I have been dying to post this article on my blog for a while. The article is written by Muhammed Khurshid for OpEdNews.

Muhammed Khurshid's Message at the very end of the article is simple and articulate, and I find it appropriate to preamble the article with the authors introduction:

Authors Website: www.voiceforpeace.8m.com

Authors Bio: My name is Muhammad Khurshid, a bonafide resident of Bajaur Agency, situated on Pak-Afghan border. Basically I am a journalist, but nowadays I have been working for peace in Bajaur Agency Tribal Areas. During my three years struggle I have conveyed a message to the people that they should abandon terrorism and work for peace. Now the tribal people have decided to extend a helping hand to the civilised world in war against terrorism, but in return they demand of the world to provide them opportunity of education. Education is the only mean of defeating terrorism.

July 23, 2007

Who Will Be Our Leader?

By Muhammad Khurshid

Failure of the rulers in war on terrorism has proved that they have not launched the war with sincerity. Actually they have used the war on terrorism for earning more and more.

Pakistan has been passing through from a critical phase of history. Operation in Lal Masjid, Islamabad in which a large number of people including women and children were killed sparked heated debate. Newsmen, writers and politcians have been holding rulers responsible for the carnage.

They said that the government could avoid the bloodbath in Islamabad if they showed sincerity in the earlier stage of drama. Some of them have been calling for democracy in Pakistan.

One writer Syed Sharfuddin wrote that Lal Masjid nightmare is finally over and so is the All Parties Conference. But the soul-searching that has just begun will remain with us for a long time to come. If we address these questions correctly and draw the right lessons from it now, there is hope for the future.

If we ignore the aftershocks and carry on doing business as usual, the problems that underlie the surface will not vanish on their own. The next showdown with the discontented sections of society may be uglier and far more costly in terms of national interests.

During 2005-6, I visited the Maldives many times to facilitate a Commonwealth-brokered dialogue between the government and opposition political parties on democratic reforms.

Opposition political parties believed that as long as President Maumoon Abdul Gayoom was aiming a gun at the political opposition, a dialogue with the government would achieve nothing. Ironically, this metaphor applies more accurately to the situation in Pakistan where a president is indeed holding a gun in his hand in his capacity as chief of army staff for the last eight years. It is also a double irony that perhaps with the sole exception of Ghulam Ishaq Khan, none of the presidents of Pakistan left his office with dignity.

President Musharraf claims to break from the past by allowing the assemblies to complete their full term, but he has shown no sign of leaving his office voluntarily. He should not stay in office until he is forced by circumstances to leave in disgrace following the precedent of his infamous predecessors.

The recently concluded Lal Masjid operation has once again underlined the point which is often ignored by those in the media limelight and high places. That is, no person, group or institution should be permitted to challenge the sovereign authority of the state by taking the law in his or its own hands.

Regrettably, the military establishment has always assumed that it is exempt from this fundamental principle of democracy. Not only have Pakistan’s past military rulers violated the Basic Law, they have also tinkered with it to evade subsequent judicial trails. True democracy has no room for preferential treatment for one institution over the other, nor does it allow double standards to be applied to different individuals.

The Lal Masjid operation has also exposed the poor performance of the intelligence agencies. Contrary to their reports, there were no top-seeded Al Qaeda militants guiding the siege, no belted suicide bomb squads, no hand-held missile launchers nor any land-mined fields in the Lal Masjid compound.

In the absence of such deadly paraphernalia, it is a shame that about 76 half-trained religious teachers, students and militants, with a limited number of Kalashnikovs and light arms kept the elite commando unit of the Pakistan army at bay for eight days.

The authorities should have known each and every person, pillar and beam in the Lal Masjid compound through its intelligence network. If they did not know a public building and its access and cut out points in their own capital city, then either the intelligence agencies failed totally in performing their duty, or there is something missing in the story, namely, that vital information was kept from the authorities to cause them maximum embarrassment in the rescue operation.

If none of this is true, can this inefficiency be ascribed to the fact that our uniformed men have got used to the comforts and complacency of civilian outfits because of their involvement in politics, instead of remaining a professional force concerned only with the defence of the country and attending to extraordinary emergency situations?

