Whose War? U Decide!

[muse]

Whose war? America's or ours?

Friday, September 26, 2008
by Ayaz Amir

Was there such an animal as the Tehrik Taliban-I-Pakistan before the American invasion of Afghanistan? The Americans sparked turmoil and chaos in this region and now that they are bogged down in Afghanistan, how come this adventure they thoughtlessly started becomes our war?

Yet from President Asif Zardari downwards---Zardari more of America's man than even Pervez Musharraf---our leadership is working overtime to convince a fed-up nation, which has lapped up more than its share of lies, that this is our war too and we are under a moral obligation to fight it.

Pakistan's English-speaking classes---'liberals' for want of a better word---chant, nay roar, much the same slogan. Very clear in their minds about Taliban-spread terror they sputter and choke when it comes to American-spread terror. The Marriott bombing has brought terrorism home to mainstream Pakistan but slaughter on a far greater scale has occurred regularly in the tribal areas without having the same impact because those are remote areas not accessible to TV cameras.

Should terrorism be fought? Of course it should. Only question is whether it can be successfully fought by a nation perceived as having lost all self-respect and doing not what is in its best interests but in the interests of the United States. Constant American lectures about 'doing more', especially when our own people are dying every day, and monthly handouts---80-100 million dollars---for services rendered is almost guaranteed to ensure that the entire argument about this soc-called war on terror gets distorted and the Pakhtoon population which is in the centre of this conflict turns irredeemably hostile.

The way the Americans have gone about this business, carrying out unilateral strikes on the basis of doubtful intelligence and causing innocent deaths, and the way they have pressurised the army to conduct military operations in that area, they've been instrumental in destroying the old tribal-cum-administrative structure which stood Pakistan, and before us the British, in good stead for a hundred and fifty years. Now after helping create this chaos they are expecting the battered state of Pakistan to bestir itself from the ashes and perform miracles.

When will our military geniuses understand that far from enabling us to wage any kind of war, the American alliance---with the baggage of opprobrium that it brings---dooms us to eventual failure in the conflict now raging in the tribal areas? The Americans got it wrong, and disastrously so, in Iraq. The resurgence of the Taliban shows they got it wrong in Afghanistan. What makes us so sure they've got it right about our tribal areas?

Talibanism, let us remember, more than a physical phenomenon is a state of mind. President Bush is a Christian Taliban. So is the rest of the neo-conservative church whose vicars and priests hollered for the attacks on Afghanistan and Iraq. The strike on the Twin Towers was just an excuse. Dreaming dreams of eternal dominance what they really wanted was to redraw the map of the Middle East. Who'll ever accuse Dick Cheney of having an open mind? These failed crusaders are seen as unmitigated disasters in their own land. But their word continues to be taken on trust in this strange, and so easily-bamboozled, republic of Pakistan. If there was a medal for being the world's foremost suckers we'd win it.

So what should we do? Loosen America's clammy embrace. Which doesn't mean we go picking quarrels with it or indulging in chest-thumping and empty rhetoric. But we can unravel some of the strings that needlessly tie us to the United States.

Why is the military so hung up on expensive weaponry---F-16s and the like---when the entire concept of the threat we face has changed? Let us learn to live within our means and let the army, with its conviction that it has a monopoly on patriotism, show the rest of the nation the way. For what reason out of Clausewitz or Sun Tzu do we need that white elephant of a new General Headquarters in Islamabad? Will the army start producing better warriors as a result? Why is the military so sold on training courses for officers in US war academies? Can we name one officer who has done well out of such courses? Far better to learn from China or even Vietnam and Cuba.

Our elite classes are bent to American ways not so much physically as in their minds. A colonisation of the mind, that's what it is, more nefarious in its effects than physical occupation. Musharraf may have been a much feted figure abroad but he was reviled at home. Why? Because the Pakistani masses were convinced he was sold out to the Americans. Zardari and company are not only following Musharraf's policies but bringing to them a renewed vigour. What makes them think that where Musharraf was detested they will be applauded?

Admiral Mike Mullen, Chairman US Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Gen Petraeus, the new Centcom commander, shouldn't be touching down in Islamabad whenever they feel like it. If there is a problem in FATA we should look to it in our own way. But we must put our house in order. The charges hurled at us of the ISI being double-faced should be honestly investigated. The ISI should have no room for operatives pursuing lone ranger agendas. The days of 'jihad' as conceived by General Ziaul Haq and General Akhtar Abdul Rehman are over. Time we moved on and exorcised those ghosts. What the US is trying to do is push us into another 'jihad'. This is a kindness best avoided.

In small things there is no one to beat our cunningness. To larger issues we bring concentrated stupidity. Why must we think only in extremes? Why must we think that if we are not bootlickers of America we must necessarily be its enemy? The real world doesn't operate like this. Most things are not in black and white. There are shades of grey in between and a middle path between extremes. If we learn to respect ourselves a little better, others, including the US, will also respect us a bit more. Whoever takes a doormat seriously? That's what we are in American eyes.

Take Kashmir. Who says we should go to war with India over Kashmir? But should that mean that we go to the other extreme and jettison our principled stand on Kashmir as Musharraf repeatedly did and as Zardari has shown every intention of doing? The longest passage in Zardari's address to parliament was devoted to India. Why? This at a time when the people of Kashmir are agitating once more against Indian rule. If we can't do anything for the Kashmiris---and I am not saying send fighters there which is the wrong approach---why should we invite the charge that we are stabbing them in the back?

Our problem is not money and economic assistance but the ability to use it. US assistance, and we've received plenty of it over the years, should have made us strong. Instead it has only created a dependency syndrome, making parasites of the Pakistani elite. Pakistan received billions of US dollars during the Zia years. Where did that money go? The sizeable sums in aid and assistance received since 2001, to what productive uses were they put? We are hobbling on American crutches but they won't allow us to walk unless we learn to do without them.

But we'll have to do something, and pretty quickly, about our leadership problem. Consider in this context Zardari's performance when he met President Bush in New York. After Bush's opening remarks, Zardari said: "As always you prove to the world that your heart is in there for us Pakistanis." This is embarrassing stuff but wait for the next bit: "We respect your feelings, we respect the American ideals. And we bring to this the whole concept of your promise to the world of bringing democracy to Pakistan."

So Bush promised the world---when did he do this?---that democracy would be brought to Pakistan. President Zardari should choose a good speech writer and keep him close by his side at all times.

Email: chakwal@comsats.net.pk

 

[muse]

Whose war is it anyway?

Reality check

Friday, September 26, 2008
by Shafqat Mahmood

The slide downhill is staggering. The Marriott bombing is just one manifestation of it. The beautiful valley of Swat with its white water streams and rivers cutting through pine-laden mountains; the rugged tribal areas with hardy men and folk tales of bravery and honour; the environs of Peshawar with the trading post of Bara where everyone went shopping and then took the strangely exciting journey to Landi Kotal through the historic Khyber pass; the over-the-mountain zigzagging trip to Kohat and then on to verdant Hangu and Parachinar with its colonial Frontier Corps mess; all these places of nostalgic memory are now in flames.

Pakistan has the evil eye on it. It was not too long ago that its basics were right. It produced enough food to feed its people, its governance, while having much scope for improvement, provided a reasonable level of comfort, its infrastructure though tattered in places compared favourably with other countries in the region including India, its poets and writers and scientists were a source of pride and joy with Abdus Salam winning the Nobel Prize and Faiz the Lenin peace award; it could have done even better in sports yet still won world championships in cricket, hockey and squash. It was a country with many problems but a country on the go.

