Posts
In any Pakistani blog, the discussion around an unconquered Afghanistan rotates around the 2 superpowers defeated by the Afghans and the supposed fact that the 3'rd superpower is already on her knees.
A lot of Western commentators fall for the same story line given their view of history is driven by what happened to the British, to the Soviet Union and now to the US of A.
The facts are different.
From 1200 A.D till about 1500 AD, Afghanistan was under the yoke of the Mongols. These terrible steppe horsemen, exploded into a fairly civilized Afghanistan, under Genghis Khan the greatest conqueror the world has seen. The invasion of Afghanistan resulted in massive
slaughter of the local population and total destruction of many cities.
In 1220 the Mongols sacked Balkh, butchered its inhabitants and levelled all the buildings capable of defense. In 1221 it was the turn of Herat which was captured and razed to the ground. The same was the fate of Ghazni and Bamian.
Afghanistan was absorbed into the Ilkhanate empire after the conquest and so it remained until Timur the de-facto of the Chagatai Khanate conquered Afghanistan. From the 16th to the early 18th centuries, Afghanistan was divided, with the Uzbeks in the North, the west under the Safavid empire and the east ruled by the the Indian Mughals.
The Hazaras are a distinct racial group descended from the conquering Mongols and are the third largest ethnic group in Afghanistan. You cannot miss the fact that the Mongols were in Afghanistan. There is living proof of their passing.
Unconquerable Afghanistan. Absolutely NOT.
Note:
Russia is another country that historians claim to be the humiliator of world conquerors.
Napoleon's French army was defeated not just by the legions of Tsar Alexander, but also by the Russian Winter.
Hitler and the German Panzer were mired in the swamps of the Russian prairie and the famed blitzkrieg came to a shuddering stop when faced with Mother Russia and her lieutenant, General Winter.
The Mongol Invasion of Russia was heralded by the Battle of the Kalka river in 1223.In
the autumn of 1236, the Mongol Batu Khan crossed the Volga river and conquered Volga Bulgaria. In December 1237, Batu conquered Ryazan, Kolomna and Moscow. Then the Mongol horde laid siege to Vladimir on Feb 4'th 1238 and three days later, the capital was taken and burnt to the ground, setting the stage for 200 years of Mongol yokedom for Russia.
Interesting that the Mongols preferred to attack from the east in autumn or in deep winter, when the best armies of the 19'th and 20'th centuries failed miserably to carry battle into the enemy's ranks.
Afghanistan will be won when the West attacks the Taliban in winter. Winter is when all fighting stops and the Taliban retreats into the villages and regroup for a spring and summer offensive. Winter is the time to strike, when the West has superior arms, superior equipment and is better prepared to fight a hard and brutal winter campaign. Time will tell if the lessons of the Mongol conquests are learnt by the followers of Clauswitz.
Friday, January 30, 2009
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
The lady with blinkers
Here is an educated, intelligent diplomat, still sprouting the old tired garbage.
1. She admits Pakistan has leverage over terrorists currently creating mayhem in Kashmir. She is blatant about Pakistan's ability to coerce India on Kashmir based on the leverage Pakistan has with the terrorists she sends across into Kashmir.
2 Even when the terrorists have taken over large tracts of Swat and NWFP, even as the Pakistan government has lost control over its people and it government machinery in those areas, even as the Pakistan Army hides in makeshift bunkers in now dynamited girl's schools, even now there are people who say, its time to negotiate with the Taliban. She turns a blind eye to the number of times the GOP has "negotiated" with the terrorists. The number of times, decisive military action was halted allowing time for the Taliban to regroup and return revitalized into the fray. She conveniently forgets the number of patriotic policemen, army men , teachers and government officials who have been bullied, stripped of dignity and finally killed by these terrorists, She still wants to negotiate !!!
3. She still talk of seeking an end to Predator strikes, but does not talk of what quantifiable steps Pakistan is taking to stop the terrorism machinery in Pakistan. Why would a country like USA directly attack areas in Pakistan a sovereign nation on the day of the swearing in of a new President unless the US is sending a message. " FIX YOUR COUNTRY or WE WILL HAVE TO FIX IT FOR YOU".
4. She fails to see why no foreign countries including the implacable foes of the US like Ahmednijad of Iran, Chavez from Venezuela, Castro from Cuba or Kim of N Korea, or even the Chinese who are quick to castigate the so called imperialistic hegemony of USA not say a word when the US openly bombs the sovereign nation of Pakistan. Their silence is like a roar. Either Pakistan is deaf or pretending to be deaf.
5. She still thinks Pakistan can lay conditions and boundaries as to what US can or cannot do. Consider this, : Pakistan is broke; the US has managed to corner all the countries who may have helped Pakistan bilaterally to become part of the "friends of Pakistan group" and essentially choked any aid that can be given to Pakistan. Visits by Pakistan to China, the Saudi and to UAE with a begging bowl has given measly returns. Given the current state of the world economy, no country is willing to give handouts.
The USA is negotiating other routes of access to Afghanistan.
Countries negotiate from positions of strength. Pakistan stands on quicksand. Raked by sectarian and religious violence, her survival is at stake. And here you have mandarins of diplomacy who think they can dictate terms to the sole superpower in the world?
Delusions of grandeur has limits.
Reading between the lines, you might be tempted to think she wishes the Taliban could take over Pakistan so that Pakistan can cock a snoot at the US.
The rate at which the situation in Pakistan is deteriorating, she might get her wish.
we would live to know what she thinks of Pakistan under the new regimen. Unfortunately, that would not be possible.
Once the Taliban takes over Pakistan, she would be enclosed in a head to toe shuttlecock burkha, locked up at home, with television, newspapers and internet cut off as those are "UnIslamic" and forced to beget children and beg as those are the only two careers open to women under the Taliban regime.
Read on !!!
http://www.thenews.com.pk/daily_detail.asp?id=159607
Back to the future
Thursday, January 29, 2009
Dr Maleeha Lodhi
In his initial days in office President Barack Obama has signalled a fresh start to America's engagement with the world, pledging to temper power by "humility and restraint" and place greater emphasis on diplomacy to secure its goals. Will this promise translate into a new approach towards relations between the US and Pakistan?
Today this relationship is characterised by mutual frustration engendered by a growing trust gap. While the leaderships of the two countries place a high value on their ties, their publics and legislatures increasingly view the other with suspicion and depict each other as an unreliable ally. The advent of a new administration in Washington offers a window of opportunity to redefine and recalibrate relations. Both sides need to guard against unrealistic expectations but be prepared to engage in an honest dialogue.
Three things stand out about this troubled relationship from a historical perspective. First, relations have lurched between engagement and estrangement in almost predictable cycles. Second, these swings have occurred under both Republican and Democratic administrations, which have taken turns to impose and then lift sanctions. And, third, the episodic nature of ties has reflected Washington's changing strategic priorities and shifts in global geopolitics, which in turn has reinforced the perception among Pakistanis that their country is seen from a tactical perspective, and not in intrinsic terms. This burden of history has contributed to a negative dynamic that will need to be addressed if relations are to be placed on a more consistent and positive footing.
By naming Richard Holbrooke as special representative for Pakistan and Afghanistan, the Obama administration has put one of America's most prominent international trouble-shooters in charge of a region which it has accorded top priority. But in limiting Holbrooke's formal brief and not extending it to encompass South Asia, this diplomatic prescription for a "regional approach" appears to be at odds with the diagnosis that Obama himself has made. Before his inauguration he indicated more then once that the road to a stabilised Afghanistan runs through a Kashmir solution, because that would enable Pakistan to switch its strategic focus from the eastern to its western frontier.
Holbrooke was originally envisaged as special envoy for South Asia, but his formal mandate was circumscribed after Delhi mounted a frenetic diplomatic effort to prevent "re-hyphenation with Pakistan." But it would be a mistake to conclude that this will preclude him from engaging with the sources of South Asian instability. Once he familiarises himself with on-ground realities, he will have to take into account the interconnectedness of issues in the region, not least because of Washington's anxiety that prolonged tensions between Pakistan and India could hobble any "new" approach to stabilise Afghanistan. Moreover, as Afghanistan has been the new arena for the old subcontinental rivalry to be played out, Holbrooke may well engage with Pakistan-India relations via Afghanistan. So he can be expected to approach the region with a wider scope.
It is also up to Islamabad how seriously it engages Holbrooke and sets out its own security concerns, driving home the reality that there can be no durable solution to tensions between Pakistan and India unless Kashmir is addressed, and that Pakistan's ability to act forcefully and decisively on its Western border rests critically on a peaceful eastern frontier. And if Washington simply "pressures" Pakistan to rein in Kashmiri militant groups without balancing this by urging Delhi to seek a political solution of Kashmir, this would relieve India of its responsibility to stabilise the region. Virtually every crisis in Indo-Pakistani relations has been directly or indirectly related to Kashmir. Any strategy of simply "leaning" on Pakistan is flawed. No state can be pressed onto a course unless it regards that to be in its own interest.
Engaging the new US administration requires Islamabad to evolve a clear and achievable agenda that reflects national priorities and interests. As Washington gears up for "relentless diplomatic efforts," Islamabad must be ready with a clear and coherent approach that is designed to reset ties with the US and align these with the sentiments of its own people. After all no policy is sustainable unless it has public support. Such an approach should include the following elements:
1) Seek an end to unilateral US Predator attacks on Pakistani territory, which have inflamed public opinion, undercut Islamabad's own counter-insurgency efforts and risk destabilising the country. Washington should respect the democratic will as expressed in Parliament's resolution of Oct 23, 2007, and instead help strengthen Pakistan's own capacity to contain militancy.
2) Reject any conditionality attached to assistance promised under the Biden-Lugar bill. The administration's announcement that this assistance will be linked to Pakistan's counterterrorism performance in the border region is at odds with the approach advocated by President Obama during the campaign. It also contradicts assurances given by Vice President Joe Biden during his recent Islamabad visit of taking relations to the "pre-Pressler" days. Conditioning aid turns on its head the very rationale for assistance that US officials have themselves been advocating: that assistance to stabilise Pakistan will empower it to deal more effectively with security challenges. An approach that treats Pakistan from the paradigm of "hired help" rather than valued ally, should be unacceptable to Islamabad. It only reinforces the transactional nature of ties that are so resented by Pakistanis.
3) Convey that Pakistan is neither looking for nor needs US military assistance to build its conventional capability. But to strengthen its counterterrorism capabilities, it requires helicopters, night vision, radars, electronic intelligence devices and other advanced technology. Absent these, the Pakistani army will continue to fight an asymmetrical conflict with conventional implements.
4) Insist on the criticality of trade, rather than aid, in helping Pakistan's economic recovery. The country's economic lifeline, textiles, is in deep trouble. Providing Pakistani garments and textiles access to the American market would be a transformative act. The present US trade policy imposes higher tariffs on Pakistani goods than those from many developing nations. Tariffs on Pakistani textiles are also much higher than on goods from many rich countries. Enhanced trade creates jobs and income. Aid usually doesn't, as Pakistan has learnt from the three aid packages of the 1960s, 1980s and post-9/11. Jobs and income are more effective anti-terrorism tools than bombs and bullets.
5) Assert that a genuinely "regional approach" should address Pakistan's security concerns with India, especially Kashmir, and Afghanistan. Washington should be made to recognise the regional nature of Pakistan's security challenges and acknowledge that many issues in the region are so interconnected that they can set each other off.
6) Insist that as the US reshapes its Afghan policy, Pakistan's views and security are factored into the review. Unless Pakistan and Washington's NATO allies are all on board and "buy into" the revised approach, no strategy will work. Such a review must aim at a fundamental overhaul, not just a policy tweak.