If a religious band of extremists can give a tough time to the army for such a long period on its own ground, how can the nation trust the military to defend the country against an external enemy that may have more sophisticated weapons and a superior support base? We might as well adopt a compulsory national defence service for all male adults instead of keeping a large defence force. Is that the reason why our president goes a long way to please those foreign powers that keep asking him to “do more” to achieve their global strategic objectives?

As Imran Khan said recently at the All Parties Conference in London, it is in the nature of pluralistic societies to have their own brand of extremists and militants. They are not specific to Pakistan or the Muslim world. You can find them in India, the UK, the US, Russia and any other country which is trying to grapple with multi-ethnic issues and complex economic and social problems.

There are two ways of dealing with militants. One is the American way — swift military response, no dialogue, massive injections of economic assistance for short-term results, but a huge collateral damage and more long-term instability that prolongs the conflict instead of subsiding it.

The other is the non-American way — remaining vigilant but patient, understanding the core issues and tackling them one by one, talking to the extremists with the aim of winning hearts and minds and preserving the law, democracy and human rights. The latter approach is less visible but more enduring. We need not follow the American way in dealing with problems that reside inside Pakistan.

In a true democracy, constitutions are written to be followed in letter and spirit; these are not amended every now and then to facilitate the long reign of dictators. A functioning democracy which is built on the Westminster model relies on parliament to enact legislation; it does not use the executive and the cabinet to promulgate ordinances to bypass legislature and introduce laws through the back door.

In a credible democracy, political agreements are honoured at all costs; these are not changed at the last minute to save a government. And above all, mature democracies are prepared to dump individuals through such instruments as voluntary resignations and democratic rotation of leaders to keep institutions strong; such societies do not sacrifice institutions to serve the whims of the ruling oligarchy. Apply this criterion to Pakistan one by one and judge for yourself where do we stand in scoring a pass mark in this democratic test.

The judiciary is one institution which was never affected by military coups. Yet, the judges who presided over the judicial case against the first martial law in Pakistan made the fundamental mistake of legitimising it under the infamous doctrine of state necessity. The higher courts that heard the cases of subsequent martial laws did not challenge this theory.

The causes of the judiciary’s compromise with the military rulers lie in two streams — the stream of tradition and the stream of convenience. Traditionally, the judiciary has never been independent in an Islamic polity. In fact, during the glory days of Islamic empires when Muslim armies came knocking at the gates of Europe and Central Asia, the caliph appointed only those chief justices who were prepared to back his policies. There were, of course, exceptions to this rule. But by and large the primary role of the chief justice in a caliphate was to provide legal sanction to the acts of the executive.

Although Pakistan has a modern judiciary far removed from those forlorn days, the judiciary has traditionally continued its role of backing the executive (its recent verdict in the Chief Justice’s case being an important exception). Little wonder then that in their times, Justice Cornelius and Justice Dorab Patel did not feel the need to follow this archaic tradition because they were not Muslims.

The other reason why the judiciary favoured the executive is rooted in convenience. The judiciary chose to support military takeovers in Pakistan on the assumption that if it did not do so, it too would be replaced by military courts.

The judges may have been partially right because they saw how the military permeated the administrative, executive, legislative and political echelons of society under martial laws. But they did not realise that in saving the judiciary from military intervention, they were legitimising a rule which had no legal basis and could not last long on its own.

What is the point of having Article 6 in the Constitution if a court cannot invoke it to deter any one person, group or institution from violating the primary law of the land.

There is increasing demand for a full public enquiry to be launched into the Lal Masjid incident. It is only proper that a commission should be constituted independently under parliament in order to answer the scores of questions that are being asked about the preparedness of the government for dealing with militancy, hostage-taking, and the build- up of small arms in civilian institutions.

It is also important for the independent enquiry to focus on the larger context in which the Lal Masjid episode occurred. What can the state do to balance Islam with secularism, prevent social decay and continue to modernise itself, and manage conflicting views and expectations of people in a pluralistic society?

