stateless actor." In fact, the LET is and always was a creature of the ISI.
(snip)
Decades ago the ISI made a pact with the devil. There is no evidence that it can be redeemed any time soon. Given the ISI's deep roots within Pakistan's culture and its capacity to drive policy even against the wishes of the elected officials, curtailing the power of this rogue agency will be difficult at best. Indeed, the ISI is now one of the principal backers of radical Islam in the world.
The allure of Islamist extremism runs deep in Pakistan's officer corps. For many, this is an ideological war. Consider what "retired" ISI general Hamid Gul, who still exerts much influence in Pakistan, said in 2003:
God will destroy the United States in Iraq and Afghanistan and wherever it will try to go from there. The Muslim world must stand united to confront the United States in its so-called War on Terrorism, which is in reality a war against Muslims. Let's destroy America wherever its troops are trapped.
The same mentality compels the ISI and its surrogates to claim territory in the name of Islam. Pakistan's jihad in India and Kashmir is not just the product of a decades-old geopolitical rivalry. For the ISI, it is part of a Manichaean struggle between the forces of Islam and the rest of the world. As Praveen Swami notes in his book, the LET's leadership has openly talked of conquering large swaths of India on behalf of Muslims.
After the Kargil war of 1999, LET chieftain Hafiz Muhammad Saeed threatened, "The real war will be inside [India]." He swore his forces would "unfurl the Islamic flag on the Red Fort." As Swami explains, the Red Fort in New Delhi "has been a long-standing motif in Islamist Discourse, as old as Partition itself." It is no wonder that in the wake of the Mumbai attacks, the Indians have demanded that the Pakistanis turn Saeed over. But it is doubtful that the Pakistani military will comply.
...
(end excerpts)
My comment: The above article goes to show a few things:
a. Al Qaeda, Taliban, ISI and India directed terrorists belong to the same amorphous yet ideologically cohesive grouping out of which some cannot be selectively patronised and separated out labelling them as 'nationalist' as opposed to labelling their fellow travellers 'terrorist' as some experts like Ahmed Rashid suggest. If you support one group like LeT or Taliban and argue it is fighting for 'political' cause, you are in fact supporting them all, Al Qaeda included. The Islamist aims of the ISI(of conquering territory) bind them all together, inseparably.
b. Arguing that 'yielding' to ISI claims on Kashmir or Afghanistan in the name of 'justice' will end conflict is untenable.
ISI's aggression and megalomania in its support of radical Islam is not a quest for 'justice' but conquest over regions ruled by others.
Therefore, handing the ISI any victories along the way, again, as suggested by 'experts', will only strengthen ISI's radical Islamist agenda not weaken it.
Kashmiris and Afghans' rights and justice in their societies can be upheld in many ways by those concerned, and handing ISI any victories or international affirmations is NOT one of them, the reverse, in fact.
Weekly Standard sells the the worst sort, the very worst sort, of hate-mongering tripe. The racist hatred of Muslims is part of what the Standard is about.
Arguing from a Weekly Standard hate-mongering text about Muslims is shameful. Enough of hatefully stereotyping Muslims. Enough.
Well, how about Bruce Riedel?
"Meanwhile, a new report said ISI had a plan to deploy sea-borne terrorists for an operation in Kashmir last year. That plan was hijacked by the Lashkar-e-Toiba (and maybe, Al Qaeda) to launch a terrorist attack in Mumbai. The ISI plan, the report in Asia Times said, was crafted by Ashfaque Kiyani, who was then the head of ISI. After he became army chief, Kiyani moved the Muzaffarabad training camps to Karachi. The report said the ISI plan was shelved a few months ago but Zakiur Rahman, an LeT commander, went ahead with it, and even improved on it.
That the LeT was behind the Mumbai attack is now virtually beyond doubt. Just this week, US director of national intelligence Mike McConnell blamed LeT for the attack, the first time a US official publicly blamed the group. "The same group that we believe is responsible for Mumbai had carried out a similar attack in 2006 on a train and killed a similar number of people," said McConnell, speaking at Harvard University. "Go back to 2001 and it was an attack on the Parliament," he added.
Echoing him, Riedel said, "This is a group that was founded in the late 1980s and early 1990s with the assistance of the ISI and with the assistance of Osama bin Laden, who was an important early fundraiser for the group. Osama's then spiritual mentor, a Palestinian named Abdullah Azam, was one of the charter members in the creation of the LeT. It was formally announced as an organization in Afghanistan's Kunar province, long a stronghold of Al Qaeda."
He added, "This was an extraordinary radical movement to begin with, and, over the last decade, it has become increasingly radical. It does not seek simply the end of the Indian occupation of Kashmir or to create an Islamic state in Muslim majority parts of South Asia, rather it seeks the creation of a caliphate to dominate all of South Asia well into Central Asia, something akin in its mind to a recreation of the Mughal Empire.":D
Riedel also focused attention on the fact that the LeT's greatest strength comes from the Pakistani diaspora, particularly in the UK and the UAE. "This group has extremely close links and is very active in the Pakistani diaspora in the UK. Some 800,000 strong. And, in the Persian Gulf, almost 2 million strong, where it raises much of its funding," Riedel said."
