Dear Mr. Quraishi:
I don't know how long and to what extent you know Mr. Munshi. AS far as I know he grew up in England but he lived in Dhaka for the last few years. Through his writings in NFB (I am one of the members of the board of editors) and his postings in Mukto-mona (a forum for South Asian Secularists) I can attest to the fact that he is an Indo-phobic par excellence! Therefore, one would be hard pressed to find objectivity in his writings.
For example, when Islamists were blasting their homemade crude bombs allober Bangladesh during 1999 through 2006, Mr. Munshi confidently opined that those bombings were the handiworks of India's RAW. We vigorously protested to his infantile assertions; finally we learned that the spate of bombings was done by none other than the Islamists of Bangladesh. Mr. Munshi used to support the political party BNP while Mrs. Zia's party was in power during 2001 through 2006. The BNP patronized the Islamists quite openly. When we pointed this out to Mr. Munshi, he chose to remain reticent.
Also, for your information, Mr. Munshi for whatever reason never did like the Awami League - the party that helped emancipate Bangladesh from the clutch of Pakistani military in 1971. Maybe, Mr. Munshi did not like the independence of Bangladesh. Many Bangladeshis who held this view found it convenient to blame India for all the ills that confront our unfortunate motherland.
In summary, Mr. Munshi's mindset was exposed by fellow Bangladeshis. He believes in conspiracy theory whenever something extraordinary happens in South Asia. Please Google MBI Munshi and you will learn pronto the mindset of this man who you are promoting in the Net. Caveat Emptor. That is all I could say!
Sincerely,
A.H. Jaffor Ullah
Research scientist and columnist
New Orleans, Louisiana, USA
Research scientist and columnist
New Orleans, Louisiana, USA
------------------------------
News From Bangladesh
May 21, 2008
Indian machinations?
__._,_.___ "Viewpoints"
Wednesday May 21 2008 14:47:35 PM BDT
By Ahmed Quraishi
A London-based Bangladeshi author, M B I Munshi, is preparing to release in August a revised version of a book, The Indian Doctrine, which is expected to shed new light on what happened in Pakistan in 2007. Simply said, it was an impressive destabilization campaign, combining suicide bombings with threats of taking out Pakistani nukes and open insinuations in op-ed editorials in major US dailies about the breakup of the Pakistani homeland.
A small incident in Karachi in September 2007 gave Pakistani policy strategists a rare glimpse into the larger game plan in the region at the time. The incident fitted a pattern and provided clues to the unfortunate role played by some actors in India, apart from the sitting government there, in compounding Pakistan's problems on our western borders. A car raced by a police check post in the city's busy downtown, stopped close enough for the policemen to see it but far enough to ensure escape. Two men were inside. One of them pulled down the window, threw out some jackets on the street and then screeched away. The unknown car had just dropped a few 'suicide vests' ready for use, with markings that indicated US origin. "It was a lousy act linked to the Indian intelligence services trying to create an impression that CIA was sponsoring terrorism in Pakistan," Mr Munshi's book quotes a Pakistani source as explaining. "Neither the CIA nor the actual suicide bombers are in the business of dropping US marked suicide vests on roadsides from moving cars in front of the police."
Later that month, Washington sent a rare message to New Delhi that basically said, 'Please don't make things difficult for us. Try to get out of this Pakistan obsession. You are too important to limit yourself in this way.' According to a transcript released by the Pentagon, US Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Defence, James Clad, told a visiting group of retired Indian generals and diplomats that the US had "de-hyphenated its relations with India from its relations with Pakistan. New Delhi should do the same".
The US official was essentially telling the Indians they should not feel threatened by the Pak-American cooperation in Afghanistan for the simple reason that it was not going to affect Indian interests. The Indians, Clad implied, should desist from trying to undermine Pak-US ties based on that false notion. But Clad's advice fell on deaf ears because, by 2007, India was in the advanced stages of executing an ambitious intelligence operation suspected of having substantially contributed to the multiple and unprecedented security challenges that Pakistan faced in its western regions in the period between 2004 and early 2008.
In a special chapter titled, The Peace Charade: How 9/11 Helped India Penetrate Pakistan, Mr Munshi's book shows how a document prepared by two Indian security analysts in the year 2000, recommending to the Indian government a creative approach to expand Indian intelligence operations in Pakistan, inspired an ambitious Pakistan-specific plan after 9/11, exploiting the unprecedented uncertainty on the ground in the Pakistan-Afghanistan region.
The ultimate goal of this massive operation was "to help [India] in the foreign policy objective of breaking the monopoly of the ISI and army over Pakistan," according to the Indian document, aptly titled, 'India's Experience and Need for Action Against Pakistan,' authored by Dr. Bhashyam Kasturi and Pankaj Mehra. "The aim is," the authors wrote, "to break the stranglehold of the intelligence agencies, the bureaucracy and the military in Pakistan." We Pakistanis need to learn how our domestic politics should be managed unless we want to lose everything.