How can the human rights of prisoners be guaranteed to inculcate a sense of dignity? How can double standards be avoided in relation to treatment of persons, whether supporters or opponents of the government, who are involved in corruption and other criminal cases?

Can police be better trained to exercise its functions in a manner that gives full legal protection to the accused so that those arrested feel confident that they can defend themselves before the courts?

The independent enquiry should focus on lessons to be learnt on restoring the credibility of the government and bringing democratic values.

If this episode is allowed to pass quietly into history, the danger is that many other Lal Masjids will be hatching under the sun to challenge the authority of the state in more chilling ways than what Pakistan has so far witnessed. Wishing it away as paranoia without taking corrective positive action will not help.

The End

A probing piece from the NY Times Editorial. So significant is the insight provided in the article by active military personal , that it ought to be simplified into flow charts and illustrations and articulated to every stupendously ignorant American. It questions the act of "exploitation of sovereignty" and its implications. The fight for sovereignty in Iraq is no more an national cause, but an ethnic one, and each group sees the start of secondary oppression at the hands of the group in power, the day the Americans choose to leave Iraq. Not to forget the Shia Sunni conflict being the major tussle entrenched over centuries, each sect formulated on questioning the fundamentals of the other as the true representation of Islam.

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August 19, 2007

Op-Ed Contributors

The War as We Saw It

By BUDDHIKA JAYAMAHA, WESLEY D. SMITH, JEREMY ROEBUCK, OMAR MORA, EDWARD SANDMEIER, YANCE T. GRAY and JEREMY A. MURPHY

Baghdad

VIEWED from Iraq at the tail end of a 15-month deployment, the political debate in Washington is indeed surreal. Counterinsurgency is, by definition, a competition between insurgents and counterinsurgents for the control and support of a population. To believe that Americans, with an occupying force that long ago outlived its reluctant welcome, can win over a recalcitrant local population and win this counterinsurgency is far-fetched. As responsible infantrymen and noncommissioned officers with the 82nd Airborne Division soon heading back home, we are skeptical of recent press coverage portraying the conflict as increasingly manageable and feel it has neglected the mounting civil, political and social unrest we see every day. (Obviously, these are our personal views and should not be seen as official within our chain of command.)

The claim that we are increasingly in control of the battlefields in Iraq is an assessment arrived at through a flawed, American-centered framework. Yes, we are militarily superior, but our successes are offset by failures elsewhere. What soldiers call the “battle space” remains the same, with changes only at the margins. It is crowded with actors who do not fit neatly into boxes: Sunni extremists, Al Qaeda terrorists, Shiite militiamen, criminals and armed tribes. This situation is made more complex by the questionable loyalties and Janus-faced role of the Iraqi police and Iraqi Army, which have been trained and armed at United States taxpayers’ expense.

A few nights ago, for example, we witnessed the death of one American soldier and the critical wounding of two others when a lethal armor-piercing explosive was detonated between an Iraqi Army checkpoint and a police one. Local Iraqis readily testified to American investigators that Iraqi police and Army officers escorted the triggermen and helped plant the bomb. These civilians highlighted their own predicament: had they informed the Americans of the bomb before the incident, the Iraqi Army, the police or the local Shiite militia would have killed their families.

As many grunts will tell you, this is a near-routine event. Reports that a majority of Iraqi Army commanders are now reliable partners can be considered only misleading rhetoric. The truth is that battalion commanders, even if well meaning, have little to no influence over the thousands of obstinate men under them, in an incoherent chain of command, who are really loyal only to their militias.

Similarly, Sunnis, who have been underrepresented in the new Iraqi armed forces, now find themselves forming militias, sometimes with our tacit support. Sunnis recognize that the best guarantee they may have against Shiite militias and the Shiite-dominated government is to form their own armed bands. We arm them to aid in our fight against Al Qaeda.

However, while creating proxies is essential in winning a counterinsurgency, it requires that the proxies are loyal to the center that we claim to support. Armed Sunni tribes have indeed become effective surrogates, but the enduring question is where their loyalties would lie in our absence. The Iraqi government finds itself working at cross purposes with us on this issue because it is justifiably fearful that Sunni militias will turn on it should the Americans leave.