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/India/
Pakistan_link_to_Mumbai_attacks_evident_
Obamas_adviser/rssarticleshow/3798295.cms
Bruce Riedel is another maniac, and never to be trusted. Simply look at the craziness of the language and understand. Enough of these vast Muslim Caliphate conspiracy stories already. This is so much racist rubbish. Enough with the anti-Muslim racism.
"This group has extremely close links and is very active in the Pakistani diaspora in the UK. Some 800,000 strong. And, in the Persian Gulf, almost 2 million strong, where it raises much of its funding...."
Simply anti-Muslim fear- and hate-mongering.
Is Hafiz Mohammed Saaed, leader of the Lashkar e Taiba/Jamat Ud Dawa, anti-Muslim, d'you think?
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/08/opinion/08french.html
"Lashkar-e-Taiba is part of the International Islamic Front for Jihad Against Jews and Crusaders (the Qaeda franchise). Mr. Saeed’s hatreds are catholic — his bugbears include Hindus, Shiites and women who wear bikinis. He regards democracy as “a Jewish and Christian import from Europe,” and considers suicide attacks to be in accordance with Islam. He has a wider strategy: “At this time our contest is Kashmir. Let’s see when the time comes. Our struggle with the Jews is always there.” As he told his followers in Karachi at a rally in 2000: “There can’t be any peace while India remains intact. Cut them, cut them — cut them so much that they kneel before you and ask for mercy.”
http://misskelly.typepad.com/miss_kelly_/2007/09/
masood-saeed---.html
""It was in 2000 that the head of the Markaz-ud-Da'wa-wal-Irshad and Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT), Hafiz Mohammad Saeed, declared that Kashmir was a 'gateway to capture India' and that campaigns in Hyderabad (and Junagadh, Gujarat) were the 'highest priorities'...."
http://www.dnaindia.com/report.asp?newsid=1119236
About a fortnight before two blasts rocked Hyderabad on August 25, 2007, Lashkar-e-Tayeba (LeT) chief Hafiz Saeed told a gathering at Lahore that he has started a movement to occupy Muslim populated regions in India.
He said Pakistan must reclaim Muslim areas like J&K, Hyderabad, Junagarh, Munabao and West Bengal which, he said, was forcibly occupied by India in 1947. Saeed even released a new map of Pakistan incorporating these areas. A week before Saeed spoke, an al Qaeda video footage warned India of renewed terrorist attacks.
http://www.hindu.com/2006/10/13/stories/2006101304811200.htm
Last month's issue of the Jamaat-ul-Dawa's house journal Majallat al-Dawa has proclaimed that its fidayeen commandos would soon "butcher every Hindu and Kashmir will be freed." The magazine flatly noted that "our fidayeen love to slit the throats of Hindu dogs," adding the "Hindus understand the language of knives and guns only."
Majallat al-Dawa's express linkage of the Jamaat-ud-Dawa with terrorism flies in the face of official Pakistani protestations that the organisation has no links with the internationally proscribed terror group. In a recent interview to The Hindu , Pakistani Foreign Minister Khurshid Kasuri argued that the Jamaat-ud-Dawa "is doing charitable work." He said no proof had emerged that its members were engaged in acts of terrorism.
Dr. Saeed himself has been issuing threats of violence from his home-turned-prison. "I will not sit in comfort," he told the Nawa-i-Waqt in a September 9 interview, "unless I emancipate the Muslims from the atrocities of India, Israel, the U.S. and Britain. Jihad will not stop in Kashmir, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Palestine with my arrest. I am an ordinary person. There will be thousands of Hafiz Saeed who will take birth from this soil."
Hardline polemic has often preceded waves of Lashkar violence against India. Speaking at the Takmeel-e-Pakistan Conference in Lahore on August 14, 2003, Dr. Saeed argued that the "Muslims of Aligarh, Calcutta, and Bombay are being killed because they were involved in the crime of creating Pakistan. Today, the voice of jihad has reached the Muslims of Ahmedabad and Gujarat."
...
Speaking at the al-Qudsia mosque in Lahore on September 27, Jamaat-ud-Dawa second-in-command Abdul Rehman Makki described Jews as "the worst and eternal enemies of Prophet Muhammad and Islam." "The Jews," he continued, "are the worst nation. They are the most sinful people. They do all the forbidden things."
http://www.hindu.com/2008/12/01/stories/2008120155681000.htm
MUMBAI: Close textual analysis of a document issued by an until-now unknown terrorist group just after the recent massacre in Mumbai appears to vindicate claims by Indian intelligence experts that the document was generated by a non-Hindi speaker, using voice-recognition software.
For one, a series of spelling errors mar the Hindi-language text, typed in the Devnagari script, which was issued by a group calling itself the Mujahideen Hyderabad Deccan — a fictitious group, investigators now say, invented to distance the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba from the attacks.
