Pakistani President Mussharaf Calls on India for Peace Talks

Fox News Live ^ | 27 May 02 | General Musharraf

[Alas Babylon!]

He's on live right now on Fox News.

[Bommer]

Nope, it'll be Europe first, then Isreal. Isreal still holds the record after 50 years of 4 - 0 against multiple armies. Not to mention that they DO have deliverable hydrogen nukes and would like nothing less then to put them into their place once and for all!

[Husker24]

Iran would never need to use its missiles against Europe, Europe pretty much will do what ever Iran wants anyway.

[Tuor]

Hmm. A mixed message, if that. It seems he's not taking any responsibility for any of the incidents which have led to the current standoff. It seems as if he is saying that they happened and Pakistan is being made a scape goat, as they condemned those actions.

Frankly, it sounds pretty weak as far as taking positive control of the situation. But, this seems to be as strong a speech as he could make. He can't abandon those Pakistan has put (or have put themselves) in Kashmir. He can't appear too weak to his own people. He can't overly offend the Indians as they are already on the very edge of restraint. I think the speech was crafted to mildly reassure his own people while at the same time not offending those looking towards Pakistan in Kashmir *and* not providing an excuse for India to attack.

If anyone pays close attention to how he worded his speech (well, as translated, I guess), it shows clearly just how tense this whole situation is: if that is what he is telling his own people, then his manueover room is very small indeed, IMO.

I wonder...if I were China, I'd try to manufactor that last little push: then they could decide what to do with whatever is left of the region after the war. Whatever happened, it would be beneficial to them.

Tuor

[lavaroise]

Well, he always takes the initiatives, doesn't he. Whether it is to attack or to make peace, the guy thinks he owns it all.

[Dog Gone]

The Indians refuse to talk to the one person in Pakistan who can help them. Instead, like you, they don't believe a word he says.

Musharraf could be calling for a jihad against India. He could be refusing to talk. He could be celebrating the attacks in India and calling for more. He could be calling for muslims in India to rise up against the government there. He could be expelling US troops from his country. He could be declaring an end to democracy. He could insist that Pakistan will assist those in Pakistan who wish to cross into Kashmir and kill Indians.

He's not doing any of those things, but the Indian mentality is that Musharraf has to prove that he's not sponsoring terrorism before they'll even agree to talk. Since it's impossible to prove a negative, Musharraf can't do that. Meanwhile, any act of terror in India or Kashmir is blamed directly on him.

Rather than working with him to assist in the crackdown on terror in the entire region, India is putting him in an impossible position where he can never satisfy that country.

It's really a shame. America needs Pakistan to get under control and become a pro-Western role model for other states in the region. That change has to come from within. India can't do it through force of arms. It could never successfully occupy Pakistan and turn it into an Islamic Switzerland. Only Musharraf, or someone like him, can create the internal changes necessary so that Pakistan isn't a threat to India or anyone else.

India is offering all stick and no carrot. At some point, that has to change.

[Dog Gone]

I wonder...if I were China, I'd try to manufactor that last little push: then they could decide what to do with whatever is left of the region after the war. Whatever happened, it would be beneficial to them.

Substitute al-Qaida for China, and you're onto something.

[anu_shr]

the liar that he is , he has managed to REALLY pisss off the indians. I'm selling tomorrow.

[anu_shr]

by Hindu extremists and terrorists against Muslims in Kashmir and Gujrat, and against Christians and Sikhs and members of Hindu scheduled castes. >>> i would love to meet a few Hindu terrorists and extremists. LOL. I hear the LTTE fellows in Sri Lanka are hindus. mushy must be refering to them

[AM2000]

India really doesn't have a carrot to offer. Atleast not one that Musharraf can accept. You want India to work with him on cracking down on terror. Well, do you realize that if India were to offer such help and Musharraf were to accept it, the resulting TV images would be of Islamic mullahs chanting allah'u akbar being rounded up by Musharrafs forces with help from the infidel Hindus? It would be a PR disaster, and Musharraf would end up hanging by a noose within days - just like Benazirs daddy.