In short, we operate in a bewildering context of determined enemies and questionable allies, one where the balance of forces on the ground remains entirely unclear. (In the course of writing this article, this fact became all too clear: one of us, Staff Sergeant Murphy, an Army Ranger and reconnaissance team leader, was shot in the head during a “time-sensitive target acquisition mission” on Aug. 12; he is expected to survive and is being flown to a military hospital in the United States.) While we have the will and the resources to fight in this context, we are effectively hamstrung because realities on the ground require measures we will always refuse — namely, the widespread use of lethal and brutal force.

Given the situation, it is important not to assess security from an American-centered perspective. The ability of, say, American observers to safely walk down the streets of formerly violent towns is not a resounding indicator of security. What matters is the experience of the local citizenry and the future of our counterinsurgency. When we take this view, we see that a vast majority of Iraqis feel increasingly insecure and view us as an occupation force that has failed to produce normalcy after four years and is increasingly unlikely to do so as we continue to arm each warring side.

Coupling our military strategy to an insistence that the Iraqis meet political benchmarks for reconciliation is also unhelpful. The morass in the government has fueled impatience and confusion while providing no semblance of security to average Iraqis. Leaders are far from arriving at a lasting political settlement. This should not be surprising, since a lasting political solution will not be possible while the military situation remains in constant flux.

The Iraqi government is run by the main coalition partners of the Shiite-dominated United Iraqi Alliance, with Kurds as minority members. The Shiite clerical establishment formed the alliance to make sure its people did not succumb to the same mistake as in 1920: rebelling against the occupying Western force (then the British) and losing what they believed was their inherent right to rule Iraq as the majority. The qualified and reluctant welcome we received from the Shiites since the invasion has to be seen in that historical context. They saw in us something useful for the moment.

Now that moment is passing, as the Shiites have achieved what they believe is rightfully theirs. Their next task is to figure out how best to consolidate the gains, because reconciliation without consolidation risks losing it all. Washington’s insistence that the Iraqis correct the three gravest mistakes we made — de-Baathification, the dismantling of the Iraqi Army and the creation of a loose federalist system of government — places us at cross purposes with the government we have committed to support.

Political reconciliation in Iraq will occur, but not at our insistence or in ways that meet our benchmarks. It will happen on Iraqi terms when the reality on the battlefield is congruent with that in the political sphere. There will be no magnanimous solutions that please every party the way we expect, and there will be winners and losers. The choice we have left is to decide which side we will take. Trying to please every party in the conflict — as we do now — will only ensure we are hated by all in the long run.

At the same time, the most important front in the counterinsurgency, improving basic social and economic conditions, is the one on which we have failed most miserably. Two million Iraqis are in refugee camps in bordering countries. Close to two million more are internally displaced and now fill many urban slums. Cities lack regular electricity, telephone services and sanitation. “Lucky” Iraqis live in gated communities barricaded with concrete blast walls that provide them with a sense of communal claustrophobia rather than any sense of security we would consider normal.

In a lawless environment where men with guns rule the streets, engaging in the banalities of life has become a death-defying act. Four years into our occupation, we have failed on every promise, while we have substituted Baath Party tyranny with a tyranny of Islamist, militia and criminal violence. When the primary preoccupation of average Iraqis is when and how they are likely to be killed, we can hardly feel smug as we hand out care packages. As an Iraqi man told us a few days ago with deep resignation, “We need security, not free food.”

In the end, we need to recognize that our presence may have released Iraqis from the grip of a tyrant, but that it has also robbed them of their self-respect. They will soon realize that the best way to regain dignity is to call us what we are — an army of occupation — and force our withdrawal.

Until that happens, it would be prudent for us to increasingly let Iraqis take center stage in all matters, to come up with a nuanced policy in which we assist them from the margins but let them resolve their differences as they see fit. This suggestion is not meant to be defeatist, but rather to highlight our pursuit of incompatible policies to absurd ends without recognizing the incongruities.

