http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/pakistan/4681480/US-privately-backs-Pakistans-Sharia-law-for-peace-deal-with-Taliban.html

I am not sure what is happening here. Buying peace with arcane Sharia law is misnomer. It just legalizes the terrorist training camps.

Friedman and MJ Akbar has a far more difficult job at hand than acting as courtiers.

Noname, I agree. The op-ed is somewhat motherhood and apple pie but we have to start somewhere.

The above is a news report from today.

I have read a nobel prize winning author who described revolutionary activity London where people romanticized the Pakisthani mess in 1960s(?) when he was a student there.

How to train a LSE student – no ordinary – to slit the throat of a journalists. How to train an MIT educated mother – no ordinary again- to fight for taliban in deep Afganisthan and get caught by American forces in hostile conditions? I suspect this is how the wine drinking Jinnah was trained in Islam Wine drinking is considered unislamic, however Jinnah was founder of Islamic state of Pakisthan – which meant the land of the Pure !

Friedman and MJ Akbar has a far more difficult job at hand than acting as courtiers.

I can’t think and hold on to a thought where Mumbai organization is declaring martyrs of the pakisthani terrorists, this would be like Kashmir of early 1990s. Therefore, I fail to appreciate its opposite, where “service” is rendered by refusing to bury the dead bodies.

Contemporary islamism is reformed to an ideological revolutionary organization, where consistent information legitimization is important for survival. The refusal to bury the bodies could be construed as “illegitimate” Not “delegitimization” , only if you accept there exists organizations with such claims as legitimate.

Neither Friedman, Nor MJ Akbar goes into this ideological and organizational structure that claims legitimacy of terrorism. Creation and cleaning of Pakisthan was blamed upon the communal hindu in Mahatma Gandhi and his congress party. Kashmir terrorism was ascribed to free will of a set of pampered people.

MJ Akbar also doesn’t see the problem when he says Jehad as something good, contrary to fassad …

The Koranic term for the killing of innocents is ‘fasad.’ Terrorists are fasadis, not jihadis. In a beautiful verse, the Koran says that the killing of an innocent is akin to slaying the whole community.

Changing the word to fassad means merely engaging a dialog with the radicals. Considering what I have read about the Quoran ( See Fitna), I don’t think, MJ Akbar even, would win the argument, much less rescuing or “deligitimizing” from a fierce political movement.

Pakistan’s Dawn newspaper appears to be good.

Our lives may depend of whether or not Obama answers the question correctly. Pakistan is a nuclear country and how many bombs do they have? They probably don’t have the technology to send them here in the form of missles, but they are capable of bombing India and a close relationship with the Taliban is not good for the US or any other country in the world. We don’t have the military for a confrontation with anyone. Obama is sending some troops to Afganistan, but not enough and if he’s taking soldiers from Iraq, he needs to do it carefully and slowly. Another little thing. We are esentially broke. China won’t lend us money for another war. Diane Feinstein let the cat out of the bag about the US flying drones to the Pakistan border from a base in Pakistan. I doen’t matter if it’s Bush’s fault, it is now Obama’s problem (and ours). Maybe Hillary can convince the Pakistani government to allow a US presense to protect the nuclear establishment there in exchange for helping solidify the prime minister’s power. Or is that niave? The answer has to be in Alfganistan and India. Friendship with India and keeping our promises to rebuild the infrastructure in Alganistan would isolate Pakistan.

I wish I understood better the reasons that elements in Pakistan want an unstable Afghanistan other than the weapons and drug trade. Although the Taliban say they are against the Opium trade, I recall they only wanted total control of it and to that end…

What do you get when both countries are increasingly “unstable”? This what am deeply concerned about when comes to US foriegn policy and BO. Trouble is coming right quick.

You are also right about MSM. I tried to look for AP and other news sources for this but they are so superficial. With the Indian Newspapers you get the real quotes from people like Holbrooke and others.