Now we are in the eye of the storm. When the world talks about future challenges and areas of conflict, Pakistan is in the crosshairs as a battleground. Thirty odd years ago studying in the US, it was a struggle to identify for the Americans this sixth most populous country in the world. Now it is a struggle to tell friends abroad that not every place is on fire and that it is actually possible to visit here and do business. Few buy it. We have emerged in the consciousness of the world but not as a place striding purposefully forward. We are seen as a nursery of terror and a sanctuary for bad people. On top of that, we are possessors of Atomic weapons, which others consider we may not be able to control.

How and why do we find ourselves in this position? I don't want to regurgitate our entire history but this is an important question. It has become even more relevant because after the Marriott bombing all sorts of explanations are emerging. There are those who consider us to be victims of home-grown terror. There are others who blame the US. Some in the media have even come out with stories of Americans residing in the hotel and carrying in steel boxes as if there were some bombs hidden in them. Without actually saying it, such reporting has shifted the blame from bombers to US personnel.

What is the truth? We have to find it because within it lies the answer to our problems. If we make the wrong diagnosis, our prescriptions would be wrong. If, for example, we come to the conclusion that there is a US angle to some of our difficulties but we also have a serious home-grown problem of religious militancy, we can come together to fight this internal civil war. Instead, if we believe that ALL our problems are because of the Americans, we have to forge a national strategy to counter them even if it includes a fair amount of economic discomfort and a possible military conflict.

We must engage in this debate inside parliament and in the media. We must also talk about it whenever and wherever we gather because this is a determination we have to make as a nation and soon. We must come to a consensus about the core of our problems because without this clarity anything we do would be half-hearted. Our army is fighting in different places in the Frontier. We have to decide whether we back it fully because we see it fighting our own war or whether we believe it is carrying out orders on someone else's behest. The answer to this question is crucial and may decide whether we survive our current troubles or go under.

My contribution to this debate is that our troubles started after Zia mobilised and armed a militantly religious minority to fight America's war in Afghanistan. These people became soldiers of our proxy wars and some were also later diverted to Kashmir to pin the Indians down. Every society has radicals of left and right but they are minorities and never develop the potential to challenge the large middle corps. In our case, a fanatical minority was armed to the teeth, trained, and then used recklessly by the state to fulfil its agendas.

This was done without the involvement of the people because during Zia's military rule it was not needed and later the army had evolved into an autonomous entity within the state and did not feel the need to take any civilian direction. The issue of using militants groups to further state agendas was never ever discussed in parliament or in cabinet meetings. According to my knowledge even the civilian prime minister's in the 1990's had only a vague idea of what was going on. The media knew and weighed in but those who advocated caution or warned against a blowback were dubbed as liberals and completely ignored.

Those who blame the Americans for our current troubles are right because without the Afghan war in the eighties, the large-scale mobilisation and arming of militants may not have happened. They are wrong when they say that people currently challenging the Pakistani state are only doing it because of the American invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 and Pakistan's subsequent partnership with it in the war against terror. This factor has certainly contributed to the anger of the Pashtuns in Afghanistan and their kin in the tribal areas of Pakistan but the conflict in Swat, Bajaur, Hangu, Darra Adam Khel, Khyber agency etc is not because of the Americans and neither is the Marriott bombing.

It is a handiwork of people who are determined to impose their version of an Islamic state. Much before the American invasion Sufi Mohammad in Bajaur wanted to impose Islam. People like Fazalullah in Swat are his close disciples and actually related to him. They are not blowing up girls' schools because they hate the Americans. Their compatriots are not asking people in Peshawar and other parts of the Frontier to stop wearing trousers or shaving or listening to music or watching television because they have America on their mind. They are doing it because they have a certain vision of a state and they want to impose it by force.

Let us clear the cobwebs from our mind. There is the American angle and it complicates the situation mightily for us but we are fighting a home-grown terrorist minority. It is seeking to impose its will by force and that is why many tribes in the troubled regions are banding together to fight them. They have seen from close quarters who they are and while being religious and conservative, do not want them.

It is important for us to do the same. There is an enemy within. It must be fought with the combined will of the nation or little will remain of us.

Email: shafqatmd@gmail.com

 

[muse]

From US Army's "Sentinel" -- it's dated but you will find the info interesting


A Profile of Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan
By Hassan Abbas


The organizational strength, military strategy and leadership quality of the Taliban in Pakistan’s tribal territories has qualitatively improved during the last few years. At the time of the U.S.-led military campaign in Afghanistan in late 2001, allies and sympathizers of the Taliban in Pakistan were not identified as “Taliban” themselves. That reality is now a distant memory. Today, Pakistan’s indigenous Taliban are an effective fighting force and are engaging the Pakistani military on one side and NATO forces on the other

The transition from being Taliban supporters and sympathizers to becoming a mainstream Taliban force in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) initiated when many small militant groups operating independently in the area started networking with one another. This sequence of developments occurred while Pakistani forces were spending the majority of their resources finding “foreigners” in the area linked to al-Qa`ida (roughly in the 2002-04 period). Soon, many other local extremist groups, which were banned in Pakistan, started joining the Taliban ranks in FATA—some as followers while others as partners.During this process, the Pakistani Taliban never really merged into the organizational structure of the Afghan Taliban under Mullah Omar; instead, they developed a distinct identity. From their perspective, they intelligently created a space for themselves in Pakistan by engaging in military attacks while at other times cutting deals with the Pakistani government to establish their autonomy in the area.1 By default, they were accepted as a legitimate voice in at least two FATA agencies—South Waziristan and North Waziristan.

During this process, the Pakistani Taliban effectively established themselves as an alternative leadership to the traditional tribal elders. By the time the Pakistani government realized the changing dynamics and tried to resurrect the tribal jirga institution, it was too late. The Taliban had killed approximately 200 of the tribal elders under charges of being Pakistani and American spies.

These developments explain the genesis of a new formation: Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP). The TTP refers to the Taliban “movement” in Pakistan that coalesced in December 2007 under the leadership of Baitullah Mehsud—a wanted militant leader from South Waziristan. This analysis discusses the origin, nature, capabilities and potential of this organization.

Formation of Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan

The name “Tehrik-i-Taliban” had been used prior to the latest December 14 announcement. An organization with a similar name emerged in FATA’s Orakzai Agency in 1998.2 Some reports also mention a similar organization by the name of Tehrik-i-Tulaba (Movement of Students) also operating in Orakzai Agency that even established an active Shari`a court.3 The name and idea, therefore, is not original. More recently, on October 23, a credible newspaper in Pakistan disclosed that five militant groups joined hands to set up an organization named Tehrik-i-Taliban in Mohmand Agency with a goal “to flush out gangs carrying out criminal activities in the name of Taliban.” Its spokesman, who was identified under the Arab name Abu Nauman Askari, even mentioned the formation of a 16-member shura (consultative committee) to coordinate the activities of the groups.

The statement, however, sounded like an initiative that benefited from government involvement since Islamabad has been attempting to create rifts between the different Taliban and militant factions. The rise of Maulvi Nazir in 2007, for instance, was such an operation as he had received government support in challenging Uzbek militants operating in South Waziristan.5
Furthermore, the news was not carried by any other major newspaper in the country, indicating that no general press release was issued by the supposed new formation.

In this context, it is possible that it was a planted story by Pakistan’s intelligence services to gather support for the group. Such leaks are not uncommon. Nothing has been heard about this organization since. Less than two months after this announcement, another group claiming to be Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan announced its formation. The December 14, 2007
announcement was viewed suspiciously in terms of authenticity, since it followed after the October 23 announcement. It soon became clear, however, that the December 14 announcement was unique and alarming. It showed that the authentic Taliban were quick to establish their ownership over the title “Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan.”

Structure, Activities and Goals of the TTP

A shura of 40 senior Taliban leaders established the TTP as an umbrella organization. Militant commander Baitullah Mehsud was appointed as its amir, Maulana Hafiz Gul Bahadur of North Waziristan as senior naib amir (deputy) and Maulana Faqir Muhammad of Bajaur Agency as the third in command.6 The shura not only has representation from all of FATA’s seven
tribal agencies, but also from the settled North-West Frontier Province (NWFP) districts of Swat, Bannu, Tank, Lakki Marwat, Dera Ismail Khan, Kohistan, Buner and Malakand. This reach demonstrates the TTP’s ambitions.

