Kashmir isn’t on our radar much, but it’s integral to the going on right now between Pakistan and Afghanistan. So I figured I’d spend a couple of hours..."/>

REAL WORLD EVENT DISCUSSIONS

For your edification: Kashmir

POSTED BY: NIKI2
UPDATED: Monday, August 5, 2019 10:04
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Sunday, January 10, 2010 11:27 AM

NIKI2

Gettin' old, but still a hippie at heart...


Kashmir isn’t on our radar much, but it’s integral to the going on right now between Pakistan and Afghanistan. So I figured I’d spend a couple of hours and toss out a little information on it, because it’s been the scene of conflict between Pakistan and India for decades. It sits at the top of Pakistan and India, right off Afghanistan’s border, in the middle of the Himalayas.
Quote:

The Kashmir valley or Vale of Kashmir is a valley between Himalayas and the Pir Panjal Range. It is around 135 km long and 32 km wide, formed by the Jhelum River. It was called as "Paradise on Earth" by Jahangir. Currently it has population of around 4 million, mostly Muslim. The valley has access to the rest of India through Banihal Tunnel near Qazigund on NH 1A to Jammu, which is interrupted by snowfall in winter.
Kashmir has long been a bone of contention between India and Pakistan, each of which “administer” (control) three parts of most of the country.
Quote:

The region is divided among three countries in a territorial dispute: Pakistan controls the northwest portion (Northern Areas and Azad Kashmir), India controls the central and southern portion (Jammu and Kashmir) and Ladakh, and China controls the northeastern portion (Aksai Chin and the Trans-Karakoram Tract). India controls the majority of the Siachen Glacier area including the Saltoro Ridge passes, whereas Pakistan controls the lower territory just southwest of the Saltoro Ridge. India controls 54,571 sq mi of the disputed territory, Pakistan 33,145 sq mi and China, the remaining 14,500 sq mi.

Kashmir's economy is centred around agriculture. Traditionally the staple crop of the valley was rice, which formed the chief food of the people. In addition, Indian corn, wheat, barley and oats were also grown. Given its temperate climate, it is suited for crops like asparagus, artichoke, seakale, broad beans, scarletrunners, beetroot, cauliflower and cabbage. Fruit trees are common in the valley, and the cultivated orchards yield pears, apples, peaches, and cherries.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kashmir

Being 5,675 feet above sea level, the only way it could be reached when we visited it was by airplane, and even then not in Winter:



Its capital is Srinagar, which sits on the shore of Dal Lake, the gem of Kashmir and at one time a high point of tourist travel. Srinagar is mostly comprised of canals, with shops and houses on their banks.



Quote:

This land of spring flowers, also produces quality willow cricket bats, papermache goods, intricate carvings, saffron and silks. Its alpine terrain offers world class hiking and horse trekking, its rivers and streams offer trout and salmon fishing, and the nearby Gulmarg Valley was once India's premier ski resort. Alas, today you don't need the guidebooks' warnings to stay away from this spectacular region, just read the front pages of your newspaper.
http://www.sp.co.nz/old_files/kashmir.html

Dal Lake is gorgeous, especially in Summer:

The houseboats were a major tourist attraction; when we were there, they were luxurious and elegant:


Here’s a quote from a traveler’s trip to Srinagar, which is just like what we experienced:
Quote:

Food can be included, three meals a day if you wish, so squeezing another rupee off the bill could mean the difference between a full cooked English breakfast and a boiled egg. While on board you are the honoured guest, kept safe and sound by the respected host whose best interests are served by your security. They are a haven of peace and tranquillity from the surrounding hardship and misery. Our floating palace was securely anchored to the eastern shore and many times, the sun set in the golden dusty haze of the western sky across a reflective lake. A calm that was often broken by the sound of gunfire when darkness overtook the light.