7) Counsel the US that simply sending more troops to Afghanistan without a significant change in strategy will be counter-productive. The war in Afghanistan is unwinnable if it continues to be waged the way it is now. A troop surge on its own will not reverse the downward spiral. Instead, it will increase the sense of occupation and multiply targets for the insurgency. At the peak of its occupation of Afghanistan, the Soviet Union deployed around 150,000 troops and also had another 50,000 Afghan army forces available. This did not avoid a spectacular defeat in terrain that has been the graveyard of empires.
8) Policies to stabilise Afghanistan should not unintendedly end up destabilising Pakistan, as has been the case with the flawed approach and military missteps of the Bush era. The stated US goal of helping to stabilise Pakistan has been undermined by actual policy pursued in the region.
The Obama Administration should consider a more realistic approach to Afghanistan that focuses policy on the "core" project (defeating terrorism), rather than a "big project" of multiple goals that can mire it in a war without end. This means distinguishing between what is vital (disruption of terrorist networks) and what is desirable but best left to Afghans to undertake (transforming society, building a centralised state and promoting democracy). This should aim to separate Al Qaeda from the Taliban, and engage the latter in a reconciliation process. Building confidence by dialogue should be followed by the offer for an eventual withdrawal of foreign forces in return for a cessation of attacks and support for the creation of a viable Afghan national army and security apparatus.
For its part Pakistan needs to review its counter-militancy strategy to ensure that its patchwork actions in FATA, as indeed Swat, are replaced by a consistent policy of robust law-enforcement to establish the writ of the state. And the government must make unrelenting efforts to mobilise public support to counter the forces of violent extremism. Its counter-insurgency strategy must be anchored in a set of interlocking political processes and involve the strengthening of local, civilian administration, to ensure that security objectives are sustainable.
In evolving a credible road map for stabilisation of its border areas and sharing this with Washington, Islamabad should also specify redlines so that the US understands the limits of cooperation and commits to respect Pakistan's sovereignty. With Mr Holbrooke expected soon in Islamabad, Pakistani officials should prepare to press their views and vision of the future relationship with clarity and boldness.
The writer is a former envoy to the US and the UK, and a former editor of The News.
1. She admits Pakistan has leverage over terrorists currently creating mayhem in Kashmir. She is blatant about Pakistan's ability to coerce India on Kashmir based on the leverage Pakistan has with the terrorists she sends across into Kashmir.
2 Even when the terrorists have taken over large tracts of Swat and NWFP, even as the Pakistan government has lost control over its people and it government machinery in those areas, even as the Pakistan Army hides in makeshift bunkers in now dynamited girl's schools, even now there are people who say, its time to negotiate with the Taliban. She turns a blind eye to the number of times the GOP has "negotiated" with the terrorists. The number of times, decisive military action was halted allowing time for the Taliban to regroup and return revitalized into the fray. She conveniently forgets the number of patriotic policemen, army men , teachers and government officials who have been bullied, stripped of dignity and finally killed by these terrorists, She still wants to negotiate !!!
3. She still talk of seeking an end to Predator strikes, but does not talk of what quantifiable steps Pakistan is taking to stop the terrorism machinery in Pakistan. Why would a country like USA directly attack areas in Pakistan a sovereign nation on the day of the swearing in of a new President unless the US is sending a message. " FIX YOUR COUNTRY or WE WILL HAVE TO FIX IT FOR YOU".
4. She fails to see why no foreign countries including the implacable foes of the US like Ahmednijad of Iran, Chavez from Venezuela, Castro from Cuba or Kim of N Korea, or even the Chinese who are quick to castigate the so called imperialistic hegemony of USA not say a word when the US openly bombs the sovereign nation of Pakistan. Their silence is like a roar. Either Pakistan is deaf or pretending to be deaf.
5. She still thinks Pakistan can lay conditions and boundaries as to what US can or cannot do. Consider this, : Pakistan is broke; the US has managed to corner all the countries who may have helped Pakistan bilaterally to become part of the "friends of Pakistan group" and essentially choked any aid that can be given to Pakistan. Visits by Pakistan to China, the Saudi and to UAE with a begging bowl has given measly returns. Given the current state of the world economy, no country is willing to give handouts.
The USA is negotiating other routes of access to Afghanistan.
Countries negotiate from positions of strength. Pakistan stands on quicksand. Raked by sectarian and religious violence, her survival is at stake. And here you have mandarins of diplomacy who think they can dictate terms to the sole superpower in the world?
Delusions of grandeur has limits.
Reading between the lines, you might be tempted to think she wishes the Taliban could take over Pakistan so that Pakistan can cock a snoot at the US.
The rate at which the situation in Pakistan is deteriorating, she might get her wish.
we would live to know what she thinks of Pakistan under the new regimen. Unfortunately, that would not be possible.
Once the Taliban takes over Pakistan, she would be enclosed in a head to toe shuttlecock burkha, locked up at home, with television, newspapers and internet cut off as those are "UnIslamic" and forced to beget children and beg as those are the only two careers open to women under the Taliban regime.
Read on !!!
http://www.thenews.com.pk/daily_detail.asp?id=159607
Back to the future
Thursday, January 29, 2009
Dr Maleeha Lodhi
In his initial days in office President Barack Obama has signalled a fresh start to America's engagement with the world, pledging to temper power by "humility and restraint" and place greater emphasis on diplomacy to secure its goals. Will this promise translate into a new approach towards relations between the US and Pakistan?
Today this relationship is characterised by mutual frustration engendered by a growing trust gap. While the leaderships of the two countries place a high value on their ties, their publics and legislatures increasingly view the other with suspicion and depict each other as an unreliable ally. The advent of a new administration in Washington offers a window of opportunity to redefine and recalibrate relations. Both sides need to guard against unrealistic expectations but be prepared to engage in an honest dialogue.
Three things stand out about this troubled relationship from a historical perspective. First, relations have lurched between engagement and estrangement in almost predictable cycles. Second, these swings have occurred under both Republican and Democratic administrations, which have taken turns to impose and then lift sanctions. And, third, the episodic nature of ties has reflected Washington's changing strategic priorities and shifts in global geopolitics, which in turn has reinforced the perception among Pakistanis that their country is seen from a tactical perspective, and not in intrinsic terms. This burden of history has contributed to a negative dynamic that will need to be addressed if relations are to be placed on a more consistent and positive footing.
By naming Richard Holbrooke as special representative for Pakistan and Afghanistan, the Obama administration has put one of America's most prominent international trouble-shooters in charge of a region which it has accorded top priority. But in limiting Holbrooke's formal brief and not extending it to encompass South Asia, this diplomatic prescription for a "regional approach" appears to be at odds with the diagnosis that Obama himself has made. Before his inauguration he indicated more then once that the road to a stabilised Afghanistan runs through a Kashmir solution, because that would enable Pakistan to switch its strategic focus from the eastern to its western frontier.
Holbrooke was originally envisaged as special envoy for South Asia, but his formal mandate was circumscribed after Delhi mounted a frenetic diplomatic effort to prevent "re-hyphenation with Pakistan." But it would be a mistake to conclude that this will preclude him from engaging with the sources of South Asian instability. Once he familiarises himself with on-ground realities, he will have to take into account the interconnectedness of issues in the region, not least because of Washington's anxiety that prolonged tensions between Pakistan and India could hobble any "new" approach to stabilise Afghanistan. Moreover, as Afghanistan has been the new arena for the old subcontinental rivalry to be played out, Holbrooke may well engage with Pakistan-India relations via Afghanistan. So he can be expected to approach the region with a wider scope.
It is also up to Islamabad how seriously it engages Holbrooke and sets out its own security concerns, driving home the reality that there can be no durable solution to tensions between Pakistan and India unless Kashmir is addressed, and that Pakistan's ability to act forcefully and decisively on its Western border rests critically on a peaceful eastern frontier. And if Washington simply "pressures" Pakistan to rein in Kashmiri militant groups without balancing this by urging Delhi to seek a political solution of Kashmir, this would relieve India of its responsibility to stabilise the region. Virtually every crisis in Indo-Pakistani relations has been directly or indirectly related to Kashmir. Any strategy of simply "leaning" on Pakistan is flawed. No state can be pressed onto a course unless it regards that to be in its own interest.
Engaging the new US administration requires Islamabad to evolve a clear and achievable agenda that reflects national priorities and interests. As Washington gears up for "relentless diplomatic efforts," Islamabad must be ready with a clear and coherent approach that is designed to reset ties with the US and align these with the sentiments of its own people. After all no policy is sustainable unless it has public support. Such an approach should include the following elements:
1) Seek an end to unilateral US Predator attacks on Pakistani territory, which have inflamed public opinion, undercut Islamabad's own counter-insurgency efforts and risk destabilising the country. Washington should respect the democratic will as expressed in Parliament's resolution of Oct 23, 2007, and instead help strengthen Pakistan's own capacity to contain militancy.
2) Reject any conditionality attached to assistance promised under the Biden-Lugar bill. The administration's announcement that this assistance will be linked to Pakistan's counterterrorism performance in the border region is at odds with the approach advocated by President Obama during the campaign. It also contradicts assurances given by Vice President Joe Biden during his recent Islamabad visit of taking relations to the "pre-Pressler" days. Conditioning aid turns on its head the very rationale for assistance that US officials have themselves been advocating: that assistance to stabilise Pakistan will empower it to deal more effectively with security challenges. An approach that treats Pakistan from the paradigm of "hired help" rather than valued ally, should be unacceptable to Islamabad. It only reinforces the transactional nature of ties that are so resented by Pakistanis.
3) Convey that Pakistan is neither looking for nor needs US military assistance to build its conventional capability. But to strengthen its counterterrorism capabilities, it requires helicopters, night vision, radars, electronic intelligence devices and other advanced technology. Absent these, the Pakistani army will continue to fight an asymmetrical conflict with conventional implements.
4) Insist on the criticality of trade, rather than aid, in helping Pakistan's economic recovery. The country's economic lifeline, textiles, is in deep trouble. Providing Pakistani garments and textiles access to the American market would be a transformative act. The present US trade policy imposes higher tariffs on Pakistani goods than those from many developing nations. Tariffs on Pakistani textiles are also much higher than on goods from many rich countries. Enhanced trade creates jobs and income. Aid usually doesn't, as Pakistan has learnt from the three aid packages of the 1960s, 1980s and post-9/11. Jobs and income are more effective anti-terrorism tools than bombs and bullets.
5) Assert that a genuinely "regional approach" should address Pakistan's security concerns with India, especially Kashmir, and Afghanistan. Washington should be made to recognise the regional nature of Pakistan's security challenges and acknowledge that many issues in the region are so interconnected that they can set each other off.
6) Insist that as the US reshapes its Afghan policy, Pakistan's views and security are factored into the review. Unless Pakistan and Washington's NATO allies are all on board and "buy into" the revised approach, no strategy will work. Such a review must aim at a fundamental overhaul, not just a policy tweak.
7) Counsel the US that simply sending more troops to Afghanistan without a significant change in strategy will be counter-productive. The war in Afghanistan is unwinnable if it continues to be waged the way it is now. A troop surge on its own will not reverse the downward spiral. Instead, it will increase the sense of occupation and multiply targets for the insurgency. At the peak of its occupation of Afghanistan, the Soviet Union deployed around 150,000 troops and also had another 50,000 Afghan army forces available. This did not avoid a spectacular defeat in terrain that has been the graveyard of empires.
8) Policies to stabilise Afghanistan should not unintendedly end up destabilising Pakistan, as has been the case with the flawed approach and military missteps of the Bush era. The stated US goal of helping to stabilise Pakistan has been undermined by actual policy pursued in the region.
The Obama Administration should consider a more realistic approach to Afghanistan that focuses policy on the "core" project (defeating terrorism), rather than a "big project" of multiple goals that can mire it in a war without end. This means distinguishing between what is vital (disruption of terrorist networks) and what is desirable but best left to Afghans to undertake (transforming society, building a centralised state and promoting democracy). This should aim to separate Al Qaeda from the Taliban, and engage the latter in a reconciliation process. Building confidence by dialogue should be followed by the offer for an eventual withdrawal of foreign forces in return for a cessation of attacks and support for the creation of a viable Afghan national army and security apparatus.
