Terrorism, Shameless Religious Bigotry and Pakistani Mindset

[TailChoppers]

It looks to me as if the only Terrorist attack that tool place on Pakistan soil was Friday's attack on Ahmadis and Every thing happened before that was not terrorism.

Thousand of average Pakistani's died in similar terrorist attacks and every one said its terrorism but when some people from a minority died, every one starting shouting, on top of their voices, that non-minority people (all of them ) are responsible, or the society is unjust, or the constitution is to blame.

Are these people nuts? Friday's attack was no where near an attack like Gojra. In Gojra average people (normal citizen) attacked and showed the thinking of the entire society. Friday's attack was a terrorist attack where only a handful of people were involved.

How can you generalize act of a few people into the thinking of whole society? For me that is Hasty Generalization and its a fallacy.

Its Serious Nonsense.

Agreed 100%. Thousands of Muslims in Pakistan have died in similar terrorist attacks in the past few years and one such attack takes place on the Ahmadis and everyones like going on and on about how only 'minorities' are being targeted and how the whole of Pakistan is directly implied.

 

[mehru]

This is new this is the first time i have heard that Muslims in Pakistan think like this, btw the writer has no agenda except to bash Islam & so are the intentions of the poster utter bullshit, Muslims get murdered as well, there have been numerous attacks on Mosques the one on parade lane took life's of kids & serving Army officers if govt could prevent the attacks on Ahmedi's mosque then it definitely would have prevented those attacks on ParadeLane but they couldnt. Ahmedis serve in Pakistan army as well & not for once they are treated like Muslims are treated in USA but we shouldn't talk about that since the Islam haters will get offended if discuss anything else except bashing Islam. This thread it self represents the bigotry of those who don't like Muslims

That is exactly what i was thinking. Ahmedis are considered NonMuslims in Pakistan but not American and British agents.

 

[TailChoppers]

THE CENTRAL ISSUE IS OF OUR MINDSET WHICH IS DELUSIONAL AND HAS BEEN NURTURED THROUGH ISLAMIC MYTHOLOGY ACCORDING TO WHICH MUSLIMS ARE SUPERIOR IN CALIBRE AS WELL AS VIRTUE AND THEREFORE CANNOT INDULGE IN ANYTHING SINISTER LIKE TERRORISM

What the hell is Islamic Mythology? And yes a Muslim cannot indulge in anything sinister like terrorism, because if they do so they cease being Muslims! One is a Muslim only and only if he follows Islam to the letter. It is not a race, culture, ethnicity that you carry around with you no matter what.

 

[JonAsad]

When a Muslim dies no one bothers it much, Muslims are dying here and there, every where, nothing new.

But when non-muslims die its an act of terrorism, barbarism, its the thinking of the whole society, every muslim is accountable, minorities wtf

Why these double standards.. aah just like the title said

Terrorism, Shameless Religious Bigotry and (emo types) Pakistani Mindset.

 

[DaRk WaVe]

you are all giving this thread a different colour, no one is talking about the minority issue only first two paras have talk about minorities read the whole of it, we are talking about whats happening in Pakistan not whats happening in Iraq, US etc or what CNN or BBC is doing

how is drone attack (which people of Waziristan say are sorta blessing), or killings in Iraq & Palestine or the propaganda campaign by CNN is a justification of red earth in Pakistan

is it hard to understand?

Terrorism, Shameless Religious Bigotry and (emo types) Pakistani Mindset.

i know you are seriously worked up with me but targeting my personality won't make any difference

What the hell is Islamic Mythology? And yes a Muslim cannot indulge in anything sinister like terrorism, because if they do so they cease being Muslims! One is a Muslim only and only if he follows Islam to the letter. It is not a race, culture, ethnicity that you carry around with you no matter what.

no is saying that Islam is some sorta race etc, we are talking about the amalgam of Religion with state policies & Terrorism & how religious bigotry blinds us all to think that every freeeking non Muslim on the planet is out to conspire against the Glory of Islam & its so called for Pakistan


its very easy for you to eliminate a particular person from circle of ISlam with your self defined definitions & logic but that particular person who is eliminated from this circle still uses the same Islam to kill people who he thinks don't have the right to be called Muslims

 

[niaz]

Well, taking your argument for what is worth, and that of the writer,

I have no objection in condemning this act.