The houseboat comprised of five main rooms, a master double with en suite and bath, a large bedroom with a double and single bed, dining room and living room. The living room was full of varnished wood and plush red velvet, with subtle shaded lamps on the walls and a stocked library behind the writing desk, all straight out of the 30's. Tea was served twice a day in china cups bought in on a wooden tray. Breakfast was often served on the canvas covered roof, while the veranda was for lazy sunsets and sharing an afternoon or morning 'hookah' or waterpipe of tobacco, with a local shikara [the main form of transportation] paddler.

http://www.sp.co.nz/old_files/kashmir.html

However, in the fifty years since we enjoyed Kashmir, it has been devastated by continuing war, and Srinagar and its houseboats have suffered greatly, from what I find:
Quote:

The lake -- famed for its brightly hued, ornately carved cedar houseboats bearing names like "New Australia" and "Telaviv" -- has already shrunk by more than half to 11 square kilometres (4.2 square miles) in the past two decades and is becoming choked by weeds. Its depth has decreased by 12 meters (40 feet) in the same period. The pollution is sometimes so bad it turns the normally blue coloured lake into a brackish green as effluent from hotels and houses on the shores is flushed into the lake water.

Ironically it is also the lake's 1,400 houseboats -- which during colonial times housed the British who were forbidden by Kashmir's princely ruler to own land -- that are among the chief offenders in discharging waste into the water.

The government is setting up six sewage treatment areas along the lake that are expected to control pollution to a large extent.

At one time, the region was known as "paradise on earth" for its many lakes and mountains that drew tens of thousands of visitors a year. But in 1989 a revolt against Indian rule erupted and the tourist flow slowed to a trickle as the insurgency has claimed more than 44,000 lives.

Channels that should bring fresh water down from lakes higher up are clogged by refuse. I saw dead animals and birds among the piles of polythene bags.

However, Islamic militants routinely detonate car bombs and attack Indian security posts throughout Kashmir and in Srinagar resulting in an average of three to four people killed daily. But violence has declined compared to two years ago when eight to ten people were killed daily and the area around Dal Lake has remained relatively peaceful.

http://www.sawf.org/newedit/edit03272006/places.asp
Quote:

The Kashmir Valley is a geological oddity, a long narrow low area surrounded on all sides by snow-covered peaks. And the survival of an ecological system that can support life there is by no means guaranteed. Mr Irfan said that his biggest challenge was global warming. The retreat of Himalayan glaciers is making a fundamental change to the flow of water and threatening the long term future of the lakes.

Government action is too late for many of the houseboats that were once majestic holiday destinations. They have rotted and sunk into the mud. More than 30 owners are now applying to give up their licenses, as they have been living on board their boats in extreme poverty, without the money to do them up.

http://southasia.oneworld.net/todaysheadlines/kashmirs-houseboats-may-
face-closure


The tourist industry was big back then; Kashmir is home to many wonderful artistic crafts. My favorite was the silk rugs, which are virtually indescribable. Turned one way, their colors are completely different from those you see if you turn them in the opposite direction.
Quote:

The history of development of rug industry in Kashmir was associated with and influenced by the opulent life styles of its RULERS, NOBLES and ARISTOCRATS. The great Mughal Emperors Jahangir and Shahjahan (the later, who built the famous Monument of Love "The Taj Mahal") established a distinctive style in Art and Architecture of that era. The rugs woven during those periods bore the similar motifs, patterns, decorative styles as found in the palaces, monuments and museums!
http://www.atsarexports.com/about-kashmir-carpets


We were lucky to go through the factory, one of the tours offered back then, and see the cocoons of the silk worms and the process.


They also made gorgeous, embroidered shawls and scarves, from cashmere fiber known as “pashmina”.

Quote:

