Terrorism spreading like a cancer: PM

[Trooper]

---

---

Thursday, April 09, 2009

ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani has said that terrorism is spreading like a cancer in the country and there is a need to demonstrate unity to deal with the issue.

He expressed these views while addressing the delegation of Council for Pakistan Newspapers Editors (CPNE) who called on him at the PM house on Thursday.

The prime minister said that terrorism is one of the most grave challenges facing the country. He said that media should criticize the government, adding it must keep in view the national interest.

In his address, he said that judges had been restored according to the charter of democracy (CoD).

The Prime Minister said the government is working on a three pronged strategy of dialogue, deterrence and development to counter terrorism.

Gilani said the country is facing external and internal threats and the PPP government inherited a fragile situation fraught with challenges of terrorism, economic weakness, political instability and energy crunch.

“We tried to resolve these difficult issues with our limitedresources and the results of our actions are starting to make a positive impact,” he added.

[Sambha]

hmm..I wonder why RAW isn't mentioned yet..

[S-2]

Damn! I've been writing that here now for some time. Need royalties from his speechwriter who, no doubt, lurks here for ideas.

[Bane Blade]

hmm..I wonder why RAW isn't mentioned yet..

His actions inicate those of a responsible primeminister.

This isn't a member of the Lok Sabha and because he is a primeminister of a responsible nation that doesn't go around yelling RAW this RAW that.

He has a good strategy for the controll of our country it is neccesary that developement is done for if the people get the same conditions as they did under the militant rule people won't really care and to win this war the most ctucial thing is for people to care.

[HAIDER]

hmm..I wonder why RAW isn't mentioned yet..

Because this cancer already spread in India and its happened to RAW partially responsible......

[Sambha]

Because this cancer already spread in India and its happened to RAW partially responsible......

and who is responsible for the other part?
Just for GK

[muse]

How can the patient be helped if the patient refuses to acknowledge that he or she has fallen prey to a illness?




Are we in denial about terrorism?



Reality check

Friday, April 10, 2009
Shafqat Mahmood

A fundamental debate is on among the intelligentsia of our country regarding terrorism. The way it plays itself out will determine whether we win or lose. A consensus will help put all our energies towards winning. Discord or confusion will certainly lead to defeat.

One set, perhaps a majority, believes that we have no inherent problem of terrorism. It is only a reaction to American presence in Afghanistan. The attacks on our cities are explained away and sometimes condoned as a punishment for our support to the American war effort.

When confronted with evidence regarding presence of armed and dangerous foreigners in our tribal territory, the explanation is ingenious. They came here in the eighties, we are told, because the Pakistani government, with American help, invited them to fight the Soviets. After the Afghan war was over, meaning after the Taliban victory, they were living peacefully here until the Americans invaded Afghanistan.

The first part is true as far as Arabs are concerned. They indeed came here in the eighties motivated by jihad against the infidel Soviets. And they were facilitated by the Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence, which was managing the Afghan war on behalf of the Americans. But it is factually incorrect that they continued to live here peacefully after the Taliban took over Afghanistan.

Al Qaeda, whose members were living in FATA, had claimed responsibility for the attack on the American navy ship Cole in Yemen and on American Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. Osama bin Laden later also took credit for the 9/11 attacks in the United States. One of his accomplices, Khalid Sheikh Mohammad, has confessed to his role and given details of how the attack was planned and carried out.

But no heed is paid to these accepted facts. The last part, particularly, is greeted with incredulity because, does not everyone know that 9/11 was an American intelligence operation launched with the help of the Israeli Mossad!

Leaving aside whether the Americans were attacked from Pakistani territory or not, the bare fact that these Arabs, Uzbeks, Chechens, Afghans and even Chinese Turks are illegal aliens in our country is of no concern to the "all because of America" cabal. Any activity on the part of the Pakistani government to apprehend these people is thus treated with ridicule and condemned.