Hindi-language voice-recognition software, though commercially available, is at a development stage and often registers incorrect spellings. In the document, the word silsila, or incidents, is spelled with the wrong matras, or vowel markings. The word chetaavani, or warnings, and zindagi, or life, are again spelt with incorrect matras.
Moreover, the name of the organisation Mujahideen Hyderabad Deccan. The phrase “Hyderabad Deccan” is frequently used in Pakistani comment to identify India’s southern plateau. It is, however, rarely used in this country.
Analysts at India’s Research and Analysis Wing have been able to establish that the e-mail account used to issue the document was set up from a Pakistan-based computer shortly before the attacks began.
Vicious language
In the document, its authors “warn the Indian government to stop atrocities against Muslims; that it return the states seized from Muslims; that it compensate, with interest, the cost of these atrocities”
“This attack” it states, “is a reaction to those actions which Hindus have taken since 1947 onwards. Now, there shall be no actions. There shall only be reactions, again and again. These shall continue until we have avenged each and every atrocity.”
It proceeds to assert that the violence “shall continue until Muslims have their own independent land where they may live their lives in accordance with the Quran and the Hadith. They shall continue until all our occupied states are returned to us. They shall continue until every death has been avenged.”
Lashkar leaders have often claimed that they intend to liberate Hyderabad and Junagadh, both of which they cast as Muslim-ruled states illegitimately seized by India.
Lashkar pamphlets and posters have long accorded Hyderabad, which they represent as a Muslim state illegitimately captured by India at independence, pride of place in the organisation’s military campaign. According to Lashkar literature, the organisation is committed to a war-unto-death with India.
Speaking at a three-day convention of the Lashkar-e-Taiba in Murdike, Pakistan, in February 2000, the organisation’s head, Hafiz Mohammad Saeed, said that campaigns against Indian rule in Junagadh, and Hyderabad would be its top priorities.
Earlier, in a 1999 article, the Lashkar had asserted that “fighting is also obligatory until the disbelieving powers and states are subdued and they pay Jizya (capitulation tax) with willing submission.”
At a November 1999 congregation of the Markaz Dawa wal’Irshad — the Lashkar’s parent organisation, which in 2002 renamed itself the Jamaat-ud-Dawa, or Centre for Proselytisation, Saeed proclaimed: “Today I announce the break-up of India, god willing. We will not rest until the whole of India is dissolved into Pakistan.”
More quotes from Lashkar e Taiba:
http://www.thehindu.com/2005/11/03/stories/2005110302361000.htm
Tempting as it might be to see the Lashkar's operations as driven by revenge — against communal violence or the conviction of operatives involved in earlier terrorist strikes — its objectives are more elemental.
Just last month, the Lashkar served public notice of its intentions. In its September 23 issue, the Lashkar-affiliated magazine Ghazwa editorially called for a renewal of Pakistani state support for the jihad in Jammu and Kashmir. India, it claimed, was working to divide Pakistani society by "cunningly using the slogan of friendship," while at once supporting forces hostile to it in Baluchistan and Afghanistan. Ghazwa demanded that President Musharraf admit that the détente process had given Pakistan nothing and work instead "to fortify the jihad."
Of arguments that continued support for jihad imposed unacceptable costs upon Pakistan, Ghazwa was dismissive. "Now is the right time for Pakistan to support the jihad in Kashmir," it said, "because America has entangled herself in the wars of Iraq and Afghanistan and in addition is suffering from severe afflictions like Katrina and Rita." "Pakistan should remember," the magazine asserted, "that even a so-called superpower like the United States has been badly worn at the hands of the mujahideen. Remember what happened to the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and then think about India: how can it resist the jihad?"
Understanding the Lashkar position requires an engagement with its core position: that the jihad in Jammu and Kashmir is not a battle over territory, but a part of an irreducible conflict between Islam and unbelief. Committed to the eventual creation of a caliphate that would rule over all the world's Muslims, the Lashkar asserts that a jihad-without-end must continue "until Islam, as a way of life, dominates the whole world and until Allah's law is enforced everywhere in the world." As the noted scholar of Islam Yoginder Sikand perceptively pointed out, the Lashkar's vision of Islam is one that leads it to represent the Quran itself as a manifesto for jihad.
Indian rule in Jammu and Kashmir is, in this construction, necessarily evil and oppressive, because "the Hindus have no compassion in their religion." "In fact," Hafiz Mohammed Saeed who heads Markaz Dawa wal'Irshad, a seminary which runs a massive network of charitable and educational institutions in Pakistan, had declared some years ago, "the Hindu is a mean enemy and the proper way to deal with him is the one adopted by our forefathers, who crushed them by force." India is, in turn, part of just a global system of oppression that must be overthrown by force. As the Lashkar spokesperson Nazir Ahmad bluntly stated: "through the jihad that the mujahideen have launched in Kashmir, Islam will become dominant all over the world."
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Today in many Indian cities, Indian Muslims took out demonstrations against Lashkar's recent terrorist attack on Mumbai. Were they anti-Muslim ?
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