We know how to deal with you, India warns Pakistan

[TechLahore]

Originally Posted by karan.1970

Surprised at this coming from you. You normally dont distort facts...

Karan, I was wrong when I said two days... he actually said 96 hours.

As for victory, yes, he didn't use that word, but please, let's be reasonable. He said that India had developed a strategy that would allow it to wage a two front war and undertake "rapid thrusts" into "enemy territory" within "96 hours". By any definition, does this not paint the picture of a victorious scenario for India? Here is this guy saying that he will take on Pakistan and China together and be in control of enemy territory within a mere 96 hours... whether he used the word victory or not is besides the point. What he is attempting to convey is that there will be a positive outcome of a two-front war in a very short period of time.

It is not unreasonable to arrive at the conclusion that he is projecting a victorious or successful outcome for India given his statement.

And any military strategist will tell you that this is poppycock, bunkum and nonsense. Or tell me otherwise... do you agree that India is capable of taking on China and Pakistan and capturing enemy territory within 96 hours in a multi-front scenario?

[AgNoStIc MuSliM]

Originally Posted by AgNoStIc MuSliM

Zardari's opinion fails when tested against the facts and extensive research done by scholars on the Taliban movement.

An addendum to that - Zardari is correct that the US and Pakistan (and Soviets and Saudis) were responsible for creating the conditions regionally that led to the rise of the Taliban.

[achimus]

Originally Posted by Frankenstein

And they cry on Mumbai attacks

A terrorist attack should not be condoned irrespective of the place or nationality of the victims.

[achimus]

Originally Posted by AgNoStIc MuSliM

An addendum to that - Zardari is correct that the US and Pakistan (and Soviets and Saudis) were responsible for creating the conditions regionally that led to the rise of the Taliban.

Change will come to Pakistan only when there are enough people in that country who start believing that they themselves are responsible for this mess and they must set things right not as a favour to India or international community but for the future of their children and their nation.

[Trisonics]

hahaha was quite an entertaining read, I think both countries do not know how to deal with each other!!!! its as simple as that, if we did, we wouldn't be having this discussion at all

[karan.1970]

Originally Posted by TechLahore

Good one Karan! Wonderful backhanded point scoring! I see you have now completely dispensed with the pretense of being rational and someone given to the expression of at least slightly considered views. Daer aiey, durast aiey. Good luck to you.

You are right.. It was unnecessary.. Probably got sucked into the moment.. :(

[karan.1970]

Originally Posted by AgNoStIc MuSliM

The point being made is that an argument is not valid or invalid because of the number of people that believe in the argument, but that an argument is valid or invalid based on the evidence supporting it.

True.. No disagreement there.. as i said, both hypothesis are devoid of facts..

Originally Posted by AgNoStIc MuSliM

Both Coll and Rashid utilize direct and secondary sources from the Taliban, Pakistani, Saudi and American (among others) civilian, military and intelligence officials and extensive research to come up with their conclusions on the rise to power of the Taliban.

Their work therefore has significant evidence supporting it, whereas your claim of 'the world believes it' does not, and is merely a claim that your argument is valid because X number of people believe it to be valid.

Zardari's opinion fails when tested against the facts and extensive research done by scholars on the Taliban movement.

Agno.. What Zardari is saying can not be simply dismissed as his opinion. He is the head of your state. The research you are referring to is information gathered from multitude of sources with varying degree of credibility. Where as he being the president of your country, he has authentic access to all classified data and information(present and past). And a head of a state making such a confessionary statement about the activities of his country can not be set aside and countered by the work of a couple researchers.. no matter how credible.

Originally Posted by AgNoStIc MuSliM

And on your side note, if world opinion was all that mattered, then issues would be settled through global opinion polls. On this forum at least we seek to engage in discourse and present whatever sources and evidence we can in support of a particular position - global public opinion does not count as evidence.

Secondly, yes it does matter that facts be clarified, especially when global opinion believes a lie. People should be made aware that that the attribution of the creation of the Taliban to Pakistan is inaccurate.

It seems I was not able to communicate what I wanted to say. Will give it another shot..