For its part Pakistan needs to review its counter-militancy strategy to ensure that its patchwork actions in FATA, as indeed Swat, are replaced by a consistent policy of robust law-enforcement to establish the writ of the state. And the government must make unrelenting efforts to mobilise public support to counter the forces of violent extremism. Its counter-insurgency strategy must be anchored in a set of interlocking political processes and involve the strengthening of local, civilian administration, to ensure that security objectives are sustainable.
In evolving a credible road map for stabilisation of its border areas and sharing this with Washington, Islamabad should also specify redlines so that the US understands the limits of cooperation and commits to respect Pakistan's sovereignty. With Mr Holbrooke expected soon in Islamabad, Pakistani officials should prepare to press their views and vision of the future relationship with clarity and boldness.
The writer is a former envoy to the US and the UK, and a former editor of The News.
A Lament for Swat,
| Swat, o Swat! |
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| Thursday, January 29, 2009 Kheyam Khan http://www.thenews.com.pk/daily_detail.asp?id=159612 The people of Swat are confused. They wonder how the might of the Pakistan Army cannot subdue the Taliban of Swat. The Swat insurgency and the "counter-insurgency" must be given priority attention by the country's intelligentsia. With the beginning of "Operation Rah-e-Haq" in November 2007 people hoped that security in the region will improve. They were optimistic about the operation and welcomed the military with flowers and garlands. But gradually over time this trust receded and now it is practically non-existent. People now have their reservations about the operation. They ask pertinent questions about it. They see a lack of willingness on the part of the "state" to curb the militancy. This perception is now held by the intelligentsia, particularly the Pukhtun intelligentsia. They contend that if the state's military can stand up to a military as strong and large as India's, how can it not handle an internal insurgency carried out by a few thousand armed men? And whenever the state expresses and acts on the will to bring law and order to the region it is able to do so, as happened in the February 2008 election. Before the election everyone was concerned whether the election was possible in the Swat valley. But to everybody's amazement it was not only held but held peacefully, except in one constituency. People ask who made the "miracle" possible then. Again this goes in the line of the argument that if "powerful state actors" will it then things can be settled in weeks. The Swat issue started with the advent of the Taliban in Afghanistan. The TNSM was founded in 1989 in Malakand Agency at a time when the Soviets were leaving Afghanistan. The rise of the TNSM in Malakand Division at a time when the Taliban were gaining power in Afghanistan is not mere coincidence. Overnight an elderly man rose from the hills of Maidan and became a hero. Before that nobody knew who Sufi Mohammad was. And later his movement was crushed in a couple of days because the state willed it – and after that there was complete peace in the valley. Tourists again began to pour back in and life once again became vibrant. The peace was broken when the son-in-law of Sufi Mohammad gave his first sermon on the FM radio. It was post-9/11, and there was apparently drastic shift in Pakistan's foreign policy. Pakistan became a frontline state in the war on terror, but the Pukhtun intelligentsia thinks – and this is conception shared by many others as well – that its "assets" had to be guarded as well, and hence Swat was made a "haven" for some of them. The unwillingness of the state to fight the militancy head-on, they claim, was evident by the way it loosened the grip which it had established over the militants in their stronghold of Gut Peuchar in Matta tehsil. Many residents of the valley wonder whether this was done by design. Another claim is that the tactics and strategies the Swat militants use are not the work of semi-literate mullahs. The intention is to crush any hint of resistance from among the local population and hence the daily killing of people and the hanging of their dead bodies in public squares. Similarly, targeting the leadership is a tried-and-tested war tactic throughout history. Could it be that the former "assets" of the state are now turning their guns on their former benefactors? This is a question on a lot of people's minds. The writer is a researcher and has written this under a pseudonym for the sake of his own safety. Email: kheyamkhan @gmail.com |
What Pakhtuns think
| What Pakhtuns think |
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| Wednesday, January 28, 2009 Farhat Taj There are many Pakhtun who argue that some elite state intelligence agencies and the Taliban, as of Swat for example, are 'natural allies' and feed on each other. The Taliban want a besieged and helpless population whom they can rule with impunity. The ISI, they claim, is facilitating this rule and in return the Taliban create chaos and violence. Some may ask the obvious question: why would any one want chaos and violence in the area? Two arguments are put forward by many Pakhtuns in this regard. Some refer to the well-known but often-discredited theory of strategic depth, which envisions that Afghanistan will become the fifth province of Pakistan and that the central Asian Islamic states will become its client states. Thus Pakistan will become a robust regional power vis-a-vis India in South Asia and acquire a leadership role in the Muslim world. Therefore, by having a region close to Afghanistan which is full of violence and chaos is a way of preventing the US, India and Iran from establishing a firm foothold in the area. Also, US and NATO forces are in Afghanistan, which means that it is important to have a kind of a buffer between Afghanistan and the rest of Pakistan. Furthermore, many American think-tanks are of the view that a chaotic FATA is bad for both US and NATO forces because it allows the militants a haven to launch attacks inside Afghanistan, and then retreat back to Pakistan. There are of course many other Pakhtuns who do not give credence to the theory of strategic depth. Their view is that if the conflict in FATA were to end and the region became peaceful, the flow of dollars from America would stop. There are also Pakhtuns who believe that foreign intelligence agencies such as RAW, Mossad or the CIA are involved in the violence. But they too primarily blame local state actors and their pursuit of the doctrine of strategic depth or of an unhindered flow of aid money from America as primary motives for what is happening in the area. They are just not ready to accept that the Taliban can and are able to occupy large parts of Pakistan without the tacit consent or support of these state actors. Of course, one has to only look at the past and see that it is a part of the public record that people like Nek Mohammad were welcomed with open arms by the then Peshawar corps commander or that some Taliban leaders were given funds in exchange for changing their ways � and which they did not! One man said: "Look at the ease with which the Taliban have been occupying Waziristan for years and now Swat. How is that possible given that we have one of the largest and well-trained armies in the world?" What I have written in the two parts of my article are views gained from travelling very recently across NWFP and parts of FATA. I spoke to internally displaced people of FATA in NWFP, daily wage-earners, public transport drivers, shop-keepers, low-ranking government employees, journalists, lawyers, students, teachers and housewives. Almost everywhere people were resentful of the military leadership and the ISI and held them responsible for the brutal excesses of the Taliban. They were not even willing to give the benefit of the doubt to the ISI. Many people said that if the ISI was sincere with the Pakhtuns it must target-kill the entire Taliban leadership just like the Taliban have done in the case of over 200 tribal leaders and must restore the writ of the government in the Taliban-occupied areas. People are especially angry over the presence of so many foreign Taliban militants and refer to them as no better than 'mad dogs'. I would humbly request the army chief and the ISI director-general to pay heed to what the people of NWFP and FATA are saying and to act to remove their grievances. This is crucial both for both Pakhtun society as well as for the survival of the state. It should be remembered that although an ethnic minority, the Pakhtuns are better integrated in the state structure than other minorities such as the Baloch or Sindhis. They have served the nation with their blood in times of war and also in other state-related duties. If the current violence is left unchecked, and given the perception � right or wrong � among many Pakhtun that certain state institutions are behind it or are acquiescing in it, the further integration of the community with the rest of the country will be put at risk. Last, but by no means least, I would also request fellow citizens to build up pressure on the government and the military to decisively deal with the Taliban and restore the government's writ in FATA and NWFP. The armed forces are financed by taxpayers hard-earned money and we all have a right to demand that the army provide us security and protect us from extremists who want to butcher us and destroy are way of life. The writer is a research fellow at the Centre for Interdisciplinary Gender Research, University of Oslo and a member of Aryana Institute for Regional Research and Advocacy. Email: bergen34@yahoo.com http://www.thenews.com.pk/daily_detail.asp?id=159413 |
Thursday, January 22, 2009
We are not ‘crazy in Pakistan’
We are not ‘crazy in Pakistan’ By Kamran Shafi
WHETHER it be Baroness Manningham-Buller, former director general of Britain’s MI5, or Jonathan Evans, the present DG; whether it be George Tenet, former director of the American CIA or Gen Mike Hayden, the present director, no spy chief has ever said anything even halfway controversial to the press. Their interviews, if any, are completely innocuous in content.
Indeed, this is what the Independent newspaper had to say about the press interview that Evans gave on Jan 6, 2008: “The head of MI5, Jonathan Evans, was on display yesterday after he had invited selected journalists to visit him in his office in Millbank, overlooking the Thames, so that he could make a few uncontroversial comments to mark the centenary of the spy network.
“It was the first time in MI5’s 100-year history that a serving head of MI5 had met the press — and even on this occasion, Mr Evans was cautious about which journalists were invited. He gave nothing away.”
I have often made the case that we Pakistanis are a most unique people and our country a most unique place where anything goes. Where, most critically, no cognisance is taken of what anyone in authority says or does, the country be damned.
Those that rule us think it their absolute right to say what they jolly well please; to be utterly loquacious when it takes their fancy; to show off and preen themselves as if the light shone out of their left ears alone and from nowhere else.
Here is what our DG of the ISI said in so many words — if you don’t believe me, please go to the Der Spiegel site — in an interview published in this most respected of Germany’s highest brow print-media journals: “We may be crazy in Pakistan, but not completely out of our minds!”
I ask you! Is this how the chief of an agency accused of much chicanery by most of the world should address a question of this magnitude? Especially when there is every evidence that hard-core and cruel extremists, albeit very few in number, have been allowed to hold this country and its good people by the throat for too long?
Der Spiegel goes on: “However, it is worth listening closely when the general explains why he too is unwilling to apprehend the Taliban leadership, even though many claim that Taliban leader Mullah Omar, for example, is in Quetta….
“‘Shouldn’t they be allowed to think and say what they please? They believe that jihad is their obligation. Isn’t that freedom of opinion?’ he asks, defending extremist rabble-rousers, who are sending more and more Quran school students to Afghanistan to fight in the war there. Such words from Pasha arouse the old suspicion that the ISI is playing a double game.”
As it should arouse suspicion, because the Taliban don’t only say what they “please”; they also behead and shoot as they “please”, and cut off other people’s ears as they “please”. Just as they cut off the ears of five tribal elders belonging to a peace committee in Khar the other day.
It is hardly a matter of their “freedom of opinion”, because their freedom of opinion extends to blowing up schools, in recent weeks not only girls schools but ALL schools in Swat. And effectively taking over completely, that once peaceful and very lovely place. Ask the poor Swatis.
The Taliban’s “freedom of opinion” extends to kidnapping senior and well-guarded government officials such as on Jan 11, when they took the Additional Political Agent of South Waziristan in broad daylight. We must note that whilst he was protected by “more than 20 heavily-armed” guards, just five masked men spirited him away. What in God’s name is going on? Chills you to the bone does it not, this interview by the head of Pakistan’s Mother of All Agencies?
There is much more that is completely inexplicable. One of our English language newspapers had this story in its Jan 11 publication: “militants affiliated with the Swat chapter of Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) attacked the house of former federal minister and ANP leader Muhammad Afzal Khan ‘Lala’, burnt another government school, and lashed two drug addicts publicly.”The news report goes on to say that the militants invited the townspeople (no, not women, who are not even allowed into Swat bazaars any longer on pain of death, remember) to witness the flogging of the addicts in the main bazaar of Matta Town which they duly carried out a few hours after making the public announcement.
We are also told by the newspaper that when Lala’s house was attacked the security forces “in an unusual move” engaged the attackers and “made them flee”. What in heaven’s name is going on, sirs?
Afzal ‘Lala’ is a well-known and respected politician of Swat who has courageously refused to leave his home in that ravaged part of our country because, simply, he will not be cowed; will not leave his home. My deepest respects to him.But why did the “security forces” act “unusually” in his case only? Why don’t they act “usually” when parliamentarians’ houses are blown up, when ordinary people are abducted in the dead of night and butchered, their headless bodies hung on electricity poles in public squares in Swat’s major towns like Mingora itself? And when schools are blown up?