Since its establishment, the TTP through its various demarches have announced the following objectives and principles:

1. Enforce Shari`a, unite against NATO forces in Afghanistan and perform “defensive jihad against the Pakistan
army.”7

2. React strongly if military operations are not stopped in Swat District and North Waziristan Agency.

3. Demand the abolishment of all military checkpoints in the FATA area. 4. Demand the release of Lal Masjid (Red
Mosque) Imam Abdul Aziz.

5. Refuse future peace deals with the government of Pakistan. Initially, the TTP gave a 10 day deadline for the government to stop military action in FATA and Swat District, but then extended the deadline in lieu of the country’s mourning of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto’s death on December 27, 2007.8 On January 4, 2008, however, TTP spokesman Ghazi Ahmed called journalists to inform them that a one week extension of the ultimatum would begin on January 5 and threatened to attack the city of Peshawar if their demands were not met.

The TTP was also quick to deny their involvement in killing Bhutto after the government of Pakistan claimed that her assassination was conducted by associates of Baitullah Mehsud and even produced a transcript of Mehsud’s telephone conversation proving his involvement.

Mehsud’s spokesman responded by maintaining that the transcript was “a drama,” and that Bhutto’s death was a “tragedy” that had left Mehsud “shocked.”

A purported spokesman for Mehsud, Maulvi Omar, later told Reuters: “Tribal people have their own customs. We don’t strike women.”12 This shows that the organization has a media cell, a public relations policy and is quite serious about its plans. The Pakistani government has been slow to respond to these developments as the TTP has not yet been officially banned, and the
government maintains that “a decision to this effect will come only after a thorough examination of all the aspects concerned.”

Although the TTP is young as an organization, there is no dearth of operational capabilities at its disposal. Baitullah Mehsud already is an established leader—with the command of some 5,000 fighters—and has been involved in militant activities for the last few years in FATA and the adjacent areas. Many other militant groups seem anxious to join in. On December 23, 2007, for instance, five soldiers and six civilians were killed in the Mingora area of the Swat Valley when a suicide bomber targeted an army convoy. Tehreek-e-Nafaz-e-Shariate-Mohammadi (TNSM) quickly claimed responsibility for the attack on behalf of the TTP.

TNSM, another banned terrorist outfit, is led by Maulana Fazlullah and had re-emerged in 2006. The group made headlines for taking control of large areas in the Swat Valley of the NWFP The army, after a large operation in late 2007, recaptured the district, but TNSM militants (numbering in the hundreds) are still operating in parts of the district. The TTP’s demand for halting government military action in Swat appealed to TNSM members and will predictably lead to more collaboration between the two groups in terms of manpower, logistics and intelligence.

TNSM leader Fazlullah is known for the mobile FM radio stations that he managed until recently, on which he would broadcast his radical ideology. A TTP radio broadcast in the future would be one potential sign of more cooperation between the two terrorist groups. The TTP’s denial about its involvement in Bhutto’s murder has little face value, but it is too early to reach any conclusion since the Pervez Musharraf government may be trying to shift the blame and divert attention from its own failure to provide adequate security for Bhutto. The TTP’s involvement in the killings of nine tribesmen associated with pro-government leader Maulvi Nazir on January 7 in South Waziristan, however, is near certain.15 The Pakistani government has also circulated a list to law enforcement agencies of about a dozen important Shi`a political leaders who, according to its intelligence services, are on Baitullah Mehsud’s hit list.16

Brief Profiles of TTP’s Senior Leaders

Baitullah Mehsud—The 34-year-old warrior belongs to South Waziristan Agency and hails from the Mehsud tribe. He did not attend schooling or religious madrasa.He shuns media and has refused to be photographed, indicating that he stands by the fanatic Talibanized version of Islam. His worldview is evident from his statement that “only jihad can bring peace to the world.”17He came to prominence in February 2005 when he signed a deal with the Pakistani government that it termed as his surrender, although he interpreted it as a peace deal in the interests of the tribal regions as well as Pakistan.18 As part of the deal, he had pledged not to provide any assistance to al-Qa`ida and other militants and not to launch operations against government forces.

The deal was short lived, and since 2006 he has virtually established an independent zone in parts of South Waziristan Agency, which is widely believed to be a sanctuary for al-Qa`ida and the Taliban. In private discussions, Pakistani officials also blame the United States for direct military operations in FATA, leading to the collapse of some deals. Mehsud commands a force of around 5,000 militants and has moved aggressively against Pakistan’s army in recent months, especially when he captured around 250 army soldiers in August 2007. The soldiers were returned only when the government released 25 militants associated with Mehsud.

Maulana Hafiz Gul Bahadur—Belonging to North Waziristan Agency, he has been a member of the local Taliban shura since 2005. He was also a member of the threeman signatory team, representing North Waziristan tribes, that signed the wellknown peace deal between the Pakistani government and North Waziristan in September 2006.21 The deal collapsed in July 2007. Currently, some negotiations are being held again between the government
and the agency, and Bahadur is involved in these discussions. Bahadur in fact recently chaired the meeting of militants that extended an ongoing cease-fire until January 20, 2008.22 It is noteworthy that on one hand he is part of the TTP leadership—which is openly challenging the government—while on the other hand is negotiating with the government on behalf of his home agency. It is possible that the government is trying to create a wedge between the top leaders of the TTP—a smart move if this is indeed the motivation.

Maulana Faqir Muhammad—The relatively well-profiled 39-year-old Faqir Muhammad belongs to Mohmand tribe and is known as a facilitator for al-Qa`ida.23 He is a resident of Bajaur Agency, but was educated in the Salafist tradition in various madrasas of the NWFP. This brought him closer to the Arabs operating in the area, which also benefited him financially. This perhaps allows him to afford the personal security team that he is known to have. He came into prominence in 2005 when government forces raided his house in search of some “high-value” al-Qa`ida operatives. He was a target of a U.S. missile attack in 2006, but he escaped unhurt. He also remained close to TNSM’s founder Maulana Sufi Muhammad, who is currently in jail.

Conclusion

Of the 56 suicide bombings in Pakistan in 2007, 36 were against military related targets, including two against the ISI; two against the army headquarters in Rawalpindi; one aimed at the air force in Sargodha; and one directed at the facility of the Special Services Group (SSG) in Tarbela. For many of these attacks, the government blamed Baitullah Mehsud and his associates. This reveals the TTP’s potential now that it has additional resources and geographic reach. This new organization in fact is expected to increase the capacity of militant forces in the area and exacerbate the political instability that has gripped Pakistan in recent months. This internal engagement also perhaps largely accounts for the 40 percent decline in insurgent attacks on NATO forces in the Pakistan-Afghanistan border areas.24 The TTP, however, is bound to refocus on Afghanistan if and when its position strengthens in FATA and the NWFP.

There are signs that the government is now targeting the TTP leadership, but it lacks the human intelligence required on the ground.Musharraf’s waning support within the armed forces also complicates the country’s “war on terrorism” strategy. There are many indications that some former intelligence agents and serving junior level officials of the army apparently are in league with the militants. Borrowing the words of leading Pakistani scholar Pervez Hoodbhoy, “a part of the establishment is clearly at war with another part.”

In this troubling scenario, dismantling the TTP and bringing its leadership to justice is critical for Pakistan’s internal security as well as for tackling the Taliban insurgency in southern Afghanistan.

Hassan Abbas is a fellow at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government and a doctoral candidate at The Fletcher School, Tufts University. Previously, he served in the administrations of Benazir Bhutto and Pervez Musharraf in Pakistan. He is also the author of Pakistan’s Drift into Extremism: Allah, the Army and America’s War on Terror.

