It is becoming increasingly a hard sell to pin the blame for the Mumbai attacks on Pakistan and thus set the stage for an attack on Pakistan after Barack Obama enters the White House in a few weeks. It now appears Indian intelligence played a large part in the terrorist attacks….

He goes on to list a number of stories that have appeared in the press over the last few days.

Times of India plays about the booga-booga of an upcoming attack by Jundullah in Karachi (So you know who will be behind it

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan on Tuesday stepped up security in Karachi following disclosure by a group of detained militants of a plot to attack the US
Consulate and American military interests and other vital installations in this port city.

Nine activists of the newly formed Jundullah militant group, detained in connection with the attack on Karachi Corps Commander last month, have disclosed that they had planned to attack the US Consulate-general in Karachi besides targetting vehicles carrying US military cargo at the Karachi Port, an intelligence official said…

“Telling the History of the Twenty-First Century as it Really Is” blog interprets the McCain visit for us:
JOHN McCAIN WHILE VISITING PAKISTAN DANGEROUSLY STIRS THE NUCLEAR SOUTH ASIAN POT.

John McCain on a visit to Pakistan together with Joe Lieberman seems determined to talk India into attacking targets in Pakistan if Pakistan continues to refuse to hand over the ‘terrorists’ that India demands.

McCain and Lieberman both know very well that the Pakistan government is no position to do any such thing since to do so would be an admission that their own intelligence service, the ISI, was complicit in the Mumbai attacks.

McCain has told the Pakistani Prime Minister, Yousuf Raza Gilani, that the Mumbai attacks are seen by the Indians as ‘their 9/11’ and, just as the US did after 9/11, has the right to ‘take whatever measures it deems necessary to prevent further attacks’. McCain further suggested that Pakistan should respond quickly to India’s demands because India may feel compelled to respond within ‘a matter of days’ if it does not….

False-flag anyone? Daily News reports:
FBI was told to blame Anthrax scare on Al Qaeda by White House officials

Asserting the Blame

The 60-hour siege that engulfed Mumbai was reportedly undertaken by just ten, well-trained “commando killers.” Most blame has fallen on the heels of the group known as Lashkar-e-Taiba.[2]

At first, a previously-unheard of organization, known as the Deccan Mujahideen, took responsibility for the terror attacks when it sent emails to several news outlets a mere six hours after the fighting began. However, much skepticism remained about whether the group actually even exists.[3]

British intelligence then claimed that the attacks had the “hallmarks” of Al-Qaeda as it was undertaken in an effort to target westerners, similar to the 2002 Bali Bombings. British intelligence officials suggested the attacks were in “retaliation” for the recent US air attacks of suspected Al-Qaeda camps in the Pakistan-Afghanistan border region, and that India was chosen as the target because that is where Al-Qaeda has “sufficient resources to carry out an attack.”[4]

On November 28, India’s foreign minister said the attackers were coordinated “outside the country,” in a veiled reference to Pakistan.[5] India’s Prime Minister also blamed the attacks on militant groups based in Pakistan, which are supported by the Pakistani government.[6]

Then, the focus was put directly on the group, the Lashkar-e-Taiba, a militant Pakistani-based organization responsible for past attacks in India. American intelligence early on pointed the finger at this group, as well as identifying the Pakistani ISI (Inter-Services Intelligence) as its supporter.[7]

The Lashkar-e Taiba (LeT)

It is important to identify what the LeT is and how it has operated historically. The group operates out of the disputed territories between India and Pakistan, Jammu and Kashmir. It has close ties with the Pakistani ISI, and is largely known for its use of suicide attacks. However, aside from its links to the ISI, it is also closely allied with the Taliban and Al-Qaeda. The LeT is even referred to as the “most visible manifestation” of Al-Qaeda in India. It has branches across much of India, Pakistan, and in Saudi Arabia, Bangladesh, South East Asia, and the United Kingdom. It primarily gets its funding from Pakistani businessmen, the ISI and Saudi Arabia. The LeT also took part in the Bosnian campaign against the Serbs in the 1990s.[8]

All the above-mentioned connections make the LeT the most desirable outfit to blame for the Mumbai attacks, as its Al-Qaeda connections, international presence and historical precedents of terror attacks set it up as the perfect target. Much like with Al-Qaeda, the LeT’s international scope could serve as a basis for taking a “war against LeT” to the steps of many countries, thus further serving the interests of the Anglo-American “War on Terror.”