[AM2000]

i would love to meet a few Hindu terrorists and extremists.

The mobs that ruled the streets of Ahmedabad for over a month. You know, the boys from the VHP and Bajrang Dal and Shiv Sena etc. Hindu extremists are a serious problem, but they're a serious problem to India. They don't go to foreign lands where they think Hindus are being persecuted (like Bangladesh or Fiji) and mercilessly machine-gun 2-month old Bangladeshi Muslim or indigenous Fijian babies. Unlike Islamic radicals.

[j2r2]

Sorry but your cheerleading for Musharraf is going too far and makes no sense.

Read the NY Times story today, about how the entire terror apparatus in Kashmir has been a pet project of Musharraf and his fellow army Generals.

For over a decade, huge amount of blood has been spilled, all just in India. In the most recent May 14 attack, where wives and children (including a 2 month old baby) were butchered, the three attackers have been positively identified as Pakistani citizens - their names and addresses have been published. The Indian army has confiscated enough Pakistani and Chinese marked and unmarked weaponry (Ak-47,grenades, mines, RPG's, even mortar shells etc) and tons of RDX that would properly equip an entire army division. This display of captured weapons is always given to any foreign envoy who goes to Kashmir. Every killed terrorist in Kashmir is found carrying a sophisticated radio for communication with their controllers across the Line of Control.

To say that India is asking Musharraf to prove a negative is just plain stupid.

Now, does all this grow in the apple orchards of Kashmir? Or you think the Paki military intelligence is running a grandly organized proxy war for all these years? And to which India is finally saying enough..

You say - "Musharraf could be calling for a jihad against India." And guess what - Musharraf is doing exactly that. Countless times, smug Pakistani Generals have been quoted as saying how they have this strategy to "bleed India" under a nuke shield and to which India has no answer.

And you are saying that India should "work with him"? And that India should talk to him?

India is not interested in turning Pakistan into anything, Switzerland or whatever. India just wants to kick butt hard, so that Musharraf and his band of terrorists go away, sit inside their Terrorist Slum of their country, and not bother anybody else.

And you are so naive when you say the Pakistan will "become a pro-Western role model". Pakistan is unreformable. Any student of that region knows.

Read the opinion sections of their papers on the internet and you will see infinite and uncontrollable hate against the Indians, Jews and the Americans. And nothing will ever ever change that.

[Tuor]

Substitute al-Qaida for China, and you're onto something.

No way. India is far too vast for the Al-Qaida. Pakistan, though...that's a possibility.

Tuor

[AM2000]

Gen. Pervez Musharraf, president of Pakistan, poses before his national address at the Pakistan Televsion station, Monday, May 27, 2002 in Islamabad, Pakistan.

Pakistan President General Pervez Musharraf gives a televised address to the nation in Islamabad May 27, 2002.

People listen to Pakistan's President Gen. Pervez Musharraf, Monday, May 27, 2002 in Karachi, Pakistan.

[keri]

He doesn't have to prove a negative. He does have to offer something besides talk.

You don't believe India has offered proof to the world that Pakistan sponsors terrorism in India because you haven't personally seen it.

Do you know why Vajpayee won't talk to Musharraf? Because Musharraf is a liar and cannot be trusted. He's still lying when he denies Pakistan is training killers. If he really wants "talk" then he should take the first step and admit the truth, but he won't. If he really wanted dialogue to defuse this crisis he'd admit the truth.

When you have an enemy trying to kill your wife and kids, and you know that enemy is a liar by what he continues to tell everyone, are you going talk to him?

[DontMessWithMyCountry]

There was the recent attack on a church in Islamabad, and soon after the suicide attack in Karachi. We did not blame India for these.

um, Musharraf, yes, as a matter of fact, you did...by extension... you blamed India AND Israel-- RAW and MOSAD, to be precise. Although witnesses of that horrific event (not including the five who were murdered) noted on March 17th, "Then they saw one man rushing up the aisle brandishing grenades and shouting."