 

[muse]

A question of trust in Pakistan
Gulfnews: A question of trust in Pakistan

09/25/2008 11:35 PM | By Isambard Wilkinson, raph Group



Pakistan's new president, Asif Ali Zardari, met President George W. Bush last Tuesday on the sidelines of the UN general assembly in New York.

Zardari is seeking to mend fences with his ally in the "war on terror'' after his predecessor, Pervez Musharraf, was less than candid about the Muslim state's covert support for the Afghan Taliban.

But Zardari faces an even greater challenge at home, where many Pakistanis see the rising tide of Islamist violence as part of a foreign conspiracy or, even, something to be supported if it harms America.

Western observers thought that last Saturday's bomb attack on the Marriott Hotel in Islamabad, which killed 53 people and wounded more than 260, would shock ambivalent Pakistanis into supporting their government's crackdown on home-grown terrorists. But it has merely highlighted just how confused and conspiracy-riddled is Pakistan's popular opinion.

Many I met on the streets of the capital believe the blast was caused by a "foreign hand'', a reference that usually denotes anyone from India, Afghanistan, Israel and Russia to the United States.

"They have taken revenge for the attacks in Delhi,'' said Allahditta Maleek, a shopkeeper whose windows were shattered in the blast, referring to recent terrorist attacks in India.

A cleric from the south-western city Quetta, where the Afghan Taliban has its headquarters, said he could not condemn the attack because it was an attack aimed at "America and its accomplices''.

Newspaper reports have speculated that the presence of American military personnel in the hotel at the time of the blast points to a US covert operation whose aim could be anything from the capture of Osama Bin Laden to the seizing of Pakistan's nuclear arsenal.

Pakistan is fertile territory for conspiracy theories. Those behind the assassination of its first prime minister, Liaquat Ali Khan, in 1951 were never identified, nor were the circumstances of the death in an air crash in 1988 of the military dictator Zia ul-Haq. Some question whether members of the political elite colluded in the murder of Benazir Bhutto, the former prime minister, by a suicide bomber last year. Why, they ask, has there been no official inquiry into her death?

It is a part of the world where shadowy foreign influences - real or imagined - have played a major role since the Great Game of the 19th century.

And today countries such as the US, China and Saudi Arabia have adopted shadowy but palpable roles in Pakistan's domestic politics.

Anatol Lieven, a professor at King's College London, said that the extent to which conspiracy theories dominate Pakistani political debate may seriously damage "effective policymaking''.

Around 1,500 Pakistanis have died in bombings and suicide attacks in the past year. But one opinion poll found that only 48 per cent of Pakistanis support their army's action against the Taliban; and nearly 80 per cent opposed the US pursuing Al Qaida or Taliban fighters from Afghanistan into Pakistan.

Reality

But each time Al Qaida or the Taliban bomb the capital or Punjab, Pakistan's political heartland, the reality of the threat posed by militant groups - many founded by military intelligence to fight as proxies - becomes harder to ignore.

"The blood of the dead and wounded in Islamabad had barely dried before the conspiracy theorists in Pakistan started churning out reports about US responsibility in the terrorist attack,'' noted one e-mail written by a Pakistani. "It seems the country's intelligentsia has become collectively blind to the jihadi threat and the mayhem created by Taliban terrorists,'' he wrote.

Najam Sethi, a newspaper editor who leads the campaign persuading Pakistanis to abandon their denial over the militant threat, said: "They [who are not supporting the war on terrorism] cannot convincingly argue, after we have pulled out [from the alliance with America], that either the Americans will stop attacking Al Qaida or Al Qaida will stop attacking us if Pakistan does not capitulate to it''.

Zardari has said he will hold a parliamentary debate to forge a national consensus on a counter-terrorism policy.

His first attempt to win over the opposition, he has pledged, will be to relinquish dictatorial presidential powers, such as the power to dismiss parliament.

Zardari will need to devise a strategy that satisfies a US administration frustrated by lack of progress and that sidelines pro-Taliban hardliners within the military.

In an editorial, The News newspaper said that reports linking the Marriott attack with suspected jihadis "once more focuses attention on the dangerous nexus between our intelligence apparatus and extremist outfits.

"Until this relationship between agencies and militants is ended, we can be certain that there will be yet more violence within a country torn apart by terrorism that has claimed thousands of lives.''

But Zardari's most pressing task is to convince the millions of Pakistanis who put greater faith in conspiracy theories or in Islamic fundamentalism that they should place their trust in him.

 

[muse]

Whatever one's opinion of CIA's activities, learned scholars afford us an opportunity to see in a new light


Al-Qaeda's opportunity to hurt the US
By Michael Scheuer

When Osama bin Laden declared war on the United States in al-Qaeda's name in the late summer of 1996, he outlined ambitious worldwide Islamist goals but noted that al-Qaeda could not accomplish them on its own.

He said that al-Qaeda could, at best, serve as the vanguard that would attack the United States, assist Muslim insurgencies around the world and generally try to incite Muslims to join the jihad against the United States, Israel and the police states that govern much of the Arab and Muslim world.

At the time, Bin Laden was very clear in saying that the ultimate fate of the ummah (Islamic community) was in the hands of all Muslims and not solely in al-Qaeda's. Those in the West who have seen al-Qaeda at any stage of its existence as a hierarchical organization, bent on controlling the jihad it was trying to incite, have either not read Bin Laden's words or have sought to cram this national security threat into the kind of nation-state problem with which they are comfortable.

Good news abounds for al-Qaeda

Muslims should rejoice over the fact that they have the United States as their priority enemy, al-Qaeda strategy analyst Abu Ubayd al-Qurashi wrote in 2002: "The mujahideen enjoy an edge," he argued, "because the US leadership is facing enormous strategic, political and economic challenges in various directions, whereas the mujahideen are focusing their entire efforts on America and have nothing else to worry about."

What was true then is even truer now. By any reasonable standard of evaluation, al-Qaeda's self-appointed role as the inciter of jihad has contributed to a world that is much more afflicted with jihadism today than it was in 1996. Moreover, most locations experiencing rising jihadi activities are states that Washington views as important to US national-security interests. The current problem is so widespread - including locales where there was, at most, limited jihad-related activity in 1996 - that the failure of major US and Western leaders and media to see the reality, let alone the ardent belief of some that the threat is receding, is inexplicable.

In Afghanistan, the Sunni Islamist movement is stronger and more coherent than at any time since the late 1980s, when the Red Army was still occupying the country. While the Taliban are the dominant insurgent group there, many of the so-called "old mujahideen" - such as Gulbuddin Hekmatyar and Jalaluddin Haqqani - have rejoined the fight against the US-led coalition. In addition, the Taliban have re-emerged from their 2001 defeat and eviction from power as a much-improved military organization, flush with manpower and external funding. They are armed as well with an increasingly effective information-warfare capability.

The Islamist insurgency in southern Thailand has intensified to a point unprecedented in the Thai state's modern history. Some of the Thai Islamists have openly affiliated with al-Qaeda and the insurgency as a whole has achieved enough political legitimacy to apparently be engaged in direct negotiations with the Thai government - something Bangkok not long ago said was unacceptable.

The pace of the Sunni Islamist insurgency in Iraq has slowed as the Sunnis stand down to ensure the withdrawal of the first 8,000-man tranche of US troops proceeds unhindered. At the same time, the Sunnis are organizing, absorbing new funds and arms from Iraq's Sunni neighbors, and training for the coming civil war with Iraq's Shi'ite rulers, a war whose arrival may be accelerated by the Shi'ite-dominated government's retributive policy toward the Sunnis who sided with US forces.