Militant Islam and Western Intelligence – The Case of Yugoslavia

The LeT has not operated independently of Pakistani influence and finances. It’s close relationship with the ISI must be viewed in context: the ISI has a close relationship with Western intelligence agencies, primarily those of Great Britain and the United States. The ISI has effectively acted as a conduit for Anglo-American intelligence operations in the region since the late 1970s, when the Afghan Mujahedeen were created in collusion with the CIA. Out of this collusion, lasting throughout the 1980s until the end of the Soviet-Afghan War in 1989, Al-Qaeda was created, as well as a series of other militant Islamic organizations.

It is often stated that the CIA then discontinued its relationship with the ISI, and in turn, that the militant Islamic organizations broke off from their Western intelligence sponsors to declare war against the West. However, the facts do not support this. The ties remained, but the strategy changed. What changed was that in the early 1990s, the Cold War ended, and Russia no longer was the “Evil Empire,” and thus the excuse for an exacerbated defence budget and imperialist foreign policy receded. As George H.W. Bush declared, it was during this time that we would see the formation of the “New World Order.” And with that, there was a need for a new, elusive enemy, not in the form of a nation, but a seemingly invisible enemy, international in scale, thus taking the war to an international arena.

So in the early 1990s, Western intelligence maintained its ties to these Islamic terrorist groups. Yugoslavia is a very important case to analyze in relation to current events. The break-up of Yugoslavia was a process undertaken by Anglo-American covert interests with the aim of serving their imperial ambitions in the region. In the early 1980s, the IMF set the stage in Yugoslavia with its Structural Adjustment Programs, which had the effect of creating an economic crisis, which in turn created a political crisis. This exacerbated ethnic rivalries, and in 1991, the CIA supported the Croat move for independence.

In 1992, with the start of the Bosnian War, Al-Qaeda-affiliated terrorists began operating with the ethnic Bosnian Muslim minority in fighting the Serbs. In turn, these Al-Qaeda affiliated groups were supported with training, arming, and finances by German, Turkish, Iranian and US intelligence agencies; with additional financial support from Saudi Arabia. In 1997, the Kosovo War began, in which the militant-terrorist-drug trafficking Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) began fighting against Serbia, with training, arms and financial support from the US and other NATO countries. The CIA, German intelligence, the DIA, MI6 and British Special Forces (SAS) all provided training and support to the KLA.

The aim was in breaking up Yugoslavia, using ethnic rivalries as the trigger for regional conflict and ultimately war, leading to the dissolution of Yugoslavia into several countries, justifying a permanent US and NATO military presence in the region. [See: Breaking Yugoslavia, by Andrew G. Marshall, Geopolitical Monitor, July 21, 2008]

The Lashkar-e Taiba’s participation in the Bosnian War against Serbia would have in turn been financed and supported by these various Western intelligence agencies, thus serving the interests of Western Imperialist states; primarily those of Great Britain and the United States.

The LeT and Western Intelligence

The LeT has a sordid history of involvement with Western intelligence agencies, primarily those of Great Britain….
…
The Terrorists

Hours after the attacks began on November 26, it was reported that two terrorists were killed and two others were arrested.[17] Later on, reports surfaced in which Indian police had killed four of the Mumbai terrorists and arrested nine of them.[18] The international media was full of this reported capture of nine terrorists.

