...yet probably a repost of something written a few days ago.

re: Imtaz Gul's piece

Why is the issue, "how the US 'respects' Pakistan"?

What 'gestures' has Pakistan made to deserve any particular respect from the US? The country seems to have a psychology complex where it's "all about me me me"... What should we expect to gain by treating Pakistan with greater sensitivity? The question remains as to whether there is anything Pakistan's leadership (army or political) can or will do to help US interests, and that anything they do is only related to their own perpetuation of power. My point is: in a tit for tat relationship, what do we get out of the bargain other than occasional press statements from politicians? Unless their side offers something of substance (e.g. Osama's head on a stick? with pieces of Haqqani as garnish?) I don't see what it is we're buying with out continued beneficence. I don't see why we should care whether Pakistan thrives or rots at this point, as they are nothing but a source of problems for our own efforts as well as our regional allies.

Is There Any Way to Fix Pakistan? The answer is: HIGHLY UNLIKELY, in fact, IMPOSSIBLE!

This is a shockingly disastrous polity which has been variously described as a 'failed state', a 'sinking ship'. It is breathlessly obnoxious, hopeless and chronically ill nation. No one, nowhere can ever help Pakistan or the people of Pakistan.

Great nations build themselves around some principles, certain values and take pride in them. Pakistan is a doomed country with no future or light at the end of the tunnel.

Pakistan is a politically, economically and socially downtrodden nightmare. The talibanization of the country has ruined the very basis of that country. Islam of the wahabi brand has brought it down to its knees.

First things first, they need to get rid of the word 'Islam' and rename the country simply as 'Republic of Pakistan'.

Secondly, they need to give up all little ambitions that they nurse of 'dominating' South-West Asia. They should humble.

Thirdly, shake hands with India and seek help and guidance from the neighboring countries. Stop stealing peace from your neighbors.

Reduce the size of the military.

Forget about nuclearization.

Work toward making the lives of citizens better; protect them, give them health care, education, basic rights and treat them like human beings.

Can Pakistan or will Pakistan ever change? No, never ever!

Is Pakistan fixable? Unfortunately not!

As long as the Army exists, the people of Pakistan and the world, have absolutely no hopes. The Army needs to be completely dissolved. And only the Pakistani people can do that.

1. The army breakdown: 70% Punjabi & 30% Pashtun, who are treated like cannon fodder. Officers are nearly 100% Punjabi. So the Punjabi completely dominate the Army.
2. These Punjabi consider themselves a Super Martial Race. They believe that they are destined to rule all of South Asia, from Afghanistan to Burma.
3. According to various estimates, the Army gobbles-up 50-75% of nations budget.
4. To justify it's existence, since it's birth, the army has cleverly created a bogey, a source of fear, a bogus claim that India is a danger to Pakistan. India has never attacked another country. China attacked India in 1962 & Pakistan attacked India 4 times & lost each time, After winning the Bangladesh war, and accepting the surrender of 90,000 Pakistani solders, India gave away the land of East Pakistan, won to the local population, and independent Bangladesh was born.
5. The Pakistani Punjabi Army can only be compared to New York's Mafia families. Increase the scale to international level. Add the Billions of dollars, (which many in the rest of the world consider to be a form of ransom money extracted by the hoodlums, or hostage money extracted by the Somali pirates), milked every year from USA, Add Nuclear warheads partly stolen from Europe & partly donated by China. Add the hidden terrorist Army consisting of various Muslim extremist groups. Add the firebrand Imams & their Mosques & Madarassa that churn out a regular supply of brainwashed Jihadi. Add the Billions of our dollars used in turn by the ISI to bribe foreign politicians and media people. Add weapons of latest technology including F16 gifted regularly by USA. Add a total Army control over each & every important event in Pakistan & also in Afghanistan, Add the Army protection in Pakistan to the resident international terrorists & their leaders & planers like Osama & others. Add the sanctuary given to 9/11 and other plotters in Pakistan. Add the financing & training given to almost all terrorists of last couple of decades.

And there you have in a nutshell, the Pakistani Punjabi Terrorist Army.

It needs to disappear, for the good of the Pakistani people as well as the rest of the world.

A well reasoned series of balanced articles on pakistan...let the hysterical begin. How many commentators here have ever really been to the country , know its people or history without ideological blinders? A 160 mm people nuclear nation and regional instability is a small price for US to cut & run from another war they have lost...

