Reading about this purported plan to balkanize Pakistan so as to neuter it, even if one can bridge the disbelief gap, does anyone really believe that other Islamic states are just going to sit back and watch that happen? Or that China will, with which Pakistan has a mutual defense pact?
Which Islamic state is going to rise to help ? The Arab countries - all talk no action except for KSA promoting its version of Salafism whilst making sure that USA is still their friend for all intents and purposes. Iran - may be - but since it is the ultimate prey for the current predators and KSA, it won't fall into the trap being laid out
China will be the perfect PC "financial super power" (sic) - its tentacles are being spread all around the globe for resources and it won't make too much noise so long its national interests are safeguarded - Myanmar and North Korea are two examples. It will be interesting to watch how the water diversion that China is planning and that will affect both India and Bangladesh play out in the very near future.
Which Islamic state is going to rise to help ? The Arab countries - all talk no action except for KSA promoting its version of Salafism whilst making sure that USA is still their friend for all intents and purposes. Iran - may be - but since it is the ultimate prey for the current predators and KSA, it won't fall into the trap being laid out
China will be the perfect PC "financial super power" (sic) - its tentacles are being spread all around the globe for resources and it won't make too much noise so long its national interests are safeguarded - Myanmar and North Korea are two examples. It will be interesting to watch how the water diversion that China is planning and that will affect both India and Bangladesh play out in the very near future.
All good points.
I do think it's important to consider, in a big picture way, that if you are an Islamic state today and have witnessed events unfold in Iraq and equally importantly, North Korea, and how these events happened, why and who agitated for hostilities, your own sovereignty must feel more vulnerable in the absence of deterrent measures. (Al Gore actually summed this situation up perfectly in his book.)
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I do think it's important to consider, in a big picture way, that if you are an Islamic state today and have witnessed events unfold in Iraq and equally importantly, North Korea, and how these events happened, why and who agitated for hostilities, your own sovereignty must feel more vulnerable in the absence of deterrent measures. (Al Gore actually summed this situation up perfectly in his book.)
MUMBAI, India – Police released names and photographs of suspected Islamic militants who staged the bloody three-day siege of Mumbai and said they uncovered new details about the gunmen — including hometowns in Pakistan...
Another picture showed Babar Imran, a gunman who has been described as "hauntingly calm" while holding six people hostage at a Jewish center run by the ultra-Orthodox Chabad-Lubavitch movement.
Imran, with his long thin face and sleepy eyes, used the alias Abu Akasha and came from the central Pakistani city of Multan, Maria said.
During the time he held Rabbi Gavriel Noach Holtzberg; Holtsberg's wife, Rivka; and four other visitors to the center, Imran repeatedly answered Holtsberg's mobile phone, talking to representatives of the Chabad movement in New York.
Imran spoke softly, said P.V. Viswanath, who translated the phone conversations in Urdu for Chabad officials.
"I think that shows something about his state of mind, it was very calm and collected," Viswanath told the AP in New York, where he is a finance professor at Pace University.
Viswanath, who grew up in Mumbai and is an Orthodox Jew, said Imran didn't display any anger or hatred for Jews. "He didn't say anything about Israel or make any anti-Semitic comments."...
Then it all boils down to the question that was raised by Mumbai police and reported by some Indian newspapers over the week-end:
1.How come non-Jews managed to rent rooms at Chabad House?
Some did use fake IDs - rumoured to be Malaysia or another country starting with the letter M, to rent rooms two weeks before the attack, thus enabling them to scout the location and gather all the pertinent info required.
Other questions that I have while reading this article
2. What were they negotiating about?
3. How and when did that professor get involved?
4. Maimed faces - who did this- the commandos ?
I guess it will take a while before we get the whole story.
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I do not trust Zardari's word offering co-operation in catching mastermind and enablers of Mumbai attacks, but sometimes even crooks know the truth.
Quote:
India is a mature nation and a stable democracy. Pakistanis appreciate India’s democratic contributions. But as rage fueled by the Mumbai attacks catches on, Indians must pause and take a breath. India and Pakistan — and the rest of the world — must work together to track down the terrorists who caused mayhem in Mumbai, attacked New York, London and Madrid in the past, and destroyed the Marriott Hotel in Islamabad in September. The terrorists who killed my wife are connected by ideology to these enemies of civilization.
These militants did not arise from whole cloth. Pakistan was an ally of the West throughout the cold war. The world worked to exploit religion against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan by empowering the most fanatic extremists as an instrument of destruction of a superpower. The strategy worked, but its legacy was the creation of an extremist militia with its own dynamic.
Pakistan continues to pay the price: the legacy of dictatorship, the fatigue of fanaticism, the dismemberment of civil society and the destruction of our democratic infrastructure. The resulting poverty continues to fuel the extremists and has created a culture of grievance and victimhood.
It may sound like an excuse, but it's the reality. We must not incite religious extremists for our short sighted goal and leave the world at the mercy of these killers.
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NAwaz Sharif admits the captured terrorist is a Pakistani.
While Zardari denies that Ajmal Amir Kasab is a Pakistani citizen, Nawaz Sharif admits that the captured terrorist is a Pakistani citizen.
In the mean time, Lahore High Court has admitted a petition filed by a PPP (Zardari's party) operative against GeoTV, a TV news channel that aired a report that said Ajmal Amir Iman, the lone terrorist captured for the Mumbai attacks, is a resident of a village in Punjab province.
Quote:
Setting aside an objection raised by the court registrar's office, Lahore High Court's acting Chief Justice Mian Najamuzzaman on Thursday admitted the petition seeking registration of a case against the employees and owners of the channel.
Pakistan People's Party leader Sardar Hur Bukhari filed the petition in his personal capacity. On Tuesday, the registrar's office had objected to the petition, saying it fell under the jurisdiction of subordinate courts, and advised Bukhari to avail that remedy first.