I will call it terrorism, and a crime.

My objection is to people like this "writer" who have come out to write now.

Where were these soulful writers when 150 + Muslims die a day in Iraq and media was silent,
1 American dies, and the whole world is out to lament !

Any one, and every one who will feel the itch to contribute to this thread MUST question his / her own self.

WERE you vocal enough when hundreds of Pakistanis were killed by the day and FOX / CNN / BBC / SKY were sucking their thumbs ?

DID you go protest FOX / CNN / BBC etc for their silence ?

If not, then why do you feel pushed to protest now ?

and if some one feels that the society has been insensitive , will you accuse Americans, British, Indians the same ?

simple questions, lets see if you can answer.

Pray tell me, how you can even think of justifying such butchery? I am as good a Muslim as you or any one else. Where does in any ‘Hadith’ or Quraan, it is mentioned that you attack the minorities places of worship without provocation? Don’t know what kind of Islam you believe in, but the Islam that I believe guarantees safety and freedom of worship to the minorities.

No doubt US is killing Muslims in Iraq and Israel is terrorizing Palestinians, but how can you justifying killing one hundred Pakistanis. Or you don’t consider Ahmadies Pakistanis or even human beings? How were the people killed in Lahore linked to or were in any way responsible for the crimes of US, Israel or India?

What a twisted argument, you care about other nationalities but don’t seem to be capable of showing your concern for the thousands of Pakistani Muslims, Army Jawans, policemen and the minorities killed by the Taliban!

You can call me whatever you want; IMO the author has not used strong enough words. In my view, words don’t exist that describe the true horror that Pakistan is being subject to by these followers of Satan. Any attack on any innocent civilian in Pakistan must be condemned without any reservation of any 'ifs' or 'buts'. It shows that as a nation we even though we claim to be Muslims but we dont know the distinction between what is Islamic and what is barbaric. Even bringing in CNN or any other example to somehow justify this crime shows out right bigotry.

I won't apologize for strong words because I am fed up with people trying to justify these acts in any way or form. There is nothing at all which can justify attack on innocent Pakistanis because some super power is injuring Muslims in another country.

For the record, biggest protest against the attack on Iraq was in the UK and Germany, not in the Saudi Arabia. Please check your history before you write your posts supporting your Tailban butchers.

 

[DaRk WaVe]

That is exactly what i was thinking. Ahmedis are considered NonMuslims in Pakistan but not American and British agents.

I dont want to divert this topic to who's Muslim & who's not but a single google hit gave me many things

Ahmadis are agents of British - Google Search

 

[mehru]

selfdelete

 

[TailChoppers]

no one is justifying the attacks! dont you get it???

but why all the hue and cry for this only? that's the point. what about the many others who died but didnt happen to be 'minorities'. I too am fed up of reading all the burger-bachay/pseudo-intellectual acting as if this is something new and we should be EXTRA APOLOGETIC this time just because it was some minority. Whats the difference in them and all the others that died?

 

[xenia]

I dont want to divert this topic to who's Muslim & who's not but a single google hit gave me many things

Ahmadis are agents of British - Google Search

lol...what else do u expect google ll give you when u type ahmadiz are agents of british..haha

 

[mehru]

If you have some personal problems with me then its not my fault

BTW, dont tell me that this is all propaganda

Drone attacks -- a survey​

The Aryana Institute for Regional Research and Advocacy, a think tank of researchers and political activists from the NWFP and FATA, conducts research, surveys and collect statistics on various issues concerning the Taliban and Al-Qaeda terrorism and human security there. AIRRA research teams go deep inside Taliban- and Al-Qaeda-occupied areas of FATA to collect information. Most of the areas are not accessible to journalists.

Between last November and January AIRRA sent five teams, each made up of five researchers, to the parts of FATA that are often hit by American drones, to conduct a survey of public opinion about the attacks. The team visited Wana (South Waziristan), Ladda (South Waziristan), Miranshah (North Waziristan), Razmak (North Waziristan) and Parachinar (Kurram Agency). The teams handed out 650 structured questionnaires to people in the areas. The questionnaires were in Pashto, English and Urdu. The 550 respondents (100 declined to answer) were from professions related to business, education, health and transport. Following are the questions and the responses of the people of FATA.