Its not the question of public opinion, but how different countries see a given country at a point in time. Its important because no country exisits in isolation and has to engage with rest of the countries of the world.. More with some and less with some other.. So if a hundred countries of the world believe that Pakistan created Taliban, until you change that perception, their engagement with Pakistan will always be influenced by that perception. For some it will matter a lot, for others may be not.

Hence my statment that your percpetion of reality can be different from mine and unless I change your perception or you change mine, your reality will be different from my reality.

Hence what you consider as fact or truth is really your perception and is not more credible than mine till the time you change my perception or I change yours.

Hence my statement that it really does not matter what really happened. What really matters is how the world percieves it because that will influence the way the world will interact with you..

[karan.1970]

Originally Posted by AgNoStIc MuSliM

That unfortunately becomes obvious when participants in a discussion start resorting to 'global public opinion' as validation of their arguments.

As I said.. its not just public opinion...

[karan.1970]

Originally Posted by TechLahore

Karan, I was wrong when I said two days... he actually said 96 hours.

As for victory, yes, he didn't use that word, but please, let's be reasonable. He said that India had developed a strategy that would allow it to wage a two front war and undertake "rapid thrusts" into "enemy territory" within "96 hours". By any definition, does this not paint the picture of a victorious scenario for India? Here is this guy saying that he will take on Pakistan and China together and be in control of enemy territory within a mere 96 hours.

IMHO you are fine till the bold text. The problem is after that..Below is the text of statement as reported by Times of INdia from where everyone else picked it up

The plan now is to launch self-contained and highly-mobile `battle groups’…adequately backed by air cover and artillery fire assaults, for rapid thrusts into enemy territory within 96 hours.


What this says is that within 96 hours or being attacked, India will be able to launch battle groups whose aim will be to make rapid thrusts within enemy territory.. What this conveys is that beacuse of reorganization of assets and being self contained, a battle group will be ready to launch from its peace position within 96 hours.. an activity that today takes in excess of couple of weeks if not more.. The comment is on the time IA will take to respond and not the time in which it will start capturing enemy territory..

Originally Posted by TechLahore

.. whether he used the word victory or not is besides the point. What he is attempting to convey is that there will be a positive outcome of a two-front war in a very short period of time.

It is not unreasonable to arrive at the conclusion that he is projecting a victorious or successful outcome for India given his statement.

No he is not conveying that. He is talking about how cold start will cut down the response time in case of a war

Originally Posted by TechLahore

And any military strategist will tell you that this is poppycock, bunkum and nonsense. Or tell me otherwise... do you agree that India is capable of taking on China and Pakistan and capturing enemy territory within 96 hours in a multi-front scenario?

No I dont and niether is Gen Kapoor saying that. Its just what Pakistani media is pom poming about. You may want to read some details here...Again an opinion.. take it as you may...

What General Deepak Kapoor really said | The Filter Coffee

[Siddiqui A]

Originally Posted by desiman

yup total fail, everything crashed and a MKI fell on the head of our president.

no wonder she looks the way she looks....

[AgNoStIc MuSliM]

Originally Posted by achimus

Change will come to Pakistan only when there are enough people in that country who start believing that they themselves are responsible for this mess and they must set things right not as a favour to India or international community but for the future of their children and their nation.

How was the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan Pakistan's fault? How was the cold war, and the US decision to support Mujahideen in Afghanistan as an extension of that, Pakistan's fault? How was the subsequent abandonment of Afghanistan by the international community Pakistan's fault? How was the inability of the various warlords in Afghanistan to come to a compromise and power sharing agreement Pakistan's fault? How was the decision of various Afghan governments to be hostile to Pakistan and supporting insurgencies in Pakistan Pakistan's fault?

A lot more went into the mess that is Afghanistan than what Pakistan did.

[AgNoStIc MuSliM]

Originally Posted by karan.1970

Agno.. What Zardari is saying can not be simply dismissed as his opinion. He is the head of your state. The research you are referring to is information gathered from multitude of sources with varying degree of credibility. Where as he being the president of your country, he has authentic access to all classified data and information(present and past). And a head of a state making such a confessionary statement about the activities of his country can not be set aside and countered by the work of a couple researchers.. no matter how credible.

The research these authors did referenced multiple individuals in positions of power and directly involved in events at the time, and most of those corroborate each other.