Interestingly, by November 29, the story had changed. All of a sudden, Mumbai cops had only “nabbed” one terrorist. This person has effectively become the nail-in-the-coffin for laying the blame at Pakistan’s door. As soon as this person was caught, he began to sing like a canary, and said that, “all [the] terrorists were trained in marine warfare along with the special course Daura-e-Shifa conducted by the Lashkar-e-Taiba in what at once transforms the nature of the planning from a routine terror strike and into a specialized raid by commandos.” He also stated that the terrorists “were made to believe by their Lashkar bosses that they were not being sent on a suicide mission and that they would be coming back alive.” He also revealed the names of his fellow terrorists, all of them Pakistani citizens.[19]…
…
Motive

On December 2, former ISI Chief Hameed Gul, said that the “Mumbai incident is an international based conspiracy to deprive Pakistan of its atomic power. Talking to a private TV channel on Friday, he said that to involve Pakistan in the incident reflected that some forces wanted to declare Pakistan a fail[ed] state as somehow it had become necessary to make Pakistan kneel down in order to snatch its atomic power away.” He elaborated that the method of attacks, and how the militants executed them, “seemed impossible without internal support.” He continued in stating that the “US wanted to see [the] Indian army in Afghanistan to disintegrate the country,” and referred to recent US maps showing a divided Pakistan in four parts, and that making Pakistan “kneel down” before the IMF was “part of a pre-planned trick.”[28]

As astonishing and outlandish as these claims may seem, the US has a long history of turning on its allies when they seek to become self-sufficient and developed, such as with Saddam Hussein and Iraq in the early 1990s. Also, it is vital to note the role of the IMF and World Bank in creating economic crises, and thus, political-social-ethnic instability, which invariably has led to all out ethnic war, genocides and “international interventions,” in countries such as Yugoslavia and Rwanda.

The International Financial Institutions (IFIs) often create the conditions for political instability, while covert Western intelligence support to disaffected and radical groups creates the means for rebellion; which then becomes the excuse for foreign military intervention; which then secures an imperial military presence in the region, thus gaining control over the particular region’s resources and strategic position. This is the age-old conquest of empire: divide and conquer.

Interesting to note is that in 2008, “Pakistan was again seeking IMF help. On Nov. 25, it won final approval on a $7.6 billion loan package after foreign reserves shrank 74 percent to $3.5 billion in the 12 months ended on Nov. 8.”[29] This loan was approved a day before the Mumbai attacks began. On December 4, it was reported that, “Tough conditions of International Monetary Fund (IMF) have now started surfacing as IMF and the Government of Pakistan (GoP) agreed to discontinue oil import support, eliminate power subsidies and budgetary support of the government, public and private entities. IMF and GoP have agreed to phase out the State Bank of Pakistan’s (SBPs) provision of foreign exchange for oil imports.” On top of this, “further steps will be taken during the remainder of the fiscal year to strengthen tax enforcement. Moreover, fuel prices will continue to be adjusted to pass through changes in international prices.” Further, “The programme envisages a significant tightening of monetary policy.”[30]

The results of these conditionalities are predictable: Pakistan will lose all subsidies; fuel prices will drastically rise, as will food and other necessary commodity prices. At the same time, a tightening of monetary policy and World Bank/IMF control over Pakistan’s central bank will prevent Pakistan from taking measures to curb inflation, and the cost of living will skyrocket as the currency value plummets. All this is going on while taxes are increased and expanded greatly, and public jobs such as bureaucratic positions, education, etc., are downsized or altogether disbanded. Money will likely continue to flow to the ISI and Army, which will create discontent among Pakistan’s deprived and disillusioned. A military coup would be likely, followed by rebellion en masse, which would in turn pit the various ethnicities against one another. This could lead to either a war against India, ultimately ending with a consolidated national security state to act as a conduit for Anglo-American imperial ambitions, such as in Rwanda; or, it could result in ethnic conflict and wars, ultimately ending up in the break-up of Pakistan into smaller states divided among ethnic lines, such as in Yugoslavia. Or, it could end with a combination of the two, a divided, warring, region engulfed in crisis.

