Adrian > Recent Status Updates

Part 4 treating the Taleban (pakistani or afghan) , how they operate ,recruit and find safe heavens within the Pathans of NWFT and FATA , their origin , relationship with ISI ,army , Pashto code of honour-Pashtunwali, Afghan gonverment and of course insurgencies against the pakistani military and terrorist attacks is by far the best material i have read in a while.

Pathans are similar to 18 century scots without the alcohol. People with proud history of independence bitterly resentful of their incorporation in a new state,while many at the same time drawing tremendous advantages from membership of that state, most of which is much richer than their stony pastures.

Pakistan is against its doemstic Talibans ( who do terrorist attacks in the Pashto regions and fights against them) but gives shelter to Afghan Talibans and does not crackdown on them since they are the only asset they have in Afghanistan, if, in the future India decides to support non-pathan forces (Northern Alliance remnants) in Afghanistan and thus attack Pakistan from West and East.

Pakistan intelligence agency (ISI) formed and financed terrorism and guerillas to destabilize India in Kashmir. However when things went sour , said guerillas turned their eyes westward and tried to collude with the Afghan Taleban.
US demands on ISI to disband former Kashmir guerillas is impossible since they could at any time start targeting Pakistani western provinces.

Policemen are underequipped , mistrained while the judicial system is overloaded in such a way that even if corruption , intimidation, lazyness , laxness and "live and let live" mentality weren't present still nothing could be done for example to the 100000 active cases in Karachi to just 100 judges.
Delays appear even because there are not enough cars to transport convicts from prisons to courts for hearings.

In Pakistan police are only there to maintain order and but not to assault criminals and impose sentences. The disputes can only be settled via jirga , which is a tribal system centered around honor , negotiation and compesation. Most of the times people , including the victims ,do not want the criminals to be sent to jail , but to be compensated by this one-s family.

Sharia is a written law alike the state law and has nothing to do with local unwritten laws like Pashtunwali, laws which though unwriten , in the rural areas as well as many cities regulate matters of sexual relationships, marriage , crimes and local disputes.
Pakistanis use and abuse these 3 law codes(State,Sharia and Local) in their interest , thus we can say Pakistan is a "negociated state"

In Pakistan state law competes with Sharia law and both try to take out the primitive local law. Therefore unlike other countiries where everybody is subject to a centrliazed legal system with supreme authority , the ordinary pakistani citizen can CHOOSE whichever law suits him best in any given situation.

Pakistanis all try to twist and bend the law in their favour , they also despise the law since it is the law of the British that ruled India , hence judicial power of the state is weak and everybody tries to weaken it, while all despise it and are frustrared when the state offers no justice and is very costly for the ordinary men. That is why groups such as Taliban gained influence , they serve justice fast (3days) .

"Taleban justice is better than that of the Pakistani state.If you have any problem you can go to the Taleban and they will solve it without you having to pay anything- not like the courts and police, who will take your money and do nothing"

Getting hardcore with Berkley sockets

This book does a terrific job explaining how tcp/udp datagrams are sent from one server in one subnetwork to another server on another subnetwork showing along the way in baby steps what everything means and its purpose : NIC, NAT, WAN, LAN !

Superb !

XIX century Britain tears down the muslim mini states of north India. Muslims fearing the hindus embrace islam more radically and start waging war with britain
By early XX century both hindus and muslims demand independence. Muslims do not want a separate country but a union of the two populations but by 1940 it becomes clear only separation is feasible. Pakistan and Bengal (Bangladesh) thus separate from India.

Basically in Pakistan the society is like a wheel within a wheel within a wheel. Me against my brother , me and my bro against my cousin , me and my cousin against other tribes etc...
The clan society is the thing that grants Pakistan resiliency against external troubles but its also the main cause of stagnancy.
Besides the military that is a meritocracy, every public servant fends for himself like a freelancer.

Tbe state does not necesarily affect many people's lives very much either in terms of benefits or oppressions.
The presence of policemen, judges and officials may make it look as if the state is present, but much of the time these people are working - and sometimes killing - on their own account , or at the behest of whoever has the most power, influence and money at a certain point, in a certain place.

"Involuntar parintii fac din copil ceva asemanator cu ei si numesc asta educatie.Nici o mama nu se indoieste in adancul inimii ei ca acel copil pe care l-a nascut este proprietatea sa, nici un tata nu-si refuza dreptul de a-l subordona pe copil ideilor si evaluarilor sale.
Aidoma tatalui, profesorul, preotul principele vad si astazi in fiecare noua fiinta umana o ocazie incontestabila de a domina ceva nou."

Iranians blame USA for dethroning Mohammad Mossadeq the true man of the people. However reading this book proves that the americans hands in the coup against mossdeq was just simbolic. Eisenhower just approved the coup instigated by iranian politicians but didn't actually lift a finger. The coup failed and US balked forever. After that iranians took matters in their own hands and succesfully did a second coup.

Terrific job at explaining the Network stack. For example the layers that in university are just mentioned here i rlly got a feel on how Ethernet protocol (link layer) translates packets to underlying hardware layer (coaxial).
Then i finally understood that in order to connect two hosts that use different link layers you need an abstraction layer on top , which is the network layer.

So grateful for this book !

Incredullous how much Russians tried to dismember Iran, a country already under joint occupation (russian,british, american) after WW2 .
The old iranian diplomats managed the crysis briliantly using America as muscle against Stalin and accepting Washington's advisors knowing full well their proposed said reforms would not work in Iran long. term. Russians fabricated Azerbaijan as a knife in Iran's sovereignity.