What people don't understand is that they had more freedom and sense of living when Musharraf was around. The current party is too lazy. Musharraf had everything under control and he knew what he was doing. One thing a soldier can't do: Sell his country.
Pakistan on the brink

Pakistan is basically suffering due to dishonesty of the ruling class and intellectuals. When a journalist of the Dawn newspaper, Habib R. Sulemani touched this taboo subject by writing a novel, The Terrorland, he and his family came under criminal attacks. He is living in solitary confinement for the last seven months, and his only link with the outside world are his seldom blogs.

The police have refused and the government is not registering criminal cases against the accused because they're officers of the mighty spy agencies, ISI and MI. Among them is also the Editor of the newspaper whose brother is a serving general and chief spokesman of the Pakistan Army.

In a letter to global leaders, human rights, journalistic and literary organizations, Mr. Sulemani writes: “Freedom of thought and expression is still a slogan in our part of the world. If the Pakistani, American, British and allied governments, partners in fighting global terrorism, want to win the war, then they must address intellectual terrorism first.”

Habib Sulemani says in The Terrorland blogs: "Let's bring those people to justice who use religion, race and nationalism as weapons against humanity, and those criminal minds who want to make planet earth a terrorland in the universe." http://t.co/zHkZGeT

Now that we know Obama will only visit Pakistan in 2011, do the Pakistanis think they've been snubbed?

The idea of a nation comprises a good deal more than a geographic land mass. At its core a nation's identity is the abstraction of its cultural ethos, palpable momentum of history and an invisible stream of convention and tradition.

Sadly, Pakistan came into being without having the benefit of above factors in satisfactory measure. Health of the Republic demanded that a conscious effort be made to nurture these forces. It was bound to be a demanding and painful process. As ill luck would have it people of Pakistan were never blessed with selfless and statesmanlike leaders.

In the absence of strong political culture religion stepped into fill the vacuum. Even before the Republic of Pakistan could emerge from the womb of time, it was commandeered dogmatic religion establishment and forces of fundamentalism.

There can be no short cut to rebuilding of Pakistan. To turn what presently is a vague notion into a vibrant nation, it will take nothing less than the misery of an inter-cenine conflict, a civil war. The nation of Pakistan will emerge from the cauldron of a mass upheaval to stamp out twin demons of feudalism and fundamentalism.

It is a pity that outside forces can neither hasten this process nor abort it. It pace and outcome has to be dictated by the people of Pakistan. The clarion call for revolution ought to be issued by its intellectuals and academician and taken up by its youth. Let the saying ' awaze khalk nakarye Khuda' become a relity of the coming decade.

Mr. Imtiaz Gul can rest easy that Petraeus does NOT even attempt to underestimate Kayani. On the contrary, Petraeus does everything he can to keep Kayani in good humor.

Petraeus has NO problem sacrificing his own soldiers to keep General Kayani in good humor.

That is why Kayani has been able to get away with promoting Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan to retain Pakistan’s hold on Afghanistan even while milking Uncle Sam to the hilt.

That is why first Musharraf and now Kayani has been able to dupe Uncle Sam while bleeding it dry.

With an ally like Pakistan, US is hooked for life to sustain General Kayani’s Pakistan with the permanent threat that if Uncle Sam does not pay money as and when demanded by Pakistan, terror threat and the threat Pakistan’s nuclear weapons falling in the hands of terrorists will be ever present.
And the way gullible US is dishing out billion after billion since 2001, clearly US has NO problem with such Pakistani blackmail anyway.

Isn’t this a kick?

Pakistani Army and ISI created this what ex-CIA official Bruce Reidel called ’jihadist Frankenstein monster’ of their own free will with full funding provided by Pakistan’s democratic governments in 1990s, that ultimately led to 9/11 attacks.

Nobody forced it but Pakistan’s democratic government of its own free will decided to facilitate relocation of Osama bin Laden from Sudan to Afghanistan in 1996.

And US has been paying through the nose for this Pakistani blackmail ever since.

US has NO problem being duped by Pakistan like this. All the sympathies and condolences to you, Uncle Sam.

With regret, I don't see the point of Mr. Shuja's article as he clearly fails to elaborate the point "PAKISTAN'S RICH TAX EVADERS ARE THE LEAST OF OUR PROBLEMS". Why should they not be included in the tax net? How much more are the middle and lower classes of Pakistan going to get squeezed before the country collapses after a violent revolution? Any U.S. support for the corrupt Pakistani govt creates deep resentment in the Pakistani society and stirs anti-U.S. sentiments. No wonder people like Faisal Shehzad rock places like Times Square with rage in their hearts.