We need not talk about our morale. As committed soldiers, we will see this mission through.

Buddhika Jayamaha is an Army specialist. Wesley D. Smith is a sergeant. Jeremy Roebuck is a sergeant. Omar Mora is a sergeant. Edward Sandmeier is a sergeant. Yance T. Gray is a staff sergeant. Jeremy A. Murphy is a staff sergeant.

A great piece by Rob Smyth in The Guardian (UK), on the unheralded Pakistan Cricket Team of the 80s.

On second thoughts: Imran Khan's Pakistan

The legendary West Indies side of the 80s never managed to beat them, yet Pakistan's greatest side are nowhere near cricket's pantheon.

June 14, 2007 11:17 AM

Modern Test cricket can be akin to the school playground: the batting bullies prey upon frail bowlers who are given little or no support by both the authorities and their culture. But at least the damage has a natural limit: sticks and stones may break your bones, but X-rated figures will never hurt you. It was different in the 1980s, when West Indies' army of fast bowlers turned Test cricket into a war zone. They were armed with so much more than sticks and stones - when they brutalised England inside three days in Sabina Park in 1986 Wisden Cricket Monthly described it as "cricket's equivalent to the Somme". But amid the rubble and bodies left in their wake, one opponent stood proud and unbeaten. In three Test series against the otherwise omnipotent Windies in the late 80s and early 90s, Pakistan drew 1-1 each time.

That West Indies side is justly in cricket's pantheon, along with the contemporary Australians, the Invincibles, the lost South Africans of the 70s and England in the mid 50s. Yet the side they could not break are nowhere to be seen. The cornered tigers of 1992, who won the World Cup in such spectacular style, are the most celebrated side in Pakistan's history. But they only peaked for 15 giddy days: Imran's side did it for nearly 15 years. And, without Imran, the new breed were savaged in the Caribbean in 1992-93. Although there was crossover between the sides, they were essentially different in nature: the World Cup winners had an injection of youth in Inzamam-ul-Haq, Aqib Javed, Mushtaq Ahmed, Aamir Sohail and Moin Khan. Imran's 80s outfit were not so much cornered tigers as streetwise foxes, experienced, cute, and trusted by very few.

The only other sides to draw a series with West Indies in that period were India and New Zealand, each at home, but when they went to the Caribbean they were mangled. Not Pakistan. Their bald record suggests a very special side: they were the only team to win a Test in the Caribbean in the 80s, the only team to avoid defeat in a series in the Caribbean between 1974 and 1995, the only team to win a series in India between 1985 and 2000, and they did not lose a series outside Australasia (which, given the appreciable bounce, is the most unnatural habitat for a subcontinental batsman) between 1982 and 1993.

In that 11-year period they lost just 10 out of 80 Tests and, if their win-ratio in that time (33%, or 26 out of those 80 Tests) precludes the award of greatness, they were still an extremely formidable side. And at home - two defeats and 18 wins from 39 games - they were almost unbeatable. That leads us to the other, inevitable, caveat: umpiring. Before the advent of neutral umpires it was felt that outsiders were about as likely to get an LBW against Pakistan in Pakistan as they were a warm welcome in a redneck bar. Yet the statistics are not too damning. While Pakistan were given 164 LBWs to their opponents' 78 in the 80s, those only accounted for 21% of Pakistan's wickets as against 17% of their opponents. The statistics lend some support to a long-held view of partial officiating, but they cannot discredit this side's achievements.

This was a team that had almost everything, based around their two contrasting champions: Imran Khan and Javed Miandad, lover and streetfighter, stallion and rapscallion, regal leader and rascally lieutenant. Not that they were alone; quality and ruggedness oozed from every pore. There was an ultra-patient top order, including Mudassar Nazar, the resourceful Ramiz Raja and Shoaib Mohammad, whose methodology made Chris Tavare seem skittish; the majestic middle-order pair of Miandad and the bad-wicket genius Salim Malik, buttressed by Imran at No7 and the wicketkeeper-hitter Saleem Yousuf at No8. Then there was the most beautifully varied bowling attack imaginable: Imran and Wasim Akram, swinging and reverse-swinging the ball at paint-stripping pace from different angles, and the magical legspinner Abdul Qadir. So lean was the rest of the body that they could even carry traces of flab: the roles of sixth batsman and fourth bowler were never really filled.