In India, the years since al-Qaeda declared jihad have seen an extraordinary growth in Islamist attacks on Hindu targets, both in terms of casualties and the level of economic destruction and disruption. Perhaps more dangerous for New Delhi, these years have seen the "indigenization" of Islamist violence to the point that most attacks are now being conducted by Indian Muslims, not Pakistanis or Bangladeshi sent to India to stage terrorist operations.

The Islamist insurgency in Mindanao is poised to re-intensify as peace talks between the Moro Islamist organizations and the Manila government have broken down - some pundits say irretrievably - and Philippine forces and their US advisers campaign more aggressively on the island.

The North Caucasus has experienced a reorganization and redirection of the Islamist insurgency there. The leaders of the formerly Chechnya-centric Islamist insurgency are trying to meld an assortment of North Caucasus groups into a united front that will carry the fight against the Russians to all the region's states. The Islamist chiefs have imposed tighter discipline on their fighters, effectively limiting the number of innocent Muslim civilians killed in attacks and thereby encouraging a gradual increase in public support for the insurgents. Their targets are now overwhelmingly Russian officials, soldiers, and security personnel and local government and military-security personnel allied with the Russians.

The bleed-through of Islamist fighters westward from Iraq is creating a growing and increasingly violent Sunni Islamist movement in northern Lebanon. The Israelis have repeatedly claimed that al-Qaeda has built a presence in Lebanon's Palestinian refugee camps, gained a toehold in Gaza, and exerted influence among Muslims in Israel proper. Additionally, Hamas's control of Gaza is no small achievement for the wider Sunni Islamist movement.

Islamists in Somalia have regrouped and rearmed since the December 2006, US-backed Ethiopian invasion of the country and are now again contesting with the Ethiopians for control of Mogadishu. The ongoing war and increasing hunger in the country is, according to a Horn of Africa expert affiliated with the Brussels-based International Crisis Group, creating "a population radically angry at us [the United States] and [a] very fertile ground for al-Qaeda".

In Pakistan, where Islamabad confronted no domestic Islamist insurgency in 1996, several such insurgencies are now raging. Pakistani military and security forces are fighting the forces of the Pakistani Taliban and the separate forces of the Pashtun tribes who began attacking after ex-president Pervez Musharraf sent Pakistan's army into the Federally Administered Tribal Areas to try to root out al-Qaeda and the Afghan Taliban.

In North Africa, al-Qaeda-affiliated Islamist insurgents are increasingly active in Algeria, Mauritania, and Mali, with al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) recently announcing its intention to expand the group's operations into Europe.

In addition to these militarily active regions, the rise of Islamist militancy clearly must be inferred on the basis of the media's regular reporting of repeated and increasingly harsh police crackdowns on Islamists in Morocco, Yemen, Kenya, Turkey, Bangladesh, Jordan, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, China, Nigeria, Uzbekistan, and several states in Western Europe.

Al-Qaeda's unexpected opportunity

Beyond this geographic expansion of jihad, al-Qaeda's own achievements have been substantial. Bin Laden has long described a three-fold strategy for driving the United States out of the Muslim world: (1) contribute to the forces creating domestic political disunity in America; (2) act and encourage other Islamists to act in a way that spreads US military and intelligence forces to the point where they lack reserves and flexibility; and (3) bleed America to bankruptcy. Obviously, al-Qaeda has been successful on the first two points and today Bin Laden is staring into the face of an entirely serendipitous opportunity to contribute to economic disaster in the United States.

Having been responsible for much of the economic bleeding America has done in Iraq and Afghanistan, al-Qaeda now has a chance to significantly advance its bleed-to-bankruptcy strategy. While al-Qaeda had no hand in creating the ongoing, self-inflicted unraveling of the US financial system, al-Qaeda could accelerate that unraveling with a 9/11-like or larger attack in the continental United States.

The US political class has often scoffed at or ridiculed Bin Laden's goal of driving America to bankruptcy, assuming that al-Qaeda irrationally assumed it could bring down the US economy through its actions alone. This analysis is inaccurate. Just as Bin Laden saw al-Qaeda as the inspirer of jihad and not the jihad itself, he saw that his group's attacks on the US economy could not cause bankruptcy, but might do so if they worsened other US economic problems. Thus the main economic damage done by the 9/11 attacks resulted from the Iraq and Afghan wars, not from the raids on Manhattan and Washington.

Today, Bin Laden and al-Qaeda have a chance to deal the United States an enormous economic blow if they can stage a near-term attack in America. Such an attack would serve as a devastating force-multiplier and perhaps push the current economic disaster into the category of a financial catastrophe. Whether al-Qaeda is positioned to stage such an attack is an open question.

What is unquestionable, however, is its intention to do so; the US intelligence community's conclusion that al-Qaeda poses a "clear and present danger" to the continental United States rests on the fact that US borders remain almost entirely open and the weapons of mass destruction arsenal of the former Soviet states and other sources of nuclear-bomb-making material have yet to be fully secured.

Michael Scheuer served in the CIA for 22 years before resigning in 2004. He served as the chief of the bin Laden Unit at the Counterterrorist Center from 1996 to 1999. He is the once anonymous author of Imperial Hubris: Why the West is Losing the War on Terror; his most recent book is Marching Toward Hell: America and Islam After Iraq. Dr Scheuer is a senior fellow with The Jamestown Foundation

 

[fatman17]

Dear Forum colleagues - instead of posting "doomsday" scenarios by every tom, dick and harry who has nothing else to do sitting in their air-con rooms and bash pakistan left, right & center, not to mention that all this does is de-motivate us as we fall into this trap.
we should be vigourously defending what we are doing. we have joined this WoT and we now cannot step out of it lest we give up FATA as part of pakistan and let the US bomb it to the stone-age as it has done with iraq and afghanistan.
it is our job to post articles supporting our forces who are doing a difficut job under the circumstances. if we dont want US or EU help, then we should tell them in no uncertain terms and finish the damn job with our own resources. remember this country has lived under sanctions for a decade and was able to become a nuclear power.
i know everyone is concerned about the situation (inc me) but its not like life in pakistan has come to a standstill. its going to get worse before it gets better but now we cannot change horses in mid-stream.
the pakistani people are a resilient lot, we will face hardships, power outages, wheat shortages, rising inflation but in the end we will overcome.

please accept my apologies if i have hurt anyones feelings

 

[muse]

Of Greatness
Salman Tarik Kureshi

“Be not afraid of greatness,” wrote Shakespeare, “Some men are born great, some achieve greatness and some have greatness thrust upon them.” In which of these categories, if any of them, could we classify our new president?

Despite the howls one hears of “Mr X percent” or “For God’s sake, not Zardari” or “Now, we’re really doomed”, the fact remains that he is the first president in several years elected as per that much mauled document we call our Constitution. More, his track record since the gross tragedy of December 27 thrust him into the limelight has not lacked merit. He provided leadership to his suddenly decapitated party and led it to a resoundingly strong electoral showing. He managed to craft an alliance with the PML that permitted a smooth transfer of power and, later, an equally smooth putting aside of Pervez Musharraf.

He has managed to assemble working majorities for the PPP in the National Assembly and three out of four provincial assemblies. A ceasefire with the Baloch nationalists appears to be coming into place, while on the other hand a stronger campaign against the FATA insurgents is in progress. A breakthrough in relations with Afghanistan appears to be developing.

Not bad. That the country is writhing in the clutches of its worst ever set of crises is not of his making.

Do we need greatness, or heroic charisma to bring us out of all this? Or just a sure, soothing hand? One could argue that all we need is simple good governance and a measure of political stability, not grand political spasms. Anyhow, when we look at our history, it seems that we ourselves have rarely been gracious to those figures whose political garments were cut from the fabric of potential greatness.