Funny, Hinduism and Judaism forbid suicide, but amazingly, Islam seems not to (sorry, but anyone who tries to argue to the contrary, forget about it...their myriad examples speak many more thousands of words--and deaths of innocents). Wonder what that man was 'shouting' as he rushed up the aisle and detonated the grenades that murdered five people and injured 42 others? Betcha' he wasn't invoking the names of Ram, Krshna, Siva, or Yahweh. Haven't found any press clips to answer that question though.

[Nuke'm Glowing]

You are quite correct in one statement. You can not trust Mussharaf. He is building nukes at a frightening pace. Why? India? No. He is going to blackmail Europe and the West to stop India from invading his country. If he builds enough nukes and it looks like he is going to lose a war to India, which he would, then he will arm every radical state in the Middle East and probably Indonesia also with nuclear weapons. There's your scare for the day folks. He can export those warheads to Iran,Iraq,Libya,Syria, Indonesia, and hell, why not arm Somalia and Sudan while you're at it. If he disperses just 30 warheads in the next 2 months, the world is screwed. And so is one or two of our cities, because we're not talking dirty nukes now, we're talking 50-100 kt yields, which will destroy our economy for 10-20 years.

[AM2000]

If he builds enough nukes and it looks like he is going to lose a war to India, which he would, then he will arm every radical state in the Middle East and probably Indonesia also with nuclear weapons.

I think you overestimate Musharraf. He's too narrow-minded to think like that. His enemy is India, his boss is the Politburo in Beijing. That's really all he knows.

[Nuke'm Glowing]

Sorry, but I disagree. The good general is not worried about his country. He has spoken in the past about the "great nation of Islam" which in the mind of the Muslim extends over 1/3 of the world's population. His people are cannon fodder if the war starts with India. But the West will be screwed. In another post I just stated that if Pakistan looks like they will lose a war, an eventuality due to the size and numbers of India's military, they will launch against India and export warheads to the radical nations of the Islamic world. Then we have a tough road ahead. How do you invade Somalia if a warlord has one or two nukes? How does Australia deal with Indonesian militarism if they are facing a nuclear threat on their west coast; and their island nation has a more pourous border than ours? The problems multiply dramatically because of this, and not in our favor. We may have to buy off both nations, until we can secure the flanks and eliminate the problem nations of Iran,Iraq,Sudan,Somalia, Syria and Saudi Arabia. Otherwise they will become not invincible, but almost impossible to attack without extremely high American casualties. There's your scare for the day. And I don't like the inaction by our "experienced" State Department who think we can talk nice to achieve hard results. We have to choose sides and secure peace immediately. The consequences are devasting for the U.S., Russia and the wusses in Europe if we do not take the lead.

[Nuke'm Glowing]

Sorry, but I have to say you are wrongo.

Mussharaf has secured a strong relationship with the Saudis and other "moderate" Arab states. Although there are religous differences, any threat to an Islamic state unifies all nations against that enemy. Iran would love to see Pakistan wiped out. However, in the name of Islam, if Pakistan gave them 5-10 warheads, Iran would obtain and find the right groups to use them. Mussharaf has been playing the U.S. for suckers and rightly so. Powell is clueless about the history of South Asia and is only focused on the photo-op diplomacy aspect of his job. The Defense Department is trying to get the message out about the problems in this region and how they relate to the issues of terrorism from Indonesia to Tunisia, but to mute, deaf and ignorant media types, it's considered "chicken little" crap. I'm sorry but the issues go beyond this border skirmish. Pray that a Pakistani warhead does not show up at a shopping mall near you soon, because it's not a dirty nuke. It's the real deal.

[maquiladora]

It's a major address to his country, but he's asked the Indian Government to meet for peace talks.

No he didn't!

He's asking for inter-party dialogue within Pakistan itself to achieve unity, not with India!