American strategy in Afpak

About the US soldier going postal in afghanistan…

By Omar Ali

I wrote this comment on the SWJ site and I just thought it would be interesting to see what people here think of the American “strategy” (or lack of one) in Afghanistan.
The killings today, while tragic and awful, are themselves indicative of nothing new beyond one soldier going nuts…could and does happen in most wars and more likely when a war has stretched on for a while and more likely with soldier and locals being different people (not necessarily different nationalities..pakistani soldiers in Bangladesh or even some Indian soldiers in Kashmir could feel equally surrounded by aliens). It will have a huge propaganda effect though. Anyway, my comment is more about the US strategy: what is it? what should it be? What would it be if you were president?

Veena Malik: India is where I make money

By Omar

Interestingly (or perhaps not so interestingly), she is likely to be attacked by right wing nuts in India as well. Irreligious and non-conformist Pakistanis who become too comfortable in India have not always been welcomed by the Hindu right (Adnan Sami, Fehmida Riaz, etc).

Poet Fehmida Riaz was hounded out of Pakistan in the 1980s and found shelter in India for 7 years, but was sometimes attacked by right wing Hindus there as a Pakistani agent (in Pakistan she was subsequently fired for being an “Indian agent”, though of course it was actually because she was a Benazir appointee and Benazir had been dismissed from office by the deep state). She wrote a nice little poem about finding an almost mirror image fatwa-happy nationalism in India:

Naya Bharat (New India)

Tum bilkul hum jaisey nikley

ab tak Kahan chupay thay bhai

Voh moorkhta, voh ghaamarpan

jis mai hum nay sadi gawaee

Aakhir pahunchi duar tumhaarey

Aray badhai bahut badhai

You turned out to be just like us; Similarly stupid, wallowing in the past, You’ve reached the same doorstep at last. Congratulations, many congratulations.

“Afreyt dharm ka naach rahaa hai

Qaim Hindu raj karo gay

Saarey ultey kaj karogay

apna chaman taraj karogay

Tum bhee baithey karogey sochaa

Kaun hai Hindu, kaun naheen hai

Tum Bhi Karo gay Fatway Jari

Ek jaap saa kartey jao

Barham Bar Yehi Dohrao

Kitna veer mahaan tha Bharat

Kitna Alishaan tha Bharat”

You will establish “Hindu raj”, you too will ruin your own garden. You too will sit deep in thought and ponder, Who is Hindu, who is not. You too will issue Fatwas Keep repeating the mantra like a parrot, India was the land of the brave”, India was so magnificent

(translated by Khushwant Singh, with some correction by me in the second part)

Courtesy: → BrownPundits