The first (and most unquestionably great) of such was left to die on a stretcher at Mauripur Air Base for want of a functioning ambulance. Another, labelled a traitor, banned from political activity and driven out of his country, died a mystery death in a Beirut hotel room. One was assassinated by hanging on a cold April morning, while his erstwhile rival — the founder of a new state — was murdered in his Dhanmondi home during a military coup. Two were shot dead at political rallies at Rawalpindi’s former Company Bagh. Scarcely the sorts of denouement that our new president, or anyone else, would willingly seek!

So, why seek statesmanship, greatness, in our leader? The point is that the panoply of problems besetting this hard-to-govern nation, many of which are unresolved practically since the beginning, were added to and immensely aggravated by the Zia and Musharraf regimes. They have been allowed to ferment and fester during the alleged inaction of the last seven months of what has been called “inert democracy”.

But have these seven months in fact been months of total governmental inaction? The state of the economy is said to be the most immediately pressing problem area. Yet we see that there has been a general trimming back of cushy subsidies, in an effort to curb inflation, incentives for agriculture have been improved and interest rates have been raised. The over-valued Rupee is being allowed to find its own level, which should assist commodity exports. Preliminary work on enhancing power generation capacity is being initiated. Nothing dramatic, it will be alleged, mere band-aids where major surgery is needed. Perhaps, but they are first moves and their sensible prudence is a refreshing contrast to the insane economic adventurism pursued between 2004 and 2007.

On the political front, we see that the judges’ crisis has been defused of its explosive potential. Their Honours themselves are being piecemeal restored to their rightful offices. One may justly raise question marks over the adoption of such a circuitous process. But it cannot be alleged that nothing is being done.

Let me come now to the major crisis of our times, arguably the worst that this nation has passed through. I refer of course the civil war of frightening proportions that threatens the integrity of the state of Pakistan and the very survival of societal coherence and civilisation itself in these ancient Lands of the Indus.

As I have pointed out in these pages before, there is a full-scale insurgent war being waged against the state of Pakistan. And this war has gained force and strength continuously over the years. The vacillations and dishonesty of purpose of the last government have enormously magnified this insurgency. Worse, the Musharraf regime permitted these violent primitives to consolidate themselves in the FATA belt — a stretch of land that is governed, not by the provincial governments, but directly by the president himself.

Within the territories they now control, the insurgents are not mere partisans, who live off the land and take shelter in the safe houses of a sympathetic peasantry. They are effectively in governmental control. Their armed bravos provide police patrols within these areas; their crude courts administer quick, violent ‘justice’; their armed bands collect taxes; they enact rough-and-ready legislation and maintain and operate a simple administration and a highly effective army.

Recollect that, even by the later stages of the civil war in the former East Pakistan in 1971, the Mukti Bahini had not gained such complete control of any substantial territory. Is it far-fetched to compare our South Waziristan with what China’s Yenan was for Mao Zedong and his People’s Liberation Army? Or the Pyotrograd Soviet, the only one they initially controlled, for the Russian Bolsheviks in 1917?

Note that I am not comparing ideologies or causes, only underlining the critical significance to an insurgency of control over a territory. And it is this kind of control which was virtually handed over to the Taliban and their fellow travellers. And now, we are in fact at war.

Second, this war is being fought within our country (indeed, in its very capital) and not outside our borders. Third, military elimination of a few ‘high value’ targets will not end a conflict that is likely to last a long time yet. Think Tamil Tigers. Think IRA. Think Hezbollah.

Today, after the supine inaction of the last several years, our armed forces have finally been brought into action and serious efforts are underway to restore Pakistan’s sovereignty in the areas from which it has been ousted by the insurgents. President Zardari, Prime Minister Gilani and COAS General Kayani all deserve commendation for this.

This is indeed our war, since our territories are the ones taken over and our cities the ones under attack. It is Aiman Al Zawahiri’s doctrine of attacking the “nearer enemy”, i.e. Pakistan, rather than the “far enemy”, the USA, that is at play here. The stakes for Pakistan — the very survival of our nation, of society, of civilisation — are enormous. If it is also America’s war, then one can only welcome assertion of the dictum that “The enemy of my enemy is my friend”. One needs to ignore the absurd cries of “Retaliate” and “Assert Sovereignty” that we hear.

To sum up, if we can observe little heroism, there is nevertheless significant movement on a number of fronts. There will be a time to assess the accumulation of these and other measures, nuances and strategies. That time must be given to this government before judging the greatness or otherwise of its functionaries. What is disturbing is the apparent absence of gravitas. The president’s wall-to-wall smile is pleasing, particularly when compared to the snarling visage of General Zia or the fist-waving pugnacity of Musharraf. But it is not enough. Nor is it necessary or appropriate to compliment an aspirant to the world’s second-most powerful office on her attractive looks.

If one wishes to observe figures of a magnitude towering towards Greatness, one need only look towards Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry. And towards Barrister Aitzaz Ahsan and the other leaders of the Lawyers’ Movement. There stand our true living Heroes.

The writer is a marketing consultant based in Karachi. He is also a poet

 

[fatman17]

^^^spare me this liberal mumbo-jumbo.

 

[muse]

The threat from within

By Dushka Saiyid


PAKISTANIS have risen to the occasion when faced by challenges: the 1965 war and the earthquake of 2005 are cases in point. Pakistan is once again faced by an existential challenge by groups that go by the generic name of Al Qaeda and the Taliban.

The audacity and effectiveness of the latest attack on the Marriott hotel in Islamabad proves that the capacity of the militants to cause havoc is increasing over time. It has had disastrous consequences for our fragile economy, the morale of society and for the image of the country.

What is to be done? Integrated strategic planning on how to combat this menace at the national level has been missing. The government’s response has been local rather than national, in fact that of a firefighter: send in the army or the Frontier Constabulary to Swat and Fata, and the police will take care of the problem in the cities.

Unless the terrorists are isolated through the mobilisation of public opinion against the mass murders of innocent civilians, the war cannot be won. Public support is critical for winning an asymmetric war, but no effort has gone into mobilising it in a systematic and methodical manner.

There is a crying need to build a consensus on the issue amongst the political parties, media and civil society; the challenge and threat to the country is too big for the government to deal with on its own. The calling of an in-camera joint session of the parliament to discuss foreign policy and national security issues is a step in the right direction. The role of the ulema and religious leaders of all persuasions is central to winning public support. Fatwas and khutbas from every mosque on Fridays must declare these mass murders and suicide bombing as going against the tenets of faith. A similar mobilisation of the media and civil society is also needed.

What is preventing the all-out mobilisation of the nation is a misapprehension that we are fighting America’s war and not our own; this confusion is further compounded by the naïve assumption that ‘no Muslim could have carried out the bombing of the Marriott’. As swathes of Pakistani territory are overrun by militias and warlords defying the writ of the state, enforcing their own rough and ready laws, beheading our security personnel at pleasure, Pakistanis must ask whether any state can survive this state of anarchy.

What if the Americans and the Nato forces walk away from Afghanistan, will these self-styled militias disappear? Baitullah Mehsud or Maulana Fazlullah are fighting an ideological war to change the nature of the Pakistani state and society, and are not about to ride into the sunset with the departure of the Americans. The more pusillanimous our response, the more audacious and deadly will be their attacks. Their power comes from the power to destroy, and their worldview is both violent and nihilistic.

The second problem is that of administrative incompetence. Given the scale of the terrorist threat that the country is facing, we need a specialised section of the police service, or a different force altogether, trained and equipped for confronting this dreadful menace. Our cops manning the check posts in Islamabad are sitting ducks and an easy prey for the next terrorist who decides to strike.

As for our intelligence agencies, they have been kept busy by successive governments in monitoring the opposition, and must change their focus. It is time that we stopped being in denial and realised that the threat emanates from within, and therefore is more dangerous. That a six-wheel dumper could be driving around in the Red Zone laden with 600 kg of deadly explosives is a testament to the laxity of the system. As it transpired, some cop did alert the authorities, but it was too late.