Pashmina is the name for the finest Cashmere. Kashmir pashmina is the most original and authentic cashmere. The queen of all wools originated in Kashmir hundreds of years ago. The art of Pashmina making in the Valley of Kashmir is believed to be as old as 3000 years B.C . In the past, only rich and elite had the privilege of enjoying luxurious fabric. It adorned the court of Caesar and was the pride of French queen, Marie Antoinette. Impressed with the unparalleled looks of Kashmir shawl, Emperor Napoleon presented it to Empress Josephine. Kashmir pashminas are the softest and warmest of natural fabrics (after Shahtoosh) mankind has ever known. Shahtoosh, now banned, was also exclusively made in Kashmir. Every summer, Himalayan farmers climb the mountains to comb the fine woolen undercoat from the underbelly of, himalayan mountain goat Chyangra, the Capra Hircus goat which is the source of Pashmina, lives at elevations of 14,500 feet (4,500 meters) and above, where temperatures rarely rise above minus 20 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 30 degrees centigrade) in winter. To survive the freezing environment at 14,000 feet altitude, it grows a unique, incredibly soft pashm, inner coat, six times finer than human hair. Because it is only 14-19 microns in diameter, it cannot be spun by machines, so the wool is hand-woven into cashmere products including shawls, scarves, wraps, throws, stoles etc. for export worldwide. With the coming of summer, the Himalayan goats shed their warm winter coats. Their underbellies are covered with two different types of wool: the fine, soft cashmere and a coarser outer layer. The wool is gathered by local women, who comb it thoroughly to separate the from the thicker, less luxuriant wool. pashmina
Each fibre is about one sixth the width of a human hair, and one shawl requires about 24 ounces of wool, the annual output of about 4 goats. The wool is too delicate for mechanical looms, and must therefore be spun and woven by hand. The techniques for producing fine cashmere products have been handed down through the generations, and sometimes the women in a family have carried out the practice since the days of the Mogul Empire.

http://www.kashmirarts.com/
Another of their exported goods is highly-decorated paper mache artifacts, from candlesticks to knife sheaths to jewelry boxes.

Quote:

Papier mache involves ornamentation in color over smoothened surfaces built up of paper pulp or sometimes wood, card board or leather. The designs used in Paper mache are very intricate and their application requires a great deal of skill and accuracy. The patterns are painted free hand.. We source our collection of decorative boxes such jewellery or jewelry boxes from Kashmir. Hand-painting on paper Mache boxes is unique to Kashmir artisans. Kashmir artisans have been using this art for centuries and craftsmen pass this skill to other.
http://www.kashmirarts.com/papermache.html

Kashmir has been embroiled in wars for decades now, which has changed the timbre of the country drastically.
Quote:

"The world powers now realise that without solving the Kashmir issue, South Asia cannot become the cradle of peace." Ousted Pakistan Prime Minister Nawas Sharif. Kashmir has been the cause of two of the three wars fought between India and Pakistan since independence from Britain in 1947. The Kashmir issue becomes a chilly prospect as the two countries enter the nuclear age with such gusto.

A noisy crowd of stick waving women, covered head to toe in black chadors completely blocked the street, and were headed directly towards us. Pulling over swiftly to the side, scattering the chickens and stray dogs, a group of children crowded around us yelling "Go, go back, go. The women make strike."

The women of the Kashmir had had enough. This form of street protest the only way to vent their frustrations at the brutal treatment dished out by the Indian Army. Crackdowns, they were called. The Indian Army would miraculously produce an informer, masked to protect his identity, of course, and entire blocks of residential areas would be emptied onto the street and citizens made to walk past the informer for identification. The unlucky suspected militants were then bludgeoned with rifle butts, in front of women and children. Such an event led to the display of frustration before us.

Since 1992, nothing short of complete independence from the worlds two latest nuclear powers has been demanded by the Pakistani sponsored, Jammu and Kashmiri Liberation Front. And so the three main parties continue to eye each other suspiciously across inhospitable high altitude deserts, and more recently, exchanging artillery fire, with jet fighters and bombers soaring around the Himilayan peaks.

http://www.ts.co.nz/~rick/index/kashmir.htm
Quote:

December 8, 2009 has seen the Kashmiri Intifada completing its twenty years. It was exactly two decades ago that the grassroots uprising was initiated with the abduction of Dr. Rubiya Saeed, daughter of Indian Minister of Home affairs Mufti Saeed , as she emerged from a Hospital in Sri Nagar to return home. With that the volcano of the Kashmiri pent up anger burst with a fury that was staggering in its magnitude and repercussions. The following days witnessed the emergence of dozens of Kashmiri insurgent groups that took up arms to fight the Indian occupying Army. The hatred for the Indian occupation of Kashmir transcended all shades of ideological differences. Authority of the Indian State virtually collapsed. Berlin wall had been destroyed by the will of the people only months ago and the Kashmiri uprising sought to change the status quo that India had so brazenly imposed on the Kashmiri Population with sheer courage of their ideals and conviction. A lot has occurred in the past two decades and the time is ripe to take a stock of the cost and benefits of the upheaval that has transformed Kashmir into a throbbing issue even bringing Afghanistan into the festering equation.

