LEADER ARTICLE: It's Payback Time

[fatman17]

LEADER ARTICLE: It's Payback Time

9 Apr 2008

Haroun Mir

In 1994 when Pakistani officials decided to create a dreadful monster called the Taliban, they didn't bother to estimate its impact on their own society.

In fact, Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence's (ISI) militaristic policies, which consisted of bleeding the Indian army in Kashmir and turning Afghanistan into their virtual fifth province, have blinded them to the consequences.

Their ill-conceived strategy has failed once again. Consequently, the Indian military has emerged stronger from the long conflict in Kashmir and the coalition forces have assisted Afghans to liberate Kabul from the grasp of the Taliban.

Eventually, Pakistan has become the biggest loser because the same radical movements, which its military leaders have created, threaten its very existence.

In the spring of 1992, the communist regime fell and Ahmad Shah Massoud's forces entered Kabul. Pakistani officials instructed their trusted man and surrogate Gulbudin Hekmatyar (leader of Hezb-e-Islami), who had just been appointed the prime minister of the newly established coalition government in Kabul, to burn down the city.

From 1992 to 1994, the Afghan capital became a living hell. Despite intensive efforts, Hekmatyar's forces were stuck in the southern and eastern parts of Kabul and were unable to make significant progress. Pakistani authorities decided to shift their support from Hekmatyar to a then-unknown radical movement — the Taliban.

Along with the ISI the late Benazir Bhutto and Nasrullah Babar — then respectively the prime minister and interior minister of Pakistan — are also to blame because the movement was created under their direct watch.

Few politicians in Pakistan and in the rest of the world ever questioned Pakistan's dangerous policy of purposely nurturing a radical Islamist group.

In September 1995, Colonel Imam (a senior ISI official), with impunity and consent of western officials who had an interest in the Turkmen pipeline project, personally led Taliban forces to capture Herat, which is the largest city in western Afghanistan.

In 1996 when Bin Laden's airplane landed in the Afghan city of Jalalabad, no alarm went off in the capitals of the West.

When the Taliban were beating women, destroying schools, and holding public executions, Pakistani officials were trying to convince the rest of the world by saying that Afghanistan was a backward, fragmented, and ethnically divided country which needed an iron hand to stabilise it.

Today, the same ills that destroyed Afghanistan plague Pakistan. Pakistani society today has become fundamentally divided. The home to Pakistan's intellectuals and moderate middle class is Punjab and Sindh, while radicalism, terrorism and poverty thrive in the Pashtun heartland and in Baluchistan province.

Up to the present moment, Pakistan's military authorities have favoured radical Islamist groups at the expense of moderate and democratic movements.

For example, President Musharraf didn't hesitate to jail lawyers who protested in favour of rule of law and democracy but appeased murderous radical Islamists and Taliban leaders under the phony Pashtun code of conduct enforced in the tribal area.

Until now, Pakistani authorities have been able to avoid a full confrontation with local Taliban groups for fear of alienating Pashtuns who constitute over 15 per cent of Pakistan's popu-lation, but are intentionally over-represented up to 25 per cent in Pakistan's army.

Despite continuous pressure from the US, Pakistan's military authorities have resisted bringing their Punjabi elite units to the tribal battlegrounds against the Pashtun radical movements.

Instead, they heavily relied on militia forces from the tribal zone to secure the area. Pakistani leaders rigorously want to avoid a rift and direct confrontation between Punjabis and Pashtuns.

Indeed, there is a real risk that the "war on terror" in Pakistan might transform into a full war for autonomy or independence of Pashtun tribes from Islamabad.

Pakistani authorities have broken the status quo in the tribal zone by promoting radical Islam and extremist religious leaders at the expense of traditional tribal leaders and institutions.

Pakistan's policy in the tribal zone has been a continuation of former British colonial policy, which consisted of keeping Pashtun tribes economically dependent, politically fragmented, and intellectually backward.

The government in Islamabad has continued to subsidise them and bribe their leaders, instead of creating a sustained economy and providing modern education.

The ageing Al-Qaida leaders and Afghan veterans of the Soviet war are ceding leadership to much younger and emerging local Taliban leaders.