The break up of Pakistan is not a far-fetched idea in terms of Anglo-American strategy. In fact, the plan for the destabilization and ultimately, balkanization of Pakistan has originated in Anglo-American-Israeli military strategic circles. As I previously documented in Divide and Conquer: The Anglo-American Imperial Project [Global Research, July 10, 2008], the destabilization and balkanization of the near-entire Middle East and Central Asia has been a long-held strategy for the Anglo-America-Israeli Axis since the late 1970s and early 1980s.

Divide and Conquer

This concept evolved in strategic planning circles in the late 1970s in response to regional nationalist tendencies in the Middle East and Central Asia, as well as a perceived threat of growing Soviet influence in the region. The central aim of these strategic thinkers was to secure Middle Eastern oil and Central Asian gas reserves and pipeline routes under the control of the Anglo-Americans. Control over these vital energy reserves is a strategic as much as economic concern, as most of the world gets its energy from this area; so those who control the energy, control who gets it, and thus, control much of the world. The economic benefits of Anglo-Americans controlling the regions energy reserves cannot be analyzed separately from strategic interests, as they are one and the same. Anglo-American oil companies gain control of the oil and gas, while the British and American governments install puppet regimes to look after their interests; and to act as proxies in creating conflicts and wars with countries of the region who act in their own national interest, as opposed to acting under the guidance of and submission to the Anglo-Americans.

Arc of Crisis

After the 1973 oil shocks, which were, in fact, promoted and covertly orchestrated by Anglo-American banking and oil interests, the oil producing nations grew very wealthy, such as Iran. As well as this, countries like Afghanistan were becoming increasingly leftist and progressive. Fearing possible alliances developing between Middle Eastern and Central Asian countries with the Soviet Union, as well as the even greater threat of these countries becoming truly independent, taking control of their own resources for the good of their own people; Anglo-American strategists turned to what is called the “Arc of Crisis.”

The “Arc of Crisis” describes the “nations that stretch across the southern flank of the Soviet Union from the Indian subcontinent to Turkey, and southward through the Arabian Peninsula to the Horn of Africa.” Further, the “center of gravity of this arc is Iran.” In 1978, Zbigniew Brzezinski gave a speech in which he stated, “An arc of crisis stretches along the shores of the Indian Ocean, with fragile social and political structures in a region of vital importance to us threatened with fragmentation. The resulting political chaos could well be filled by elements hostile to our values and sympathetic to our adversaries.”[36]

Anglo-American strategy in the region thus developed and changed at this time, as “There was this idea that the Islamic forces could be used against the Soviet Union. The theory was, there was an arc of crisis, and so an arc of Islam could be mobilized to contain the Soviets. It was a Brzezinski concept.”[37] Bilderberg member, Bernard Lewis, presented a British-American strategy to the Bilderberg Group during the 1979 meeting, which, “endorsed the radical Muslim Brotherhood movement behind Khomeini, in order to promote balkanization of the entire Muslim Near East along tribal and religious lines. Lewis argued that the West should encourage autonomous groups such as the Kurds, Armenians, Lebanese Maronites, Ethiopian Copts, Azerbaijani Turks, and so forth. The chaos would spread in what he termed an ‘Arc of Crisis,’ which would spill over into the Muslim regions of the Soviet Union.”[38] Since the Soviet Union was viewed as a secular and atheist regime, having oppressed religion within its sphere of influence, the rise of radical Islamic influence and governments in the Middle East and Central Asia would ensure that Soviet influence would not enter into the region, as radical Muslims would view the Soviets with more distrust than the Americans. The Anglo-Americans positioned themselves as the lesser of two evils.

