"me no big chief …

26th November: Mumbai killings
27th November: Identity of the solitary arrested terrorist revealed.

5th December: An indian muslim member shaan333 writes on rambhai – an Indian blog portal:

there are few possibilites about terrorist attack in Mumbai. . .

1. Pakistan organised that
2. Any terrorist group did that. . .
In this case, you cant blame Pak cause they are also suffering because of it.
Hope that you guys are having idea about attack on JW Marriot hotel in Pak
3. Any Indian extremist group did that (any religion)
4. Any political party organised that just to create the scene for ongoing election (our politics is so dirty that i could not ruled out this point)

may be these points sounds funny or idiotic to others but thats what i think about this issue

when
the only truth is the arrested terrorist HIMSELF has confirmed
his identity
his home
his involvement in terrorism and links to Lashkar -e -taiba
and details of his training for this ‘killing till last breath’ mission
after he and his squad had killed 163 indians and foreign nationals,

an Indian muslim
has the audacity to suggest that these 10 terrorists could be
1. any terrorist group
2. any indian extremist group of any religion – (meant to read – hindus)
3. any indian political party to win votes in future elections – (meant to read – the BJP).

This is a deliberate effort to hide the truth while cleverly diverting the focus on hindus and BJP.
And the rest of rambhaiyas including the hindus accepts his reasoning without questioning. Read the full thread of comments – LetsDiscuss: the excuses and denials: islamic jihad | “me no big chief …

What is so frightening is the number of Indians and hindus
who will accept such propaganda with even an attempt to find the truth for themselves.

There is even further confirmation

Mumbai terrorist came from Pakistan

Saeed Shah in Faridkot, near Depalpur

An Observer investigation has established that the lone surviving gunman caught by Indian police during last week’s terrorist attacks on Mumbai came from a village in the Okara district of the Pakistani Punjab.

Ajmal Amir Kasab, interrogated in custody after last month’s attacks, which killed 163 people, reportedly told Indian security officials that he came from a place called Faridkot in the Punjab province. His father was named as Mohammed Amir, married to a woman named Noor.

A villager, who cannot be named for his own protection, said the village was an active recruiting ground for the banned militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba. ‘We know that boy [caught in Mumbai] is from Faridkot,’ he said. ‘We knew from the first night [of the attack]. They brainwash our youth about jihad, there are people who do it in this village. It is so wrong,’ he added.

When asked to prove that Islam does not direct killing of non believers,
this muslim ‘Indian’ responds in the ever evasive manner of a propagandist,

In the last 21 years of my life, i never find a line in Quran which told to kill others. None of my family members, my muslim friends or any Maulana told me to kill people of other religion.

I do not want to know what Mr Shaan333 has been ‘told’.
I asked him to prove there is no such text in the Quran, which as a muslim he must have read.

So instead of marching with banners and blaming
our government,
intelligence services,
anti-terrorism legislation
and the incompetence of our military /police forces,
every Indian hindu should first learn the whole truth beyond any doubts
about Islam and its teachings
and how the ‘extremist’ madrassas in pakistan can use the text in Quran
to create killing fields – from mumbai to manhattan
EVERY 26/11s and the 9/11s

Or accept some responsibility for these killings – for there will be more to come.

And do not wait for Indian muslims to join you to fight this “terrorism”
for in their hearts these are the holy warriors of Islam.

So,
a blast from the past as my friend writes to me.
jethro tull
– the lyrics of Ian Anderson to be specific.

I loved this song
since way backwhen –
when (in kolkata) it was considered to be too uncool to even listen to this band.

but Mr Anderson himself explains:

this song was to illustrate how a style of music may go out of popularity
like with every other fashion and fade and then
everything comes back around
and the style rises
again…

being uncool –
is the story of my life – all my life
and words comes around as a reminder

“Too Old To Rock ‘n’ Roll: Too Young To Die”

The old Rocker wore his hair too long,
wore his trouser cuffs too tight.
Unfashionable to the end     drank his ale too light.
Death’s head belt buckle     yesterday’s dreams
the transport caf’ prophet of doom.
Ringing no change in his double-sewn seams
in his post-war-babe gloom.

Now he’s too old to Rock’n’Roll but he’s too young to die.

He once owned a Harley Davidson and a Triumph Bonneville.
Counted his friends in burned-out spark plugs
and prays that he always will.
But he’s the last of the blue blood greaser boys
all of his mates are doing time:
married with three kids up by the ring road
sold their souls straight down the line.
And some of them own little sports cars
and meet at the tennis club do’s.
For drinks on a Sunday     work on Monday.
They’ve thrown away their blue suede shoes.

Now they’re too old to Rock’n’Roll and they’re too young to die.

So the old Rocker gets out his bike
to make a ton before he takes his leave.
Up on the A1 by Scotch Corner
just like it used to be.
And as he flies     tears in his eyes
his wind-whipped words echo the final take
and he hits the trunk road doing around 120
with no room left to brake.