Baitullah Mehsud is the best example of the new leaders, who want to set the agenda rather than follow anyone's orders.

Despite the efforts of ISI and Pakistani religious leaders to force him to fight against "infidel troops" in Afghanistan, Mehsud persisted with his goal to take the battle to Islamabad instead of Kabul.

Many fellow Afghans praise him for taking on Pakistani forces. Indeed, Pakistani authorities created Taliban to protect their interests in Afghanistan and in Kashmir, but are now faced with uncalculated consequences, which seriously threaten Pakistan's own existence.

The newly elected civilian leaders will have a hard time setting right the mistakes committed by the military over more than three decades.

(The writer served as a special assistant to late Ahmad Shah Massoud, Afghanistan's former defence minister.)

 

[muse]

Excellent! More Pakistanis should read our afghan "brothers" to understand fully how irrational and hate filled towards Pakistan these "brothers" are.

Mr. Mir, like most other half literate "neighbors" to the West, conveniently forget that were it not for Pakistan, they would have been the slaves of the Rus, that millions of them found refuge, food, shelter, clothing and livelihood in Pakistan and till today, millions of them continue to live of the kindness of the Pakistani government and people. That more than 2million registered afghan refugees live in Pakistan, 80% of them 3rd generation.

But ofcourse the "lion of Panjshir" had made his peace with the Rus invader and trained his guns of his fellow afghan, hikmatyar.

By the way, for those Pakistanis who do not know, the charge that Pakistan created Taliban is simply untrue, that Pakistan helped the Taliban is most certainly true. But all Pakistanis should know that before the Rus invaded, Hikmatyar, the villain Ahmad Shah Masoud, and the vile Rabbani, had been recruited in the Kabul university to couynter the influence of the communists, that they were taken to Peshawar and gthat their handler was none other than Qazi Hussain Ahamd.

So next time some half literate "brother" Afghan mouths off about Pakistan helping Taliban, point out to them that Pakistan did the same for Masoud, but that Masoud preferred playing traitor, that his brothers are now some of the richest persons in Afghanistan, that the same Afghan is today bought and paid for by the new invaders and will suffer the same fate.

Today, 15 million Afghans depend on Pakistan for evrything - for those of you who have not been there and I was there a few days ago, everything comes from Pakistan, everything -- and the Afghan hates that it does.

Today 15 million destitute, tomorrow when there are 30 million of them, looking for work, food and hope, can you quess where they will turn to?? Maybe they will all go to US - a snowflakes chance in hell - maybe Tajikistan? Like they did in previous years?? Or maybe Iran, where they have no ownership rights, no right to schools and where they are assaulted in the streets and told to go back where they came from.

Yes, the Afghan is sad and yes, the years of war have devastated it's society, but what was Afghanistan before the Rus and civil war? What had these *****, who mouth off about their Aryan origin and referred to as Mongols in Iran, ever achieved other than brigandry, deceit and murder?

Afghans live in glass houses and like throwing stones, Payback a bitch? Live and learn

 

[niaz]

The article ignores the fact that Pakistna's forntier region has been a hot bed of Islamic militancy for a very long time. For example; an Islamic Emirate was created by Syed Ahmad Shahid Braeilvi and Shah Ismael Shaheed ( son of Shah Wali Ullah) in the first half of the 19th century. This was destroyed by Hari Singh Nalwa at the battle of Balakot in 1831. Taliban followed the same model when they created Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan under Mullah omer.

I was once stuck for a few hours during Zia ul Haq time because the road at Malakand Pass had been blocked by Islamic militants. This was long before TNSM action in 1994. Pakistan's tribal belt has always been rebellious and uruly. What ISI did was to bring to boil the militancy which had been simmering there since the British Times.

In none of the Islamic countries that I have visited (these are quite a few), I found the nationalism taking the back seat as it does in Pakistan. All one has to do is to read posts in this august forum; you will find ethnic divisions, provincial divisions, linguistic divisions and sectarian schism. One will find lot more people for the Muslim Ummah but less for Pakistan first.

Regret to say that this is the ground reality in Pakistan of today and reflection of the schism of the society at large. People are simply scared to speak up against the terrorism perpetrated in the name of Islam for the fear of being branded non believers.

