Seeds of rebellion

[fatman17]

Seeds of rebellion

Tuesday, April 28, 2009

By Anjum Niaz

Look into the seeds of time and you shall get the answers you seek. Pakistan's history doesn't lie; our leaders lie. They continue their yarns as the nation of 176 million face death, disintegration and disaster. Chivalrous chatter straddling out of the presidency and the Prime Minister's House leave us cynically cold. The PPP and ANP information ministers manufacture messy fluff about the Taliban.

Gecko-like their statements take new hue each day. They want us to believe it. Even the words of our army chief and his generals cause small comfort. Rebellion is in the air and our rulers sit in their imperial fortresses playing dumb charades with dozen-a-day foreign interlocutors who come to chastise them. Our land, our space, our national news has been invaded by foreign VIPs and the Taliban alike. The scenes and statements are getting sickeningly repetitive.

And then you have to listen to the baloney of two Baloch emigre singling out Punjab as their enemy. Kill one Punjabi a day shouts Brahamdagh Khan Bugti hiding in Kabul; while Hyrbyair Marri demands an independent Balochistan. Amidst their call to arms and ethnic purging, descends a lady in white with diamonds and Swiss lace. She's come all the way from Kalat to apprise our prime minister on affairs of Balochistan. How bizarre? Begum Khan of Kalat is photographed in all her majesty briefing all-ears-and-eyes Gilani at the PM House. ‘Sab theek hai' is the conclusion both must have drawn. Can someone explain the jaw dropping seditious statements from Bugti and Marri? Or should we trash them as talk by two 'rebels?'

We once had a 'rebel,' Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. He too had whipped up angst against the Punjabis just before East Pakistan broke away. I lived in Chittagong then and loved to stroll around New Market looking for pink pearls and kanjeevaram saris. Not only did I stop going when we heard incidents of stabbings at shops, was sent back to Karachi on the next flight out. The Mukti Bahini (Freedom Fighters) struck terror by kidnapping West Pakistani officers and torturing them to death. It was gruesome. When the PPP swept the polls in 1970 and the battle for power between Sheikh Mujib and Bhutto raged, a team was sent to Dhaka to fly the incarcerated Mujib back to Pindi with clear instructions: eliminate Mujib should India intercept their flight. "Under no condition should Indians get Mujib alive," was the bottom line.

Forty years today, a senior officer who met Mujib when he was in jail at Dhaka tells me a fact that is bone chilling. "Do me a favour" Mujib told the officer one day, "arrange a 30-minute meeting between Bhutto, Yahya and myself. Let the three of us debate as to who is breaking up Pakistan. You be the judge." I wait for the officer's next sentence. Without a blink, he tells me it was not Mujib but Bhutto and Yahya who inflamed the fires of 1971 war that led to the breakup of Pakistan!

"You can give up women; you can give up alcohol; you can give up smoking; you can give up gambling, but the one addiction you can never give up is power. It's a devi that sits on your lap!" says the officer and quotes the Mughal emperors who imprisoned/killed their fathers/brothers and all other male relatives competing for the throne.

The destiny of Pakistan has been shaped by a claque of megalomaniacs. They have inflicted a thousand cuts on the constitution, economy, foreign policy, civil service, law and order, religion, human rights, health and education. It's a small miracle that Pakistan has survived. But now with thugs like the Taliban, seditionists like the Baloch emigre, jihadis of south Punjab and militant political parties involved in target killings in Karachi, the state is fast losing its grip. To top this, 18 countries have appointed special envoys for Pakistan. These nosy parkers descend upon us daily to show the mirror to our leaders who perhaps are wearing blinkers and cannot see the writing on the wall. Added to this perversity are newspapers like Washington Post and New York Times shouting 'disaster ahoy!' Pakistan is breaking! "The channels here show Pakistan's invasion of the Taliban all the time," a Pakistani living in the US tells me.

The American screams get louder. Read April 26's New York Times editorial which berates Asif Zardari, Nawaz Sharif and General Kayani in one breath. Are then our leaders asleep at the wheel or has the rest of the world gone crazy with worry about Pakistan?

General Kayani spoke and the Taliban left with their tails between their legs in Buner, so we're told. Does this mean that unless the army chief brandishes his stick in the air, the militants don't listen to any lesser human? While we wish our soldiers Godspeed, we need to be alert to the criticism creeping out from the west regarding Pakistan's weakness to fight the extremists. Our army chief has rightly denounced the hand-wringing while the GHQ has castigated America and Britain for casting aspersions on the ISI. But such sentiment is ephemeral, it quickly vanishes. If history has taught us any lesson then we must watch what's happening around us with eyes wide open. Don't forget generals Yahya and 'Tiger' Niazi. They told us all was well in East Pakistan; the insurgency was under control. Both were intoxicated with power, women and wine. Still we believed them. We also took Bhutto's words as gospel truth, never questioning his oft-quoted sentence idhar hum, udhar tum. If this is not the seed of sedition, what then is it?

