Pakistan does not run any terrorist camps. Why can’t you folks just believe it?
That’s what the Pakistani spokesman had to say recently after getting fed up with constant Indian allegation. While Indians can have a hearty laugh at this denial, the sad part is many world leaders take his word for it. This is like the case with George Bush and Rafael Palmeiro. Palmeiro pointed his fingers at the Senate Committee and said that he did not take drugs. Later testing found that he had. But Bush said, I believe what Palmeiro says. Every speech by Bush and Blair contains the word FATWAT which overrides everything illegal that Pakistan does.
But people who have been to terrorist camps disagree. A brief filed by prosecutors against two residents of Lodi, California, contains the admission that one of the accused, Hamid Hayat attended training camps in Pakistan in 2000, 2003 and 2004, all during the time Musharraf was in power.
The apologists for Pakistan exist not only the administration, but at various other levels. The New York Times ran an op-ed suggesting that Pakistani madrassas do not train people to be terrorists and hence should not be considered a threat to United States. But even that oil-for-food scandal ridden United Nations thinks otherwise.

Several speakers at the recently-concluded 57th session of the UN Sub-Commission on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights sought a ban on madrassas run by religio-political parties in Pakistan, describing them as “nurseries of death and destruction”. The session was held in Geneva. The madrassas and the terrorist infrastructure continues to thrive in Pakistan despite public statements of the ruling military establishment, the speakers pointed out.
They stressed that “unless these were dismantled and sustained international pressure brought upon the state, which sustains and nurtures this evil, the world would continue to suffer the threats of global terrorism”.
All this is done under the direct supervision of Jamaat-e-Islami (JEI) and the most radical groups within the Muttahida Majlis Amai (MMA). The madrassas run by JEI have been the “production units” of jihadis for over three decades, the glaring examples being terrorist outfits like Hizbul Mujahideen.
A number of speakers also pointed out that there was a direct link between al-Qaeda and JEI. They also noted that most of the Taliban were trained in madrassas run by JEI and other religio-political parties. Mullah Umar was himself a student of one such madrassa run directly by these religio-political parties, yet another speaker told the UN session.
[Pak madrassas groom terrorists]

Another set of apologists exist in the think-tanks and universities, who look at Musharraf with sympathy. Their opinion is that Musharraf is a poor guy trying to do his best and he has lot of constraints and we should understand those. A sample of this can be heard in this KQED Forum discussion on Afghanistan, where two Indian callers phoned in and blamed Musharraf for creating trouble in it’s neighbors on the east and west and immediately the experts presented the sympathy angle.
These experts portray as if Musharraf has to appease various segments in Pakistani politics like the head of a coalition Govt. There would have been some logic to this angle if the ruler was Nawaz Sharif or Benazir Bhutto since everyone knows that civilian rulers are just the front-ends and nothing happens in Pakistan without the blessing of the Army. Now when an Army General himself is in power and that too one who took a bold “U” turn in his Taliban policy, and his sympathizers are parroting the difficulty angle, they don’t look like experts anymore.

Whenever any terrorist activity happens and a Pakistani connection is discovered, Musharraf plays the good-cop, producing all the sound bites the western world wants to hear. Occasionally a terrorist pops out of the hat and for this magic trick he gets rewarded with money, F-16s, and invitations to Camp David. Now people in United States seem to be fed up with his delaying tactics.
When Porter Goss was asked when Osama bin Laden would be found, his answer was not the ritualistic one.

`That is a question that goes far deeper than you know,” Goss began. “We have some weak links” that make it impossible for now to get bin Laden, he explained, pointing to “the very difficult question of dealing with sanctuaries in sovereign states.”
Sounds like you know where he is, the interviewer pressed. “I have an excellent idea of where he is,” Goss responded. The CIA boss was delivering a clear message to the “weak link” — Pakistan and its military ruler, Gen. Pervez Musharraf.[Pakistani forces tied to Taliban are hiding bin Laden, CIA thinks]

Lee Hamilton, vice chairman of the 9/11 commission told that Pakistan has not been helpful and other diplomats agree with him. So President Bush made a call to Musharraf and spoke for twenty five minutes on various issues after getting complaints from Indians and Afghanis.

Bush’s phone call was evidently made in this context. A 25-minute phone call would obviously involve lot more than just pleasantries and praise. Soon after the call Musharraf announced that Pakistan would expel all foreigners from madrassas in Pakistan. [Bush calls Mush on terror links]

Earlier either Musharraf used to get invited here or some diplomat would go to Islamabad to get things done. Now all it takes is a phone call.