And he was too old to Rock’n’Roll but he was too young to die.
No, you’re never too old to Rock’n’Roll if you’re too young to die.

2008 AD

the United States of America has elected a black president – their first ever black president.
It is an event I did not expect to see in my lifetime.

I am in disbelief.
Why?

There has been many notable first blacks in the country’s sad and often unpleasant history.

On a day when history is about to be re-written,
I can only think of
one person – Elizabeth Eckford
one school – Little Rock Central High School
and the one event – Little Rock Nine
that never failed to leave me in speechless anger,
everytime I remember
and for as long as I can remember.

Little Rock Nine

1957 AD
Nine students who had been chosen to attend Central High because of their excellent grades.
They were nine black students.
Central High was a racially segregated school.

September 4:
Segregationist “citizens’ councils” threatened to hold protests and physically block the black students from entering the school. The Governor Orval Faubus had deployed the Arkansas National Guard to support the segregationists.

On that first day of school, only one of the nine students – Elizabeth Eckford
showed up because she did not receive the phone call about the danger of going to school.

Elizabeth Eckford is depicted in this photograph taken by Will Counts in 1957

She was harassed by White Americans outside the school, and the police had to take her away in a patrol car to protect her.

September 24:
President Dwight Eisenhower sent in the 101st Airborne to escort nine students to school.

153rd Infantry, a Task Force had to hastily organized taking over the entire operation when the paratroopers left and remained on duty until the end of the school year.

October 3:
Georgia Dortch and Jane Emery,
editors of Central High’s student newspaper The Tiger, editorialize:

“Looking back on this year will probably be with regret that integration could not have been accomplished peacefully, without incident, without publicity.” The editors encourage “each individual to maintain a sensible, peaceful neutrality; to accept the situation without demonstration, no matter what personal views are entertained; and to make these, your years in Little Rock Central High School, the happiest and most fruitful of your academic education.”

How long will it take to finally erase all these memories?

How long does it take to right the wrongs?
Fifty years, it seems, hasn’t been long enough.

The Legacy of Little Rock

Juan Williams Thursday, Sep. 20, 2007

The 50th anniversary of the Little Rock school crisis is a powerful lesson in the complicated calculus of social change.

Earlier this year the U.S. Mint issued a silver dollar commemorating the event, and throughout the anniversary’s week there will be other observations marking this turning point in U.S. history. But the joy will be somewhat muted, for American schools are still nearly as segregated as they were 50 years ago.

Fifty years after U.S. troops had to escort nine black children to school in Little Rock, the issue is still how to take race out of the equation when it comes to educating every American child.

The students had written the editorial fifty years ago.
The observation in the Time US was made only a year ago – fifty years hence.

Equality is not confirmed overnight by the election of a president,
it will come only on the day every American child is truly considered as equals.

Its over to each one of you,
each american citizen …

Americaequality

the moon was my ‘chandmama’
my ma sang me so,
chand ~ moon
mama ~ ma’s brother

on nights when the moon was silvery bright,
she would sing to chandmama to come and put a ‘teep’ on my forehead.
teep ~ a bindi,
children, traditionally, would have a ‘kajol’ teep put on foreheads,
kajol ~ kohl based
to keep the evil away.

when I was a little older,
I learnt of the old woman on the moon
who never stopped working on her spinning wheel
all I had to do was to get the right tilt of my head, and there she used to be

with one small step of (a) man,
all folklores I grew up with were shattered
overnight the moon became a barren piece of rock,
a giant nightlamp, helpless, trapped into a spin eternal around earth

many moons have gone by since

the myths broken
the old woman long forgotten,
except on cloudless moonlit nights, when I can almost hear my ma’s voice

I read India too is joining in the giant leap of mankind

but will they be looking for our ‘chandmama’,
forever preparing ‘kajol teeps’
for little children?

Pakistan, it is reported is inching towards a payment crisis.

Clock ticks down on Pakistan’s payments crisis

By Simon Cameron-Moore | Reuters | Fri Oct 17, 2008 7:31pm IST

ISLAMABAD, Oct 17 (Reuters) – Pakistan moved closer to a balance of payments crisis on Friday, as the rupee slumped to a record low after the central bank reported it had barely enough foreign currency to cover six weeks of imports.

HOW MUCH FOREIGN CURRENCY DOES PAKISTAN HAVE?
As of Oct. 11, Pakistan’s foreign currency reserves totalled $7.75 billion, having fallen $570 million in a week. Critically, the central bank’s share of this has fallen to $4.34 billion, while commercial banks held $3.41 billion. The News daily said on Friday central bank reserves had slid to just under $4 billion as of Oct. 16 and out of that $1.5 billion had been consumed by currency forward booking liabilities.