IMO, no doubt the policies adopted by Zia and later by the BB regime are largley to blame for the current mess; but the fact the Pakistai politics has been hijacked by the very people ( JI & JUI) who were against Pakistan in the first place; has also been a contributory factor to the rise of Talibanism. Aim of these so called Islamist parties is to turn Pakistan into a Sunni Wahabi state. There are many journalists who write columns in Jang claiming Zia to be hero of Islam. Only thing of military note Zia ever did was to help killing Palestinian fighters in Jordan.

One of the reasons I am not a fan of the Sharifs is that on Abba Ji's orders, senior gov't officials were given lectures on Islam during their first time in power. Nawaz himself used to go Zia's grave on the anniversay of his death and vow to continue Zia's bigotted policies.

Another factor is the media. If you look at the back ground of most noted jouranlists, you will find an ex JI activist. After Ayub Khan's time, Pakistan has been slowly drifting towards what is now called Talibanism. Have people forgotten Nizame- Mustafa movement, which resulted in toppling of the ZAB's democratically elected gov't?? The perpetrators were the same people who threatened million men marches against Musharraf.

If you look deeply, you will many mosques Imams having the same policy as the Lal Masjid mob, in every Pakistani city. I was truly aghast when I came to know that in my own city ( Sargodha) thousand of people attended the funeral of Riaz Basra. He was the man who first started sectarianism in Punjab killing the commissioner of Sargodha whoes only crime was that he was Shia. He was also branded a hero of Islam.

Pakistan's polity today is divided on so many lines that I have come to believe that Pakistanis donot deserve Pakistan.

 

[Always Neutral]

Excellent! More Pakistanis should read our afghan "brothers" to understand fully how irrational and hate filled towards Pakistan these "brothers" are.

Mr. Mir, like most other half literate "neighbors" to the West, conveniently forget that were it not for Pakistan, they would have been the slaves of the Rus, that millions of them found refuge, food, shelter, clothing and livelihood in Pakistan and till today, millions of them continue to live of the kindness of the Pakistani government and people. That more than 2million registered afghan refugees live in Pakistan, 80% of them 3rd generation.

Today, 15 million Afghans depend on Pakistan for evrything - for those of you who have not been there and I was there a few days ago, everything comes from Pakistan, everything -- and the Afghan hates that it does.

Today 15 million destitute, tomorrow when there are 30 million of them, looking for work, food and hope, can you quess where they will turn to?? Maybe they will all go to US - a snowflakes chance in hell - maybe Tajikistan? Like they did in previous years?? Or maybe Iran, where they have no ownership rights, no right to schools and where they are assaulted in the streets and told to go back where they came from.

Afghans live in glass houses and like throwing stones, Payback a bitch? Live and learn

Firstly my friend Pakistan on the orders of their old masters the USA, armed the Taliban and de-stabilised the pro Soviet regime there. It was after that happened that Russia entered Afghanistan so why will the afghanis like any country which has meddled in their internal affairs.

Secondly the Afghan refugees are fed by the UN and not Pakistan. Please read old posts of Road Runner on this issue.

Thirdly the refugees came to Pakistan because Pakistani leaders were short sighted and greedy to carry out a proxy war on behalf of the USA without being far sighted enough to see that once the party would be over the mess would have to cleaned up by them and not the USA.

As they saw You Reap what You sow.

Regards

 

[fatman17]

Firstly my friend Pakistan on the orders of their old masters the USA, armed the Taliban and de-stabilised the pro Soviet regime there. It was after that happened that Russia entered Afghanistan so why will the afghanis like any country which has meddled in their internal affairs.

Secondly the Afghan refugees are fed by the UN and not Pakistan. Please read old posts of Road Runner on this issue.

Thirdly the refugees came to Pakistan because Pakistani leaders were short sighted and greedy to carry out a proxy war on behalf of the USA without being far sighted enough to see that once the party would be over the mess would have to cleaned up by them and not the USA.

As they saw You Reap what You sow.

Regards

correct-a-mundo and well said, however pakistan should get some credit for the refugees.