• Do you see drone attacks bringing about fear and terror in the common people? (Yes 45%, No 55%)
  
  [*]Do you think the drones are accurate in their strikes? (Yes 52%, No 48%)
  
  [*]Do you think anti-American feelings in the area increased due to drone attacks recently? (Yes 42%, No 58%)
  
  [*]Should Pakistan military carry out targeted strikes at the militant organisations? (Yes 70%, No 30%)
  
  [*]Do the militant organisations get damaged due to drone attacks? (Yes 60%, No 40%)
  
  

A group of researchers at AIRRA draw these conclusions from the survey. The popular notion outside the Pakhtun belt that a large majority of the local population supports the Taliban movement lacks substance. The notion that anti-Americanism in the region has not increased due to drone attacks is rejected. The study supports the notion that a large majority of the people in the Pakhtun belt wants to be incorporated with the state and wants to integrate with the rest of the world.

The survey also reinforces my own ethnographic interactions with people of FATA, both inside FATA and the FATA IDP’s in the NWFP. This includes people I personally met and those I am in contact with through telephone calls and emails. This includes men and women, from illiterate to people with university level education. The number is well over 2000. I asked almost all those people if they see the US drone attacks on FATA as violation of Pakistan’s sovereignty. More than two-third said they did not. Pakistan’s sovereignty, they argued, was insulted and annihilated by Al-Qaeda and the Taliban, whose territory FATA is after Pakistan lost it to them. The US is violating the sovereignty of the Taliban and Al-Qaeda, not of Pakistan. Almost half the people said that the US drones attacking Islamabad or Lahore will be violation of the sovereignty of Pakistan, because these areas are not taken over by the Taliban and Al Qaeda. Many people laughed when I mentioned the word sovereignty with respect to Pakistan.

Over two-thirds of the people viewed Al-Qaeda and the Taliban as enemy number one, and wanted the Pakistani army to clear the area of the militants. A little under two-thirds want the Americans to continue the drone attack because the Pakistani army is unable or unwilling to retake the territory from the Taliban.

The people I asked about civilian causalities in the drone attacks said most of the attacks had hit their targets, which include Arab, Chechen, Uzbek and Tajik terrorists of Al-Qaeda, Pakistani Taliban (Pakhtun and Punjabis) and training camps of the terrorists. There has been some collateral damage.

The drones hit hujras or houses which the Taliban forced people to rent out to them. There is collateral damage when the family forced to rent out the property is living in an adjacent house or a portion of the property rented out.

The Taliban and Al Qaeda have unleashed a reign of terror on the people of FATA. People are afraid that the Taliban will suspect their loyalty and behead them. Thus, in order to prove their loyalty to the Taliban and Al-Qaeda, they offer them to rent their houses and hujras for residential purposes.

There are people who are linked with the Taliban. Terrorists visit their houses as guests and live in the houses and hujras. The drones attacks kill women and small children of the hosts. These are innocent deaths because the women and children have no role in the men’s links with terrorists.

Other innocent victims are local people who just happen to be at the wrong place at the wrong time.

People told me that typically what happens after every drone attack is that the Taliban and Al-Qaeda terrorists cordon off the area. No one from the local population is allowed to access the site, even if there are local people killed or injured. Their relatives cry and beg the terrorists to let them go near the site. But the Taliban and Al Qaeda do not allow them. The Taliban and Al Qaeda remove everything they want from the site and then allow the locals to see the site.

The survey conducted by AIRRA and my ethnographic interactions contradict the mantra of violation of the sovereignty of Pakistan perpetuated by the armchair analysts in the media. I have been arguing on these pages that analyses of those analysts have nothing to do with the reality of the FATA people. For some reason they take FATA for granted. They feel they are at liberty to fantasise whatever they like about FATA and present to the audience as a truth. Some of those armchair analysts also have a misplaced optimism about themselves. They believe my challenge to their fantasies about FATA is because I like to give them time! I give time to the land I love--FATA and the NWFP--and to the state I am loyal to--Pakistan.

What is happening in FATA is destroying the lives and culture of the FATA people, threatening the integrity of Pakistan and world peace. Fantasies of the armchair analysts are helping no one but Al Qaeda and the Taliban--enemies of the land and culture I love, and our state. I will therefore continue to challenge the fantasies of the armchairs analysts, whenever possible.

