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Russia versus the West again!?

For 17 years Russia was disposing off the empire which was not made by the Communists but by the Czars who preceded them and were overthrown. In this time Russia has been consolidating its economic and military power. During this time it did not concern itself with events beyond its borders. After the house cleaning and everything retrurned to order, Russia is beginning to reassert itself. When US commentator was asked about his comments instead saying something insightful - all he said - to sum up -Russia is being run by gangsters. Now what exactly is that supposed to mean? For any country any other sovereign country a rebel state and its leaders rebel leader. No one accepts any country's independence. Does the US intend to arrest these criminals and super-corrupt people who are running Russia these days, does the US intend to kill them the way they murdered Saddam Hussein? Russia is said to have only a few friends - which the USA hates- China, North Korea and Iran. I

In hindsight

In hindsight, if Pakistan's Communist Party had swept the polll and taken over control of the government wouldPakistan today be less dangerous or more dangerous today? Of course the USA was so extremely against Communism that the polls were scrapped and General Ayub Khan took over in 1958. He eliminated all the members and communist party and its leaders. Had Communism been allowed to prevail, then the communist party would have eliminated feudalism, tribalisma and the fanatical mullahs(who a re a cause of so much trouble these days). Communist Pakistan would probably moved ahead economically. There would have been mass literacy and universal healhcare. But this was not to be what resulted is a country by miliatry dictators and their agents. As time showed communism was not something permanent. The Cold War official came to an end in 1990 so the communists in Pakistan would have been elected out of office and the country would have moved and developed to a new phase of its d

Gun-running in wars

It is the history of the USA, when it intervenes with its forces - it never ever encounters a standing army - its soldiers end up fighting up the people of those countries who are spread out and for all practical purposes invisibles. Since it is so frustrating to be 'all dressed up and nowhere to go', US propagand leaders devote their time trying to dehumanise those people by giving them labels uch as Commies or Viet-Cong essentially all of whom were the people of Vietnam. In Iraq they are called Insurgents and in Afghanistan they are called Taliban. No country can ever combat the US armed forces head-on – so other tactics are used which drags wars on to uncounted years. The people who benefit from are international gun-runners. They supply weapons to anyone. These gun-runners fuel the war, their source of weapons and ammunition can be any country in the world. Just because Iranian made bombs have been found in Iraq does not necessarily mean that Iran has anything

'General Musharraf is the greatest ally of the US against terrorism'

I was watching a local private TV channel, which should be independent of state control. This channel in its news bulletin had no relevant news - but what startled me was three US officals said the same thing 'General Musharraf is the US' greatest ally against terrorism'. What is that supposed to mean exactly? Should it not have been said in the news item that Pakistan is the US' greatest ally against terrorism. Considering the material which was given to the newscaster he simply repeated 'General Musharraf is the US' greatest ally against terrorism, which could possibly mean that the US officals have something seriously against Pakistan and only care about their puppet General Musharraf and no one else. ---- Since the military regime reliases it is not possible to successfully block the Internet, peope have to pay more for unhindered acces. One company Cybernet is very officious about this - it wants the identity card of the people who subscribe to this

Escaping the dry zone

The ban on alcohol has been a tremendous loss to the country in several ways. People here are just as fond of drinking just as people anyone else in the world. When the ban on booze was imposed in 1977, the people who enjoyed having peg or two after a days work were deprived of their pleasure. The revenue generated by the sale of liquor was tremendous, by banning liquor this revenue dried up it went upto countless millions of rupees in today' terms it could several billion rupees annually. The people who had accepted liquor as their part of their life could not afford the smuggled liquor - many of them choosed to migrate to any place where theycould lead the life that they were accustomed to. Many of them were businessmen who preferred to take their business to some otther country. Many talented people which included artitst, authors, singers, musicians decided to migrate - the pleasure of drinking was something they missed dearly. The country has lost these people and in the

It pays to be an Islamic fanatic

The move behind the outrage against Denmark over some illustrations published in a Danish newspaper, was not motivated because of some religious zeal - the reason had everything to do with dairy products. People who cannot place Denmark on the map leave alone read a map besides do not know how to read and write their own language - knowing what was written in Danish is out of the question. The milk and dairy cartel in Pakistan was forced to keep its prices at a reasonable level because Pakistan imports a great deal of milk and other dairy products from Denmark. This was done when this cartel tried to raise its prices way back in the 1970s. Now that Denmark is more or less out of the picture the local cartel can raise prices as it pleases. Australia offered meat at very low prices, around the range of Rs 3 per kilogramme, but this was not imported, although several Muslim countries import meat from Australia, after certifying that its halal. Here in Pakistan the price of meat is Rs

US Star Wars programme and China's missile test

The US started building systems to defend itself against nuclear weapons hitting the USA, during late President Reagan's tenure. It was a huge and expensive operation. The USA applauded itself for going ahead with this programme and calling it a success. However only recently China has successfully tested a missile capable of destroying satellites in space. The US was quick to condemn China for this. Which is ridiculous. The USA says it does not want militarise space when it was th4 one which started it. Commentators said the Chinese would be able to blind the USA by destroying its military satellites which are supposedly protecting the USA's armed forces. If the USA does not want to militarise space why does it have spy satellites and perhaps even missiles which are really orbitting missile launchers to destroy missiles or an enemy country before they are launched. So space has already been militarised by the USA, so if China has missiles which can destroy satellites and