---------------------------------------
Ahmed Quraishi
Web : http://ahmedquraishi.com
The writer also works for Geo TV.
Email: aq@ahmedquraishi.com
A small incident in Karachi in September 2007 gave Pakistani policy strategists a rare glimpse into the larger game plan in the region at the time. The incident fitted a pattern and provided clues to the unfortunate role played by some actors in India, apart from the sitting government there, in compounding Pakistan's problems on our western borders. A car raced by a police check post in the city's busy downtown, stopped close enough for the policemen to see it but far enough to ensure escape. Two men were inside. One of them pulled down the window, threw out some jackets on the street and then screeched away. The unknown car had just dropped a few 'suicide vests' ready for use, with markings that indicated US origin. "It was a lousy act linked to the Indian intelligence services trying to create an impression that CIA was sponsoring terrorism in Pakistan," Mr Munshi's book quotes a Pakistani source as explaining. "Neither the CIA nor the actual suicide bombers are in the business of dropping US marked suicide vests on roadsides from moving cars in front of the police."
Later that month, Washington sent a rare message to New Delhi that basically said, 'Please don't make things difficult for us. Try to get out of this Pakistan obsession. You are too important to limit yourself in this way.' According to a transcript released by the Pentagon, US Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Defence, James Clad, told a visiting group of retired Indian generals and diplomats that the US had "de-hyphenated its relations with India from its relations with Pakistan. New Delhi should do the same".
The US official was essentially telling the Indians they should not feel threatened by the Pak-American cooperation in Afghanistan for the simple reason that it was not going to affect Indian interests. The Indians, Clad implied, should desist from trying to undermine Pak-US ties based on that false notion. But Clad's advice fell on deaf ears because, by 2007, India was in the advanced stages of executing an ambitious intelligence operation suspected of having substantially contributed to the multiple and unprecedented security challenges that Pakistan faced in its western regions in the period between 2004 and early 2008.
In a special chapter titled, The Peace Charade: How 9/11 Helped India Penetrate Pakistan, Mr Munshi's book shows how a document prepared by two Indian security analysts in the year 2000, recommending to the Indian government a creative approach to expand Indian intelligence operations in Pakistan, inspired an ambitious Pakistan-specific plan after 9/11, exploiting the unprecedented uncertainty on the ground in the Pakistan-Afghanistan region.
The ultimate goal of this massive operation was "to help [India] in the foreign policy objective of breaking the monopoly of the ISI and army over Pakistan," according to the Indian document, aptly titled, 'India's Experience and Need for Action Against Pakistan,' authored by Dr. Bhashyam Kasturi and Pankaj Mehra. "The aim is," the authors wrote, "to break the stranglehold of the intelligence agencies, the bureaucracy and the military in Pakistan." We Pakistanis need to learn how our domestic politics should be managed unless we want to lose everything.
---------------------------------------
Ahmed Quraishi
Web : http://ahmedquraishi.com
The writer also works for Geo TV.
Email: aq@ahmedquraishi.com
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Sign the Petition : Release the Arrested University Teachers Immediately : An Appeal to the Caretaker Government of Bangladesh
http://www.mukto-mona.com/human_rights/university_teachers_arrest.htm
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Daily Star publishes an interview with Mukto-Mona
http://www.mukto-mona.com/news/daily_star/daily_star_MM.pdf
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MM site is blocked in Islamic countries such as UAE. Members of those theocratic states, kindly use any proxy (such as http://proxy.org/) to access mukto-mona.
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Mukto-Mona Celebrates 5th Anniversary
http://www.mukto-mona.com/Special_Event_/5_yrs_anniv/index.htm
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Mukto-Mona Celebrates Earth Day:
http://www.mukto-mona.com/Special_Event_/Earth_day2006/index.htm
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Kansat Uprising : A Special Page from Mukto-Mona
http://www.mukto-mona.com/human_rights/kansat2006/members/
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MM Project : Grand assembly of local freedom fighters at Raumari
http://www.mukto-mona.com/project/Roumari/freedom_fighters_union300306.htm
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German Bangla Radio Interviews Mukto-Mona Members:
http://www.mukto-mona.com/Special_Event_/Darwin_day/german_radio/
Mukto-Mona Celebrates Darwin Day:
http://www.mukto-mona.com/Special_Event_/Darwin_day/index.htm
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Some FAQ's about Mukto-Mona:
http://www.mukto-mona.com/new_site/mukto-mona/faq_mm.htm
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VISIT MUKTO-MONA WEB-SITE : http://www.mukto-mona.com/
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