Live With Talat 20th August 2008

Host: Talat Hussain
Guests: Riyaz Khokher and Najm Uddin

[kamranmuhammad]

Thanks to Talat for organizing this programme from Geneva. He is on vocation and travelling in europe with his wife. He is leaving for Barcelona tomorrow.

[_SaaZ_]

Najm-ud-din says the because we are going to set Musharraf's trial, we will be unable to react against other problems... so we should act against it... and the whole world wants us to let Musharraf leave in one piece and peace... because all the world is concerned with OUR other problems...and as such......

Am I the only one who thinks Najm-ud-din is on weeds....!!!!

[zozanqa]

Look at the level of confusion we are in..Even the two senior most Foreign Affair experts cant elaborate the whole fuss..How will a Zardar , Niaz Naek and Rehman Malik will be able to comprehend this for us..We are in a deep ****, Can you guys tell what is all this war on terror and our role??

[Hossp]

Long post but I hope it will be helpful.

I kind of agree with Najamuddin Shaikh's position. Imo, He implied that whatever happened in this area during the last 30 years, Pakistan was a US partner in that and if we were part of creating the problem in Afghanistan, we should really be part of the solution too. Since Pak helped make the afghan war a religious war, the US expect us to help out or work with the US and afghanistan in now overcoming or combating the remnants of the afghanistan war. The Taliban are just another face of the same Mujahideen that Pakistan created with the US help to fight Russia. we just can't walk away from it now because the problem has reached in Pakistan areas and we don't want to fight our own people in FATA.

This is the dilemma that Riaz Khokar mentioned. The common Pakistani and the army Jawan do not understand this war and they do not understand why we are fighting our own people that are only asking for Islamic system in Afghanistan or in FATA.

The problem is how to deal with issue that we created and the US thinks we should take part in resolving it, but our own people and army do not believe in it.

Musharraf and the Pakistan army never hesitated to take the money from the US on this issue. They promised to help but as Mr. Shaikh said, his government never followed through on the promises he and the army made to the US like closing the Maddrassah to combatting the religious fanatics in FATA area.

The US played a little game here too. Since the US was concentrating more on Iraq, it did not press Musharraf and the army enough but kept providing the money. Now that Iraq situation has worsened the US wants to see some progress in Afghanistan. In Iraq, US did not have a an ally next door and it was hard for the US to stop all the people who came in to fight in Iraq. But in Afghanistan, the US believes that most of the fighters are coming from Pakistan and since Pakistan is an ally, it should fight those fighters from FATA.

Well after taking billions of dollars the army and Musharraf are now out of the picture and the new government cannot now avoid facing this issue.

Riaz Khokar is suggesting that we should go to the parliament and get an opinion and convey that to the US. If the decision is out, we are out. But the US will make Pakistan pay a price for Musharraf and the Pak army's seven years of deception. The payment could be in the form of US planes bombing the heck out in FATA and even Islamabad. U.S may even ask Pakistan to surrender its Nukes or get ready for a war over them.

Shaikh is saying that we should not say no to the US and continue to work with the US and see if we can find some way out of this mess. In either case, we are between a rock and a hard place. Any country which messes with a big power, pays a price. As we can see Georgia is paying the price of messing with Russia.

We need to do what Israel does literally. When we are trapped, we change the government. Israelis do the same thing. When Israel is under pressure to resolve issues with Palestine, Israelis either announce new elections in the country, change the Prime Minister(they even killed one PM), or change the government all together and the new guy starts new rounds of discussions until the US President's term is over and the new US president too starts over.

That is how Israel manages to obfuscate.

I guess we just have to develop some better diplomats and better strategies to deal with the US or....

[shasnahn]

I dont think there was any deception on the part of Mr Musharraf regarding the war on terror. There was enormous resistance from the public and the politicians to the war on terror, resulting in only tactical successes. If the public had recognized what a huge problem these terrorists were, and supported the govt and army, we would not be in this problem today.

Riaz Khokhar is deliberately showing illusions to Pakistanis and behaving very irresponsibly. If the Parliament of Pakistan says "we are out of war on terror", the US will say that the war is legitimized by the United Nations, and that international terrorists are operating on our soil.

[samy]

talat be chillin all over the world,make me feel like to be a jurnalist.