The army and the ISI have been tools in the hands of civilian prime ministers and dictators like Ayub, Zia and Musharraf. Notorious names like Brigadier Imtiaz and Major Amir have sullied the ISI with operations like the 'Midnight Jackal'. Zardari is said to have offered Major Amir the post of head of Intelligence Bureau (IB). "I told the people, close to President Zardari, that I am comfortable in my own affairs and thanked them for offering me different assignments," Maj Amir was quoted in this newspaper recently. Our rulers' fascination and need for such shady characters is bottomless. Still, we always criticise our civilian leadership but give a pass to our faujis. Why? Should one assume that all the army chiefs and the ISI heads have been angels with the exception of Aslam Beg, Hameed Gul and Asad Durrani? The three have received enough brickbats. Leave them alone. What about the rest? What was the ISI doing – given that its headquarters are a stone's throw – as the clerics at Lal Masjid built a virtual arms depot in the mosque's premises? Why did one ISI chief — in the early 90s show a 'soft corner' for the US at the cost of national interest? One day I saw him with his family at a car showroom buying the most expensive car standing there.

If a journalist like Nazeer Naji acquires another plot or a bureaucrat has one too many plots, the grunts in the media get loud. Not a tweet from the press on the number of homes/plots/farmhouses our military men, air force and navy, own. Why quarantine us?" says a retired defence officer. Instead, the ruling party and its coalition partner in Peshawar fatuously cling to their alter egos, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and Bacha Khan, reminding us of the awesome legacy the two parties have inherited. Sure, but let's talk of today, not yesterday.

If it's any consolation, let me leave you with a thought: Indira Gandhi whose Congress party may win in India would allegedly receive briefcase full of US dollars from her ministers, including her foreign minister, regularly. More of it another time from my reliable sources.



The writer is a freelance journalist with over twenty years of experience in national and international reporting. Email: aniaz@fas.harvard.edu

 

[Zob]

Without a blink, he tells me it was not Mujib but Bhutto and Yahya who inflamed the fires of 1971 war that led to the breakup of Pakistan!

Sorry sir i never read a word after this he looses crediblity here....i mean if someone just blames bhutto or mujib they are wrong both were equally power hungry....and if MUJIB LOVED pakistan atleast he would have kept up the LEGACY OF QUAID-E-AZAM....fine you don't want pakistan fair enough but atleast keep the quaid who truly got you azaadi.....

 

[fatman17]

Without a blink, he tells me it was not Mujib but Bhutto and Yahya who inflamed the fires of 1971 war that led to the breakup of Pakistan!

Sorry sir i never read a word after this he looses crediblity here....i mean if someone just blames bhutto or mujib they are wrong both were equally power hungry....and if MUJIB LOVED pakistan atleast he would have kept up the LEGACY OF QUAID-E-AZAM....fine you don't want pakistan fair enough but atleast keep the quaid who truly got you azaadi.....

he's a she and really....who knows the real truth what happened during those dark days!

 

[SinoIndusFriendship]

Failed CIA PSYOPS in Iran: Tehran threatens US with retribution
Posted on June 23, 2009 by Moin Ansari

Iran Falling To US PSYOPS? By Paul Craig Roberts

22 June, 2009 Vdare.com

President Obama called on the Iranian government to allow protesters to control the streets in Tehran. Would Obama or any US president allow protesters to control the streets in Washington, D.C.?

There was more objective evidence that George W. Bush stole his two elections than there is at this time of election theft in Iran. But there was no orchestrated media campaign to discredit the US government.

On May 16, 2007, the London Daily Telegraph reported that Bush regime official John Bolton told the Telegraph that a US military attack on Iran would “be a ‘last option’ after economic sanctions and attempts to foment a popular revolution had failed.”

We are now witnessing in Tehran US “attempts to foment a popular revolution” in the guise of another CIA-orchestrated “color revolution”.

It is possible that splits among the mullahs themselves brought about by their rival ambitions will aid and abet what the Telegraph (May 27, 2007) reported were “CIA plans for a propaganda and disinformation campaign intended to destabilize, and eventually topple, the theocratic rule of the mullahs.” It is certainly a fact that the secularized youth of Tehran have played into the CIA’s hands.

The Mousavi protests have set up Iran either for a US puppet government or for a military strike. The mullahs are in a lose-lose situation. Even if the mullahs hold together and suppress the protests, the legitimacy of the Iranian government in the eyes of the outside world has been damaged. Obama’s diplomatic approach is over before it started. The neocons and Israel have won.

The US intervention and the orchestrated disinformation pumped out by the western media are so transparent that it is impossible to believe than any informed person or government is taken in. One cannot avoid the conclusion that the West wants the 1978 Iranian Revolution overthrown and intends to use deception or violence to achieve that goal.

It has become increasingly difficult to believe that facts and truth motivate the western news media. For the record, I would like to point out a few of the most obvious oversights, to use a euphemism, in the Iran reporting.