Immediately after the London Bomb blasts, Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf came on TV and offered words of advice to Tony Blair and declared that there were no terrorists in Pakistan. He also issued an order to crackdown on terrorists, if there were any. Now this dance routine, which follows every terrorist act in the world has become so perfect that it can be turned into a broadway musical. Sadly no one takes him seriously. The editorial in LA Times notes

Yes, there’s a pattern here. To be clear, it is not that Pakistanis are more inclined toward terrorism than are citizens of any other country. It is that Musharraf is unable, or unwilling, to confront the terrorists in his midst. Musharraf has even had the gall to say that while, yes, Pakistan has a problem with Islamic extremism, so does Britain and the government there needs to address it.
Pakistan has arrested hundreds of suspected terrorists, including top Al Qaeda operatives. For his efforts, Musharraf has twice been the target of assassins. But terrorist training camps can still be found in Pakistan, and the army cracks down on infiltration into India only under foreign pressure.
But Musharraf could direct his underlings to crack down harder. When outside pressure reaches a boil, he reacts. When the pressure eases, so does he. That’s not good enough[Pakistan’s problem

The conveyor belt which leads to the terrorist camps requires as its input some fertile minds which are stuck in the the 7^th century and as Tavleen Singh notes, there is whole region where they are bred.

After last week’s bombings in London our friendly neighbourhood military dictator went on international television to aver, as he usually does after an act of terrorism, that Pakistan would never allow itself to become a breeding ground for terrorists. What he did not mention was that he has little control over the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA) government in his Northwest Frontier Province which just passed (July 14) the Northwest Frontier Province Hisba Act, 2005 which will effectively set up an Islamic government of Taliban genre. When it becomes law, one of the first things that will happen is the creation of a governmental department to ‘‘discourage vice and encourage virtue’’. Sound familiar? A mullah will be appointed to head it and his job will be the protection of Islamic values and traditions according to the rules laid down by the Prophet 1400 years ago[Madrasas can only breed fanatics]

Thus as the front-end is busy denying everything, the back-end is busy setting up the factory for future terrorist activities.

Cynthia McFadden of Nightline was allowed unprecedented access to Pakistan’s President Pervez Musharraf after the London Bomb blasts. Through her report we come to know that everyday morning he has breakfast with his mother and she gives no advice to him since he requires none. Then he goes about the daily job of making sure Pakistan is run properly. During the day, Musharraf turns to McFadden and describes all the things he is doing and produces sound bites for the media. So he innocently asks why Pakistan is being blamed for all the bomb blasts in London and tears start rolling out of our eyes.
Here is a gentleman, who has breakfast with his mother regularly being accused of breeding terrorists. What a sacrilege. That whole report (available via iTunes Podcast) reminded me of Suketu Mehta’s glorifying tribute to the gangsters of Mumbai in his excellent book Maximum City. But now the Pakistani connection is turning up at every single terrorist activity in the world whether it be the murder of school children in Kashmir, innocent civilians in London or tourists in Egypt

“Al-Qaeda does not exist in Pakistan any more,” he told reporters in Lahore, after unconfirmed reports Pakistanis were being sought over bombs in Egypt.
President Musharraf said al-Qaeda “sanctuaries” in Pakistan had been over-run, and that Pakistani security forces had arrested 700 of the movement’s fighters.[Al-Qaeda ‘destroyed in Pakistan‘]

There is no reason to suspect this man’s statement. After all he is the ally in the war on terror. If he says Al-Qaeda does not exist in Pakistan, it certainly does not. Only some people may disagree with Musharraf – people who actually attended the terrorist camps, like the young man from Lodi, California.

Although Pakistani officials insist they’ve cleaned out al-Qaida training camps in their country, a young Lodi man told FBI agents in June he spent six months in such a camp near Rawalpindi in 2003-04, according to federal court documents.
Hamid Hayat said he “observed hundreds of attendees from various parts of the world at this camp,” his FBI interrogator wrote in the documents.
But Hayat, 22, and his father, Lodi ice cream vendor Umer Hayat, told the FBI of a half-dozen other young Lodi men who received jihadi training in Pakistan, the documents state. Umer Hayat, 47, also said he toured several other training camps and observed training in weaponry and urban warfare, says an affidavit filed in the case.[Pakistan a hotbed for terror recruits]

The graduates of these camps and the associated madrassas are wreaking havoc around the world. Some of these graduates have been streaming into India like ants, to face bullets from the Indian Army. When the Indian Prime Minister spoke that such acts of terror could destabilize the peace process, they were dismissed as allegations. But even as the body count and the number of countries looking for Pakistani suspects are increasing, these Pakistani denials are being taken as the final word.
How many more people should die before Musharraf is asked to clean up his country?