Reportedly, there are 30,000 or so regular army soldiers stationed in Swat, apart from the civil armed forces and whatever police that have not deserted out of fear of beheading, what else. Are there more Taliban than these “security forces”? Is the army out-gunned by the Taliban? Do the Taliban have tanks and artillery and helicopter gunships and an air force too? What the devil is going on there for God’s sake?
Visitors to Swat tell of Pakistan Army and Taliban check posts a few hundred metres apart, army vehicles passing through Taliban check posts too. Why? Are they cooperating to strike the fear of God into our hearts? And for telling their paymaster, Amreeka Bahadur, that the problem is far bigger than it really is, so go on coughing up those luscious dollars?
Let me caution the powers that be in this tortured and unfortunate country: Barack Obama will soon be in the White House. Beware, sirs, for he is a highly intelligent man who will very quickly see through all of the charade and the subterfuge that seemingly is on shameful display in the citadel of Islam. He is not a duffer like your ‘tight buddy’ Dubya! So beware, if not for your own sakes, then for this poor country’s and its hapless people’s. I beg you.
Bushism of the week: “So I analysed that and decided I didn’t want to be the president during a depression greater than the Great Depression, or the beginning of a depression greater than the Great Depression” — President George W Bush; Washington D.C., Dec. 18, 2008.
P.S. Governor Taseer, who fashions himself as a leftie Piplia these days, and who was on the TV programme Jawab Deh recently, should at the very least know that Pablo Neruda (who he purportedly met whilst in the company of Faiz Sahib in London) was Chilean, not Cuban.
kshafi1@yahoo.co.uk
http://www.dawn.com/weekly/kamran/20090113.htm
WHETHER it be Baroness Manningham-Buller, former director general of Britain’s MI5, or Jonathan Evans, the present DG; whether it be George Tenet, former director of the American CIA or Gen Mike Hayden, the present director, no spy chief has ever said anything even halfway controversial to the press. Their interviews, if any, are completely innocuous in content.
Indeed, this is what the Independent newspaper had to say about the press interview that Evans gave on Jan 6, 2008: “The head of MI5, Jonathan Evans, was on display yesterday after he had invited selected journalists to visit him in his office in Millbank, overlooking the Thames, so that he could make a few uncontroversial comments to mark the centenary of the spy network.
“It was the first time in MI5’s 100-year history that a serving head of MI5 had met the press — and even on this occasion, Mr Evans was cautious about which journalists were invited. He gave nothing away.”
I have often made the case that we Pakistanis are a most unique people and our country a most unique place where anything goes. Where, most critically, no cognisance is taken of what anyone in authority says or does, the country be damned.
Those that rule us think it their absolute right to say what they jolly well please; to be utterly loquacious when it takes their fancy; to show off and preen themselves as if the light shone out of their left ears alone and from nowhere else.
Here is what our DG of the ISI said in so many words — if you don’t believe me, please go to the Der Spiegel site — in an interview published in this most respected of Germany’s highest brow print-media journals: “We may be crazy in Pakistan, but not completely out of our minds!”
I ask you! Is this how the chief of an agency accused of much chicanery by most of the world should address a question of this magnitude? Especially when there is every evidence that hard-core and cruel extremists, albeit very few in number, have been allowed to hold this country and its good people by the throat for too long?
Der Spiegel goes on: “However, it is worth listening closely when the general explains why he too is unwilling to apprehend the Taliban leadership, even though many claim that Taliban leader Mullah Omar, for example, is in Quetta….
“‘Shouldn’t they be allowed to think and say what they please? They believe that jihad is their obligation. Isn’t that freedom of opinion?’ he asks, defending extremist rabble-rousers, who are sending more and more Quran school students to Afghanistan to fight in the war there. Such words from Pasha arouse the old suspicion that the ISI is playing a double game.”
As it should arouse suspicion, because the Taliban don’t only say what they “please”; they also behead and shoot as they “please”, and cut off other people’s ears as they “please”. Just as they cut off the ears of five tribal elders belonging to a peace committee in Khar the other day.
It is hardly a matter of their “freedom of opinion”, because their freedom of opinion extends to blowing up schools, in recent weeks not only girls schools but ALL schools in Swat. And effectively taking over completely, that once peaceful and very lovely place. Ask the poor Swatis.
The Taliban’s “freedom of opinion” extends to kidnapping senior and well-guarded government officials such as on Jan 11, when they took the Additional Political Agent of South Waziristan in broad daylight. We must note that whilst he was protected by “more than 20 heavily-armed” guards, just five masked men spirited him away. What in God’s name is going on? Chills you to the bone does it not, this interview by the head of Pakistan’s Mother of All Agencies?
There is much more that is completely inexplicable. One of our English language newspapers had this story in its Jan 11 publication: “militants affiliated with the Swat chapter of Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) attacked the house of former federal minister and ANP leader Muhammad Afzal Khan ‘Lala’, burnt another government school, and lashed two drug addicts publicly.”The news report goes on to say that the militants invited the townspeople (no, not women, who are not even allowed into Swat bazaars any longer on pain of death, remember) to witness the flogging of the addicts in the main bazaar of Matta Town which they duly carried out a few hours after making the public announcement.
We are also told by the newspaper that when Lala’s house was attacked the security forces “in an unusual move” engaged the attackers and “made them flee”. What in heaven’s name is going on, sirs?
Afzal ‘Lala’ is a well-known and respected politician of Swat who has courageously refused to leave his home in that ravaged part of our country because, simply, he will not be cowed; will not leave his home. My deepest respects to him.But why did the “security forces” act “unusually” in his case only? Why don’t they act “usually” when parliamentarians’ houses are blown up, when ordinary people are abducted in the dead of night and butchered, their headless bodies hung on electricity poles in public squares in Swat’s major towns like Mingora itself? And when schools are blown up?
Reportedly, there are 30,000 or so regular army soldiers stationed in Swat, apart from the civil armed forces and whatever police that have not deserted out of fear of beheading, what else. Are there more Taliban than these “security forces”? Is the army out-gunned by the Taliban? Do the Taliban have tanks and artillery and helicopter gunships and an air force too? What the devil is going on there for God’s sake?
Visitors to Swat tell of Pakistan Army and Taliban check posts a few hundred metres apart, army vehicles passing through Taliban check posts too. Why? Are they cooperating to strike the fear of God into our hearts? And for telling their paymaster, Amreeka Bahadur, that the problem is far bigger than it really is, so go on coughing up those luscious dollars?
Let me caution the powers that be in this tortured and unfortunate country: Barack Obama will soon be in the White House. Beware, sirs, for he is a highly intelligent man who will very quickly see through all of the charade and the subterfuge that seemingly is on shameful display in the citadel of Islam. He is not a duffer like your ‘tight buddy’ Dubya! So beware, if not for your own sakes, then for this poor country’s and its hapless people’s. I beg you.
Bushism of the week: “So I analysed that and decided I didn’t want to be the president during a depression greater than the Great Depression, or the beginning of a depression greater than the Great Depression” — President George W Bush; Washington D.C., Dec. 18, 2008.
P.S. Governor Taseer, who fashions himself as a leftie Piplia these days, and who was on the TV programme Jawab Deh recently, should at the very least know that Pablo Neruda (who he purportedly met whilst in the company of Faiz Sahib in London) was Chilean, not Cuban.
kshafi1@yahoo.co.uk
Monday, January 12, 2009
Swat - valley of horror and terror
Where are those fools who proclaim that terrorism and extremism seen in Swat do not pose a threat to Pakistan and to its socio-economic development?
Where are those dunderheads who proclaim there is no possibility of an extremist or jihadi government assuming office in Islamabad?
Why are those mustachioed, self proclaimed macho leaders hiding with their tails between their legs, peeing in their shalwars while their defenseless, sisters get butchered by savages?
Read on and Weep...
http://www.thenews.com.pk/daily_detail.asp?id=156813
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
by Hamid Mir
The home of Hameedullah Khan in Shakardra village of Swat was destroyed by dynamite last week. He knows who the people who did this to him but he can turn to no one for justice. He has been a journalist from more than a decade. I know him because it was me who encouraged him to become a reporter 13 years ago when I was editor of an Urdu newspaper. These days he works for an Arab TV channel. The Taliban were not happy him and he claims that some local Taliban destroyed his home because of his reporting. This now homeless journalist has since shifted his family to Mardan.
I also know another journalist of Swat by the name of Musa Khankhel from many years. In the last few months alone, he has survived two assassination attempts. He told me that some elements within the security forces wanted to eliminate him physically due to his reporting. The majority of people in Swat are not happy at all with either the Taliban or the security forces - and sadly, the ultimate beneficiaries of this situation are criminals. Swat has become a paradise of dacoits, car lifters and professional killers. It’s a valley without any law.
I have seen dead bodies of innocent civilians killed by security forces in Kuza Bandai town of Swat with my own eyes. I have also seen some brave shopkeepers of Matta challenging the orders of Taliban in their face without any state protection. When I discussed this situation with the elected member of the National Assembly from Matta Syed Allaudin he gave me a heart-breaking answer. The PPP MNA said: “I have not visited my area even once since I won the election on Feb 18 last year. The Taliban as well as security forces are responsible for destroying peace in Swat. If I cannot enter in my area how can I help my voters there?”
Syed Allaudin, Hameedullah Khan and Musa Khankhel can tell their stories to the world with their own names but many cannot speak their heart because there is nobody to listen them or to provide them any justice. Let me tell you the one tragic story of a religious scholar. I cannot expose the full identity of this religious scholar due to the dangers that he faces but I will narrate his story. It’s not the tragic story of just one man; it’s the tale of an entire nation’s powerlessness.
Recently I met him in Peshawar. Mufti sahib broke into tears as he was telling me his story, but I couldn’t even rise from my chair and offer him some solace. His head bowed, Mufti sahib kept crying, unable to stop. Finally he looked up, grief darkening his face, and said: “I don’t know to whom I should go. Who is there to hear my cry and give me justice, I don’t need justice for myself but for hundreds of thousands of my daughters? They are crying out, but no one is listening.”
Mufti Sahib comes from Mingora where for the past 18 years he had worked at a madressah as a teacher. Recently a woman had come to him, hoping he would find some solution to the problem she faced. She belonged to the village of Kuza Bandai, situated on the banks of the Swat river - which in years gone by was famous for its trout. Her husband had died some years back in a road accident. Since the woman already had an F.A. certificate, she found work in a private school in Mingora which was not all that far, and thus could support herself and her three children while continuing to live in Kuzah Bandai. Eventually she also got a degree in bachelor’s of education. Due to the uncertain law and order situation in the Swat valley during the last sixteen months or so most of the educational institutions were closed. But the schools in Mingora stayed open and the woman continued working.
A few days back, when she returned home in the evening from her school in Mingora, one of her neighbours came to see her. The neighbour told her that now Sharia had been imposed and women were prohibited from going out of homes without any reason, and so from the next morning she would not be able to go to her work. The woman said to her neighbour, with some degree of fear and exasperation: “Look, you know very well why I work. Every morning I take my children with me to Mingora, leave them at their school, and then go to my job at the school where I teach. And when my job finishes I go back and pick up my children and return home. They will starve to death if I stop working because as you know my husband is no longer alive.”
The neighbour told her: “We will not let your children die of hunger but you must not go out anymore.” The self-respecting lady did not wish to live like a beggar, and so the same night she took her children and returned to Mingora, to her sister’s house, and continued working. However, the elements who don’t want women to go out of their homes went to the principal of the school where the woman worked and told the principal that either he closed down the school or fired the woman!