Little note is taken, if indeed it registers, that "our best friends in the world," the Chinese, have formally complained to the government that their dissidents have established headquarters in FATA. Other countries, including many in Europe and the Middle East, have also expressed fears that attacks on their territory may emanate from here. President Obama has actually said as much.

This almost unanimous concern in the West and the United States is brushed aside and seen through a conspiracy lens. These people are out to get us because we are a nuclear power. They are creating circumstances, we are told, to invade and defang us. Remember, Baitullah Mehsud is their agent. We gave them his coordinates, yet he was not killed. Indeed, this entire insurgency in FATA has been engineered by the Americans aided by the Indians. The Indians, particularly, have a special role in training the Taliban. This Maulvi Fazalullah is probably working for them, and so on.

Let us believe that a part of what they say is correct. The Americans, the Europeans, the Indians and sundry others are indeed fearful of our nuclear power and would, if they could, take control of our nuclear assets. And let us also assume that to achieve this nefarious end they want to destabilise the country and create so much chaos that they have grounds to intervene.

The question is, why should we make it easier for them by allowing our territory to be used for terror attacks in their countries? Would our fears not become self-fulfilling prophecies if we continue to give our adversaries a cause to get angry with us?

One reason why we fail to reach a rational conclusion is that the security fears of other countries are not acknowledged by us, at all. If the 9/11 attacks are rubbished as a CIA/Mossad operation, then it follows that the London train attacks or the Spanish bombing in which hundreds died were also internal operations carried out by the British and Spanish intelligence agencies. In a similar vein, the person who tried to blow up airplanes in the sky, the Shoe Bomber, must also be an agent, and so also everyone else who has been plotting planning or carrying out terror operations in the West.

This line of thinking is not complete if the rationality behind the conspiracy is not explained. Why would the Americans and others kill their own citizens in hundreds and thousands and create so much fear? That pet answer is that they needed an enemy because none was left to fight after the end of the Cold War.

In other words, it is being said, that they have killed their own people in large numbers, emptied their treasuries fighting wars, created massive security apparatus at great public inconvenience, curtailed their citizens' liberties through intrusive surveillances and done much else only as a decoy to create Islam as an enemy.

The absurdity of this argument is not obvious to the "we are a target" crowd. The sad part is that even others who aware of the world and have no particular prejudice against the West, get taken in. Paranoia lurks in recesses of the brain and when problems or difficulties are not easy to explain, it takes charge. Collective paranoia is particularly dangerous because it leads to irrationality and fascism. It happened in Germany and Italy and Spain. Why should we consider ourselves immune?

One way to overcome irrational fears is to look within carefully and identify what we can do to make things better. The conspiracy cabal will however take issue with everything that is proposed. To the argument that no one should be able to use our territory to launch attacks outside, and that it is our duty to prevent them, there is no logical answer. Yet, this does not deter them from diverting the topic and saying how nasty and offensive others are.

If told that if our territory is used to launch attacks outside it is just as much a breach of our sovereignty as the American drone strikes, there is outrage. How can drone assaults be put in the same category as alleged terror attacks emanating from here. The fact is there is a huge blind spot when it comes to our own culpability. And this by well-meaning people who are not extremists. Those who believe in the Taliban version of a state actually applaud such attacks.

It is time that we as a nation open our eyes and understand what is happening. District by district our territory is being taken over by the extremist. It was FATA and Swat yesterday now Buner, Dir, Hangu, Mansehra, and even Mardan and Charsadda, are under direct threat. We are being occupied and yet we cannot agree on who our enemy is.

The world is becoming increasingly concerned and is prepared to help, but only if we are ready to help ourselves. If we remain in denial, a terrible catastrophe awaits us.


Email: [email protected]

Readers should know that Shafqat is a former Senator.

[S-2]

That was a lovely op-ed that you've found.

Summarized nicely so many arguments and points that have been written here by one or another on all sides (I'd like to say "both sides" but it's rather more complex than that).