Bernard Lewis was a former British intelligence officer and historian who is infamous for explaining Arab discontent towards the West as not being rooted in a reaction toward imperialism, but rather that it is rooted in Islam; in that Islam is incompatible with the West, and that they are destined to clash, using the term, “Clash of Civilizations.” For decades, “Lewis played a critical role as professor, mentor, and guru to two generations of Orientalists, academics, U.S. and British intelligence specialists, think tank denizens, and assorted neoconservatives.” In the 1980s, Lewis “was hobnobbing with top Department of Defense officials.”[39] Lewis wrote a 1992 article in Foreign Affairs, the journal of the Council on Foreign Relations, titled, “Rethinking the Middle East.” In this article, Lewis raised the prospect of another policy towards the Middle East in the wake of the end of the Cold War and beginnings of the New World Order, “which could even be precipitated by fundamentalism, is what has of late become fashionable to call ‘Lebanonization.’ Most of the states of the Middle East – Egypt is an obvious exception – are of recent and artificial construction and are vulnerable to such a proc ess. If the central power is sufficiently weakened, there is no real civil society to hold the polity together, no real sense of common national identity or overriding allegiance to the nation-state. The state then disintegrates – as happened in Lebanon – into a chaos of squabbling, feuding, fighting sects, tribes, regions and parties.”[40]
Map of Bernard Lewis Plan For The Middle East
…
Ralph Peters’ Map of a Redrawn Middle East – Note similarity to Bernard Lewis’ Map of a Redrawn Middle East
…
Conclusion
Ultimately, the aims of the Mumbai attacks are to target Pakistan for balkanization. The question of who is responsible – either the ISI, largely rogue of Pakistan’s civilian government and under the authority of Anglo-American intelligence; or separate Indian terrorists, likely supported by the same Anglo-American intelligence community – while important, is ultimately a secondary consideration in comparison to the question of Why?

The Who, What, Where, and When is a show for public consumption; masked in confusion and half-truths, designed to confuse and ultimately frustrate the observer – creating a sense of unease and fear of the unknown. The WHY, on the other hand, is the most important question; once you discover the why, the who, where, what, and when begin to fall into place, and create a full picture.

If the Mumbai attacks were designed to be blamed on Pakistan – as they likely were – and thus, to possibly start a war between Pakistan and India – which is now a growing reality – what is the ultimate significance of knowing if it was the ISI or Indian elements responsible? Albeit, this is important to know, however, when it comes to understanding the motives behind the attacks, it pales in comparison.

Pakistan is a strategic lynch-point in the region. Pakistan borders Iran, Afghanistan, India and China. It lies directly below the Central Asian republics of the Former Soviet Union, which are rich in natural gas resources. With NATO’s war in Afghanistan, and the Anglo-Americans in Iraq, and American forces in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, the occupation of Pakistan would position Western imperial militaries around Iran, the central Middle Eastern target. With the balkanization of Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan, destabilizing forces would cross the borders into Iran, ultimately creating the conditions for political and social collapse within the country.

A conflict between Pakistan and India would not only have the effect of dismantling Pakistan, but would also greatly deter India’s rapid economic and social development as the world’s largest democracy, and would force it to come under the influence or “protection” of Western military might and International Financial Institutions. The same is likely for China, as destabilization would cross Pakistan’s borders into the most populated country on earth, exacerbating ethnic differences and social disparities.

A large Anglo-American military presence in Pakistan, or, alternatively, a NATO or UN force, combined with the already present NATO force in Afghanistan, would be a massive military strategic position against advancement of China, Russia or India into the region. With China’s massively increasing influence in Africa threatening Anglo-American and European domination of the continent, a massive military presence on the border of China could act as a powerful warning.

The Mumbai attacks do not aid India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, or any nation within the region. The beneficiaries of the Mumbai Massacre are in London and New York, in the boardrooms and shareholders of the largest international banks; which seek total control of the world. Having dominated North America and Europe for much of recent history, these bankers, primarily Anglo-American, but also European, seek to exert their total control over the world’s resources, currencies, and populations. There are many concurrent strategies they are employing to achieve this end: among them, the global financial crisis, to reign in and control the world economy; and a “total war” in the Middle East, likely escalating into a World War with Russia and China, is the perfect tool to strike enough fear into the world population to accept an over-arching supranational governance structure – to ensure no future wars occur, to ensure stability of the global economy – a utopian vision of a single world order.