The response by the Indian state was Draconian. It saturated the Kashmiri landscape with the force of bayonet; the high water mark being reached with the presence of seven lacs of Indian soldiers. Draconian laws, like Armed Forces special Powers Act (AFSPA) and Prevention of Terrorism Act (POTA) were enacted by the Indian parliament to facilitate untrammeled use of force and freedom from prosecution for committing gravest possible excesses by the Indian Armed Forces. Thus facilitated, the Indian Armed forces began the killing of Kashmiris with an abandon. Troops occupied every nook and corner of cities and hamlets and crisscrossed the forests turning the landscape into a virtual jail. Around one hundred thousand Kashmiris have lost their lives during twenty years of conflict and 8000 � 10000 people have simply vanished after arrest by the security forces. The Indian Armed Forces employ infamous Special Operations Group, an officially patronized band of local collaborators, to perform the dirty job of extra judicial executions. The culture of fake encounters thrives whereby innocent locals are killed and dumped in nameless graves as Pakistani militants and cross border terrorists to enable their killers to claim gallantry awards and promotions.

http://www.kashmirwatch.com/showexclusives.php?subaction=showfull&id=1
263045264&archive=&start_from=&ucat=15&var1news=value1news
Quote:

Adam Thompson, the designated British High Commissioner to Pakistan, has said that resolution of Kashmir issue is important for peace in South Asia and both Pakistan and India need to talk to each other in order to find an acceptable solution, maintaining that Britain is ready to mediate over the issue if the two countries deem it fit
http://www.kashmirwatch.com/showheadlines.php?subaction=showfull&id=12
63125391&archive=&start_from=&ucat=1&var0news=value0news


Okay, there’s a short primer on a country about which we know little, just to increase your knowledge of the world. ;o)




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Sunday, January 10, 2010 6:42 PM

GINOBIFFARONI


from this book

http://www.amazon.ca/American-Raj-America-Muslim-World/dp/1554702216

Kashmir: The Forgotten Jihad

For much of the Islamic world, the long bitter dispute over Kashmir, the suffering of Kashmiri Muslims, and the anti Indian jihad that has raged there since 1989 is the least emotive of the causes inflaming Muslim public opinion. It is also in a region well beyond the reach of the American Raj. So why then include it in this book? Because Kashmir represents probably the most dangerous current threat to world security : the ongoing risk of nuclear war between old enemys India and Pakistan. Kashmir has poisoned relations between India and Pakistan for over half a century, led them into three full scale wars, and continues to pose the danger of a nuclear exchange between them that could instantly kill an estimated 2 million people, injure 100 million and contaminate the entire globe with radioactive dust.

An Arab foreign minister once told me, " Nearly all the worlds worst problems are the fault of the British imperialists " An exaggeration, to be sure, but his comment has some validity. Two of the worlds most dangerous and intractable conflicts, Palestine and Kashmir were the result of Britians colonial geopolitical constructions. The conflict over Kashmir, Indias only state with a Muslim majority, dates back to the catastrophic partition of India by Great Britain in 1947. A year later Britains partition of Palestine would provoke another series of wars.

With 11.2 million inhabitants, mostly of Indo-European origin,though with a significant Titbetan Mongol minority in Ladakh, Kashmir is larger in population than half the worlds nations. Today, it is divided into three parts. the largest with 8.5 million inhabitants controlled by India; 2.5 million people in the Pakistan controlled portion of Azad Kashmir; and a huge chunk of sparsely populated frigid mountain territory annexed by China during the 1950's known as Aksai Chin, which lies at a mean elevation of 5000 meters.

Britains hasty, poorly planned partition of India led to horrendous atrocities and massive population displacements as uprooted Muslims ran the gauntlet of hostile Hindus and Sikhs to reach the new state of Pakistan, and as Hindus and Sikhs fled Punjab and East Bengal to India. An estimated one million people died in the communal carnage which neither the British nor even the venerated Mahatma Gandhi were able to stop.