I wonder why FP overlooked the writer's lapse of judgment and published it...

Martel, Uncle Sam's vows are of Washington's own making. And my view from a distance is that Mr Gates, the Defense Secretary is to blame. His CIA background made him too much of a details man, lacking completely statesmanlike overview of things. His long association with ISI blinds him to its dubious character.

One wonders what were Obama's compulsions in continuing with him. Only a new head at the Pentagon can bring new thinking there and call Islamabad's bluff once and for all.

It is said that the first step towards healing is to acknowledge that you have a problem, hope the Pakistanis will do the same, they should also realize they are pretty lucky as well, sitting on the gateway for central Asia, a good friend in the Chinese, who for their self-interests (not like the Americans, who want to force Democracy down everyone’s throat), are willing to even pay through their nose to protect them. The Pakistanis also are on a demographic cusp that if harnessed properly can go ahead and dominate south-west Asia.

All that one can say to them is get out of your obsession a-la India. You can always ouch harder as a successful and powerful country than as a failed state.

How can mean spirited response to comments made in this article address the issue highlighted. While arm wrestling in the gutter is easy it takes more insight & reasoned thinking to offer any concrete solutions.

They maybe good or bad but at least it can be the springboard for an informed debate. Individually none of us may have the right solution but a "crowdsourced" debate can suggest potential alternatives than just name calling.

I am sick of the philistines on every message board that reduce the conversation to the gutter. To see this in FP is even more disappointing as one assumes that "educated" people lurk here.

There are many explanations about the brith and naming of this country. But here is one that came from a Pakistani historian. Pakistan means a place where a tribe called Pak live or lived. Afghanistan means a place where a tribe called Afghan live or lived. But there is no such tribe called Pak. There are Balochs, Sindhis, Punjabis. Then who is a Pak? The word napak is used in Urdu in slang to describe something not clean - in India and Pakistan by Urdu speaking people. You can hear it used regularly by tough guys in Bollywood movies. Pak means someone who is clean. That means people outside Pakistan may not be clean.

But why would a country go to the trouble of call ing itself clean people?

The problem lies with the Indians.

The original Indians were festidiously clean and bathed in abundant rivers - after going to the toilet, after eating etc. When people came from Arabia who did ablutons - the Indians called them unclean. The word used was Mleccha. This really hurt. Of course people in Arabia did not have any water so their culture or religion called for ablutions. Of course the Indian habit of bathing in the rivers has now ruined all the rivers. But this is not the point.

The Indians also labelled all English people unclean because when Europeans came to India, they did not bathe often. It is only later on that they got the bathtub from China and started bathing and showering. The Indians were probably wrong in calling every foreigner "unclean". But I have been called a lot of worse names when I moved to the West only few years ago.

The point is - you cannot create a country on the criticism levelled by another people. The premise of the country is wrong. You are better off with a secular society in this shrinking world. Building a country on the foundation of old historic gruidges is a non-starter. Start by changing the name.

it is requested to every 1 on dis forum to plz spk sense nd try to argue with facts,figures nd with sense of unbiased judgment.

Pakistan is a politically, tutune son economically and socially downtrodden nightmare. The talibanization of the country has paint zoom ruined the very basis orjin krem of that country. Islam of the wahabi biktim tozu brand has brought it down to its knees.

From washed-out roads and bridges to the frayed state of Islamabad politics, Pakistan is a country in sorry shape. An FP special report on how things could go from bad to better. Martel, Uncle Sam's vows are of Washington's own making. And my view from a distance is that Mr Gates, the Defense Secretary is to blame. His CIA background made him too much of a details man, lacking completely statesmanlike overview of things. "The United States has signaled its willingness to help, but Pakistan will largely have to travel the road to recovery on its own q2612a laser toner. Here are 5 ideas on how it might best make the journey. Don't Underestimate the General By Imtiaz Gul Pakistan's Rich Tax Evaders Are the Least of Our Problems By Shuja Nawaz We Need to Rebuild from the Ground Up By Rafay Alam How to Spend Pakistan's Aid Money By Nancy Birdsall, Wren Elhai, and Molly Kinder Plus: USAID disaster relief chief Mark Ward on the difficult delivery of flood relief" The Pakistanis also are on a demographic cusp that if harnessed properly can go ahead and dominate south-west Asia. All that one can say to them is get out of your obsession a-la India. You can always ouch harder as a successful and powerful country than as a failed state.