Drone attacks -- a survey

Drone attacks: Challenging some fabrications​

The people of Waziristan are suffering a brutal kind of occupation under the Taliban and al Qaeda. Therefore, they welcome the drone attacks

There is a deep abyss between the perceptions of the people of Waziristan, the most drone-hit area and the wider Pakistani society on the other side of the River Indus. For the latter, the US drone attacks on Waziristan are a violation of Pakistani’s sovereignty. Politicians, religious leaders, media analysts and anchorpersons express sensational clamour over the supposed ‘civilian casualties’ in the drone attacks. I have been discussing the issue of drone attacks with hundreds of people of Waziristan. They see the US drone attacks as their liberators from the clutches of the terrorists into which, they say, their state has wilfully thrown them. The purpose of today’s column is, one, to challenge the Pakistani and US media reports about the civilian casualties in the drone attacks and, two, to express the view of the people of Waziristan, who are equally terrified by the Taliban and the intelligence agencies of Pakistan. I personally met these people in the Pakhtunkhwa province, where they live as internally displaced persons (IDPs), and in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA).

I would challenge both the US and Pakistani media to provide verifiable evidence of civilian ‘casualties’ because of drone attacks on Waziristan, i.e. names of the people killed, names of their villages, dates and locations of the strikes and, above all, the methodology of the information that they collected. If they can’t meet the challenge, I would request them to stop throwing around fabricated figures of ‘civilian casualties’ that confuse people around the world and provide propaganda material to the pro-Taliban and al Qaeda forces in the politics and media of Pakistan.

I pose that challenge because no one is in a position to give a correct estimate of how many individuals have been killed so far in drone attacks. On the basis of American media estimates, 600 to 700 ‘civilian population’ have been killed. The Pakistani government, pro-Taliban political parties like Jamaat-e-Islami, Jamiat-e-Ulema-e-Islam, Tehrik-e-Insaf, and the media are quoting the same figure. Neither the government of Pakistan nor the media have any access to the area and no system is in place to arrive at precise estimates. The Pakistani government and media take the figure appearing in the American media as an admission by the American government. The US media too do not have access to the area. Moreover, the area is simply not accessible for any kind of independent journalistic or scholarly work on drone attacks. The Taliban simply kill anyone doing so.

The reason why these estimates about civilian ‘casualties’ in the US and Pakistani media are wrong is that after every attack the terrorists cordon off the area and no one, including the local villagers, is allowed to come even near the targeted place. The militants themselves collect the bodies, burry the dead and then issue the statement that all of them were innocent civilians. This has been part of their propaganda to provide excuses to the pro-Taliban and al Qaeda media persons and political forces in Pakistan to generate public sympathies for the terrorists. The Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) or other militants have never admitted to the killing of any important figure of al Qaeda or the TTP. One exception is the killing of Baitullah Mehsud that the TTP reluctantly admitted several days after his death. According to the people of Waziristan, the only civilians who have been killed so far in the drone attacks are women or children of the militants in whose houses/compounds they hold meetings. But that, too, used to happen in the past. Now they don’t hold meetings at places where women and children of the al Qaeda and TTP militants reside. Moreover, in this case too no one is in a position to give even an approximate number of the women and children of the terrorists killed in drone attacks.

The people of Waziristan are suffering a brutal kind of occupation under the Taliban and al Qaeda. It is in this context that they would welcome anyone, Americans, Israelis, Indians or even the devil, to rid them of the Taliban and al Qaeda. Therefore, they welcome the drone attacks. Secondly, the people feel comfortable with the drones because of their precision and targeted strikes. Especially the people of Waziristan have been terrified by the use of long-range artillery and air strikes of the Pakistan Army and Air Force. People complain that not a single TTP or al Qaeda member has been killed so far by the Pakistan Army, whereas a lot of collateral damage has taken place. On the other hand, drone attacks have never targeted the civilian population except, they informed, in one case when the funeral procession of Khwazh Wali, a TTP commander, was hit. In that attack too, many TTP militants were killed including Bilal (the TTP commander of Zangara area) and two Arab members of al Qaeda. But some civilians were also killed. After the attack people got the excuse of not attending the funeral of slain TTP militants or offering them food, which they used to do out of compulsion in order to put themselves in the TTP’s good books. “It (this drone attack) was a blessing in disguise,” several people commented.