The princely mountain state of Kashmir was left to decide whether to join the new states of India or Pakistan. 80% of the population wanted to join Pakistan, while its Hindus, Sikh, and Buddhist minoritys wanted to join India. The Hindu maharaja of Kashmir opted to join India against the wishes of the states Muslims. Violet riots ensued in which, Kashmiri nationalists claim 200,000 Muslims were slaughtered - a fiqure that seems exaggerated. Both Pakistan and India rushed troops into remote Kashmir. After indecisive fighting in which India gained the upper hand the newly founded UN imposed a ceasefire in 1949. India ended up controlling 2/3 of Kashmir, including the famed Vale of Kashmir, and Pakistan 1/3.


more later if anyone is interested.



Either your with the terrorists, or ... your with the terrorists

Life is like a jar of Jalapeño peppers.
What you do today, might Burn Your Ass Tomorrow"

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Monday, January 11, 2010 2:55 AM

FREMDFIRMA



Very, I just don't have anything much to offer on the topic but "hmmm.."

-F

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Monday, January 11, 2010 11:16 PM

GINOBIFFARONI


Ok, time to type


The UN Security Council passed a resolution calling for a plebiscite to determine the future of Kashmir. Pakistan readily agreed, knowing any free vote would favor it. India, determined to hang on to strategic Kashmir, rejected the plebiscite, and set about integrating Kashmir into the Indian union. Delhi has resolutely blocked any international intervention in the Kashmir dispute to this day.
Kashmirs Muslims repeatedly staged uprisings and protests against India's often harsh and corrupt rule - a rule, however, that was not much more brutal or corrupt than Pakistan's rule over the distant other half, east Pakistan ( today Bangladesh ) The Indian run administration in Kashmir routinely rigged elections and ignored local demands for autonomy, or for opening links to neighboring Pakistan.

In 1989, a quite unexpected explosion of long festering unrest occurred among Kashmiri Muslims that caught both India and Pakistan by complete surprise. A religious progression to a local shrine turned into a protest, which turned into a riot against Indian rule, and soon into a spontaneous armed insurrection. Delhi rushed army troops, paramilitary police infamous for cruelty, corruption and looting , and battalions of regular police to counter the spreading rebellion. India repeated the extremely harsh tactics, such as torture, extrajudical executions, hooded informers, and hostage taking it had successfully used a few years back to crush the Sikh independence movement in Punjab.
As fighting spread, small numbers of veteran mujahidin from the anti Soviet struggle in Afghanistan began infiltrating across the ceasefire line, known as the line of control, which constitutes the internal border of divided Kashmir, and went into action against Indian security forces. In short order, Pakistan's powerful intelligence service, the ISI, organized important material support for the Kashmir Muslim mujahidin and their foreign jihadist supporters.

As I saw firsthand, the ISI opened a score of training camps and supply depots in Azad( Pakistan ) Kashmir, and across Southern Afghanistan that supported the uprising in the Indian controlled portion of the state. When the US invaded Afghanistan in 2001, it claimed that many of these ISI run training camps in Afghanistan were Al Qaida terrorist training camps. It would have been too embarrassing to admit what Washington called terrorist camps were actually being run by one of Americas closest Allies, Pakistan.

India immediately accused Pakistan of cross border terrorism, and accused Islamabad of engineering the Kashmir insurrection. Some of the more than twenty Kashmir insurgency groups were indeed run by the ISI, but others were not. Some sought total independance for Kashmir from both India and Pakistan, earning them deep hostility from both Delhi and Islamabad. Pakistan routinely jailed leaders of the moderate Jammu and Kashmir liberation front ( JKLF ) that advocated an independant Kashmir state which happened to include much of Pakistans strategic northern regions of Gilgit and Baltistan.

