Updated

Of late i have spent some time on the out look of this weblog.  I have made a few changes some of which are likely short lived.  I have managed to transfer my blog roll from blog rolling to blogger.  This was done in the hope that it will help the page load faster.  Although I am not completely clear if this has been the case.  Then i have been able to separate and un-clutter my blog roll from my links.  Now you can see a separate section for miscellaneous links.  At the same time I have changed the blog header and the colors of the template to go with the header.  I think this has not been a very successful change.  I plan to go back to my original theme in a few days.  I plan to make a few more changes soon.

What we are

Its late in the night and with every passing minute my eyes are getting heavier with sleep.  I am on call tomorrow and it is a tiring month that has drained all my energies out of me.  I used to think that if there is one thing that doesn’t tire me that is work.  But I think I was wrong.  It is not totally morale boosting when your patients start dying around you and you can’t seem to figure out the cause.  I do try hard and obviously do not want any one to be leaving this world earlier than they should.  But sometimes things happen that are not under my control and they happen fast.  The last week has been a demoralizing one for me.

Anyways the reason I started to write today was to compliment a good article by one of my friends.  I think we the Pakistanis have to get some morale boosting going very soon.  We have to start thinking of ourselves as not the losers but as the ones who are important enough to matter in this world.  It is time that we started playing some shots on the front foot here.  This pitch has been greased by out enemies a lot and is not a perfect playing surface neither is it fair.  But this is part of life and we have to live with it.

I mean I am sick and tired of acting as the menial on the scale.  My people are giving up their lives for the safety and security of this thank less no good world and all I get is more piercing questions about what can be done more.  My people have sacrificed more lives in this war against terror than any other country in this world.  There is trauma of war everywhere in my country.  There is psychological depression on every face and there is no hope left just because we chose to fight a war for someone else in our courtyard.  Some of us tried to benefit as mercenaries and the rest of us are paying the price for that role.  A heavy price.

Then why is it that this world fails to recognize our sacrifices?  I think we can ask this question in history and then very well understand that the fault lies in us for not making people thank us.  We have failed to publicize our sacrifices and soon will become the Palestinians who are thought of but never cared about in the larger scale of things.

We should get our act together and find our place ourselves.  No one will do this for us.

A Cold War in Shangri La - The CIA in Tibet

I had been thinking of a topic to write about for some time.  It evidently was hard to come.  I think i have run out of things to write about or that i do no longer feel passionately about things to make me express my opinion on this blog.  Somehow things that matter in life are completely unrelated to the things that are worth writing about on this blog.  Kind of moot points.

Anyhow, I was reading this post on a weblog which very briefly narrates the involvement of CIA in Tibet in the 1950’s and 60’s.  The story sounds very similar to the one my country is seeing now.  If only the word Tibet is replaced with Baluchistan in the narration it would sound like a story from present day.  I am intrigued.

A Cold War in Shangri La - The CIA in Tibet - Where Tibetans Write

Nuclear Armed

Getting a nuclear arsenal is one thing, retaining it another.  Congratulations to the Pakistani nation on being able to keep its nuclear arsenal safe from the real enemy and keeping the future safe with the present.

Sri Lankan people win

As i was rounding yesterday i browsed through the news briefly.  It appears that Tamil Tigers have been finally defeated and destroyed in the north of Sri Lanka.  After quarter century of war and terrorism this front has cooled down.  One hopes that it stays cold for years and years to come.  I have little understanding of the internal political dynamics of the country but I think this is a landmark victory for the people of Sri Lanka.  It is not very often that civil wars come to a happy conclusion.  This is a rare instance in the history.  The Sri Lankan people must be congratulated whole heartedly for their perseverance in the face of all odds and against all evil that cluttered their beautiful island.  The Pakistani people, I am sure, are with their Sri Lankan fellows in the celebrations for their victory.