 

[niaz]

An article published today in the Dawn. It says in a better way than what I have tried to say.




The roots of violence




By I.A. Rehman


QUITE a few threats to Pakistan’s stability are regularly mentioned in public debate. Among the less seriously acknowledged is the danger of implosion due to the people’s violent temper.

The roughing up of Arbab Ghulam Rahim without regard to the dignity of the venue, the thrashing of Dr Sher Afgan in a lawyer’s protected chamber, the lynching of poor Jagdish in defiance of the bar to killing a human being, and the setting on fire several innocent people are all symptoms of a malady that can, if left untreated, completely consume the state of Pakistan, its society, and whatever good the people have managed to gather to their credit. Common responses to acts of depravity such as those witnessed over the past fortnight prevent the community from realising the gravity of the threat these occurrences pose.

First, take the pathetic refusal to believe that any Pakistani Muslim, supposedly a paragon of virtue, could have decided to blow up fellow Muslim Pakistanis, including women, children and defenders of the national frontiers. Countless newspaper headlines can be recalled in which such disclaimers have been issued by people whose lack of intelligence has not obstructed their rise to eminence.

Secondly, instead of uncovering the cause of an ugly happening and the hands behind it, all blame is placed on two scapegoats — the intelligence agencies of external adversaries or the rulers at home. Neither of the two is incapable of committing the heinous atrocities attributed to it but the tendency to stop at the most convenient theory of conspiracy prevents a rational diagnosis.

Thirdly, containing violence is usually put down as one of the law-enforcement agencies’ routine chores and certainly not the most important one, as the highest priority must always be the protection of the VVIPs, however worthless in comparison to Jagdish or anyone of those burnt alive in Tahir Plaza some of them may be. Thus, the agonising self-appraisal that the rising level of violence in Pakistan demands is avoided.

What needs to be grasped is the fact that Pakistani society has not only become thoroughly intolerant, the tendency to eliminate all dissenters through violence is becoming stronger and more and more socially acceptable. Resort to violence to resolve any issue is no longer an aberration on the part of a few outlaws who can be effectively dealt with by the law and order agencies. It is a social phenomenon and needs to be addressed as such. The exercise must begin by assessing the various factors that have contributed to the Pakistani people’s descent into the abyss of violence.

The fact is that we have been living by violence for centuries. The long period of Muslim rule in the subcontinent was based on the ability to subjugate a more numerous people, and to wrest the crown from a fellow Muslim by force, which is another way to describe one’s potential for killing and pillage. All such violence was justified, according to contemporary wisdom, as violence by states, applied through their recognised instruments for their protection or expansion.

Let us leave history aside, although dreams of conquering new lands can still be observed in the psyche of our people, and concentrate on our community’s increasing indulgence in and social approbation of violence since 1947.

The Partition riots marked the beginning of a new fall from sanity when men were butchered and women raped for no wrong done to the culprits. Apart from the heavy toll of life and large-scale destruction of property, significant harm done by these riots — leaders of the Muslim community were no less guilty than their counterparts on the other side — there was legitimisation of violence by non-state actors.

That experience provided a psychological foundation for violence, which has been legitimised sometimes in the name of religion and sometimes as state necessity. It is the latter phenomenon we are now concerned with because it is the legitimisation of state violence against citizens that gravely undermines all efforts to overcome criminal gangs and pseudo-jihadis.

At its inception, the Pakistan state might have been deficient in many ways; but it was not lacking in the theory of imposing itself upon the people by force. If the Pashtuns refused to submit to Qayyum Khan’s oppressive measures they could be bombed. If the Khan of Kalat did not understand the governor-general’s command he could be shown the long barrel of a cannon. If Sheikh Mujib was not amenable to the rulers’ diktat, the entire Bengali population could be put to the sword, no matter if all of them were Pakistanis and most of them Muslims.

The atrocities committed in 1971 in East Bengal in the name of the state and with the fullest possible approval of the people in the western wing, sanctified the gospel of violence for as long as the people took to purge their minds of the notion that violence was a legitimate means of securing an objective. The people in today’s Pakistan made the terrible mistake of identifying themselves with the perpetrators of the state’s war against its citizens living in Bengal and thus grievously destroyed their sense of revulsion at the wanton and gruesome killings.