Scared and worried to death, the woman somehow learned that there were in that group of militants some young men who had studied from Mufti sahib in his madressah. She hoped that he might be able to help her. She told her story to Mufti sahib and next day Mufti sahib contacted one of his former students hoping there would be some way out. This former student was from Khwazakhela - which is close to the Karakoram Highway and Battagram district — and had joined the local militants a year ago, after his younger brother was killed in an operation carried out by the security forces. The former student talked to his fellow militants but they refused to budge. It seems that they think they will lose their lose their authority in the area they let the woman work outside her home.
Mufti sahib then went to talk to the militants in person. During the conversation he remarked that it was not jihad when a Muslim fought another Muslim. The commander of the militants got angry and said: “We commemorate the martyrs of Karbala on the 10th of Muharram. Was not the jihad of those martyrs against a government that called itself Islamic?”
Mufti sahib then explained to him the full context of the events of Karbala and told them that their resistance is not Islamic. He tried to explain to them that women had played a key role in the spread or Islam. He told them: “The light of Islam was spread not only by men, some women also contributed courageously by coming out of their homes. History received the great story of the sacrifices of the Karbala martyrs through Hazrat Zainab (RA), daughter of Hazrat Ali (RA). As a child, she was a great favourite of the Holy Prophet (PBUH). She had become even during the life of her father, Hazrat Ali (RA), a learned speaker, and used to expound on the Holy Quran before women. At Karbala, she saw all the male members of her family killed before her eyes. And when she was taken as a prisoner before ‘Ubaidallah bin Ziyad, the ruler of Kufah, she boldly confronted him with words of truth. Then, after an arduous journey, she was brought before Yazid in Damascus. There too she stood boldly and refused to acknowledge him as the caliph. The thundering voice of Hazrat Ali’s daughter frightened Yazid so much that he had her taken back to Madina together with the remaining members of the revered family. Had there not been Zainab the world would not have any awareness of the heights of glory reached by the martyrs of Karbala.”
Mufti sahib further said to the commander: “The history of Islam is filled with stories of other bold and courageous women besides Zainab. Had not these women stepped out of their homes, Islam might not have spread so swiftly.” He also recounted the story of Hazrat Safiya, who was the Prophet’s (PBUH) aunt and a sister of Hazrat Hamza (RA). During the battle with the Jewish tribe, Banu Quraiza, she attacked a spy of the enemy, cut off his head and threw it toward the enemy’s ranks. Then there was Hazrat Umm-e Ammarah, who wielded her sword alongside the Prophet (PBUH) in the Battle of Uhad. And when a stone struck the Prophet (PBUH) and shattered two of his teeth, it was Umm-e Ammarah who then protected the Prophet from an enemy’s attack.”
As Mufti sahib was narrating these incidents to the commander, the latter started accusing him of being an ‘agent’ of the security forces, and had him arrested. Eventually, at the behest of his former students, Mufti sahib regained freedom, but the very next day he was relieved of his duties at the madressah. Not only that, he was also ordered to leave Swat altogether within two days. His efforts to obtain justice on behalf of an oppressed woman ended in making him homeless.
But his tears before me were not on account of his own loss. The reason was that few days earlier the lady who had struggled so hard to take care of her three fatherless children was first declared a prostitute by the militants and then killed. According to Mufti Sahib, Swat was totally peaceful until two years ago. Then the government of Pervez Musharraf destroyed its peace. It spilled the blood of innocent people, and now the same innocent people had become greatest oppressors. They are killing each other in the name of Islam. What a great irony that the dictator who loudly proclaimed his “enlightened moderation” cast Swat into the clutches of religious extremism. And now he is going around the world lecturing on peace.
Mufti Sahib told me: “In Swat, the state and non-state elements are both the oppressors. They are both tyrannical. Our ulema will have to show the same boldness and courage that Hazrat Imam Hussain (RA) showed, for Swat has also become another Karbala. The ulema will have to stand up on behalf of those countless women who are being made prisoners in their homes in the name of Islam, and on whom all doors of education are being closed.” If the ulema do not raise a united voice now on behalf of their sisters and daughters there will be no one left to listen to their stories of Hazrat Safiya, Hazrat Umm-e-Ammarah and Hazrat Zainab.
The writer works for Geo TV and hosts Capital Talk. Email: hamid.mir@geo.tv
Where are those dunderheads who proclaim there is no possibility of an extremist or jihadi government assuming office in Islamabad?
Why are those mustachioed, self proclaimed macho leaders hiding with their tails between their legs, peeing in their shalwars while their defenseless, sisters get butchered by savages?
Read on and Weep...
http://www.thenews.com.pk/daily_detail.asp?id=156813
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
by Hamid Mir
The home of Hameedullah Khan in Shakardra village of Swat was destroyed by dynamite last week. He knows who the people who did this to him but he can turn to no one for justice. He has been a journalist from more than a decade. I know him because it was me who encouraged him to become a reporter 13 years ago when I was editor of an Urdu newspaper. These days he works for an Arab TV channel. The Taliban were not happy him and he claims that some local Taliban destroyed his home because of his reporting. This now homeless journalist has since shifted his family to Mardan.
I also know another journalist of Swat by the name of Musa Khankhel from many years. In the last few months alone, he has survived two assassination attempts. He told me that some elements within the security forces wanted to eliminate him physically due to his reporting. The majority of people in Swat are not happy at all with either the Taliban or the security forces - and sadly, the ultimate beneficiaries of this situation are criminals. Swat has become a paradise of dacoits, car lifters and professional killers. It’s a valley without any law.
I have seen dead bodies of innocent civilians killed by security forces in Kuza Bandai town of Swat with my own eyes. I have also seen some brave shopkeepers of Matta challenging the orders of Taliban in their face without any state protection. When I discussed this situation with the elected member of the National Assembly from Matta Syed Allaudin he gave me a heart-breaking answer. The PPP MNA said: “I have not visited my area even once since I won the election on Feb 18 last year. The Taliban as well as security forces are responsible for destroying peace in Swat. If I cannot enter in my area how can I help my voters there?”
Syed Allaudin, Hameedullah Khan and Musa Khankhel can tell their stories to the world with their own names but many cannot speak their heart because there is nobody to listen them or to provide them any justice. Let me tell you the one tragic story of a religious scholar. I cannot expose the full identity of this religious scholar due to the dangers that he faces but I will narrate his story. It’s not the tragic story of just one man; it’s the tale of an entire nation’s powerlessness.
Recently I met him in Peshawar. Mufti sahib broke into tears as he was telling me his story, but I couldn’t even rise from my chair and offer him some solace. His head bowed, Mufti sahib kept crying, unable to stop. Finally he looked up, grief darkening his face, and said: “I don’t know to whom I should go. Who is there to hear my cry and give me justice, I don’t need justice for myself but for hundreds of thousands of my daughters? They are crying out, but no one is listening.”
Mufti Sahib comes from Mingora where for the past 18 years he had worked at a madressah as a teacher. Recently a woman had come to him, hoping he would find some solution to the problem she faced. She belonged to the village of Kuza Bandai, situated on the banks of the Swat river - which in years gone by was famous for its trout. Her husband had died some years back in a road accident. Since the woman already had an F.A. certificate, she found work in a private school in Mingora which was not all that far, and thus could support herself and her three children while continuing to live in Kuzah Bandai. Eventually she also got a degree in bachelor’s of education. Due to the uncertain law and order situation in the Swat valley during the last sixteen months or so most of the educational institutions were closed. But the schools in Mingora stayed open and the woman continued working.
A few days back, when she returned home in the evening from her school in Mingora, one of her neighbours came to see her. The neighbour told her that now Sharia had been imposed and women were prohibited from going out of homes without any reason, and so from the next morning she would not be able to go to her work. The woman said to her neighbour, with some degree of fear and exasperation: “Look, you know very well why I work. Every morning I take my children with me to Mingora, leave them at their school, and then go to my job at the school where I teach. And when my job finishes I go back and pick up my children and return home. They will starve to death if I stop working because as you know my husband is no longer alive.”
The neighbour told her: “We will not let your children die of hunger but you must not go out anymore.” The self-respecting lady did not wish to live like a beggar, and so the same night she took her children and returned to Mingora, to her sister’s house, and continued working. However, the elements who don’t want women to go out of their homes went to the principal of the school where the woman worked and told the principal that either he closed down the school or fired the woman!
Scared and worried to death, the woman somehow learned that there were in that group of militants some young men who had studied from Mufti sahib in his madressah. She hoped that he might be able to help her. She told her story to Mufti sahib and next day Mufti sahib contacted one of his former students hoping there would be some way out. This former student was from Khwazakhela - which is close to the Karakoram Highway and Battagram district — and had joined the local militants a year ago, after his younger brother was killed in an operation carried out by the security forces. The former student talked to his fellow militants but they refused to budge. It seems that they think they will lose their lose their authority in the area they let the woman work outside her home.
Mufti sahib then went to talk to the militants in person. During the conversation he remarked that it was not jihad when a Muslim fought another Muslim. The commander of the militants got angry and said: “We commemorate the martyrs of Karbala on the 10th of Muharram. Was not the jihad of those martyrs against a government that called itself Islamic?”
Mufti sahib then explained to him the full context of the events of Karbala and told them that their resistance is not Islamic. He tried to explain to them that women had played a key role in the spread or Islam. He told them: “The light of Islam was spread not only by men, some women also contributed courageously by coming out of their homes. History received the great story of the sacrifices of the Karbala martyrs through Hazrat Zainab (RA), daughter of Hazrat Ali (RA). As a child, she was a great favourite of the Holy Prophet (PBUH). She had become even during the life of her father, Hazrat Ali (RA), a learned speaker, and used to expound on the Holy Quran before women. At Karbala, she saw all the male members of her family killed before her eyes. And when she was taken as a prisoner before ‘Ubaidallah bin Ziyad, the ruler of Kufah, she boldly confronted him with words of truth. Then, after an arduous journey, she was brought before Yazid in Damascus. There too she stood boldly and refused to acknowledge him as the caliph. The thundering voice of Hazrat Ali’s daughter frightened Yazid so much that he had her taken back to Madina together with the remaining members of the revered family. Had there not been Zainab the world would not have any awareness of the heights of glory reached by the martyrs of Karbala.”
Mufti sahib further said to the commander: “The history of Islam is filled with stories of other bold and courageous women besides Zainab. Had not these women stepped out of their homes, Islam might not have spread so swiftly.” He also recounted the story of Hazrat Safiya, who was the Prophet’s (PBUH) aunt and a sister of Hazrat Hamza (RA). During the battle with the Jewish tribe, Banu Quraiza, she attacked a spy of the enemy, cut off his head and threw it toward the enemy’s ranks. Then there was Hazrat Umm-e Ammarah, who wielded her sword alongside the Prophet (PBUH) in the Battle of Uhad. And when a stone struck the Prophet (PBUH) and shattered two of his teeth, it was Umm-e Ammarah who then protected the Prophet from an enemy’s attack.”
As Mufti sahib was narrating these incidents to the commander, the latter started accusing him of being an ‘agent’ of the security forces, and had him arrested. Eventually, at the behest of his former students, Mufti sahib regained freedom, but the very next day he was relieved of his duties at the madressah. Not only that, he was also ordered to leave Swat altogether within two days. His efforts to obtain justice on behalf of an oppressed woman ended in making him homeless.
But his tears before me were not on account of his own loss. The reason was that few days earlier the lady who had struggled so hard to take care of her three fatherless children was first declared a prostitute by the militants and then killed. According to Mufti Sahib, Swat was totally peaceful until two years ago. Then the government of Pervez Musharraf destroyed its peace. It spilled the blood of innocent people, and now the same innocent people had become greatest oppressors. They are killing each other in the name of Islam. What a great irony that the dictator who loudly proclaimed his “enlightened moderation” cast Swat into the clutches of religious extremism. And now he is going around the world lecturing on peace.