The problem with utopias is that they are “ultimate ideals,” and if humanity has learned anything in its history on this planet; it is that perfection is impossible, be it in the form of an “ideal person” or an “ideal government;” humanity is plagued by imperfections and emotion. Accepting our imperfections as a species is what can make us great, and understanding that a utopian ideal is impossible to achieve is what can allow us to create the “best possible” society we can have. All utopias attempted throughout history have always turned into dystopias. We must learn from humanity’s history of sordid flaws; and only when we accept that we are not perfect, and cannot ever become perfect, in person or in politics, are we free to become humanity at it’s most advanced and at its most noble.

WTF?

Link: “Police: Arrested man is undercover officer”

Copy of article (in case it disappears)

Police: Arrested man is undercover officer

By AIJAZ HUSSAIN – 1 hour ago

SRINAGAR, India (AP) — Security officials say one of two Indians arrested for illegally buying mobile phone cards used by the gunmen in the Mumbai attacks is a counter-insurgency police officer who may have been on an undercover mission.

A senior police official in Indian Kashmir says the man, identified as Mukhtar Ahmed, is part of a semiofficial counter-insurgency network whose members are usually drawn from among former militants.

The official says Calcutta police, who are holding Ahmed, have been told he is “our man and its now up to them how to facilitate his release.”

The officer spoke on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the information.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP’s earlier story is below.

CALCUTTA, India (AP) — Police arrested two Indian men accused of illegally buying mobile phone cards used by the gunmen in the Mumbai attacks, police said Saturday — the first known arrests since the bloody siege ended.

It was not immediately clear whether the two had prior knowledge of the attacks, which killed 171 people. If they did, the arrests could represent evidence of homegrown ties to the attacks and be a blow to Indian officials who have blamed the massacre entirely on Pakistani extremists.

Police said another Indian citizen who was arrested in February in northern India carrying hand-drawn sketches of hotels, the train terminal and other sites that were later attacked was being brought to Mumbai for renewed questioning.

One of the arrested men, Tauseef Rahman, allegedly bought SIM cards by providing fake documents, including identification cards of dead people, senior police official Rajeev Kumar said Saturday in the eastern city of Calcutta.

Rahman, of West Bengal state, later sold them to Mukhtar Ahmed, Kumar said. Both men were arrested Friday and charged with fraud and criminal conspiracy.

The SIM cards were later used by the gunmen.

Police said they were still investigating how the 10 gunmen obtained the SIM cards, and declined to offer more details.

Most large Indian cities, including Calcutta, where the SIM cards were purchased, have thriving black markets for mobile phone cards and cheap phones.

Ahmed was from the Indian portion of Kashmir, the disputed Himalayan region at the root of much of the tension between India and Pakistan, Kumar said.

Indian authorities believe the banned Pakistani-based militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba, which has links to Kashmir, trained the gunmen and plotted the attacks.

Ahmed was believed to be a local police officer, according to a police official in Srinagar, Kashmir’s biggest city. The official declined to be named because the matter was still under investigation.

Also Saturday, Mumbai police said they were transporting Faheem Ansari, the man arrested in February, from custody in northern India to Mumbai to answer more questions, hoping he could shed more light on the attacks.

Rakesh Maria, a senior Mumbai police officer, said he believed there was a definite connection between Ansari and the Mumbai attacks.

“Ansari was trained by Lashkar and sent to do reconnoissance,” Maria said.

The interrogation of the lone surviving gunman from the Mumbai attacks, Mohammed Ajmal Kasab, 21, revealed that the gunmen had detailed pictures of the locations, Maria said.

“They were pretty elaborate photographs,” he said, adding that they had also used maps from Google to study the targets.

News of the February arrest has added to a torrent of criticism about missed warnings and botched intelligence.

Home Minister Palaniappan Chidambaram, India’s top law enforcement official, apologized for “lapses” that allowed the gunmen to rampage through Mumbai.

“There have been lapses. I would be less than truthful if I said there had been no lapses,” Chidambaram told reporters Friday.