According to a wide variety of news sources (for example, London Telegraph, Yahoo News, The Globe and Mail, Asbarez.com, Politico), “Before the polling closed Mr. Mousavi declared himself ‘definitely the winner’ based on ‘all indications from all over Iran.’ He alleged widespread voting irregularities without giving specifics and hinted he was ready to challenge the final results.”

Other news sources, which might not have been aware that the polls were kept open several hours beyond normal closing time in order to accommodate the turnout, reported that Mousavi made his victory claim the minute polls closed.

Mousavi’s premature claim of victory before polling was over or votes counted is clearly a preemptive move, the purpose of which is to discredit any other outcome. There is no other reason to make such a claim.

In Iran’s system, election fraud has no purpose, because a small select group of ruling mullahs select the candidates who are put on the ballot. If they don’t like an aspiring candidate, they simply don’t put him on the ballot.

When the liberal reformer Khatami ran for president, he won with 70% of the vote and served from 1997-2005. If the mullahs didn’t defraud Khatami of his win, it seems unlikely they would defraud an establishment figure like Mousavi, who was foreign minister in the most conservative government, and is backed by another establishment figure, Rafsanjani.

As Mousavi was seen as Rafsanjani’s man, why is it “unbelievable” that Ahmadinejad defeated Mousavi by the same margin that he defeated Rafsanjani in the previous election?

Neoconservative Kenneth Timmerman let the cat out of the bag that there was an orchestrated “color revolution” in the works. Before the election, Timmerman wrote: “there’s talk of a ‘green revolution’ in Tehran.” Why would protests be organized prior to a vote and announcement of the outcome? Organized protests waiting in the wings are not spontaneous responses to a stolen election.

Timmerman’s organization, Foundation for Democracy, is funded by the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) for the explicit purpose of promoting democracy in Iran. According to Timmerman, NED money was funneled to “pro-Mousavi groups who have ties to non-governmental organizations outside Iran that the National Endowment for Democracy funds.”

The US media has studiously ignored all of these highly suggestive facts. The media is not reporting or providing objective analysis. It is engaged in a propagandistic onslaught against the Iranian government.

We know that the US funds terrorist organizations inside Iran that are responsible for bombings and other violent acts. It is likely that these terrorist organizations are responsible for the burning buses and other acts of violence that have occurred during the demonstrations in Tehran.

A writer on pakalert.wordpress.com says that he was intrigued by the sudden appearance of tens of thousands of Twitter allegations that Ahmadinejad stole the Iranian election. He investigated, he says, and he reports that each of the new highly active accounts were created on Saturday, June 13th. “IranElection” is their most popular keyword. He narrowed the spammers to the most persistent: @StopAhmadi @IranRiggedElect @Change_For_Iran. He researched further and found that on June 14 the Jerusalem Post already had an article on the new Twitter.

He concludes that the new Twitter sites are propaganda operations.

One wonders why the youth of the world, who do not protest stolen elections elsewhere, are so obsessed with Iran.

The unexamined question is Mousavi and his motives. Why would Mousavi unleash demonstrations that are obviously being used by a hostile West to discredit the government of the Iranian Revolution that overthrew the US puppet government? Are these the actions of a “moderate”? Or are these the actions of a disgruntled man who kept his disaffection from his colleagues in order to gain the opportunity to discredit the regime with street protests? Is Mousavi being manipulated by organizations funded with US government money?

John Bolton laid out the US strategy. First we try to destabilize the regime. Failing that, we strike them militarily.

As this strategy unfolds, Iranians will pay in lost independence or in blood for the naiveness of its secularized youth and for the mistake the mullahs made in trusting Mousavi.

Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury during President Reagan’s first term. He was Associate Editor of the Wall Street Journal. He has held numerous academic appointments, including the William E. Simon Chair, Center for Strategic and International Studies, Georgetown University, and Senior Research Fellow, Hoover Institution, Stanford University. He was awarded the Legion of Honor by French President Francois Mitterrand.

 

[araz]

Without a blink, he tells me it was not Mujib but Bhutto and Yahya who inflamed the fires of 1971 war that led to the breakup of Pakistan!

Sorry sir i never read a word after this he looses crediblity here....i mean if someone just blames bhutto or mujib they are wrong both were equally power hungry....and if MUJIB LOVED pakistan atleast he would have kept up the LEGACY OF QUAID-E-AZAM....fine you don't want pakistan fair enough but atleast keep the quaid who truly got you azaadi.....

ASAK
I have a friend , a journalist for BBC who has interviewed Mujib before the partition. I can assure you he did not have division on his mind. It was not Mujeeb who stood in Pindi(I think !!) and said he will break the legs of anyone who tried to go to East pakistan .
The author has not lost credibility , in my humble opinion, we ahve lost the ability to listen to the truth!! The division of East pakistan could never have been engineered by Mujeeb , without Bhutto and The Nincumpoop Yahya collaborating with him from this end. These are the dark days of our history and if we dont learn anything from them, we will be facing them again!!!
WaSalam
Araz