Despite the relatively recent experience of major fires in the National Assembly and the Shaheed-i-Millat Secretariat, and the millions allocated to the fire brigade for equipment, the fire brigade failed to deliver. People including the Czech ambassador died trapped in the fire. Did Marriott have its own emergency plan? As the CCTV cameras showed, its own security staff was scurrying around confused, with one of them vainly attempting to extinguish the fire in the truck’s engine with a toy-like fire extinguisher. Do these four- and five-star hotels have fire exits in their buildings? Does CDA have regulations for all the buildings in Islamabad to have fire exits, and are they ensuring that those regulations are implemented? The questions are many and the answers few, but here is an opportunity for the administrations of all the cities to get their act together.

This war will not be won by tanks and gunship helicopters alone. The government must make a national level strategy to mobilise opinion and isolate the enemy; and maintain a well-oiled administrative machinery to deal with terrorist attacks. Once we accept that this is not going to be a six-day war, we can and will overcome. The alternative is being “bombed into Stone Age”.

 

[muse]

The real war
Syed Mansoor Hussain



After the Marriott bombing, apologists for the bombers keep crawling out of the woodwork. Their contention is that it is all due to the US presence in Afghanistan and Pakistani support for the war on terror. Perhaps bombings of girls’ schools and CD shops are also a reaction to the US action in Afghanistan.

The silliest question being asked by these apologists is: whose war this is, ours or America’s? If Pakistanis are being killed then it is obviously a war against Pakistan and Pakistanis. And, we should fight against those that are killing us in Islamabad and Wah and Lahore and Quetta and Karachi.

This, of course, does not excuse US and NATO incursions into Pakistani territory. But, to the best of my knowledge, these forces have never attacked anything anywhere in the country except within a few kilometres of the Durand line — a lawless area as admitted by even the most diehard extremist supporters.

The problem between the US and Pakistan is going to be solved. The US cannot keep violating Pakistani borders and expect that Pakistan or its people will continue to provide — desperately needed — support for its campaign in Afghanistan. But that issue must not be conflated with the fight within Pakistan against extremists bent upon creating chaos and imposing a violent and extreme interpretation of Islam.

I fully support the government in its fight against religious extremism and the terrorism it fosters. This is a fight to the death, not just for ordinary citizens that are being killed by suicide bombers but also for our country as a democratic system that is obliged to protect all its citizens irrespective of their religious inclinations.

The apologists, especially in the media, hide behind obscurantist interpretations of our great faith or else take cover under anti-imperialist (read anti-US) sentiments. When more than sixty wage earners were killed in Wah, none of these self-styled defenders of Pakistan dwelled even for a short while on the victims — who had no sympathy for the US and were ordinary people trying to make a living.

In the Marriott tragedy, once again the bulk of people killed were security guards and drivers; wage earners, often the only breadwinners for their families, killed in the name of religion. Is this what our faith has become in the eyes of the apologists, a license to kill innocent people?

The question then is: what are these apologists thinking? Do they really believe the nonsense they sprout on TV or in op-ed articles? Being an old fashioned liberal who actually believes that most people are decent human beings, I am forced to posit that these people are afraid of being targeted by extremists if they don’t toe their line.

Members of the Pakistani media today have little to fear from the government but they probably all quake in their chappals when they say something that might offend the religious extremists. The greatest human ability is to rationalise points of view that might help in prolonging life.

A few years ago, when I returned to Pakistan after living in the US for many decades, many of my Pakistani-American friends in the US warned me about the rising tide of Islamism in the country. They said that most Pakistanis are now extremists, and as a westernised liberal I would never survive there.

Over the last four years that I have been in Pakistan, I have had the privilege of working with many people of faith, devout and practicing Muslims. All of them, contrary to my expectations, were willing to accept me for what I am as long as I was willing to accept them for what they are. And I must admit that professionally I got along better with the more religiously inclined than with the so-called liberal types!

There is no great divide in Pakistan between the devout and those that are less devout. It is an artificial separation created for political purposes by purveyors of political Islam. The simple fact is that most of us are Muslims that believe in much of the same things. And that, in my opinion, is a message that also needs to be emphasised during these difficult times.

For instance, I would love to see the leaders of the PMLN come out and openly and condemn suicide bombers and what they represent. That they have not done that is indeed extremely disappointing. Does that mean they actually agree with these extremists? I think not. Obviously the government of Punjab is actively fighting against the terrorist threat and will continue to do so. But at times, words are as important as actions.

I can accept politics but I do have a problem with our supposedly free media. They spend hours covering those killed in US strikes across the Durand Line but they have no time for all those killed by suicide bombers. If they actually believe that suicide bombing is a menace directed against Pakistan and that those that die in such attacks are innocent victims, then why don’t they highlight that?

Indeed, an hour every day on these supposedly free TV channels about victims of suicide bombers would let their audience realise that these victims are not US supporters but ordinary people living ordinary lives trying to support their families. Is that not a human-interest story that would indeed win them more viewers? Also, why no pictures of girls’ schools that are blown up, or some write-ups and programmes about them?

Let us not forget that this is also a fight to protect Islam from those that are destroying it in its own name. Just because someone says that he is doing a clearly horrific act in the name of religion, must we give him a free pass?[/FONT]

Syed Mansoor Hussain has practised and taught medicine in the US. He can be reached at smhmbbs70@yahoo.com

 

[niaz]

One of the most sensible articles I have read in a long time. It higlights the main problem ( seperated by space in the article) that many people inexplicably seem to justify the terrorist actions. A phenomenon also evident from many emotional posts in this forum. This is due to a Taliban sypmathetic media which deliberately confuses the real issues.

In the national interest

Monday, September 29, 2008
by Kamal Siddiqi

The writer is editor reporting, The News

It is difficult to ignore the sufferings of the people of the North-West Frontier Province, soon to be known as the people of Pakhtoonkhwa. For most people in Pakistan, the intensity of the War on Terror being fought between religious militants and the government forces came home finally with the bombing of the Marriott Hotel. Many amongst our rich and powerful have stayed or dined there, with the result that they suddenly realised how real the war has become. In that sense, it is indeed Pakistan’s 9/11.

President Zardari stated the obvious in the United States when he said that Pakistan is at war. Our problem is that despite the fact we are at war, as a country we keep on thinking we are at peace. People all over Pakistan continue to play along as if all is well, with many turning a blind eye to the killings and bombings taking place.

The worst to suffer are the people of the rural parts of the NWFP. Peaceful areas like Swat have been turned into war zones. The valley which was once visited by thousands of tourists now lies barren and wasted. The hotels that lined the fast running rivers are almost all closed. Thousands have been pushed into unemployment. Many more are suffering as a consequence. Schools have been bombed, bridges have been broken. Hundreds have died in the fighting. Vast areas have been laid waste. There is a curfew-like situation here. People are afraid of stepping out of their houses.

In the tribal areas too, the Taliban have taken control. These are not the Afghan Taliban but locals who have banded together as things went from bad to worse. The government should ask itself why is it that these small militant groupings have become so high and mighty overnight. How are they getting the public support that they do? More important, where are they getting their guns?

Let us take the example of Maulvi Fazalullah, also known as “Mullah Radio.” For several years, this preacher of religious hatred was allowed to run his illegal FM radio station during the Musharraf government without any hindrance. Many of the refugees who have arrived in Karachi from Swat say that this man has such a hold on the people of Swat—both men and women—that they give to his cause unquestionably.

It is the same Mullah Radio that declared “independence” and established his little Islamic Emirate within the Swat Valley before he was challenged by the state. But what is it that gave the Mullah so much popularity. Apart from his warped views on why people should not have their children inoculated against polio and that people should rise up against the government, his message was clear. It promised a better system of government and quick justice.