The minister, who assumed his post just days ago following the ouster of the previous minister in the attack’s aftermath, spoke as Prime Minister Manmohan Singh pressed the assertion that Pakistani extremists were behind the attack.

Kasab, the surviving gunman, told interrogators he had been sent by Lashkar and identified two of the plot’s masterminds as being involved, two Indian government officials familiar with the inquiry said. Police had earlier identified the prisoner as Ajmal Amir Kasab.

Lashkar changed its name to Jamaat-ud-Dawa after it was banned in 2002 amid U.S. pressure, according to the U.S. State Department. The U.S. lists both groups as terrorist organizations.

Hafiz Mohammed Saeed, who heads Jamaat-ud-Dawa — though U.S. authorities in May described him as the overall leader of Lashkar-e-Taiba — denied in an interview that there was a Pakistani hand behind the attacks. He called on Indian authorities to act like “a responsible country.” Saeed is considered the founder of both groups.

“I can say with authority that the Lashkar does not believe in killing civilians,” Saeed told Outlook magazine in an interview released Friday.

Kasab told police that a senior Lashkar leader, Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi, the group’s operations chief, recruited him for the attack, and that the assailants called another senior leader, Yusuf Muzammil, on a satellite phone before the attacks.

In Pakistan, the Interior Ministry chief told reporters he had no immediate information on Lakhvi or Muzammil.

According to the U.S., Lakhvi has directed Lashkar operations in Chechnya, Bosnia and Southeast Asia, training members to carry out suicide bombings and attack populated areas. In 2004, he allegedly sent operatives and funds to attack U.S. forces in Iraq.

Lashkar, outlawed by Pakistan in 2002, has derived some of its funding from organizations based in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, with its leaders making fundraising trips to the Middle East in recent years, U.S. officials say.

Associated Press writers Ravi Nessman, Muneeza Naqvi and Ramola Talwar Badam in Mumbai and Sam Dolnick and Ashok Sharma in New Delhi, and Aijaz Hussain in Srinagar contributed to this report.

Your rant about Pakistani politicians may be true and I think it is, your rant against the fact that Pakistanis hae not come out with guns challenging the rule of this corrupt govternment is not entirely true. The fact that we don’t see a popular en masse revolution in Pakistan is because the people o this country DID manage to topple a mothfvcking dictator only a few months ago.

How many dictators do you se in the 3rd world in today’s world being toppled by its own citizens? Pakistan stands out in that arena does not it?

It is one country where the deaths of thousand s of its citizens infuriates the gentry…and in this one arena I feel Pakistanis have a superior sense of empathy and compassion given that it is a 3rd world country with a utter decay of leadrship. By contrast lare scale massacres in India both by various ethnic groups as well as the country’s military don’t illicit much public reaction.
Another point is the utter sheep mentality of Indians which is buing whatever the media sells them. Preset crisis is perhaps the best domonstration of that fact.

While in Pakistan the skepticis of the govt. is one healthy sentiment I ca bank on. And in that I don’t think Pakisani public qualiies as sheep at all. Feb 18th does not cont, that was a drama run on sher deception tothe extent that even fooled the most die hard skeptics as people thought that finally a step forward after neutering a dictator had been achieved.
The next step after this fiasco is mass agitation I:e if the country does not succumnb to war first.

And your any kind o sugestion that Pakisanis may be behind it bacause of some kind of jealousy is as lousy as it is hilarious. Not only are people in Pakistan NOT bothered by events in India ( as evident by the sheer lack of any coverage in Indian’s internal events), people have been very welcoming and warm towards any visitors from that country: a testament to pakistani character. Such sentiment is not replicated form the other side.

And the terrorist whose identity or afiliations has not been established yet, even if he assumes that he is from Pakistan did not once EVER say that whatever progress India might have made is the reason tha he attacked. Funy, given that he DID confess to every which convenient charge India wanted to make for it’s propaganda campaign against Pakistan no?