Their battles with West Indies, in three series in 1986-87, 1987-88 and 1990-91, are forgotten epics of the game. In an age when flat pitches and high scores predominated, these were revelatory dogfights, low-scoring scraps of such quality and artistic integrity that they might have been produced by HBO: in four of the nine Tests the first-innings difference was 25 or under, and only one of 35 innings exceeded 400. Each time Pakistan won the first Test of a series; each time West Indies roared back like champions; each time Pakistan resisted an almost violently turning tide to emerge from the series with a draw. It is important to note that Viv Richards missed four of those nine Tests but, by the same token, Miandad, every bit as central to his side's runscoring - and, almost more importantly, identity - as Richards, and Malik also missed games.

All three were present for the first Test at Faisalabad in 1986-87 when Pakistan recovered from a first-innings deficit of 89 to rout West Indies by 186 runs, with Imran (4 for 30) and Qadir (6 for 16) shredding West Indies for 53, then their lowest-ever total. They fought back to batter Pakistan in the next Test, hustling them out for 131 and 77, and the series was drawn when Pakistan, chasing 213 to win the final Test, held on grimly at 125 for seven, with Imran and Tauseef Ahmed surviving the last hour and a half as the walls closed in.

Seventeen months later Pakistan began the return series with another crushing victory, by nine wickets, thanks mainly to stunning performances from Imran (11 for 121 in the match) and Miandad (an epic seven-hour 114). The second Test was drawn, with the last man Qadir surviving the final five deliveries after Pakistan had called off their improbable chase of 372 to end on 341 for nine. Then came a classic third Test: Pakistan's 309 played West Indies' 306 before Pakistan sneaked to 262. Chasing 266, West Indies looked dead and buried at 207 for eight, but Jeff Dujon stonewalled and the No10 Winston Benjamin cuffed them to an improbable victory that kept their proud unbeaten record alive. Ironically it was Pakistan who had cause to doubt the umpiring: Qadir had three huge shouts for the ninth wicket turned down and was so piqued that he punched a heckler, eventually settling out of court so that he could return to Pakistan.

When West Indies returned to Pakistan, in 1990-91, the hosts had lost a Qadir and found a Waqar Younis. It turned out to be a decent trade, and he took nine wickets as Pakistan breezed to victory by eight wickets in the first Test despite only three players reaching double figures in their first innings: Shoaib (86 in eight hours), Malik (102) and Imran (73 not out). History repeated as West Indies cantered home by seven wickets in the second Test, and again in the third as Imran - just as in 1986-87 - ensured a draw by batting five hours for an unbeaten 58 on the final day.

It was fitting that the last word went to Imran, because he lorded over these contests like a colossus. Despite a series of ailments he was Pakistan's only ever-present in those three series (West Indies had five). Nobody on either side got near his 45 wickets at the blistering average of 14.87, and he added 356 runs at 32.36 for good measure. At the age of 38, this was his last significant act in Test cricket. He could retire safe in the knowledge that he had not lost the final battle, and that he had never lost the war.

MUSH: Pakistan’s Dictator

If Gen. Pervez Musharraf were the democratic leader he indignantly insists he is, he would not be so busy threatening independent news outlets, arresting hundreds of opposition politicians and berating parliamentary leaders and ministers from his own party for insufficient loyalty to his arbitrary and widely unpopular policies.

But nobody takes General Musharraf’s democratic claims seriously anymore, except for the Bush administration, which has put itself in the embarrassing position of propping up the Muslim world’s most powerful military dictator as an essential ally in its half-baked campaign to promote democracy throughout the Muslim world. Washington needs to disentangle America, quickly, from the general’s damaging embrace.

Ever since his high-handed dismissal of the country’s independent-minded chief justice in March, the general has been busily digging himself into an ever deeper political hole.