Fought among often densely populated civilian areas, the struggle in Kashmir quickly became marked by atrocities, brutality, war crimes and routine violations of human rights. Indias 400,000 regular troops in Kashmir maintained tight discipline, but its half million or so paramilitary soldiers and special police acted with brutality and indiscipline that far surpassed their already notorious reputation for such behavior in India. Indian security forces found themselves attacked from all sides, and confronted by a sullen, hostile civilian population. Their ostensible Muslim allies betrayed planned security operations to the resistance. Women and children planted bombs. Muslims suspected of collaborating with Indian authorities were murdered. In short order, as is inevitable in all guerrilla wars and counterinsurgencies fought amongst civilians, Indias soldiers and police turned even more brutal, vindictive, and demoralizes. Torture and executions became the norm, entire villages were burned down, Muslim girls and women were gang raped. Kashmiri Muslims retaliated by massacring Hindu and Sikh villagers. I have covered fourteen wars and conflicts. Kashmir was certainly one of the dirtiest, most cruel conflicts that I have ever witnessed.

The insurgency in Kashmir was in part fueled by many of the same type of etho-religious hatreds seen in the Balkans. Hindu and Sikh Indians harbored the deepest animosity , even hatred for Muslims, whom they had been taught were their faiths traditional enemy. Muslims in the view of Hindu nationalists and chauvinists, were unwanted interlopers and fifth columnists for Pakistan. Their presence in India was a daily reminder of past sufferings and the ultimate defeat and humiliation of Hindu India by the Muslim Mogul Empire. Many Hindus saw Muslims as violent, oversexed, meat eating barbarians. For their part, many uneducated Muslims stereotyped Hindus as unclean, idolatrous, superstition ridden inferiors who worship idols of monkeys and rats.


Perhaps as India is more interwoven into the world economy, they might respond more to international peace efforts.

The snippet about camps in Afghanistan makes more sense now... and the Chinese Muslims were their training to fight for independence in their Chinese occupied province / country.

Anyway hope you enjoy





Either you Are with the terrorists, or ... you Are with the terrorists

Life is like a jar of Jalapeño peppers.
What you do today, might Burn Your Ass Tomorrow"

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Tuesday, January 12, 2010 7:06 AM

NIKI2

Gettin' old, but still a hippie at heart...


Fascinating. Anything posted here seems to turn into a discussion of war and/or politics. That wasn't my intention, nor was it my intention when posting the thread on Afghanistan. But I'm finally getting that discussing war or politics is the most interesting thing to everyone here and those topics are the only ones that will start a discussion; and any topic NOT on war or politics slides down unnoticed or gets turned into a discussion of war and/or politics.

While there's nothing wrong in my book with discussing war or politics, there is so MUCH more going on in the world, it seems a shame to be focused on just those two things. Ah, well, no harm in keeping on trying, so I'll just keep on truckin'...



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Tuesday, January 12, 2010 8:16 AM

GINOBIFFARONI


To understand a people you can discuss their culture, but without discussion of their history it doesn't really have a context.

Kashmir sounds like a great place, if you discount the last sixty years...

Hopefully some resolution can be reached eventually



Either you Are with the terrorists, or ... you Are with the terrorists

Life is like a jar of Jalapeño peppers.
What you do today, might Burn Your Ass Tomorrow"

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Tuesday, January 12, 2010 8:47 AM

FREMDFIRMA



Actually, I find em fascinating, so keep em coming.
Had I time to do some background, I woulda made comment towards the Hong Kong situation, but I have been short on time and avoid commenting till I actually know something *about* what I happen to be discussing, is all.

I do find culturally based posts useful and informative however, so by all means don't be discouraged.

-F

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Tuesday, January 12, 2010 9:01 AM

JAYNEZTOWN


Quote:

Originally posted by GinoBiffaroni:


The snippet about camps in Afghanistan makes more sense now... and the Chinese Muslims were their training to fight for independence in their Chinese occupied province / country.



As twisted and backward as this sounds
China was the best thing to happen these people



Quote:

Perhaps we in the West can take a lesson on dealing with terrorist from China.


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Tuesday, January 12, 2010 9:30 AM

GINOBIFFARONI


Quote:

Originally posted by JaynezTown:
Quote:

Originally posted by GinoBiffaroni:


The snippet about camps in Afghanistan makes more sense now... and the Chinese Muslims were their training to fight for independence in their Chinese occupied province / country.