Bukhari said he had filed an application with police for registering a case against Geo News's Lahore bureau chief, reporters and cameraman as well as owners of the channel for beaming the report which had "damaged Pakistan's image" across the world. But police had refused to register a case, he added.
Kasab's father has identified the lone survior captured alive as his son. Pakistani Police has cordoned off Faridkot, the city from which Ajmal Amir Kasab hails, preventing outsiders from talking to the villagers.
Pakistani Govt continues to act schizophrenically, pretending to co-operate while perversely denying any Pakistani connection. Yet one of our own, on another thread complains about HRC not being evenhanded in brokering a deal between India and Pakistan.
P.S. I hope we can continue this discussion without disruption by certain people who previously tried to turn this into something it is not. There were Hindus, Muslims, Christians, Jews, Indians, Americans, British, Israelis and many other nationalities who were murdered. It's gross perversion to turn this thread by focusing on Jewish or other voctims belonging to specific religions or nationalities.
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The move by the United Nations to declare Jamaatut Dawa a front for the Lashkar-e-Taiba, the banned Pakistani group linked to last month's Mumbai attack, has rallied public support for Jamaatut Dawa inside Pakistan. Founded by a deputy of al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, then hijacked by Saudi and United States intelligence, Jamaatut Dawa, along with Lashkar-e-Taiba, has evolved to play a vital role in Pakistan that won't easily be wiped out
The move by the United Nations to declare Jamaatut Dawa a front for the Lashkar-e-Taiba, the banned Pakistani group linked to last month's Mumbai attack, has rallied public support for Jamaatut Dawa inside Pakistan. Founded by a deputy of al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, then hijacked by Saudi and United States intelligence, Jamaatut Dawa, along with Lashkar-e-Taiba, has evolved to play a vital role in Pakistan that won't easily be wiped out
and yet there are some ppl here (non-muslims) who will swear by pak till their dying breath,
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Yaatri
So the whole thing was planned to hunt for Jews all over Bombay?
Of course not. The Jews were just targeted as a "terror bonus," lest anyone forget who these fanatic, irrational jihadists were. Do you honestly think the targets were chosen randomly, and Chabad House just happened to be where one of the darts landed, along with two hotels popular with foreign visitors, and a train station where "average" Indians of all backgrounds were likely to gather?
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Quote:
Originally Posted by PTravel
I'm currently in China and we have the BBC on, watching the Mumbai coverage. Mrs. PTravel just reminded me that, were it not for a change in our economic circumstances, we would have gone to Mumbai, rather than China (here we stay with friends and family, so it's very, very cheap). On our previous visit to India, we stayed at a couple of Oberoi properties and would certainly have stayed at the Oberoi Mumbai on this trip. We would, in other words, have definitely found ourselves in the middle of this terrible terrorist attack were it not for a quirk in our finances.
This is food for thought for us. Mrs. PTravel is really shaken by the thought that we would have been in the Oberoi (she was the one who really wanted to go to Mumbai -- I wanted to go further south).
Quote:
Originally Posted by swei0009
I'm glad you weren't there. You'd have been a lovely target. Looks like they've killed the Chabad rabbi and the rebbitzin.
So the whole thing was planned to hunt for Jews all over Bombay?
Unbelievable.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by PTravel
Of course not. The Jews were just targeted as a "terror bonus," lest anyone for who these fanatic, irrational jihadists were.
See the post after the one you responded to. Wow you are so damn quick. Could you be stalking me? Within seconds of the post, I decided to add context to it by including your post.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by PaulMSN
The poster used the article as a base for advocating war with Pakistan. I pointed out that the article does not support his position that the Pakistani government was involved in this. That is mere supposition on the part of both of you. Yes, the Pakistani government could be involved, but so could it also be the work of non-government agents. Or rogue agents on either side.
I also pointed out that another war is stupid. I hope you agree with at least that.
PaulMSN, I find your posts to be well reasoned. I agree that anything anaggie says cannot be taken seriously. But just because it came from the mouth of someone like anaggie, does not mean it must be discarded. DO you still believe Pakistan was not involved?
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Yaatri
See the post after the one you responded to. Wow you are so damn quick. Could you be stalking me? Within seconds of the post, I decided to add context to it by including your post.
If, by stalking, you mean threads to which you "contribute" that I've previously posted to show up when I hit "MyFlyerTalk," then I suppose you're right. Perhaps you're stalking me. You're certainly on a tear today, reviving old topics and old threads. Should I, in the future, wait an hour or so when I see you post, in case you want to "add context" to what you write?
However, now that you've "added context" would you like to respond to my question, which was this:
"Of course not. The Jews were just targeted as a "terror bonus," lest anyone forget who these fanatic, irrational jihadists were. Do you honestly think the targets were chosen randomly, and Chabad House just happened to be where one of the darts landed, along with two hotels popular with foreign visitors, and a train station where "average" Indians of all backgrounds were likely to gather?"
Incidentally, quoting my post is completely disingenuous on your part. My concern was that we would have found ourselves in the middle of a terrorist attack at the Oberoi, where the terrorists were specifically asking who had American or British passports (not who was Jewish). I have an American passport, and so does Mrs. PTravel, who is Chinese and not Jewish. You also either missed, or deliberately failed to quote, the rest of my post in which I said I wondered if I would have had the presence of mind to answer the nationality question in French so that I could pretend to be from France (remember the Coneheads)?
So, Yaatri, will you answer my question: On what basis do you think the terrorist targets were chosen? Do you think it was just random?
You're certainly on a tear today, reviving old topics and old threads. Should I, in the future, wait an hour or so when I see you post, in case you want to "add context" to what you write?