The manner in which the government has been a silent bystander as corrupt government officials have been allowed to squander at will is one of the reasons for public frustration. The people have seen how helpless the police and the system of justice are in this area. Today President Zardari talks of a Marshall Plan for FATA and the NWFP. We have been hearing of this plan for two decades now. Why has it taken so long?

Let us take the efforts of the Musharraf-led government in the post earthquake scenario. Billions were poured into the country in cash and kind. But most of the people of the affected areas did not receive the help that they needed. There is no accountability of any sort as to where that money went. Many have got richer in the process. Most have become poorer.

It is this kind of frustration that the religious elements have built up on. Little-known religious groups were armed in the past decade. Now, when they have tasted blood, the government says it has abandoned them. Clerics of local mosques have turned into commanders due to the government’s faulted policy in the NWFP. Deals were done when they should not have. Agreements were signed which could not be enforced. The people were ignored in favour of the militants.

The much-talked-about Madrassa reform has not come about. It is a sham under which the government, and a ministry headed by Ejazul Haq, sucked in millions of dollars in American aid money with only a “model” school in Islamabad to show for their efforts. Owing to the half-hearted manner in which the government pursued its reform agenda, the religious schools did not play along. Like in the case of the Lal Masjid issue, Ejazul Haq played both sides. At a huge cost to Pakistan.

In the ongoing scenario, the military has finally moved in to fight the militants. The militants are fighting back on two fronts—on the battlefield as well as through suicide attacks in which hundreds of innocent Pakistanis have been killed, maimed or scarred for life. The militants justify this by saying that “some casualties” are acceptable. This is the line that the rightwing parties have also promoted through their platforms.

It is the people of the NWFP, let down by their government, terrorised by the militants and now under fire from the military, who are the main victims. They have suffered in the past, they are suffering again. With the military now turning to heavy bombing of suspect areas, thousands of people in Swat, FATA and parts of the NWFP, have been forced to vacate their homes.

Many of the residents of these areas say that hundreds of people have died as a consequence of the military operation. There were demonstrations earlier this month as people protested the killings. In the NWFP, there is a wave of anger brewing as to what they see as more senseless violence. This anger is now being exploited by the religious parties, who are the cause of the problem in the first place.

The government remains unmoved and unable to understand the complexities of its operation. De-facto interior minister Rehman Malik says that some outlets of the local media are glamorising terror groups. He is right. The media in Pakistan has little direction in some instances and continues to spew a mixed message, much of which is misguided though well intentioned. The bigger picture remains unclear to most. At the same time, the government—particularly Ms Sherry Rehman, needs to be asked how much the information ministry has done to highlight the plight of the victims of terrorism.



It is a startling revelation that many Pakistanis—almost all educated and middle-income groups, do not blame the Taliban for the terror attacks, or even, in some cases, justify the senseless suicide bombings. This is because of the manner in which the media has confused and misguided. It is also because Ms Sherry Rehman’s ministry has not done enough to tell Pakistanis of the tragedies that the people of Pakistan have suffered owing to the attacks. The ministry is too busy highlighting the achievements of Mr Zardari and Mr Gilani.




We need to have a massive campaign in which the people of Pakistan not only realise how hundreds of people have died or are suffering due to the killings by the suicide bombers. A campaign should be launched to help the families of those killed. As Pakistanis we need to help them in their time of loss. In many instances, the breadwinner has been killed. National effort should be made as was done at the time of the earthquakes some years back. The same national spirit has to be re-kindled.

We also need to help those displaced by the ongoing conflict in the NWFP and FATA. Money should be poured in to house and feed them. It is strange that while we have a government system in place to deal with Afghan refugees, the same department or directorate cannot be used to help our Pakistani families. Such are the ways of bureaucracy.

Then there are those who continue to pursue their own agenda. A well-placed official tells us that there was some major blunder at the PTV, this time with the speech of the president and not the prime minister. That is why the head of the organisation is cooling his heels in Islamabad and did not accompany the president to the US. One wonders whose agenda this man is pursuing.

Email: kamal.siddiqi@thenews.com.pk
Everyone pursuing their own agenda

 

[muse]

Pakistanis are slow learners - glorius, shining Islam it turns out to be is anything but, for Pakistanis are a die hard bunch - so long as Islam is intolerant, brutal, and savage, well they are all for it -- and if you should think this not the case, please explain the goings on in Pakistan -- The fault of the West,a CIA conspiracy, horrid Hindus and zionists, It's not real islam, no Muslim could do such things -- yeah, yeah, smell the coffee, it's later than you most pakistanis think and Pakistanis need to decide where they stand.

The apologists for the radicals say that fight taliban and AQ is like threatening civil war - OK, perhaps they are right and if that is what it is, then that's what it will have to be - this issue must be decided, on eway or another.

Taliban and AQ would not have roots in Pakistan were it not for a massive failure of government -- What need for public funds for schools, the Deeni madaress are doing a great service to the nation and to the student and their family - bigotry and the cult of death is on the curicullum and the learned scholars insist that this is what Islam is so who are the rest of us to disagree.

In Pakistan, the pipes need cleaning, this weed has to be pulled out from it's roots and if it takes a civil war that the apologists threaten us with, then we must ask, how is that civil war any different from what we are being subjected to today, bombs go off with a kind of regularity in our cities, curiously no obscuritanist mullah or politician is targeted, mullahs from minority sects are targetted, but the Jamaati are safe, the jamaat e ulema are safe - how is that? perhaps if these and their families and thiers were not safe, they may rethink this whole radical Islam and civil war business.

 

[DarkStar]

Pipes need cleaning, weeds need to be pulled. We better summon a force of jammadaars to do this.
This is nothing more than warmongering. Some militants have shown time and again they are ready for peace, only for it to be scuppered by a missile attack. So where does the fault lie? These are militants for God's sake, you can't expect them to be all friendly under fire. Tension needs to reduced on this front. Cooler heads need to prevail. Rushing into war is never in good sense, and people who have been in war will be the first to tell you this.
A few bombs have regrettably gone off in Punjab, and people are rightly outraged. How many of us protested the indescriminate killings of our countrymen in nwfp and fata? Now some of them have said, if our women and children are being killed, maybe you should also know how that feels like. Should our answer be to up the ante and kill more? Can you really believe you will be able to obliterate the people of FATA? because that is what you will have to do. If they are good at anything at all, it will be revenge. We will only have ourselves to blame if it ever got to that stage.

 

[dr.umer]

A few bombs have regrettably gone off in Punjab, and people are rightly outraged. How many of us protested the indescriminate killings of our countrymen in nwfp and fata? Now some of them have said, if our women and children are being killed, maybe you should also know how that feels like. Should our answer be to up the ante and kill more? Can you really believe you will be able to obliterate the people of FATA? because that is what you will have to do. If they are good at anything at all, it will be revenge. We will only have ourselves to blame if it ever got to that stage.

What do you mean by "indiscriminate" killing of countrymen in NWFP and FATA?

Any links or sources to support your claim?

If it was "indiscriminate killing", how come I see 0.4 million refugees "alive" from those areas being fed by Pakistan.

 

[dr.umer]

Some militants have shown time and again they are ready for peace, only for it to be scuppered by a missile attack.

Peace can't be achieved unless militants lay down their arms. Those who are "peace-loving" have formed "Lashkar" and are fighting along with PA against these militants.

So where does the fault lie? These are militants for God's sake, you can't expect them to be all friendly under fire. Tension needs to reduced on this front. Cooler heads need to prevail. Rushing into war is never in good sense, and people who have been in war will be the first to tell you this.

We can keep on denying that we are not in a state of war but it will never work.

These militants are just terrorist using name of "Taliban" (although from Afghanistan 'Taliban' have denied any connection with these terrorist) and are being funded by RAW and CIA. So giving them any sort of leverage would mean that we are giving CIA & RAW a clear way.