First how about some nice links.
The original post was a comment re an article.
First the REAL article:
Link: Ahmed Quraishi.com
Pakistan Is Not Americas War Theater
There is no doubt left that we are fast approaching a point where some form of military intervention will become a necessity, in a way that is diametrically different from the past. We, the civilians, will need to borrow the organizational capabilities of the Pakistani military to help civilians in power reshape the Pakistani state domestically and in terms of foreign policy.
By AHMED QURAISHI
Tuesday, 27 January 2009.
Ahmed Quraishi-Pakistan/Middle East politics, Iraq war, lebanon war, India Pakistan relations
ISLAMABAD, PakistanThere is not a single Pakistani political party with an organized strategic research and analysis activity that could tell the new U.S. government in an intelligent way what Pakistan wants from the United States.
Outside powers come in, blackmail our dictators and democrats, and disturb our stability in the name of democracy and freedom and there is no one to stop them. Today we have a government in power thanks to an arrangement brokered by a third-tier Washington bureaucrat, Richard Boucher.
And now, the United States is determined to bring the Afghan and the Iraq mess to Pakistan and we have a bunch of our own who are more excited about this than Uncle Sam himself. There is not a single Pakistani visionary institution that can articulate and project a bright future for Pakistan. The task of deciding Pakistans future has been left to self-styled Pakistan experts in U.S. think tanks who sit thousands of kilometers away and pretend to know our country better than we do.
The military remains the only institution with systemized policy analysis capabilities. But it wont intervene in the current Pakistani mess and rightfully so. Let the present political elite, a closed club of vested interest and elitism, be exposed for their true skill. The only downside to this experiment is that the Pakistani state may not have the luxury of experimentation this time, considering the pressing internal flaws in the system and the foreign-inspired destabilization and military threat on multiple levels.
Yet there is no doubt left that we are fast approaching a point where some form of military intervention will become a necessity, in a way that is diametrically different from the past. We, the civilians, will need to borrow the organizational capabilities of the Pakistani military to help civilians in power reshape the Pakistani state domestically and in terms of foreign policy. A good sign is that this state of crisis and the glaring absence of accomplished political leadership have spurred scores of educated Pakistanis to step in to fill the void. One such activity is a paper that a group of concerned middle class technocrats from different parts of the country are voluntarily coauthoring, laying out an actionable roadmap for a smart coup that seeks to harness the capabilities of all Pakistanis, civilian and military, to reorganize the state and renew the trust of its citizens.
But our biggest challenge is external. The domestic mess is something we can handle. But we cant stabilize Pakistan without extricating our country from other peoples wars and intrigues.
It is not the Taliban but the Pakistani sustenance for the American occupation of Afghanistan that will result in irreparable damage to the structure of the Pakistani state. The multiple insurgencies inside Pakistan are not entirely local and have a fair element of foreign inspiration and organization. We didnt have well trained and well financed insurgencies when the Taliban were in the region since 1996. These insurgencies from Gwadar to Swat are a product of events taking place in 2005 and onwards, and precisely since the Americans landed in Afghanistan and let that country become a meeting point of anti-Pakistan forces in the region. Unfortunately, some Pakistani officials continue to absolve Washington of any blame and argue that this had happened by accident and not by design. The evidence shows otherwise. The American missile and drone attacks in our tribal belt will result in a massive Pashtun rebellion against Pakistan eventually. The Americans know this. The Americans are also aware of how an entire Pakistani province, Balochistan, is being destroyed from the outside. The pressures of sustaining Americas political and military failures in Afghanistan are fast pushing Pakistan into a Yugoslavia-like situation. Pakistans economic losses far exceed any amount of American aid we have received so far. But the most worrying part is that influential elements in the United States are alone responsible for the biggest demonization campaign against Pakistan in recent times.
We need a political leadership in Islamabad that can convincingly tell President Obama that his country does not get to designate our country a war theater at will. We also need to tell U.S. officials to stop making exaggerated claims about new sophisticated threats to American emanating from the caves and mountains of western Pakistan.
The new U.S. policymakers need to know that Pakistan has legitimate interest in seeing a friendly government in Kabul, and in clearing the Afghan soil of anti-Pakistan elements. Washington should be told that Pakistan will not accept empowering India in Afghanistan to protect American interests at the expense Islamabads legitimate security and strategic concerns.
Now you can go read the comment which was the first post.
Link Ahmed Quraishi.com
The comment is by Muhammad Amir.
COMMENTS
You have very precisely summed up both internal and external threats. You have written, "There is not a single Pakistani political party with an organized strategic research and analysis activity". I swear, there is not a single top brass politician who could interpret the depth of this sentence.
It is not inevitable that military should intervene in a "CLASSIC" manner. There are other ways through which military can take control of our country in its hands.
Just an example, military can throw out these corrupt, roué and west-propped politicians and install a "Decision Making Unit", which should consist of people from varied backgrounds, for example: lecturers of top universities, renowned patriotic journalists, doctors, engineers, patriotic industrialists, retired army officers, renowned religious scholars, bankers, individuals having international experience (but before selection they must be interrogated), patriotic lawyers, retired patriotic judges and other people of various backgrounds of society.
The selection process must be executed by the military. Individuals selected for this DMU (Decision Making Unit) must be held in surveillance for quite a few months. This is the only process through which we can save our country from external intervention and perhaps from internal insurgencies (that are of course designed by external intruders like CIA). Internal insurgencies are directly related to the external intrusions.
Elections must be declared "forbidden".
Corrupt politicians, political parties, their workers and loyalists, undercover lawyers, foreign stooges, defectors and scholars that are security threats must be executed immediately.
[the scholars refers to Dr. Pervaiz Hoodbhoy and Asma Jahangir]
Military training and patriotic mind making of 2 years must become compulsory for every citizen who reaches the age of 18.
If this is implemented then I assure you that no Obama or Bush can exert pressure on us. If Pakistanis want to handle Americans then they should analyze the case studies of Mahateer Muhammad, Mahmud Ahmadi Najad, Evo Morales, Fedel Castro, Hugo Chavez and other sincere people.
Politicians can never solve this problem, simply because they don't have skills and those who have some skills are unfortunately foreign stooges. This trend will continue for the near future. It is these politicians who leak out secret information to America, India and Israel. This is not because they are congenitally defectors but simply because they are pretty much easy targets of foreign spies.
Posted By: Muhammad Amir | February 1, 2009 03:55:40 PM