HOW LONG CAN PAKISTAN GO ON BEFORE IT RUNS OUT OF DOLLARS?
The data shows the central bank has barely enough foreign currency to cover six weeks of imports. Including commercial bank reserves, it has two months’ cover.

It is all too easy to lay the blame on the global financial meltdown.

A nation born with a million hopes has in 61 years been reduced to beg,
It has received billions of dollars in aid over the years,
Money that could be better spent on building the infrastructure of a new nation.
then how and why did it all go wrong?

The answer is simple.
Pakistan is a nation that has been driven by one obsession, one greed, one motive –

Kashmir

August 1947: Birth of Pakistan as a sovereign state.
October 1947: On the 22nd Pakistan launched a full-scale invasion of Jammu and Kashmir, though intrusions had begun almost immediately following the partition of India on August 15th.

In “RAIDERS IN KASHMIR”, Major General Akbar Khan writes,
“We had assumed that Kashmir would naturally join Pakistan …
Our own safety and welfare also demanded that the State should not go over to India .. Pakistan’s military security would be seriously jeopardised if Indian troops came to be stationed along Kashmir’s western border.

“…Ultimately, I wrote out a plan under the title of “Armed Revolt inside Kashmir”. As open interference or aggression by Pakistan was obviously undesirable, it was proposed that our efforts should be concentrated upon strengthening the Kashmiris themselves internally—and at the same time taking steps to prevent the arrival of armed civilian or military assistance from India into Kashmir…

That is exactly what happened.
In their greed to take over Kashmir, they got sucked into a war with India.
As a newborn nation, instead of trying to create a good relation with neighbour India,
they had created a perpetual “enemy”.

Every pakistani government in power, both military and civilian, has preached India is their enemy,
created and magnified a paranoia that India would destroy Pakistan.
In sixty years, there has been three major wars, one minor war and
numerous armed skirmishes between the two states.

To fight wars a nation needs an army, artillary, guns and armoured vehicles
and finally missiles and now nuclear bombs.
It costs money, billions and billions of dollars.
How could Pakistan have acquire that much money or the technology?
More importantly, what happened to the fortune poured into the country?

The dollars had come as “aids” from US and oil rich islamic states.
The dollars also poured in to fund America’s proxy war against the soviets in Afghanistan.

The Kashmir Jihad:
The aid did not reach those who needed it,
most of it was siphoned off to continue the conflict, to train and aid terrorist incursions in Kashmir.

The Pakistan Army, and their intelligence service ISI were the US ally in the war in Afghanistan,
they trained the mujahideen, and supported the Talibans, they also trained terrorists for Kashmir.
America turned a deliberate blind eye to what they were creating in Kashmir.

It is not a coincidence that in 1989 the Soviets withdrew from Afghanistan and almost immediately the scale of incursions in Kashmir increased.

Nuclear technology:
Some of the nuclear technology was stolen from Netherland’s gas centrifuge factory.
But most of the nuclear technology came from China.
There are enough documents to prove the Americans were aware of China’s nuclear proliferation.
It is entirely possible that Pakistan handed over tracts of Kashmir to China, as a payment for China’s assistance with nuclear technology as far back as 1963. It is almost certain that Pakistan’s missile technology came from North Korea in exchange for nuclear knowhow.

It was General Musharraf, confident of his unlimited US support launched the war in Kargil.
He, (his then PM Sharif has claimed), was solely responsible for the Kargil attacks.
And he boasted he would hoist the flag of Pakistan atop the Srinagar Assembly.

He lost the war, but not his obsession to win Kashmir.
Nawaz Sharif was removed from power and he took over power.
But all plans to start another war, to his dismay, crumbled with the twin towers on September 11.

He became a reluctant, double dealing ally of the US war on terror.
He successfully fooled the US government to extract $10 billion in aid.

Money that should have been better spent on building the economy.

October 2008: Pakistan has reserves worth six weeks imports.
And if the world doesn’t pour in more alms, if America doesn’t, China will. Perhaps some more of Kashmir will be handed over to the chinese as payback.

To simply pour in more aid will only perpetuate the problem that is Pakistan today.

Instead of begging, Pakistan should be made to ‘earn’ the money they need to survive.
Like others in debt, to balance their books Pakistan has to trade or sell off their assets.

1. Their ill-gotten nuclear arsenal is a threat to the entire world, they should be made to give up their nuclear weapons in exchange for any financial aid.

2. They should also be made to comply with the UN resolution, 47 (1948) RESOLUTION OF 21ST April 1948 [S 726] and withdraw from Kashmir.

3. And finally, to open their borders to allow the real fight against terror to proceed.

For 60 years,
Pakistan has relied on the world’s charity to fund their wars against India and terrorism in Kashmir.
It is time Pakistan is taught to take responsibilities of their own future and welfare,
to give back to the world something in return,
peace and security.

AmericaPakistanEconomyChinaterrorismKashmir