Tony Blair said yesterday that he was shocked to learn that the terrorists (or bombers for BBC folks) were actually British nationals and we were shocked that Blair, a British national, lacks general knowledge. British born Omar Sheikh is in a Pakistani jail for murdering Daniel Pearl. Richard Reid is in an American jail for trying to see how a 747 would look when it explodes. Saajid Badat was the co-conspirator of Reid. Assaf Mohammed Hanif who blew himself up in a Tel Aviv pub in 2003 was carrying a British passport.
As Steve Emerson noted on Fox News

Not only disrupt but here is the ultimate irony. Britain invited this. Britain created conditions in London that now host more radical Islamic groups and cells, and leaders, that is, than any other capital in Europe or even in the Middle East, outside the Middle East that is. And the fact of the matter is open immigration, a very liberal asylum policy and they still continue to embrace and empower radical Islamic groups. For example, in Prime Minister Blair’s comments right after the attack he praised the Muslim Council of Britain. That is an organization that is directly linked to the Muslim Brotherhood that believes in carrying out suicide bombings, that has been linked directly to Hamas and to other jihadist organizations.[Steven Emerson on British permissiveness towards Islamic radicals & on sleeper cells in U.S.]

All those British nationals did not commit acts of terror on British soil and so that does not count. For years Britain has hosted LTTE and Khalistanis involved in terrorism against people of Sri Lanka and India and since they were law abiding British nationals committing acts of terror in other countries all was well and good. These liberal minded British allowed those preaching hatred to work in mosques and did nothing against them and the leader of the terrorist-camp land was treated as a statesman.
Atleast now, Blair should wear a fake beard and walk around the Bethnal Green Underground station like Evan Kohlmann and see for himself what is happening in his island.

Perhaps what disturbed me the most about Faisal’s desperate words was searching around the room and seeing dozens of eyes diligently trained on him–the eyes of young, impressionable Muslim kids. It is common in this modern era for Western youths (of all backgrounds) to worship popular rock stars or Hollywood actors and aspire to become them. Yet, for many years, the radical religious fringe has preached a consistent countermessage to young Muslims: “by virtue of your heritage alone, you are different from your peers and ‘we love death as they love life.'” A minority of these youths have been raised to idolize Usama Bin Laden and Mohammed Atta in the same way that many Americans follow Johnny Depp and Bruce Springsteen. With disastrous “Muslim wars” ongoing in Iraq and Afghanistan, some of those brainwashed into following Al-Qaida now see a unique opportunity for themselves to step forward from obscurity and become famous, heroic “martyrs” of the Islamic nation, much like the 9/11 hijackers. Let noone be mistaken: the deluded suicide bombers responsible for the carnage on 7/7 are far from alone. The age of the “human cruise missile” is now fully upon us and it is likely only a matter of time before this problem crosses the Atlantic and reaches the shores of the American homeland. [Where do Homegrown British Suicide Bombers Come From?]

But now Blair seems to have retrieved his spine and decided to deport radical imams. By doing this Blair is following the Nut-War Terrorism Fighting Design Pattern in which even though we know there is a problem, we just wait till actual humans die. Blair should show more resolve than this and use this opportunity to cleanse England of all radical cells involved in terrorism not just in Britain, but in other countries around the world also.

Natwar Singh, who was here to attend a meeting of the Foreign Ministers of the G4 countries, hoped the peace process with Pakistan would continue unimpeded, “unless there is a terrorist attack like the one witnessed in London.”

So that is the game plan. We just sit and wait for a new terrorist attack. All the old ones have been wiped clean and the scoreboard has been reset. All those families in Jammu and Kashmir who died at the hands of the Islamic terrorists exported from Pakistan have got justice with this one statement. You would think that this man, Natwar Singh has no clue on what is going on in Pakistan and you would be wrong.

India has said terrorist camps are still operating in Pakistan and New Delhi has photographic evidence to prove it.
“I have told the Pakistan Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz that the terrorist camps have not been dismantled. We have the photographs and I have told him that we can provide photographic evidence,” External Affairs Minister K Natwar Singh told the BBC here last night. [Terrorist camps still operating in Pakistan: Natwar]

So what do you do with those photos, Natwar? Ogle at them before going to bed and dream of a day when those terrorist school graduates come and murder innocent Indians? Are you sure that unless people die, you won’t do anything? Do you have even a vague idea of what people do in a terrorist camp? Is your name actually Nut-war Singh?
Update: Thank god these “militants” were stopped, else Nut-war would have called off the peace process.