Mufti Sahib told me: “In Swat, the state and non-state elements are both the oppressors. They are both tyrannical. Our ulema will have to show the same boldness and courage that Hazrat Imam Hussain (RA) showed, for Swat has also become another Karbala. The ulema will have to stand up on behalf of those countless women who are being made prisoners in their homes in the name of Islam, and on whom all doors of education are being closed.” If the ulema do not raise a united voice now on behalf of their sisters and daughters there will be no one left to listen to their stories of Hazrat Safiya, Hazrat Umm-e-Ammarah and Hazrat Zainab.
The writer works for Geo TV and hosts Capital Talk. Email: hamid.mir@geo.tv
Sunday, January 11, 2009
On the trail of Pakistan's Taliban
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jan/10/pakistan-taliban-intelligence-report
Pakistan talks about needing help from the West to control the terror it produces.
It all about corrective action NOT Preventive Action.
It talks about creating an investigative unit: an Elite Special Investigation Group (Sig)
As the group is created, and trained to go after and prosecute the terrorists and their inciters, the madrassas are free to continue to churn out the young brain washed foot soldiers of Al Qaida.
So on one hand the country wishes to provide leads on terrorist plots and provide bodies for Western countries for prosecution, on the other hand they will continue to generate the bodies willing to blow themselves up for the cause brainwashed into them.
So the story continues. Just as in Musharraf's time, when he would hand over a bunch of Pakistani citizens with a "wink wink nudge nudge", and collect bounty money on the sale of his hapless countrymen, Musharraf would ensure that his pot of gold would continue to be replenished by supporting the terror outfits that would churn out the graduates needed to be "sold" to the American jailers.
Zardari and Gilani does not seem to "get it".
There is no desire or thought to nip the evil in the bud. Stop the creation of these terror zombies mesmerized by the evil teachings of the inciters of terror.
They do NOT talk about:
1. Reforming the Madrassas (Seminaries) which is the fount of this evil.
2. Changing the syllabus of the seminaries to teach science, the arts and commerce.
3. Clamping down on the Zakat (Charity) money being funneled from Saudi Arabia,Egypt and UAE into these seminaries.
3. Going after the money launderers who transfer money illegally between the middle east and Pakistan.
4. Arresting, trying and convicting the Arab Sheiks who are the patrons of these evil seminaries.
This requires an effort from multiple channels: the finance ministry, customs, Home department, Police, Army, Law department, Education, religious affair ministry.
I don't see any of that happening.Without a comprehensive plan of reforms, its just talk with minimal action.
Talk is cheap. Action is what is required before Pakistan blows itself up.
Contrarian
Pakistan talks about needing help from the West to control the terror it produces.
It all about corrective action NOT Preventive Action.
It talks about creating an investigative unit: an Elite Special Investigation Group (Sig)
As the group is created, and trained to go after and prosecute the terrorists and their inciters, the madrassas are free to continue to churn out the young brain washed foot soldiers of Al Qaida.
So on one hand the country wishes to provide leads on terrorist plots and provide bodies for Western countries for prosecution, on the other hand they will continue to generate the bodies willing to blow themselves up for the cause brainwashed into them.
So the story continues. Just as in Musharraf's time, when he would hand over a bunch of Pakistani citizens with a "wink wink nudge nudge", and collect bounty money on the sale of his hapless countrymen, Musharraf would ensure that his pot of gold would continue to be replenished by supporting the terror outfits that would churn out the graduates needed to be "sold" to the American jailers.
Zardari and Gilani does not seem to "get it".
There is no desire or thought to nip the evil in the bud. Stop the creation of these terror zombies mesmerized by the evil teachings of the inciters of terror.
They do NOT talk about:
1. Reforming the Madrassas (Seminaries) which is the fount of this evil.
2. Changing the syllabus of the seminaries to teach science, the arts and commerce.
3. Clamping down on the Zakat (Charity) money being funneled from Saudi Arabia,Egypt and UAE into these seminaries.
3. Going after the money launderers who transfer money illegally between the middle east and Pakistan.
4. Arresting, trying and convicting the Arab Sheiks who are the patrons of these evil seminaries.
This requires an effort from multiple channels: the finance ministry, customs, Home department, Police, Army, Law department, Education, religious affair ministry.
I don't see any of that happening.Without a comprehensive plan of reforms, its just talk with minimal action.
Talk is cheap. Action is what is required before Pakistan blows itself up.
Contrarian
Militants Announce Ban on Girls’ Education in Swat
All,
Its important for girl's schools to be closed in Lahore, in Islamabad, in Rawalpindi and Karachi.
Its important that the rich and powerful landowners, business men, Army chiefs and government functionaries who are currently immune to the suffering of the people of Swat now get introduced to the the terrors of the Taliban.
In the spirit of democracy, the attitude that a blood of a villager in Swat or the education of a girl in NFWP has no value needs to be challenged by the rain of bombs from American UAVs on the villas and havelis of the the rich and famous and by blowing up the girl schools in these cities.
When the grandchildren of Musharaff, Zardari and Gilani cower at home, then alone will the Pakistan nation wake up to the new realities of the Taliban's strength in Pakistan.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=82161
SWAT, 1 January 2009 (IRIN) - “They [Taliban] are savages and we’re like a helpless herd, with no one to protect us,” said Sikander Ali, father of four girls, speaking to IRIN on the phone from Swat valley.
He was reacting to news that militants had ordered a ban on girls’ education from 15 January.
Swat valley (in the North West Frontier Province), which has a population of 1.8 million and lies some 150km northeast of Peshawar, has been a hotbed of Islamist militancy for the past two years.
Ali, a government official, had heard the recent warning by Shah Dauran, deputy leader of the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) of Maulana Fazalullah on a clandestine FM radio station.
“He said we must take our daughters out of all schools - private or public - by 15 January 2009 at the latest. Failing this, he said the schools will be bombed and violators would face death. He also said they will throw acid into the faces of our daughters if we don’t comply, like their counterparts did in Afghanistan some months back.”
“It is feared that the extremists will carry out their threats,” said Ibrash Pasha, provincial coordinator of the Pakistan Coalition for Education (PCE).
If this happens an estimated 40,000 girls will be kept out of school, said Dawn newspaper.
For now the schools are on winter vacation until February.
However, following the TTP threats, the private school Ali’s daughter goes to has re-opened and resumed classes for Grade 12 “so that they can complete as much coursework as they can by 15 January, as they have to sit for their board examination in April,” the father said.
Against Western education
“We have nothing against girls going to school,” said Muslim Khan, a spokesman of the TTP, speaking to IRIN from an undisclosed location in Swat.
“What we are saying is that the education being given to our daughters in these schools is Western and not in keeping with the teachings of Islam. It is only making us wayward,” said Khan, who studied till 12th grade and confessed to having no Koranic teaching.
“Before they become engineers and teachers and doctors, these young people must be trained for jihad,” said the 54-year-old TTP spokesperson.
“We have never bombed schools and never threatened to kill girls who defy our orders. We have also said that primary schools can remain open as long as the girls and female teachers observe `purdah’ [cover their bodies].”
“He is lying; it’s double-speak,” said Hazir Gul, who runs Swat Participatory Council, a health NGO. “Their leaders have often given interviews to the media celebrating the bombing of schools.”
“If they are allowing girls to study in primary schools, this is a new development; it seems this is a U-turn,” said Ali.
Appeal
An appeal by the Private School Owner’s Association appeared in local newspaper Shumaal on 29 December asking the TTP to reconsider their ban.
It said the association had in the past always cooperated with all the demands of the TTP regarding `purdah’. It had segregated male and female students, changed boys uniforms from trousers and shirt to `shalwar kameeze’, and made changes in the curriculum in keeping with Islamic teachings.
“Convincing parents to send their children, especially the girl-child, to school was already an uphill task. Years of hard work put into mobilising rural communities to educate their girls has come to nought. This fear will give them an excuse to keep their girls at home or make them work in the fields or for cattle-rearing,” said the PCE’s Pasha.
Fear
Ali said the whole community is scared stiff: “They just kill you on the slightest pretext, and make an example of you. No one dares disobey them,” said Ali.
He said neither the police nor the army intervenes or protects them; people feel completely isolated and unprotected.
In the past year education has been severely disrupted in the valley. There have been unannounced curfews, schools have been blown up or set on fire. The worst example was the attack on Sangota Public School in October.
Herald, a monthly newsmagazine, reported in August 2008 that there were 566 girls’ schools in Swat, including four government higher secondary schools, 22 high schools, 51 middle schools and 489 primary schools. Of these, 131 have either been set alight or closed, rendering 17,200 girls school-less.
In the past year over 150 schools (most of them girls’ schools), were destroyed - albeit when the pupils were absent.
Its important for girl's schools to be closed in Lahore, in Islamabad, in Rawalpindi and Karachi.
Its important that the rich and powerful landowners, business men, Army chiefs and government functionaries who are currently immune to the suffering of the people of Swat now get introduced to the the terrors of the Taliban.
In the spirit of democracy, the attitude that a blood of a villager in Swat or the education of a girl in NFWP has no value needs to be challenged by the rain of bombs from American UAVs on the villas and havelis of the the rich and famous and by blowing up the girl schools in these cities.
When the grandchildren of Musharaff, Zardari and Gilani cower at home, then alone will the Pakistan nation wake up to the new realities of the Taliban's strength in Pakistan.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=82161
SWAT, 1 January 2009 (IRIN) - “They [Taliban] are savages and we’re like a helpless herd, with no one to protect us,” said Sikander Ali, father of four girls, speaking to IRIN on the phone from Swat valley.
He was reacting to news that militants had ordered a ban on girls’ education from 15 January.
Swat valley (in the North West Frontier Province), which has a population of 1.8 million and lies some 150km northeast of Peshawar, has been a hotbed of Islamist militancy for the past two years.
Ali, a government official, had heard the recent warning by Shah Dauran, deputy leader of the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) of Maulana Fazalullah on a clandestine FM radio station.
“He said we must take our daughters out of all schools - private or public - by 15 January 2009 at the latest. Failing this, he said the schools will be bombed and violators would face death. He also said they will throw acid into the faces of our daughters if we don’t comply, like their counterparts did in Afghanistan some months back.”
“It is feared that the extremists will carry out their threats,” said Ibrash Pasha, provincial coordinator of the Pakistan Coalition for Education (PCE).
If this happens an estimated 40,000 girls will be kept out of school, said Dawn newspaper.
For now the schools are on winter vacation until February.
However, following the TTP threats, the private school Ali’s daughter goes to has re-opened and resumed classes for Grade 12 “so that they can complete as much coursework as they can by 15 January, as they have to sit for their board examination in April,” the father said.
Against Western education
“We have nothing against girls going to school,” said Muslim Khan, a spokesman of the TTP, speaking to IRIN from an undisclosed location in Swat.
“What we are saying is that the education being given to our daughters in these schools is Western and not in keeping with the teachings of Islam. It is only making us wayward,” said Khan, who studied till 12th grade and confessed to having no Koranic teaching.
“Before they become engineers and teachers and doctors, these young people must be trained for jihad,” said the 54-year-old TTP spokesperson.
“We have never bombed schools and never threatened to kill girls who defy our orders. We have also said that primary schools can remain open as long as the girls and female teachers observe `purdah’ [cover their bodies].”
“He is lying; it’s double-speak,” said Hazir Gul, who runs Swat Participatory Council, a health NGO. “Their leaders have often given interviews to the media celebrating the bombing of schools.”
“If they are allowing girls to study in primary schools, this is a new development; it seems this is a U-turn,” said Ali.
Appeal
An appeal by the Private School Owner’s Association appeared in local newspaper Shumaal on 29 December asking the TTP to reconsider their ban.
It said the association had in the past always cooperated with all the demands of the TTP regarding `purdah’. It had segregated male and female students, changed boys uniforms from trousers and shirt to `shalwar kameeze’, and made changes in the curriculum in keeping with Islamic teachings.
