Twenty-first Century India

Reclaiming Our Birthright: Justice, Liberty, Equality

"Give me your blood, I will give you freedom." -- Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose

"One Country, One God. One Caste, One Mind. Brothers all of us, Without Difference, Without Doubt." -- Veer Vinayak D. Savarkar

"Say with pride, I am a Hindu." -- Swami Vivekananda

"You must be the change you wish to see in the world." -- Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi

Tuesday, March 13, 2007

Civilized World Waking up to Pakistani Duplicity on Islamic Terrorism

There is an old saying: you can fool all of the people some of the time, some of the people all the time, but not all the people all the time.

Pakistan has been practising Islamic terrorism against India for several decades now. For decades, it fooled the gullible West into thinking of the Radical Islamic genocidal attacks on the minority Hindu Pandits of Kashmir as a "freedom struggle". Of course, the fact that the victims were Hindus helped a lot; the Christian-majority West tends to forget its humanitarian values when Christian lives are not at stake.

The Times of India reports:

'Divide Pak' ads came from cable company, says CNN
CHIDANAND RAJGHATTA
[13 Mar, 2007 0950hrs ISTTIMES NEWS NETWORK]

WASHINGTON: CNN has disowned an advertisement that calls for disintegration of Pakistan into several smaller countries being shown in the Washington DC area saying ''some local cable operators may have accepted the advert to run in their own airtime.''

The ad, which typically appears during the morning news hour on the channel which broadcasts CNN in the Washington metro area, promotes a book by a Syed Jamaluddin titled, Divide Pakistan to Eliminate Terrorism .

A male voice in a British accent says Pakistan and its intelligence agency are promoting chaos around the world and “seek to take terrorism to new heights.” He credits Jamaluddin with ''courageously exposing the truth.''

The ad has sent Pakistani circles into a tizzy after the Daily Times verbatim reproduced the story first reported in The Times of India .

On Monday, a CNN spokesperson called ToI to say the ad was placed by the cable company which could buy airtime between CNN programs to market any message. What’s undeniable is that the ads continue to appear on Channel 62, which broadcasts CNN in the Maryland area for subscribers to Comcast.

At a time of heightened attention to Afghanistan and Pakistan and multiple congressional hearing, the ads reflect poorly on Islamabad’s already dubious reputation as an ally in the war on terrorism.

But then the unknown and untraceable Syed Jamaluddin is not the only one raising awkward questions about Pakistan’s role in international terrorism.

In a stunning rebuke, former Pakistan Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto on Monday obliquely accused the country’s military and intelligence of promoting a terrorist agenda.

''Why is it that all terrorist plots -- from the September 11 attacks, to Madrid, to London, to Mumbai -- seem to have roots in Islamabad?'' Bhutto asked in a Washington Post op-ed, before answering, ''Pakistan's military and intelligence services have, for decades, used religious parties for recruits. Political madrassas -- religious schools that preach terrorism by perverting the faith of Islam -- have spread by the tens of thousands.''

Bhutto also accused the Musharraf regime of strategically helping the US only when international criticism of the terrorists' presence becomes strident. She cited the arrest of Mullah Obaidullah Akhund, a top Taliban strategist, by Pakistani authorities late last month as a case in point.

''The timing, right on the heels of American and British pleas for renewed toughness, is too convenient. Akhund was arrested solely to keep Western governments at bay,'' she wrote.

Her charges may well be right and Pakistan may have suckered Washington more than that. A Swiss daily reported on Sunday that Akhund, who is Taliban’s former defence minister, was freed two days after his reported capture by Pakistani security forces.

The Swiss weekly SonntagsBlick said one of its reporters spoke to Akhund on February 28 unhindered in an Islamic school in the southwestern city of Quetta.

''The news is not true,'' AP reported SonntagsBlick as writing. ''The world press reported: top-Taliban imprisoned. At the same time he was sitting with a SonntagsBlick reporter having coffee.''

The report broadly conforms to previous episodes where Pakistani extremists and terrorists are merely quarantined by Islamabad as state guests when the heat is on and then set free when world attention turns away.

Labels: Pakistani terrorism