Besides, those Pakistanis who DO visit Pakistan, come back with a sheer sense that whatever economic progress India has made on the books, very very little is manifested in atual living standards of that country. That’s the common feeling, pereption and experience. SO no…that’s just another hyperbole andmyth created by a rogue state.

There is a specific way the indians speak Urdu and it has to do with the ‘maatra’ or something.. I can’t explain it properly but the inflection of an indian is different than that of a Pakistani.

One example is the word “seenaa”. The actual pronunciation is “Sainaa” but in Pakistan nearly everyone reads it “seenaa” because there aren’t usually any punctuation marks on the words in shahmukhi (arabic script).

If the guy is a RAW agent, he’s probably a sikh agent who’s pretending to be a pakistani pretending to be indian… whoa! it’s like the matrix or something.

Or we could go with the simplest explanation. This was a payback for all the sh!t India’s been doing in Pukhtunkhwa, Balochistan and the Marriott bombing.

A Big FVCK YOU to RAW and the US and saying to them… naanannanananaanaa!!! (or maybe the “Pak” army really is trying to engineer a coup… which usually happens with the blessings of the US).

Either way we cut it, the US is involved! Oy vey!

The DG ISI fiasco

In their telephone calls to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, President Zardari and Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani noted that their government had already suggested a DG level meeting between the ISI and the R&AW. “So they said, let’s do this meeting and let’s have a joint investigation,” the sources said. On his part, Dr. Singh said India would investigate matters on its own side but that once this was done, Pakistan could send the DG ISI over to see the evidence.

India was surprised when Pakistan later went public about this, the sources said, putting out not one but two press releases. Later that night, however, the Army chief forced the government to rescind the decision. The Indian side was told at 2 a.m. on Saturday that Pakistan was sending its army chief’s plane later that morning to pick up Mr. Qureshi, who was still in India, and taken by surprise by the summons he received.

It was precisely at this time, the sources said, that stories began appearing in Pakistani newspapers like the Frontier Post and Pakistan Observer that Mr. Mukherjee had been peremptory and rude in his telephone call. And then Geo TV ran a story about troops being moved to the border.

Mumbai attacks: India has proof of ISI role

At the same time, sources do not believe that the civilian government in Pakistan is involved in the attack. In fact, one view is that the civilian government itself may be a target of the strike which may be used by the army to heighten tensions with India to return to power.

one more thing, I know that boat story cannot be digested so here is another angle

Contrary to the version that the terrorists used a hijacked Indian fishing boat to reach Mumbai after sailing from Karachi, the view here is that much more sophisticated means were used.

http://www.mid-day.com/news/2008/dec/041208-Mumbai-terror-attacks-India-has-proof-of-ISI-role.htm

thanks for the link to the News article. Here is the link to the USAToday article: “Terrorism punctures heart of India’s tourism

An excerpt from the USAToday article:

Christine Fair, South Asia analyst for RAND Corp., a think tank, suspects that the Mumbai terrorists are homegrown militants, bearing grievances over the way India’s 140 million Muslims are treated by the Hindu majority. “This isn’t India’s 9/11,” she said. “This is India’s Oklahoma City.”

Namrata Goswami, associate fellow at the Institute for Defense Studies and Analyses in New Delhi, says the attackers are domestic terrorists who sought to impress Islamist militants around the world. “They want to establish some kind of linkage with al-Qaeda,” she said. “But I don’t believe it is there. The motive is very, very clear. This outfit wants to attract sponsors abroad. There’s a lot of money in it.”

Goswami said Indian Muslims bear plenty of grievances. They lag economically. And they have been targeted by Hindu extremists; hundreds of Muslims died, for instance, in communal riots in the Indian state Gujarat in 2002.

Link to C. Fair’s Articles.

India has ‘proof of ISI involvement’

The sources said that India DID NOT believe the civilian government in Pakistan was involved in the incidents. Asked about the Pakistani Army chief’s potential role, they said it would be surprising if the ISI were able to operate without the military leadership’s knowledge.

http://www.hindu.com/2008/12/05/stories/2008120558260100.htm