BBC violated its policy of not calling terrorists as terrorists. It headlined its report of Thursday’s bombings in Londonistan as ‘ London rocked by terror attacks’. Its editorial guidelines state the following:

The word "terrorist" itself can be a barrier rather than an aid to understanding. We should try to avoid the term, without attribution.

BBC followed its policy when it reported the attack on the Ram temple at Ayodhya. Instead of placing a barrier to understanding the issue, it aided our understanding by calling the attackers as gunmen.

Indian police have killed five gunmen who attacked a flashpoint religious site in the northern city of Ayodhya.
.
The Ayodhya complex is one of the most fiercely disputed religious sites in the world…

That was from the July 10, SABHA 4 M Report. There are some Indians too who think that the word terrorist should not be used to describe terrorists.

Update: BBC listens to Teesta. The word “terrorist” is erased and the barrier to understanding has been removed.

Six armed gunmen tried to storm into the Ram temple in Ayodhya. One of them, a suicide bomber, rammed a jeep filled with explosives at the first barricade. The others hurled grenades and fired indiscriminately with AK-47s. Makes you blood boil doesn’t it?
But blood should not boil. That’s what Teesta Setalvad has to say.

Such an incident poses a challenge to the secular fabric of the country. Transparency needs to be followed in investigation. The media needs also to respond responsibly to information when labels like ‘terrorist’ and ‘jehadi terrorist’ are used intentionally by some organisations. Above all, this should not become an occasion for venom and hatred against minorities clouding our public sphere once again. [Press Release]

If we cannot call these terrorists, terrorists, then what do we call them Teesta? Can I call them Sabrangis?
Rajeev Srinivasan has more

Porter Goss, the CIA chief cannot catch Osama bin Laden due to some “weak links”, which seems to be the new code word for Pervez Musharraf.

The CIA boss was delivering a clear message to the “weak link” — Pakistan and its military ruler, Gen. Pervez Musharraf.
As he did two weeks ago in Australia, Musharraf claims to have Al-Qaida “on the run” in Pakistan, his forces having chased them out of cities into the mountains and then “occupied their sanctuaries.”
That rhetoric draws derision inside the CIA. According to sources familiar with the intelligence community discussion on this issue, there is mounting evidence that the Pakistani military — and its intelligence wing, the ISI — is nurturing its deep ties to Islamist extremists, including those who are sheltering the Al-Qaida leadership and leaders of the Afghan Taliban.[Pakistani forces tied to Taliban are hiding bin Laden, CIA thinks]

Of course the CIA knows everything, where he is hiding, what he is having for lunch, but still cannot catch him because of the question – what will happen to Musharraf? What if the Islamicists will come to power and start nuking left and right? Somehow we have been made to believe that Musharraf is the last standing moderate in Pakistan and rest all are murderous thugs. What America needs is someone who will take orders from the White House or State Department and deliver the goods. If Musharraf cannot do it, it is time to find a replacement so that the 3000 Americans who got murdered on Sept 11 will get some justice.

In an Op-Ed piece in New York Times, Peter Bergen and Swati Pandey argue that a myth has been perpetuated that madrassas are graduating students who become terrorists. They examined the background of 75 terrorists and found that most of them are college-educated and often in western countries. Madrassas produce fundamentalists, but they do not give the weapons training required to cause massive damage as the 9/11 terrorists or the Bali bombe. Also, according to their investigation only 1 percent of Pakistani students study in madrassas and not 10 percent as reported in the press.
To these people I have only one word – Taliban. These Afghans who were born in refugee camps in Pakistan, educated in madrassas learned their fighting skills from Mujaheddin parties in Pakistan. The madrassas belonged to Maulana Fazlur Rehman and his Jamiat-e-Ulema Islam which has support among Pashtuns in Balochistan and the North West Frontier Province. After they captured Khandahar, students from Afghani and Pakistani madrassas rushed to join the Taliban. It was these Taliban who gave a base for Osama Bin Laden and his Al-Qaeda and few years later we got some 3000 dead Americans on Sept 11th.
So when Bergen and Pandey say madrassas don’t provide weapons training, they might be right. But madrassas condition the mind and in Pakistan there are enough people to provide the required training.