I think of all the more important things that lead to this victory education was one of the more important and decisive ones.  In all these years of hardship and trouble what kept the people of Sri Lanka sane and one was their ability to interpret the situation rationally and not emotionally as a nation.  An educated nation is a must for accomplishing such a feat.  Pakistan should take a lesson from this war and make amends at the very basic level.

Lessons from Sri Lanka

Sri Lanka is on the verge of declaring victory over the separatist movement of the Tamil Tigers.  After years of struggle and constant state of war Sri Lanka has done what Pakistan would be able to achieve some day.  In our struggle against the elements that declare terror upon us we must learn our lessons from Sri Lanka.  Tamil Tigers were the first people in the modern history to utilize living humans as payload delivery systems.  So they are very much similar to the fanatic elements that we are coming across in our north west frontier province.  They fight a guerilla war and hide and attack.  And in all possibility they have been trained by the same agency that trained the Tami Tigers.  Therefore it would be a great idea to get some ideas from the Sri Lankan friends in helping us fight the resistance movement.

If Sri Lanka can do it so can we.

But as I was thinking about these lines i read about SSG being paratrooped behind enemy lines.  Now it could be as simple as a battle tactic.  Para trooping soldiers behind enemy lines.  But could it be paratrooping reinforcements for the enemy.  Or could it be Paratrooping SSG to retrieve valuable human assets from the hot zone.  I don’t know.  It could be anything.   I think Fazlullah will not be found.  He will disappear now like a ghost from the scene.

Made in Pakistan – UAV!

This news item is very interesting and apparently something that has been floating on the internet circles for a long time without coming into my notice.  I must admit that I am amazed every day with the amount of unique knowledge that comes my way when I open the doors of world wide web.  Sometimes I do wonder that it would be a life worth living as ‘John Henry’, from TSCC but then again human brain is a miracle in itself with 20 billion calculations going on simultaneously in an average brain and a potentially limitless memory.  I would not want to trade off mine for a cord connected ‘John Henry’.

Pakistani private sector is shining in the field of arms making and development of low cost alternative solutions to modern warfare.  This should not be something new as Pakistani north is famous for its uniqueness in manufacturing weaponry of every kind from a mere pistol to a rocket launcher.  But things have progressed from the times of the old Afghan war.  Now we have private defense

contractors with very impressive portfolios.  I would link to and copy paste an article that appeared in Dinar Standard and since then has been copy pasted on multiple sites all round the world.

The growing reliance on armed drones (aka Predators) by Americans in Afghanistan and Pakistan's FATA region to target militants has been making headlines with increasing casualties.

This technology of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) or drones designed and manufactured in Pakistan has also been making news since the IDEAS (International Defense Exhibition and Seminar) 2008 event, a 5-day biennial arms show held November last year in Karachi, Pakistan. Among the largest foreign pavilions at the exhibition, Turkey had 28 companies and United States had 22. Other major exhibitors came from China, France, Germany, Italy, Russia, South Korea, South Africa, the Ukraine and the United Kingdom. Among other products, Pakistani companies showed off JF-17 fighter plane built by Pakistan Aeronautical Complex in partnership with China's Chengdu Aircraft, Al-Khalid main battle tank, and a variety of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) designed, developed and built in Pakistan.

Integrated Dynamics is a full-service UAV (Unmanned Aerial Vehicles) systems provider based in Karachi, Pakistan. The company has been in business since 1997 and designs and integrates UAV systems primarily for the Government of Pakistan, the Pakistan armed forces and export.

In addition to supplying drones to the Pakistani military, the company exports its products to Australia, Spain, South Korea and Libya and the United States. The US Homeland Security Department uses ID's Border Eagle surveillance drone for border patrol duties.

The complete article can be read here.

A similar article appeared in the Wired magazine.

Since 2002, Pakistan has dramatically expanded its robotic fleet in the sky, Defense News reports. The Pakistani Air Force has two UAV squadrons -- and is looking to build up to six.

So companies like East West Infiniti are building SIGINT [signals intelligence] for small drones and robotic blimps, to capture those conversations.

This article can be read here.

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