Pakistan is the Problem

The very name Pakistan inscribes the nature of the problem. It is not a real country or nation but an acronym devised in the 1930s by a Muslim propagandist for partition named Chaudhary Rahmat Ali. It stands for Punjab, Afghania, Kashmir, and Indus-Sind. The stan suffix merely means "land." In the Urdu language, the resulting acronym means "land of the pure." It can be easily seen that this very name expresses expansionist tendencies and also conceals discriminatory ones. Kashmir, for example, is part of India. The Afghans are Muslim but not part of Pakistan. Most of Punjab is also in India. Interestingly, too, there is no B in this cobbled-together name, despite the fact that the country originally included the eastern part of Bengal (now Bangladesh, after fighting a war of independence against genocidal Pakistani repression) and still includes Baluchistan, a restive and neglected province that has been fighting a low-level secessionist struggle for decades. The P comes first only because Pakistan is essentially the property of the Punjabi military caste (which hated Benazir Bhutto, for example, because she came from Sind). As I once wrote, the country's name "might as easily be rendered as 'Akpistan' or 'Kapistan,' depending on whether the battle to take over Afghanistan or Kashmir is to the fore."

Pakistan Is the Problem by Christopher Hitchens
15 September 2008

Pakistan fooling the World

From terror to politics

"Just before I left for India, there was a ferocious showdown over the course of events, with an ISI officer whom we knew as General Liaqat Ali. I was then the vice-chairman of the council of 15 groups active in Jammu and Kashmir. At a meeting in Rawalpindi, I asked him point-blank what Pakistan wanted to do about this aimless war of attrition. He replied that our job was to prick India just enough to make it bleed, but not enough to make it bite back. I became very angry, since we were the ones who were doing the bleeding, not India. Nine of us walked out, and came back only after a great deal of persuasion. I now knew that we were fighting a war for Pakistan, not for Jammu and Kashmir.", Usman Majid, once a key member of the Jammu and Kashmir Students' Liberation Front

From terror to politics by Praveen Swami. Frontline, Volume 19 - Issue 04. Feb. 16 - Mar. 1, 2002

Pakistan a Militant State

"Even if by some act of miraculous diplomacy the territorial issues [with India] were to be resolved, Pakistan would remain an insecure state. Given the realities of the subcontinent (e.g., India's rise and its more effective foreign relations with all of Pakistan's near and far neighbors), these fears are bound to grow, not lessen. This suggests that without some means of compelling Pakistan to abandon its reliance upon militancy, it will become ever more interested in using it -- and the militants will likely continue to proliferate beyond Pakistan's control.", Christine Fair.

What's the Problem With Pakistan? - A Foreign Affairs roundtable discussion on the causes of instability in Pakistan.

Taliban is Pakistan's Strategic Assest

In his new book, The Inheritance, New York Times correspondent David Sanger reveals that "several" key U.S. intelligence officials told him of National Security Agency telephone intercepts in which Pakistan's army chief of staff, Gen. Ashfaq Kayani, referred to a key Taliban warlord, Jalaluddin Haqqani, as a "strategic asset." According to Sanger, another Pakistani general, in a meeting with the visiting U.S. director of national intelligence, Mike McConnell, explained that "we must sustain contact with the Taliban and support them" to make sure that in the future, the Afghan government" is a government friendly to Pakistan."

Face down Pakistani army by Selig S. Harrison

Pakistan an International Migraine

Burqa & Bangles for Paki Generals

Benazir Bhutto, then in opposition, marched the streets with bangles on a plate for Pakistani generals. 'Wear these bangles if you cannot fight on the Siachen', she taunted them.

p235, Into the untravelled Himalaya by Harish Kapadia

Before 1987, this post called Qaid was in Pakistani possession till Subedar Bana Singh and his men captured it. After this debacle, Benazir Bhutto used to taunt General Zia-ul-Haq about losing Siachen and suggested he wear a burqa. After the loss of Kargil, the women in Pakistan were asking Nawaz Sharief to wear bangles.

Kargil is now the most richly decorated real estate in the world by Major General Ashok K Mehta (retd)

Creation of Pakistan a Blunder

Gen. A. A. K. Niazi

When I [Brig. A. R. Siddiqi] last met him [Gen A. A. K. Niazi] on September 30, 1971, at his force headquarters in Kurmitola, he was full of beans. Thumping his thighs in his characteristic, over-confident way, he said: "You just wait and see that I am going to make it to Calcutta one day..." He did indeed live up to his words, and made it to Calcutta less than three months later, but only as a prisoner of war.

Gen A. A. K. (Tiger) Niazi: an appraisal by A. R. Siddiqi

13 February 2004

Kashmiri Freedom Fighters are 'Terrorists': Zardari

WSJ: When I [Bret Stephens] ask whether he would consider a free-trade agreement with traditional archenemy India, Mr. Zardari responds with a string of welcome, perhaps even historic, surprises. “India has never been a threat to Pakistan,” he says, adding that “I, for one, and our democratic government is not scared of Indian influence abroad.” He speaks of the militant Islamic groups operating in Kashmir as “terrorists” — former President Musharraf would more likely have called them “freedom fighters” — and allows that he has no objection to the India-U.S. nuclear cooperation pact, so long as Pakistan is treated “at par.” “Why would we begrudge the largest democracy in the world getting friendly with one of the oldest democracies in the world?”

The Most Difficult Job in the World, The Wall Street Journal, page A13

04 October 2008

Pakistan 'created, nurtured' terrorism

"Let us be truthful to ourselves and make a candid admission of the realities... Militancy and extremism emerged on the national scene and challenged the state not because the civil bureaucracy was weakened and demoralised, but because they were deliberately created and nurtured as a policy to achieve some short-term tactical objectives", Zardari.

Yes, Pakistan nurtured terrorism, says Zardari, MSN News
08 July 2009

India, Pakistan & Kashmir

"When it comes to Kashmir, India is like the alcoholic who refuses to accept that he has a drinking problem. Pakistan on the other hand is like the lover who lost his beloved a long time ago to a stronger and richer man and has tried often enough to get her back without any success. "

India, Pakistan and Kashmir by Syed Mansoor Hussain

06 July 2009