As twisted and backward as this sounds
China was the best thing to happen these people



Quote:

Perhaps we in the West can take a lesson on dealing with terrorist from China.




That guy is an idiot



Either you Are with the terrorists, or ... you Are with the terrorists

Life is like a jar of Jalapeño peppers.
What you do today, might Burn Your Ass Tomorrow"

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Wednesday, January 13, 2010 8:26 AM

NIKI2

Gettin' old, but still a hippie at heart...


I agree; I couldn't get through it all. Think I clicked off around the time he said liberals have crippled... Part way through I started to smile, and thought to myself "how funny that so many people want to make videos expousing their beliefs and convince others of things when the look so stupid doing it." This guy's propounded beliefs are based on his own prejudices, obviously, and I tend to click right off when I come across a video on ANY subject which is someone wanting an audience, be it musical, political or anything else.

Not saying people shouldn't put stuff out there, just find it amusing that so many nutbags plaster UTube with stuff that makes them look so ridiculous. That's all.



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Wednesday, January 13, 2010 10:34 AM

GINOBIFFARONI


I don't mind people putting their opinions out there, but the " facts " this guy was throwing out were garbage...

Sad some hit something like this and don't question any of it




Either you Are with the terrorists, or ... you Are with the terrorists

Life is like a jar of Jalapeño peppers.
What you do today, might Burn Your Ass Tomorrow"

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Wednesday, January 13, 2010 11:15 AM

BYTEMITE


Hey, I like your cultural posts. When you did your Afghanistan one, I was at the time researching for a setting in a story, and I greatly appreciated all your pictures. Here, too, what you have to say about Kashmir, geographically, culturally, and agriculturally explains a lot about what's going on in the region without the historical or political detail. Though certainly those don't hurt, either.

I agree with you, Niki, I think it's very important to understand the people in a region before you can begin to understand their politics or conflicts.

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Wednesday, January 13, 2010 1:11 PM

NIKI2

Gettin' old, but still a hippie at heart...


Boy, yeah; if we'd taken ANY time to understand the culture and people of Iraq...no, wait a minute, no matter how much understanding, Dumbya would have wanted to invade anyway,and HE would never have taken the time or energy to get to know what he was sending troops into. Sigh...but if our SOLDIERS and generals had been given the chance to understand the people and culture, as in Afghanistan, it might have made a big difference, don'tcha think?



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Wednesday, January 13, 2010 1:24 PM

BYTEMITE


Yeah. Unfortunately, I think Frem's right when he says a lot of our Generals have a Crusades mindset.

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Wednesday, January 13, 2010 1:48 PM

NIKI2

Gettin' old, but still a hippie at heart...


Damned straight! Especially given the Crusades WEREN'T about religion...the pawns just thought they were. Ditto America's military, far as I'm concerned.



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Wednesday, January 13, 2010 1:54 PM

BYTEMITE


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_New_Great_Game

Crusades = Great Game = The New Great Game.

Compare the motives, the silk road versus now oil pipelines.

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Monday, March 4, 2019 11:19 AM

JAYNEZTOWN

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Monday, August 5, 2019 10:04 AM

JAYNEZTOWN


BBC reports India to revoke special status for Kashmir, twitter and blogs seems to say something about internet cut and some leaders arrested in Kashmir

internet services suspended?

a big turning point in the history of Kashmir crisis for better or worse?

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Wed, March 27, 2024 15:03 - 824 posts
NBC News: Behind the scenes, Biden has grown angry and anxious about re-election effort
Wed, March 27, 2024 14:58 - 2 posts
BUILD BACK BETTER!
Wed, March 27, 2024 14:45 - 5 posts
RFK Jr. Destroys His Candidacy With VP Pick?
Wed, March 27, 2024 11:59 - 16 posts
Russia says 60 dead, 145 injured in concert hall raid; Islamic State group claims responsibility
Wed, March 27, 2024 10:57 - 49 posts
Ha. Haha! HAHA! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAAHAHA!!!!!!
Tue, March 26, 2024 21:26 - 1 posts
You can't take the sky from me, a tribute to Firefly
Tue, March 26, 2024 16:26 - 293 posts

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