Last week, he issued a decree giving himself increased powers to shut down independent television channels, but under mounting pressure he withdrew it over the weekend. More than 300 local political leaders in Punjab were arrested in an effort to head off protests against the decree. Still, thousands of lawyers, journalists and political activists gathered to protest the firing, the censorship and the general’s continued rule. Pakistan seems to be rapidly approaching a critical turning point, with a choice between intensified repression and instability or an orderly transition back to democratic rule.

Were Washington now to begin distancing itself from the general, it would greatly encourage civic-minded Pakistanis to step up the pressure for free national elections. That’s a process the chief justice was trying to make possible when he was fired. And that is what Pakistan’s last two democratically elected leaders — Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif — are both campaigning for from abroad. The United States should be supporting these efforts, not continuing to make excuses for General Musharraf.

Pakistan has its share of violent Islamic extremists, military and civilian. But they are clearly in the minority. The best hope for diluting their political, and geopolitical, influence lies not in heating the pressure cooker of repression, but in promoting the earliest possible democratic elections.

NYTimes: Editorial 14/06/2007

THE ART OF WAR
If your enemy is secure at all points, be prepared for him. If he is in superior strength, evade him. If your opponent is temperamental, seek to irritate him. Pretend to be weak, that he may grow arrogant. If he is taking his ease, give him no rest. If his forces are united, separate them. If sovereign and subject are in accord, put division between them. Attack him where he is unprepared, appear where you are not expected.
- Sun Tzu, the Art of War


"The art of using troops is this:
......When ten to the enemy's one, surround him;
......When five times his strength, attack him;
......If double his strength, divide him;
......If equally matched you may engage him;
......If weaker numerically, be capable of withdrawing;
......And if in all respects unequal, be capable of eluding him,
..........for a small force is but booty for one more powerful."
- Sun Tzu, the Art Of War

"Regard your soldiers as your children, and they will follow you into the deepest valleys.
Look on them as your own beloved sons, and they will stand by you even unto death!"
- Sun Tzu, the Art of War

the general who wins a battle makes many calculations in his temple ere the battle is fought. The general who loses a battle makes but few calculations beforehand. Thus do many calculations lead to victory, and few calculations to defeat: how much more no calculation at all! It is by attention to this point that I can foresee who is likely to w in or lose.
-Sun Tzu, the Art of War

Some Quote..UnQuote's from Paulo:

... intuition is really a sudden immersion of the soul into the universal current of life, where the histories of all people are connected, and we are able to know everything, because it's all written there.

people need not fear the unknown if they are capable of achieving what they need and want.
"We are afraid of losing what we have, whether it's our life or our possessions and property. But this fear evaporates when we understand that our life stories and the history of the world were written by the same hand."


"I'm alive," he said to the boy, as they ate a bunch of dates one night, with no fires and no moon. "When I'm eating, that's all I think about. If I'm on the march, I just concentrate on marching. If I have to fight, it will be just as good a day to die as any other.

"Because I don't live in either my past or my future. I'm interested only in the present. If you can concentrate always on the present, you'll be a happy man. You'll see that there is life in the desert, that there are stars in the heavens, and that tribesmen fight because they are part of the human race. Life will be a party for you, a grand festival, because life is the moment we're living right now


Meanwhile, the boy thought about his treasure. The closer he got to the realization of his dream, the more difficult things became. It seemed as if what the old king had called "beginner's luck" were no longer functioning. In his pursuit of the dream, he was being constantly subjected to tests of his persistence and courage. So he could not be hasty, nor impatient. If he pushed forward impulsively, he would fail to see the signs and omens left by God along his path.

God placed them along my path. He had surprised himself with the thought. Until then, he had considered the omens to be things of this world. Like eating or sleeping, or like seeking love or finding a job. He had never thought of them in terms of a language used by God to indicate what he should do.


... meaning of love without ownership.


He felt sleepy. In his heart, he wanted to remain awake, but he also wanted to sleep. "I am learning the Language of the World, and everything in the world is beginning to make sense to me… even the flight of the hawks," he said to himself. And, in that mood, he was grateful to be in love. When you are in love, things make even more sense, he thought.