I have heard people particularly appreciating the precision of drone strikes. People say that when a drone would hover over the skies, they wouldn’t be disturbed and would carry on their usual business because they would be sure that it does not target the civilians, but the same people would run for shelter when a Pakistani jet would appear in the skies because of its indiscriminate firing. They say that even in the same compound only the exact room — where a high value target (HVT) is present — is targeted. Thus others in the same compound are spared. The people of Waziristan have been complaining why the drones are only restricted to targeting the Arabs. They want the drones to attack the TTP leadership, the Uzbek/Tajik/Turkmen, Punjabi and Pakhtun Taliban. I have heard even religious people of Waziristan cursing the jihad and welcoming even Indian or Israeli support to help them get rid of the TTP and foreign militants. The TTP and foreign militants had made them hostages and occupied their houses by force. The Taliban have publicly killed even the religious scholars in Waziristan.


I have yet to come across a non-TTP resident of Waziristan who supports the Taliban or al Qaeda. Till recently they were terrified by the TTP to the extent that they would not open their mouth to oppose them. But now, having been displaced and out of their reach, some of them speak against them openly and many more than before in private conversations. They express their fear of the intelligence agencies of Pakistan whenever speaking against the Taliban. They see the two as two sides of the same coin.

What we read and hear in the print and electronic media of Pakistan about drone attacks as a violation of Pakistan’s sovereignty or resulting in killing innocent civilians is not true so far as the people of Waziristan are concerned. According to them, al Qaeda and the TTP are dead scared of drone attacks and their leadership spends sleepless nights. This is a cause of pleasure for the tormented people of Waziristan.

Moreover, al Qaeda and the Taliban have done everything to stop the drone attacks by killing hundreds of innocent civilians on the pretext of their being American spies. They thought that by overwhelming the innocent people of Waziristan with terror tactics they would deter any potential informer, but they have failed. On many occasions the Taliban and al Qaeda have killed the alleged US spies in front of crowds of hundreds, even thousands of tribesmen. Interestingly, no one in Pakistan has raised objection to killings of the people of Waziristan on charges of spying for the US. This, the people of Waziristan informed, is a source of torture for them that their fellow Pakistanis condemn the killing of the terrorists but fall into deadly silence over the routine murders of tribesmen accused of spying for the US by the terrorists occupying their land.

Daily Times - Leading News Resource of Pakistan

I think these details are oversimplifying. Initially drone attacks have caused civilian causalities however with time and proper intelligence, they got precise. However there is no denying that locals as well as army is involved in these drone attacks. And secondly it's wrong to say that Pak airforce didn't target militants. I think this forum will provide numerous details on Pak airforce raids on militants however obviously they can't be precise. And another interesting thing in one of these articles is that Pak airforce has only attacked arabs but not TTP. So who are these arabs? They are definitely part of TTP and secondly if the Pak airforce has indiscriminately killed people then how come only Arabs were targeted. Surely they can't tell from the sky that who are Arabs and who are not. In short these articles are giving the sense that militants were only killed by drone attacks but not by PA. Not a good way to discredit your own army.

PS. Tribals hate Indians and Israelis. They will rather live with taliban than asking help form Indians /Israelis.

 

[TailChoppers]

lol...what else do u expect google ll give you when u type ahmadiz are agents of british..haha

Well Mirza sahab did have a soft corner for the British.

kidding.

 

[DaRk WaVe]

no one is justifying the attacks! dont you get it???

but why all the hue and cry for this only? that's the point. what about the many others who died but didnt happen to be 'minorities'. I too am fed up of reading all the burger-bachay/pseudo-intellectual acting as if this is something new and we should be EXTRA APOLOGETIC this time just because it was some minority. Whats the difference in them and all the others that died?

are you in a delusion that when Mulims get killed there is no hue & cry???

in which world have you been living the main purpose of article is that there is a mindset which stops us from condemning & justifying the acts of barbarity, it is not singling out 'minority problems', its talking about PAKISTAN is general

plus no one is questioning the dead

lol...what else do u expect google ll give you when u type ahmadiz are agents of british..haha

if you would have turned some pages before coming down to rant then you would have found that people here are saying that 'its new for them that Ahmedis were declared british agents by Muslims'