And while Zardari as head of state may have access to classified information, that does not mean he will always speak the truth about that - there is a reason why politicians are distrusted. And Zardari is also claiming the US was involved in creating the Taliban, so if you really want to hang your hat on his statement, why is the US not mentioned as the 'co-creator of the Taliban'?

Again, the research on the issue referencing high level players directly involved in the events at the time negate the idea that Pakistan created the Taliban, and a one liner from Zardari does no negate that.

In any case, I did offer an alternative to what Zardari's statement might have meant, that does also explain the inclusion of the US in his comments.

Its not the question of public opinion, but how different countries see a given country at a point in time. Its important because no country exisits in isolation and has to engage with rest of the countries of the world.. More with some and less with some other.. So if a hundred countries of the world believe that Pakistan created Taliban, until you change that perception, their engagement with Pakistan will always be influenced by that perception. For some it will matter a lot, for others may be not.

Hence my statment that your percpetion of reality can be different from mine and unless I change your perception or you change mine, your reality will be different from my reality.

Hence what you consider as fact or truth is really your perception and is not more credible than mine till the time you change my perception or I change yours.

Hence my statement that it really does not matter what really happened. What really matters is how the world percieves it because that will influence the way the world will interact with you..

We are not arguing about public opinion - we are arguing about the credibility of the claim that 'Pakistan created the Taliban'. There is no grey area here - and the facts are facts, and the research and facts indicate that Pakistan did not create the Taliban.

What is 'perception' is Zardari's statement, since he offers no insight in to how he arrived at his conclusions and what facts and evidence he weight to do so.

[Windjammer]

It's ironic that India or rather the Indians are making a hue and cry about the Talibans, have the Talibans issued any threats to the likes of SRK, are they in a position to disrupt your sporting or cultural events like Valentine day, were they the culprits behind Samjota train massacre or for that matter any of India's misfortunes. So far as individuals, they have kept their menace within Afghanistan and Pakistan. If any thing, instead of crying wolf and creating terminologies as non state actors, India needs to look within at it's own state actors. And while no Taliban presence is evident in India, however opening up it's missions all over Afghanistan under the guise of development, is like showing a red rag to the bull, and remember "charity starts at home".!!

[BATMAN]

Any reply from Qureshi or Zardari?
After all they are the one making and breaking policies and rules of Pakistan!

[harish]

Originally Posted by AgNoStIc MuSliM

You can read can't you? My clarification focused very specifically on the claim that Pakistan created the Taliban - there was no question of 'glossing over' anything since the question of the subsequent rise to power of the Taliban was not part of the discussion at that point.

Again, another example on your part of trying to hide the fact that the original argument was debunked and seeking to raise a tangential issue.

If you can't stick to a discussion without meandering off on tangential diatribes don't participate and hijack the threads please. If you wish to make a point different from the one that was being discussed, raise it separately, don't weasel it into an existing discussion when the Indian POV is being thrashed and try to gain the high ground.

The original statement and my clarification were very specific - 'Pakistan did not create the taliban' - if you can show it to be otherwise please do so or accept that position and move on to the argument you wish to make.

Your original clarification 'debunking' a claim is between you and the person making such a claim. But there are other participants in this thread too, who I presume are free to disagree with or 'debunk' statements made by you regardless of whether they follow the straight and narrow axis of your own original argument or choose to go off on to a tangent as long as they remain within the ambit of the broad topic of the thread. And speaking of tangentials, where did your response to original claim fit into the original axis of a thread purportedly dealing with India's ability to deal with Pakistan? Someone said something, someone else said something in return, someone made a claim, and you responded right? After all, 14 pages and 210 posts have not all followed a single train of thought right? That's how a thread develops. I can read just fine, and the argument I wish to make, without 'weaseling' or otherwise digressing from the thread topic under discussion, is that Pakistan is responsible for the Taliban by surrogate parenting if not progeniture, and that India is well capable of replying back to Pakistan in its own coin many times over, thus making Pakistan's current policy of proxyism an enterprise of diminishing returns. Not to mention of course that India would deal with Pakistan for misdemeanours against Indian interests, be they on Indian or foreign soil. So neither will the sanctimonious hand washing-off nor victim card wash as India makes it tersely clear that the time for accountability or reprisals is nigh. Anyways bottom line is I am new here and still learning so I welcome your guidance.