“Convincing parents to send their children, especially the girl-child, to school was already an uphill task. Years of hard work put into mobilising rural communities to educate their girls has come to nought. This fear will give them an excuse to keep their girls at home or make them work in the fields or for cattle-rearing,” said the PCE’s Pasha.
Fear
Ali said the whole community is scared stiff: “They just kill you on the slightest pretext, and make an example of you. No one dares disobey them,” said Ali.
He said neither the police nor the army intervenes or protects them; people feel completely isolated and unprotected.
In the past year education has been severely disrupted in the valley. There have been unannounced curfews, schools have been blown up or set on fire. The worst example was the attack on Sangota Public School in October.
Herald, a monthly newsmagazine, reported in August 2008 that there were 566 girls’ schools in Swat, including four government higher secondary schools, 22 high schools, 51 middle schools and 489 primary schools. Of these, 131 have either been set alight or closed, rendering 17,200 girls school-less.
In the past year over 150 schools (most of them girls’ schools), were destroyed - albeit when the pupils were absent.
The comparison of Jinnah and Gandhi
January 11, 2009 at 3:40 pm Hello All,
I was intrigued by a comment that credited Jinnah for bringing freedom to India and Pakistan(West & East), raised by fellow Pakistanis.
Eg:
“Furkan
December 25, 2008 at 9:16 amDear Kashkin,
welldone! you wrote a very beautiful thread.God Bless You.it seems that you are like other jinnah lover’s and fanz u have got the maxima RESPECT for MR.JINNAH may his soul rest in peace.it was HIM who kicked the whole british empire single handedly from sub continent.EVEN gandhijee was just a himslef made hero.the real winner & hero is jinnah ”Can someone educate me as to any mass movements against the British, which were orchestrated by Jinnah or any one else in the Muslim League? I would like to understand the contribution of Jinnah in the freedom struggle against the British, where he took a stand different from the Congress. Subhas Chandra Bose disagreed with Gandhi fought the British with his Indian National Army ? I am not aware of Jinnah’s contribution outside the Congress. Did he go to prison anytime? Did he give away his wealth for the freedom struggle?
We are all aware of the sacrifices he made for Pakistan, but that was driven from the certainty that the British cannot survive in the sub continent and he needed to make a homeland where Muslims could live their way of life.
He is a great man who created a country where there was none. His deeds stand for itself. We need not embellish it.
Saturday, January 10, 2009
Pakistan on trial
| Pakistan on trial |
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| Legal eye http://www.thenews.com.pk/daily_detail.asp?id=156331 Saturday, January 10, 2009 Babar Sattar The writer is a lawyer based in Islamabad. He is a Rhodes scholar and has an LL.M from Harvard Law School India handed over a dossier of information to Pakistan with regard to the Mumbai attacks this past week and repeated its expectation that Pakistan will investigate the leads provided and act against any individuals and groups on Pakistani soil found complicit. But even before Pakistan could begin to respond to the dossier, Indian prime minister Manmohan Singh said the following: "On the basis of investigations carried out (including by agencies of some foreign countries whose nationals were killed in the attack), there is enough evidence to show that, given the sophistication and military precision of the attack, it must have had the support of some official agencies in Pakistan� Terrorism is largely sponsored from outside our country, mainly Pakistan, which has utilised terrorism as an instrument of state policy." Such a statement coming from the chief executive of India reveals the official mindset of our neighbour, the objectives of the Congress government's policy in dealing with Mumbai, and the likely response of the Indian government to any efforts Pakistan makes in trying to bring the perpetrators of Mumbai to justice. The statement is disconcerting, primarily as it comes from Manmohan Singh, who has the image of a visionary statesman less disposed to dealing in rhetoric. Pakistan should take stock, as this is not another angry outburst of a populist leader but a clear and considered policy statement coming from the highest Indian executive office. The statement is irresponsible because it impeaches Pakistani agencies for aiding the Mumbai attacks while also conceding that such accusation is not supported by evidence but is merely conjecture. It is unfortunate that India has chosen to articulate state policy by borrowing the rightwing argument � both in India and in Pakistan � that given the sophistication of the operation, state agencies (from either country) must have been involved. State agencies are capable of, and often involved in, all kinds of heinous acts. But it is reckless for India to prejudge the conclusion of a criminal investigation presently underway in both India and Pakistan and allow assumptions and biases to inform its policy. The statement reflects a myopic and contradictory policy. It suggests that India is not interested in an open-ended investigation or in discerning facts, but merely in gathering information that supports the conclusion that it has already reached: that Jamaat-ud-Dawa, Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammad carried the Mumbai attacks while being supported and trained by the ISI; that there is no distinction between serving and retired personnel of intelligence agencies as all function with the blessings of the Pakistani army; and in the ultimate resort Pakistan should be branded a terrorist state for it is controlled and run by "a rogue army with a finger on the nuclear button." Such policy seems contradictory if we believe that the Indian government is actually interested in bringing the perpetrators of Mumbai to justice. After all, why would you accuse a "state" of being an instrument of terrorism if you earnestly wish its government to take action against any elements within the state that are found involved in terror acts? What political or diplomatic space has Mr Singh left the government of Pakistan to try and cooperate with India in getting to the bottom of Mumbai? One logical explanation for the Indian prime minister's statement is that the Congress government has learnt from the mistakes made by the Bush administration in launching the War on Terror against Al Qaeda. India does not wish to identify a faceless non-state actor as the enemy responsible for Mumbai, which cannot be held accountable easily and against which victory in a war cannot be declared swiftly. It is politically much more expedient to identify Pakistan as the face of terror � by refusing to distinguish between state and non-state actors � and then beat down on the country internationally. In the interest of regional security and peace, it would have been prudent for thought leaders in India to create an environment where it was possible for India and Pakistan to cooperate in the struggle against terrorism. Unfortunately, given the history of the two countries and the proclivity of opposition parties to capitalise on what can be dubbed as the government's weakness in the realm of national security, such a forward-looking long-term approach to confronting terror would produce no immediate political mileage domestically. But if tough talk with Pakistan and an unrelenting international diplomatic offensive against such a "troublesome" neighbour becomes the gauge of the Congress Party's policy against terror, declaring success before the national elections would become much easier. India has officially made out a case against Pakistan � and not "elements" within Pakistan � and has also sold this thesis to its public. The evolved public opinion in India will now constrain the ability of the Indian government to accept as satisfactory any Pakistani response that doesn't implicate the ISI in the terror plot and offers up citizens to be tried in India. That the Pakistani government will most likely be unable to satisfy the Indian government's expectations over Mumbai should inform our state policy, but at the same time not diminish our resolve to fulfil our legal obligations and protect our security interests. Pakistan's policy in investigating the Mumbai episode must be informed by the following factors: One, the carnage of civilians in Mumbai was a crime against humanity, and to the extent that citizens of Pakistan were involved in planning, facilitating, supporting or orchestrating the atrocity, their actions are an offense against Pakistan's own laws as well. Thus, Pakistan must carry out a comprehensive and transparent investigation into the crime and punish all those who are implicated in practicing terror. Not because India is bringing pressure to bear on Pakistan, but because (i) we have a legal obligation to do so under our own laws, (ii) we have an international obligation to do so as a responsible nation-state, and (iii) we have an urgent need to exercise control over religion-inspired militants who threaten citizens' security by claiming innocent civilian lives and jeopardise national security by rendering us vulnerable to undesirable armed conflict with neighbours. Two, Pakistan has been put on trial by India and the jury is not hawks in India or even the Indian government, but our peers in the international community. We should forget about reviving the peace process with India anytime soon and instead focus on vindicating our international image as a responsible nation-state not teetering on the precipice of anarchy and terrorism. Our investigation into the Mumbai attacks must have one purpose: to unveil the truth, however embarrassing it might seem in the immediate-term. It has been said before and it must be repeated again. It is not the Pakistani identity of Ajmal Kasab that makes Pakistan guilty of having a hand in Mumbai. But it is the misguided inclination to hide unflattering truth born of false pride and misperceived patriotism that could make us complicit. The Indian media's point-scoring will continue as pieces of the terror plot are found in Pakistan and our national ego will take a temporary beating. But we cannot allow our ego to become a sanctuary for felons who bring the rest of us a bad name. Three, the world is watching us, and what is at trial in addition to our resolve to fight terror is the capability and credibility of our criminal justice system. The team of investigators staffed on the Mumbai case must comprise our best professionals. The investigation must neither hide facts nor concoct evidence to reach desirable solutions as often happens in high-profile criminal cases. Any evidence found against an individual in Pakistan must be adduced and recorded in accordance with procedural due process, so that it holds up before an independent judicial tribunal and actually leads to convictions. In short, the integrity of the investigation and any trial that follows must be beyond reproach. And finally, we must not allow turf battles within Pakistan to influence the manner in which we address the Mumbai imbroglio. The decision to send the director general of the ISI to India and its retraction was partly a consequence of the continuing tug-of-war between the elected civilian government and the army over control of state authority. Likewise, the decision to sack Mehmud Ali Durrani is either a manifestation of the reported wrangle between the president and the prime minister or an excuse to dump a prominent member of the national security team who was widely perceived as a US stooge. Notwithstanding the domestic considerations that inform such decisions, such faux pas provide India an opportunity to ratchet up its international propaganda against Pakistan as a country in denial. Manmohan Singh's policy statement leaves little doubt that his government will continue to focus all its energies on framing the state of Pakistan for the events of Nov 26. To ensure that Pakistan does not end up becoming an additional victim of the Mumbai attacks, our actions must be honest, impartial, measured and wise and our civilian and military power wielders must be in complete harmony over how to proceed with the Mumbai investigations. Pakistan is in the dock and our best defence is not counter-propaganda, but finding and revealing the truth. Email: sattar@post.harvard.edu |
Thinking outside the box
http://www.dawn.com/2009/01/10/op.htm
IF there is anything that the Mumbai terror attacks have made clear, it is that it’s time to think outside the box.
The manner in which we in Pakistan have thought, spoken and acted so far has led us here. If we want to move away from this spot, the same conventional thought process and attitude is no longer going to work. A dramatic shift is now required in the way we perceive our region and conceive our identity.
First: we need to be less defensive. There are many reasons for this, not least of which is the fact that it simply makes us look stupid. It is one thing to insist that you need more evidence in order to initiate action. It is quite another to question each piece of mounting evidence, especially in the face of a general popular acceptance of the fact that there are organisations here in Pakistan that openly purport the ideology that they are being accused of, about which we choose to do little.
Imagine this: a Pakistani organisation is so implicated in such activities that the United Nations actually sees fit to declare it a terrorist organisation, but we sit around and let it operate freely and openly until we get news of this declaration, at which point we spring into action.
What were we thinking until now? The banners hanging from most lamp-posts in Lahore for the last few weeks, asking people to contribute their “qurbani hides” to the organisation should demonstrate well the unfettered operations that this group enjoyed.
Being defensive, however, may be a hard behavioural trait to alter because it is firmly embedded even in our everyday social interactions. Mohammad Hanif , the brilliant author of A Case of Exploding Mangoes made a fantastic reference in a BBC article to “that uncle that you get stranded with at a family gathering when everybody else has gone to sleep but there is still some whisky left in the bottle” in describing Musharraf’s behaviour when he announced his coup against himself last year.
Taking this analogy further, this quintessentially Pakistani uncle has two other very familiar traits. One, he is extremely defensive about every one of his own identities — nationality, religion, sect, class, career — and has a deep distrust of all those who inhabit the realm of the “other”. And two, he resolutely believes that the only verification any fact needs is for it to be emitting from his mouth. Musharraf suffered heavily from this delusion, but so do so many of our other uncles, those in our homes, those at our parties, and those currently issuing statements on TV.
Second, we need to stop acting in a merely reactionary manner. The “if they were in our place they would have behaved in the same way” attitude isn’t going to get us very far. Many of us tried to point that out to the Pakistani government all the way back in May 1998 when India first tested its nuclear bomb.
