The Rogue General rocks. Really. Look at all the accolades he’s getting from the media. Inhouse terrorist-sympathizers and from his own country’s media (they won’t do otherwise).

But his million-forked tongue is ever vigilant. Truly, a man for all seasons. He keeps everyone happy. The Big Bush Boss, our Puppet Prime Minister and his ever-reliable horde of Islamists. But if this news report is to be believed, the General is in trouble.

As if in response, The Nation, an English daily from the Nawa-i-Waqt stable, noted, “If durable peace, as we understand, is not possible
without the resolution of Kashmir in accordance with the wishes of the people, how progress could be claimed towards that end?” Again, the newspapers argued, Musharraf can scarcely claim that the peace process is “irreversible”, pointing out that Islamabad has always maintained that “unless Kashmir, which is the real bone of contention, is resolved, the peace process cannot be sustained.” It said the leaders cannot abandon the cause of the Kashmiris; “for it constitutes equally our own cause.”

Political hardliners bristle with rage. The Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal, an alliance of religious parties, feels India has vanquished Pakistan in cricket diplomacy. Its leader Syed Munawar Hassan says, “India has reaped all benefits,” adding acerbically that the foreign ministry should tell the nation the steps that have been taken to resolve the Kashmir issue.

When I checked the latest column on the issue in the Nation’s online edition, the General has reassured his beloved India-haters subjects that he will be unbending on Kashmir.

THE President, in his PTV programme ‘Aap kay rubaru’ on Tuesday, has emphatically stated that there has been no U-turn in Pakistan’s policy on Kashmir,…

While we’re on the subject, the edit piece I’ve linked to in the preceding paragraph is seriously amusing. I was struck by the similarity between the language, and the structure of the argument between this and the ones we read in India.

India has firmly stuck to its stand of ‘no question of redrawing boundaries’ calmly watching our leadership make one concession after the other.

And some pathological bloggers here also abuse the “calm” Indian government of granting concessions to Pakistan. However, read on to amuse yourself further. The author has successfully deluded himself into thinking that the official pamphlets that pronounce Pakistan a democracy are all true.

One should have expected, though, that in a parliamentary democracy, which we claim has taken root in the country,…

Meanwhile, Mushy must be laughing secretly at all this. It’s good to have some controversy so he can be in news. For all this breastbeating by the so-called hardliners–Mushy is the biggest, and the most seasoned hardliner of them all–all that Thugaraff has called for is an ‘out-of-the-box’ approach to solving the Kashmir problem; he has at no point suggested that he’ll make any concession on the LOC issue. Plus his words of “irreversible peace process” don’t really mean anything.

But the Indian media’s orgasm shows no signs of waning.