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The General and his Men - Sunanda Vashisht Sunanda Vashisht was born in the beautiful valley of Kashmir, India when Kashmir was known for its unparalleled natural beauty and not as a cauldron of fear and terror. She did most of her schooling in Delhi and dabbled with several professions before moving to U.S last year. she is currently pursuing higher studies here. she likes to introduce herself as an explorer because she wants to spend all her time in this world exploring unknown. Writing for her is a cathartic experience. She can't remember when she began writing first but she does know that writing has always helped her to be at peace with herself and with the world around her.

I have been following President Musharraf's visit to United States quite closely and his suave mannerisms and speeches have to some extent impressed me. His speeches are well written but full of rhetoric. He makes tall claims in his speeches, which suit the American palette greatly. Much to the chagrin of most Indians, General Musharraf has been able to paint a very convincing portrait of himself as a secular leader of Pakistanis who would like to see Pakistan as a modern state. He also paints a picture of a hapless leader caught between the Muslim Fundamentalists and the demands of West. (read George Bush).

However, kidnapping of the journalist Daniel Pearl has marred the perfectly orchestrated U.S. visit of the General. I am hoping that Daniel Pearl's kidnapping (I hope he is still alive) will help America realize that even post Taliban, Pakistan continues to be a safe haven for Islamic Terrorists. The sequence of events have made it clear that Omar Sheikh, British born Pakistani masterminded the kidnapping and he was arrested a day before General arrived in U.S. He has declared in the court in Pakistan that Pearl is dead yet General kept insisting that India was behind the kidnapping of Daniel Pearl. The General was definitely not acting naïve. He was trying to play a game he is very good at. He was trying to differentiate between Terrorists for him and against him. Anyone who threatens his position in his country is a stigma on the name of Islam and should be persecuted. But any terrorist who is murdering Indians and spreading terror in Kashmir in the name of Islam is a freedom fighter and should be honored accordingly. That definitely is a disturbing position to take and I hope Americans can see through the General. How can you trust a man who is so reluctant to clean his own backyard to help them in eliminating terrorism from the world map.

Omar Shaikh and Masood Azhar are both terrorists freed by India in return for passengers hijacked in the IC-814 flight. I will not comment on the freeing of Terrorists. I know a lot of people claim that stronger diplomatic efforts would have prevented Indians from releasing the prisoners. But such moments of crisis are tough to resolve by any nation, especially when the emotions of people are on high. So I don't know what India should have done in such case, but I do know that Indians even then kept saying that Pakistanis are managing the whole show with a remote control. That has been proved by the fact that after releasing these militants each one of them found their way in Pakistan. In less than a month's time, Masood Azhar formed Jaish Mohammed and has been committing one heinous crime after another in India. The fact that he was given such rousing welcome in Pakistan explains the story. Pakistan is hand in glove with the Islamic terrorists and without the support of the state they would never garner enough courage to attack the Assembly building in Kashmir first and later completely unforgivable attack on the Parliament of India.

While all this is Public Knowledge our friends in Islamabad tried to convince the world and us that the hijacking attempt was an act of disgruntled Kashmiri militants and they had no idea where the terrorists went. The Indians will of course never trust the General because every Indian knows that General Musharraf was the architect of Kargil. We also know that during Agra Summit, in a press conference he declared that he might have to reclaim his ancestral house in Delhi if he were to compromise with the issue of Kashmir. This makes it absolutely clear that Kashmir issue is not the indigenous uprising of disgruntled Kashmiri Muslims. It might have begun like that but today Kashmir Terrorism Inc is a corporation led mostly by Pakistanis who only want to spread unrest and terror.

I am sure one day the General will get exposed and kidnapping of Daniel Pearl hopefully should be the first step in that direction. I hope the General and his men realize that rhetorical speeches are not enough. He will have to clean his own backyard first before he claims to free the world of terror.

Till we connect again...

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