Much is said about the brutalisation of society during military regimes. True, Yahya Khan’s war against the Bengali Pakistanis and the hanging and whipping in public during Ziaul Haq’s reign brutalised society. But to concentrate on such events is to miss the point that all martial law regimes in Pakistan have been innately brutalising. Scrapping the Constitution is one of the worst forms of violence.

The state by definition is an apparatus of coercion but dictatorship is the most vicious form of an oppressive state. Every time an elected authority has been overthrown, the message to the people is: any violence one can get away with is legitimate. The element of violence in the state has been directly proportional to the degree of civilian exclusion from public affairs. Violence is not bad, only getting hauled up for it is. We thus find violence in Pakistan rooted in the nature of the state.

Another spring of violence has been kept running by the state’s failure to convince the people that it deals with them justly and on the basis of merit. The have-nots believe they cannot get justice from the courts or the police; they go to the local mafia to secure what is due to them. Karachi’s takeover by the mafia proves this. The poor are also convinced that the affluent owe their luxuries to force, favour or fraud. At the slightest provocation, they are ready to vent their anger on anyone who is better dressed or looks better fed than them.

The struggle against pro-violence tendencies in Pakistani society will be a long haul. Mere police action will gain little. The solution lies in changing the nature of the state, in humanising it, and convincing the disadvantaged that their needs are being addressed according to the merit of their situation.

DAWN - Opinion; April 17, 2008

 

[Always Neutral]

An articles published today in the Dawn. It says in a better way than what I have tried to say.




The roots of violence




DAWN - Opinion; April 17, 2008

Dear Niaz,

A very nice article unfortunately now you will be branded as an Indian along with the writer!

Regards

 

[muse]

Neutral

"NEVER"?

Lets gets our facts straight:

It was the Rus who invaded Afghanistan. It was the Rus that has killed Afghans as if they were flys.

It was the Rus that imposed communist governments on Afghanistan.

Afghan refugees did not remain in Refugee camps, instead they were allowed freedom to live wherever they pleased in Pakistan, do take whatever job or business they wanted to engage in.

The idea you express is essentially Nakam ****** and Eshan faramoushi, neither of these characterists use to identify the Afghan, but unfortunately, this is not the case with regard to some.

Your online id is "Always Neutral" - I would encourage you try and break out of the mould of the Hate Pakistan shell and while no one is asking you or anyone else to love or like Pakistan, it is essential to dialogue that you at least be fair and intellectually honest.

Excusing the Rus, Excusing the Parchami and the Khalqi for the devastation that is today's Afghanistan, is simply unfair and intellectually dishonest.

Talib bad and Pakistan interferred? Context, sir, context. Recall the context within which the Taliban movement arose, recall they were welcomed after the excesses of gthe Muj. Pakistan interferred? You bet and you might as well get used to it - there is no way, events in Afghanistan will not be of concern to the Pakistani establishment an larger society --- and while you are at it, get used to the idea that as long as a "hostiles" sit in Kabul, they will get and ought to get, the full attention of the Pakistani establishment.

That bit of bidness out the way, allow me to suggest, that the biggest losers of the kindof attitude towards history you and some others express, are the ordinary Afghan.

Today the 15 million Afghan cannolt be supported by the land, and as there is no industry to talk about either, and since the geography of Afghanistan makes communication a severe challenge, and in a blink of the eye, the population will double, what tghen will be the options the Pakistan hating elite will offer to the ordinary Afghan? How much longer are they expected to be fighting? My thinking is that a new conflict is already in the works, the ground work for "distraction" is being laid and you might want to consider that there are other players than just Pakistan, India and Iran at play, the presence of the US attracts a different level of player and the "ambition" the US has threatened others with, will not go unanswered.

So, while some say UN fed us, that US made Pakistan support the Muj - students of history and those of a fair minded and honest character will not need reminding that it was Pakistan that influenced the US to support the effort against the Rus.

But then again, Afghan version of history makes Rumi Balkhi, and the Mongol an Aryan, whatever that is - ofcourse mirrors help.