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"I make my living forecasting the future for people," he said. "I know the science of the twigs, and I know how to use them to penetrate to the place where all is written. There, I can read the past, discover what has already been forgotten, and understand the omens that are here in the present.


"When people consult me, it's not that I'm reading the future; I am guessing at the future. The future belongs to God, and it is only he who reveals it, under extraordinary circumstances. How do I guess at the future? Based on the omens of the present. The secret is here in the present. If you pay attention to the present, you can improve upon it. And, if you improve on the present, what comes later will also be better. Forget about the future, and live each day according to the teachings, confident that God loves his children. Each day, in itself, brings with it an eternity.

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"It's not what enters men's mouths that's evil," said the alchemist. "It's what comes out of their mouths that is."

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"You must understand that love never keeps a man from pursuing his destiny. If he abandons that pursuit, it's because it wasn't true love… the love that speaks the Language of the World.

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If what one finds is made of pure matter, it will never spoil. And one can always come back. If what you had found was only a moment of light, like the explosion of a star, you would find nothing on your return."

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"There is only one way to learn," the alchemist answered. "It's through action. Everything you need to know you have learned through your journey. You need to learn only one thing more.


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The boy continued to listen to his heart as they crossed the desert. He came to understand its dodges and tricks, and to accept it as it was. He lost his fear, and forgot about his need to go back to the oasis, because, one afternoon, his heart told him that it was happy. "Even though I complain sometimes," it said, "it's because I'm the heart of a person, and people's hearts are that way. People are afraid to pursue their most important dreams, because they feel that they don't deserve them, or that they'll be unable to achieve them. We, their hearts, become fearful just thinking of loved ones who go away forever, or of moments that could have been good but weren't, or of treasures that might have been found but were forever hidden in the sands. Because, when these things happen, we suffer terribly."


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"Tell your heart that the fear of suffering is worse than the suffering itself. And that no heart has ever suffered when it goes in search of its dreams, because every second of the search is a second's encounter with God and with eternity."


"Every second of the search is an encounter with God," the boy told his heart. "When I have been truly searching for my treasure, every day has been luminous, because I've known that every hour was a part of the dream that I would find it. When I have been truly searching for my treasure, I've discovered things along the way that I never would have seen had I not had the courage to try things that seemed impossible for a shepherd to achieve."

So his heart was quiet for an entire afternoon. That night, the boy slept deeply, and, when he awoke, his heart began to tell him things that came from the Soul of the World. It said that all people who are happy have God within them. And that happiness could be found in a grain of sand from the desert, as the alchemist had said. Because a grain of sand is a moment of creation, and the universe has taken millions of years to create it. "Everyone on earth has a treasure that awaits him," his heart said. "We, people's hearts, seldom say much about those treasures, because people no longer want to go in search of them. We speak of them only to children. Later, we simply let life proceed, in its own direction, toward its own fate. But, unfortunately, very few follow the path laid out for them—the path to their destinies, and to happiness. Most people see the world as a threatening place, and, because they do, the world turns out, indeed, to be a threatening place.

"So, we, their hearts, speak more and more softly. We never stop speaking out, but we begin to hope that our words won't be heard: we don't want people to suffer because they don't follow their hearts."

"Why don't people's hearts tell them to continue to follow their dreams?" the boy asked the alchemist.

"Because that's what makes a heart suffer most, and hearts don't like to suffer."
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What you still need to know is this: before a dream is realized, the Soul of the World tests everything that was learned along the way. It does this not because it is evil, but so that we can, in addition to realizing our dreams, master the lessons we've learned as we've moved toward that dream. That's the point at which most people give up. It's the point at which, as we say in the language of the desert, one 'dies of thirst just when the palm trees have appeared on the horizon.'

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the darkest hour of the night came just before the dawn.

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When you possess great treasures within you, and try to tell others of them, seldom are you believed."

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'Everything that happens once can never happen again. But everything that happens twice will surely happen a third time.' "


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