 

[xenia]

I think these details are oversimplifying. Initially drone attacks have caused civilian causalities however with time and proper intelligence, they got precise. However there is no denying that locals as well as army is involved in these drone attacks. And secondly it's wrong to say that Pak airforce didn't target militants. I think this forum will provide numerous details on Pak airforce raids on militants however obviously they can't be precise. And another interesting thing in one of these articles is that Pak airforce has only attacked arabs but not TTP. So who are these arabs? They are definitely part of TTP and secondly if the Pak airforce has indiscriminately killed people then how come only Arabs were targeted. Surely they can't tell from the sky that who are Arabs and who are not. In short these articles are giving the sense that militants were only killed by drone attacks but not by PA. Not a good way to discredit your own army.

PS. Tribals hate Indians and Israelis. They will rather live with taliban than asking help form them.

the issue with drones is that they dont fall in any defined international law...preventive, preemptive, hot war ,etc..even the UN condemns them..the death rate repeatedly reported is 1 militant to 100 civilians..
secondly, lately they started using double strike tactics..so eve after a strike peolpe dont go near the injured for atleast half an hour (a friend from fata told me)..now isnt that horrendous??

 

[DaRk WaVe]

I think these details are oversimplifying. Initially drone attacks have caused civilian causalities however with time and proper intelligence, they got precise. However there is no denying that locals as well as army is involved in these drone attacks. And secondly it's wrong to say that Pak airforce didn't target militants. I think this forum will provide numerous details on Pak airforce raids on militants however obviously they can't be precise. And another interesting thing in one of these articles is that Pak airforce has only attacked arabs but not TTP. So who are these arabs? They are definitely part of TTP and secondly if the Pak airforce has indiscriminately killed people then how come only Arabs were targeted. Surely they can't tell from the sky that who are Arabs and who are not. In short these articles are giving the sense that militants were only killed by drone attacks but not by PA. Not a good way to discredit your own army.

PS. Tribals hate Indians and Israelis. They will rather live with taliban than asking help form Indians /Israelis.

drones strikes are in no way a simplification of breach of sovereignty,there is a dimension of Good n Bad Taliban which define the effectiveness of drones strike, Baitullah was allowed to get away many times even when Americans knew he was entering Afgh & ISI pin pointed his location & still Americans didnt sent many drones at that particular time, meaning at first the drones were only striking the only targets that were disturbing the American Designs & they were totally ineffective & not in interests of Pakistan, they were doing more harm than good, then suddenly from no where Hell fires sent BM to hell, there are different theories of how American Intelligence was tricked by ISI to strike the BM's location, this theory may sound weird but taking into consideration the past acts by CIA to avoid hitting BM, it has got some weight in it, any ways one way or other BM got killed, after that again there came a wave of ineffective drone strikes which were doing more harm than good but then again something terrible happened for Americans i.e a Jordanian Triple Agent Killed like 20 CIA agents in Kabul & a video came on air in which That Jordanian was seen with Hakeem Ullah Mehsud & stunningly the very next day drones struck& then came some more pin pointed Drone Strikes which killed a Shadow Governor & one Top Thug of Haqqani Group & nowadays almsot all the drone strikes are happening in NW only & it is in a way softening things up before PA goes into NW

Americans were making distinction b/w Good & Bad Taliban, there was trust defect but when the Good Taliban for Americans were found linked with that triple agent things changed, Americans & Pakistanis had trust deficit somewhat removed & suddenly all of the Taliban leaders started falling(Mullah Bradar & other Top leaders of Quetta Shura etc), Drones are doing the right thing for now & with deadly accuracy, collateral damage is part of every war, it cannot be zero it can be only minimized....

Pakistan Air Force unfortunately did hit some targets which were totally civilian these things do happen but it is no way a justification that Air Strikes must stop because we are having collateral damage,further this article is a bit old no one right now can question the credibility & sacrifices Pakistan armed forces have made & the COIN Operations been done by PA in Swat are been studied as a model for Operation in Kandhar & the same model was followed by ISAF as it went into Helmand plus Successful operation in SW & Bajur are speaking for itself where as american credibility can be certainly questioned as they are just abandoning basses & recent take over of Nuristan province by Taliban