Certainly clear on which side the author came down and it can only be hoped that all read it carefully and ask the ever-salient question,

"If the shoe fits then wear it."

I heard a posse rolled into some town 100km north of Islamabad yesterday or so and set up shop. Just sorta took it over.

Hi!

We're here to provide rapid justice that will leave permanent results.

What a relief to have some order. Now if these folks can only hold onto their heads.

Y'all better do some fighting now. This aid ain't going to do squat for you. Six months at best before you begin to see it's impact if military. Much, much longer if civil aid.

Time has come today.

[muse]

S2

Honestly, what really hurts me is that those who should have been in the vanguard - are busy making excuses, blaming everybody else except the real culprits., they are even affraid to bring attention to the motivation and justication of these acts of terror - -for as bright as they are, for as privelaged as they are, for as educated as they are, for as succesful as they, as intimately familiar as they are with ideas on both sides - they can't decide where they stand.

About the posse, lets see the response it the media - my bet, you won't hear very much about it at all -- this patient has to be treated as if one were not treating an adult patient, after all ignorance is bliss. And another side bet, it will be treated as a minor "concession" - this patient takes medicine as he were doing a favor to all those wbho care about his well being.

[Awesome]

How can the patient be helped if the patient refuses to acknowledge that he or she has fallen prey to a illness?

Depends upon what you call a "refusal".

Are you willing to go after ALL parties involved in terrorism or just the ones that are easier to catch and are you unwilling to catch foreigners involved out of pressure? Today's government is bending over backwards to shield the Indian hand.

Sure 90% of the action has to be taken against the Pakistanis who are traitors and willing to sell off their mamas for a few handouts given to them by our eastern neighbors intelligence agency. But without removing the problem at the source, the Indian consulates, you're pretty much just raking leaves after they've fallen, not chopping off the bad tree from the roots.

[muse]

Today's government is bending over backwards to shield the Indian hand.

Be reasonable, yara, reasonable. There is a article by Shafqat Mehmood on this thread -- see if he has not identified you response, even before you wrote it. I don't know whether you are angry or defensive , but I can't believe you think that the pakistani government is shielding the Indian hand.

Sad.

[Awesome]

Be reasonable, yara, reasonable. There is a article by Shafqat Mehmood on this thread -- see if he has not identified you response, even before you wrote it. I don't know whether you are angry or defensive , but I can't believe you think that the pakistani government is shielding the Indian hand.

Sad.

I'm just observant. Surely you know that most of our leaders of today are a bunch of wimps and the majority of Pakistan views them to not follow a Pro-Pakistan agenda, but a Pro-kursi agenda.

Have you even seen the $1.5bn aid Package deal? We have to literally give in writing that we're a terrorist state. How much of that 1.5 bil do you think Zardari would let us have? It all goes to his pockets!

Till we don't get the American clearance to highlight activities of India, our leaders never will.

I'm not saying we give up on the terrorists at home. 90% of our actions should focus on those guys at home. But to ignore the Indian threat, is ostrich-like. This is the time to be brave and call a spade a spade.

[muse]

Read me on this forum - when have I been a supporter of these ***** or what these scum say is democracy.

DON'T TAKE THE MONEY!!

You know where I stand on that as well.

But this is not about any of that stuff -- over and over, I have said that to be strong externally, we must be strong internally -- That means killing these islamist SOB's and attacking this ideology that gave rise to these *****!!


Don't make excuses, its the indian, its the martian - you , I and everyone else here knows who the real enemy is.

[S-2]

Read me on this forum - when have I been a supporter of these ***** or what these scum say is democracy.

Almost as good as receiving a night letter.

...and where are you making your residence? Londonistan maybe? Are they scum too? You know, fellow-traveller scummy?

Afterall, there is a long reach evident these days in certain neighborhoods. One must be careful.

Thanks...

[fatman17]

---

---

ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani has said that terrorism is spreading like a cancer in the country and there is a need to demonstrate unity to deal with the issue.

oh really! and is the pope polish! - what a meathead statement!