Saturday, May 26, 2007
DOGGG....too much of media bashin eh?? here is something a bit different...
And as I said earlier, I am back. I just finished reading a very interesting book...well at least for people like me who take a lot of interest in subjects like world politics and more specifically politics of the Islamic world. FRONTLINE PAKISTAN by Zahid Hussain gives you the story of independent Pakistan, may be or may be not the insider story but certainly chronologically lists various events that have shaped up Pakistan and how the growth of Islamic terrorism has taken shape. The book covers areas that not necessarily find space in the media in India which is shocking considering the fact that as a neighboring country, events that occur in Pakistan must be important for us both at face value and strategically. Well the Indian gov has better sources to get "news" on Pakistan but still putting it in a newspaper would do little harm. The book starts off with the regimes that have changed and the policies of these regimes and how islamization of Pakistan starts under general Zia and the whole story after that. The funny part is the islamization of Pakistan has a link to India too…it is the deobandi school of thought that along with the wahhabis of Saudi Arabia is leading the revolution The book extensively covers the terrorist operations right from the anti soviet operations with the CIA in cahoots to today’s jihad and gives lots of insights into the working of militants from let, harkat, al qaeda and all the bunch...and more importantly how they actually are hugely popular organizations...unlike the general mindset we have in India that TERRORISTS HAVE NO RELIGION...TERRORISTS HAVE NO SUPPORT...more importantly the book focuses on the Musharraf regime and how it has been playing the double game of being successful while countering international terrorists and been miserable while countering the growing terrorism back home... no not in terms of Kashmir but the huge sectarian conflicts-not well covered in Indian media-growing clout of madrasas and mullahs, compromises he makes to be in power. The book also goes through the role of the ISI, how it has grown to be much bigger than the government, the islamization that has also got the ISI army and the militants on one platform and increasingly have squeezed out Musharraf. overall pretty good book...seriously speaking very objective in its descriptions that’s why I earlier said the book did not have "insider info"...it is a compilation of events with almost zero bias even against INDIA( something ram guha's book is not... talking about INDIA after Gandhi...ram shows his own biases...just started reading), is a bit sympathetic to Musharraf...well even I am now...because looking at the way things are shaping up with respect to indo-pak and in general how a liberal pak would be more helpful to India’s cause. It is better to have an untrustworthy pro west military leader than an Islamic general who by the way are in the paki army in scores and are waiting to get Musharraf out. And after reading the book I am rather glad that these guys are out of India and not a part of the undivided India, which a lot of my ideologues dream of. Find time to get a copy and go through...
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5 comments:
On an offnote, I think that peacetalks with pakistan is just a self delusion that we maintain (or the Govt maintains for the people) to carry an everlasting hope that one day they will abandon military means, stop supporting terrorists, and abetting infiltrations.
Otherwise how can blatant double acts of pak like promising ceasefire and aiding terrorists infiltration and training be so blissfully ignored by a nation over and over again.....
And India still thinks US is going to be an ally and turn against pakistan. If ever there was a country that was opportunistic it has to be the US....
After the Army build up in the border after the Dec.13 Parliament attack called Operation Parakram, Gen.Padmanbhan said India should have gone to war at that time.
Sometimes I feel so too, though I can understand the repurcussions a war will have...
i never said that we or rather i trust pakistan...infact the whole nation of pakistan survives on the hope of liberating kashmir...all said was it is easier to deal with a pro west moderate like musharraf than with some mullah in uniform...because the pakistani society is at the crossroads right now...for all the"modern" pakis you see there are a good 100 mullahs..and if they take over which is the plan...god save the world from terrorists.....another reason i said musharraf is in the book...the whole boody nuclear weapon the pakis created was with this in mind when sanctioned in 1974...the christians have them the jews have them..now the hindus have them...the islamic civilization shld have it too.....and that is why the proliferation to iran, libya and a few other countries...the call it the islamic bomb...so....
I am not supporting or countering anything of what you said.
Since you brought up the issue of india and pakistan, thought I will talk about the way India deals with pakistan...
on the war front of what you said....agree with you...nuclear threat..yeah but...while they can cause decent damage to us..we can annihilate them once and for all...something even the book acknowledges...
as far as the us as an ally goes...true they r oppertunistic..but so is everybody..it makes a lot of sense to ally with them....dont know if u remember but there was this time in 2003 when they made the offer of an alliance in which ind would get access to us misslie tech etc...the plan was to form an AXIS..aus-ind-isr-usa...never took off...and look at the sorry state of our missile prog....pak infact has benefited by allyin with the us since the late 70s...substantial part of their weapons system are from the us...yeah they bow to the us but our situation would b diff..cause we had by then managed to grow strong inspite of the sanctions imposed and would have been more equal partners than pak.
good one da.. I totally agree with u on the issue of mullahs..in that sense the society just keeps gng backwards and with all the american help indestroying progressive societies in the name of war on terror just seems to add spice to their beliefs and ideologies.. and there is too much pride blood and years of hatred involved in the situation for it to be reslolved wuickly(by this i mean in the next 25 years) and peacefully..
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