Our government thought for about two weeks and then chose to act in exactly the same way, rather than to secure its position on the moral high horse by backing away from such childish tit-for-tat arguments and games.
Our ‘outside-the-box’ collective thinking now needs to demonstrate that though it may be true that if some other country had been in our position they may have acted with misguided nationalist bravado, we are capable of acting differently, not because it is demanded or expected of us, but because this is the right thing to do and because we take such terrorist attacks very seriously, both at home and abroad. The moral high horse may be the only thing that Pakistan can have going for it right now, and yet, even that is being squandered away by the defensiveness of those who claim to speak on its behalf.
Third, Pakistan needs to accept a very harsh reality — it is not the equal of India, and the belief that we can be compared has stunted our development no end. We cannot win a war against it, we cannot compare the instability of our political system to the stability of theirs, we cannot hope to compete economically with what is a booming economy well on its way to becoming a global economic power, and we certainly cannot compare the conservativeness of our society to the open pluralism of their everyday life.
Accepting these realities may allow Pakistan to give up its nationalistic bravado and posturing, and may actually allow it to accept its more realistic role in this region — one that requires that it live in peace with India, that it not unnecessarily provoke its wrath and that it understands that its most beneficial economic strategy would be to get in on the boom next door.
For that we need to think outside the box — outside the box of the two-nation theory, outside the box of the violence of 1947, and outside the box of the ill-conceived wars of the last six decades.
The writer is a doctoral candidate at the Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex.
Friday, January 9, 2009
South Asia at War
Pakistan needs to focus on funding of the terror groups. Choke the funding to terror organizations, and they will die a natural death.
Direct the Saudi and UAE funding into govt "approved" institutions operating under the law of the land for non profit organizations with regular audit of usage of the funds provided to these charitable institutions.
Ensure the funds are being used for educational and humanitarian assistance and not supporting violent struggles both internal and external to Pakistan.
There is light at the end of the tunnel.
Contrarian
http://www.guatemala-times.com/opinion/134-the-world-in-words/678-south-asia-at-war.html
South Asia at War
By Hassan Abbas
The Guatemala Times, January 7, 2009; The Scotsman, Jan. 7, 2009; Mmegi Online, Botswana, Jan 8, 2008
CAMBRIDGE - Last month's terrorist assault in Mumbai targeted not only India's economy and sense of security. Its broader goal was to smash the India-Pakistan détente that has been taking shape since 2004. The attackers did not hide their faces or blow themselves up with suicide jackets. Anonymity was not their goal. They wanted to be identified as defenders of a cause. Unless this cause is fully understood, and its roots revealed across the region, this attack may prove to be the beginning of the unmaking of South Asia.
Regional conflict, involving all of the region's states and increasing numbers of non-state actors, has produced large numbers of trained fighters, waiting for the call to glory. Within both India and Pakistan, economic disparities and a sense of social injustice have created fertile ground for conflict. The use and abuse of religious fervor, whether "jihadi" or "Hindu fundamentalist," are striking at the roots of communal harmony across South Asia.
Much of the current trouble can be traced to Afghanistan, whose tragedy could never have remained confined within its designated borders. The dynamics of the region changed when the Afghan freedom fighters of 1980's were converted into "mujahidin" through a criminal enterprise in which both the West and the Muslim world happily participated. Pakistan, always insecure about India, became the hub of this transformation. The West thought it had moved on after the fall of the Soviet empire, but the region - and increasingly the global community - continues to pay a heavy price for this unholy project.
The ills of two decades in South Asia can be attributed to the Afghan jihad years: the rise of the Taliban, the dominance of Pakistani-sponsored religious fanatics within the Kashmir freedom movement, and the eventual spread of sectarian conflict within Pakistan. In Afghanistan, Pakistan's military and intelligence agencies sought "strategic depth" against India. Moreover, they wanted payback for India's role in supporting the revolt in the 1960's and 1970's that led to Bangladesh's independence from Pakistan.
India is not blameless here. It was pursuing a two-pronged strategy - making the argument that all was well in Kashmir (a blatant lie) and supporting ethnic confrontation in Pakistan. Violent intelligence wars between Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and India's Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) have become a brutal reality in South Asia.
Lashkar-e-Taiba (LET, Army of the Pure), a Pakistan-based militant outfit supporting insurgency on the Indian side of Kashmir, was a product of these years. According to Indian investigators, this group is implicated in the Mumbai attacks. Pakistan's clampdown on its offices throughout the country essentially confirms this conclusion, though Pakistan is publicly demanding more evidence.
LET was the armed wing of an Ahle-Hadith organization, a South Asian version of Saudi-style fundamentalism, whose purpose was to hit Indian forces in Kashmir. Though the group was banned by former Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf after the terrorist attacks on the United States of September 11, 2001, some of its operators went underground and others joined Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD, Party of Proselytizing) - an organization that runs religious educational centers and charities.
Given its established linkages with Pakistan's intelligence outfits, the group was never targeted strongly. In fact, it was even involved in rescue operations on the Pakistani side of Kashmir after the devastating 2005 earthquake there.
What Pakistan's military strategists failed to realize was that groups like LET and JuD had local agendas as well - converting Pakistan into a theocracy. Hafiz Saeed, the founder of LET and currently the head of JuD, once proudly argued that: "We believe in the Clash of Civilizations, and our Jihad will continue until Islam becomes the dominant religion."
JuD, along with many other like-minded groups, radicalized thousands of young Pakistanis. Through its web and print publications, it also routinely challenged the teachings of the Sufi mystics who originally brought Islam to South Asia by promoting pluralism and love for humanity.
Even while demanding strong action against JuD, India must recognize that Pakistan is itself a victim of terror. Any military confrontation with Pakistan will only empower Pakistani radicals. India also needs to look inward, as anti-Muslim violence in Gujarat and the activities of Hindu fundamentalist groups have potentially created recruitment opportunities for Muslim extremists within India. An amicable resolution of the Kashmir conflict will only help improve peace prospects in South Asia.
For Pakistan, a concerted and sustained effort against all extremist groups operating in the country is necessary. Militants of all stripes must be decommissioned completely and transparently. Equally important for Pakistan is to expand and reform its public education system and improve basic services so that radical groups cannot lure young people into their educational and welfare networks. Otherwise, the status quo can gravely threaten Pakistan's - and South Asia's - future.
Hassan Abbas is a fellow at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government and Institute for Social Policy and Understanding. © Project Syndicate 1995-2009
Direct the Saudi and UAE funding into govt "approved" institutions operating under the law of the land for non profit organizations with regular audit of usage of the funds provided to these charitable institutions.
Ensure the funds are being used for educational and humanitarian assistance and not supporting violent struggles both internal and external to Pakistan.
There is light at the end of the tunnel.
Contrarian
http://www.guatemala-times.com/opinion/134-the-world-in-words/678-south-asia-at-war.html
South Asia at War
By Hassan Abbas
The Guatemala Times, January 7, 2009; The Scotsman, Jan. 7, 2009; Mmegi Online, Botswana, Jan 8, 2008
CAMBRIDGE - Last month's terrorist assault in Mumbai targeted not only India's economy and sense of security. Its broader goal was to smash the India-Pakistan détente that has been taking shape since 2004. The attackers did not hide their faces or blow themselves up with suicide jackets. Anonymity was not their goal. They wanted to be identified as defenders of a cause. Unless this cause is fully understood, and its roots revealed across the region, this attack may prove to be the beginning of the unmaking of South Asia.
Regional conflict, involving all of the region's states and increasing numbers of non-state actors, has produced large numbers of trained fighters, waiting for the call to glory. Within both India and Pakistan, economic disparities and a sense of social injustice have created fertile ground for conflict. The use and abuse of religious fervor, whether "jihadi" or "Hindu fundamentalist," are striking at the roots of communal harmony across South Asia.
Much of the current trouble can be traced to Afghanistan, whose tragedy could never have remained confined within its designated borders. The dynamics of the region changed when the Afghan freedom fighters of 1980's were converted into "mujahidin" through a criminal enterprise in which both the West and the Muslim world happily participated. Pakistan, always insecure about India, became the hub of this transformation. The West thought it had moved on after the fall of the Soviet empire, but the region - and increasingly the global community - continues to pay a heavy price for this unholy project.
The ills of two decades in South Asia can be attributed to the Afghan jihad years: the rise of the Taliban, the dominance of Pakistani-sponsored religious fanatics within the Kashmir freedom movement, and the eventual spread of sectarian conflict within Pakistan. In Afghanistan, Pakistan's military and intelligence agencies sought "strategic depth" against India. Moreover, they wanted payback for India's role in supporting the revolt in the 1960's and 1970's that led to Bangladesh's independence from Pakistan.
India is not blameless here. It was pursuing a two-pronged strategy - making the argument that all was well in Kashmir (a blatant lie) and supporting ethnic confrontation in Pakistan. Violent intelligence wars between Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and India's Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) have become a brutal reality in South Asia.
Lashkar-e-Taiba (LET, Army of the Pure), a Pakistan-based militant outfit supporting insurgency on the Indian side of Kashmir, was a product of these years. According to Indian investigators, this group is implicated in the Mumbai attacks. Pakistan's clampdown on its offices throughout the country essentially confirms this conclusion, though Pakistan is publicly demanding more evidence.
LET was the armed wing of an Ahle-Hadith organization, a South Asian version of Saudi-style fundamentalism, whose purpose was to hit Indian forces in Kashmir. Though the group was banned by former Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf after the terrorist attacks on the United States of September 11, 2001, some of its operators went underground and others joined Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD, Party of Proselytizing) - an organization that runs religious educational centers and charities.
Given its established linkages with Pakistan's intelligence outfits, the group was never targeted strongly. In fact, it was even involved in rescue operations on the Pakistani side of Kashmir after the devastating 2005 earthquake there.
What Pakistan's military strategists failed to realize was that groups like LET and JuD had local agendas as well - converting Pakistan into a theocracy. Hafiz Saeed, the founder of LET and currently the head of JuD, once proudly argued that: "We believe in the Clash of Civilizations, and our Jihad will continue until Islam becomes the dominant religion."
JuD, along with many other like-minded groups, radicalized thousands of young Pakistanis. Through its web and print publications, it also routinely challenged the teachings of the Sufi mystics who originally brought Islam to South Asia by promoting pluralism and love for humanity.
Even while demanding strong action against JuD, India must recognize that Pakistan is itself a victim of terror. Any military confrontation with Pakistan will only empower Pakistani radicals. India also needs to look inward, as anti-Muslim violence in Gujarat and the activities of Hindu fundamentalist groups have potentially created recruitment opportunities for Muslim extremists within India. An amicable resolution of the Kashmir conflict will only help improve peace prospects in South Asia.
For Pakistan, a concerted and sustained effort against all extremist groups operating in the country is necessary. Militants of all stripes must be decommissioned completely and transparently. Equally important for Pakistan is to expand and reform its public education system and improve basic services so that radical groups cannot lure young people into their educational and welfare networks. Otherwise, the status quo can gravely threaten Pakistan's - and South Asia's - future.
Hassan Abbas is a fellow at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government and Institute for Social Policy and Understanding. © Project Syndicate 1995-2009
Wednesday, January 7, 2009
Toward the Iraqization of Pakistan?
ISLAMABAD ‘LIQUIDATES’ ITS ‘ASSETS’…
http://pakistanpolicy.com/2008/11/25/toward-the-iraqization-of-pakistan/#comments
Earlier this month, David Ignatius revealed that Islamabad and Washington have a “secret deal” that permits the latter to freely take out previously off-limit insurgent leaders inside Pakistan. The list related to Ignatius by an anonymous Pakistani source, likely Ambassador Husain Haqqani, was big stuff. Islamabad had consented to the liquidation of its major ‘assets’ in the tribal areas and nearby: Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, Jalaluddin Haqqani, and Mullah Muhammad Omar. Presumably Hafiz Gul Bahadur and Maulvi Nazir (militants favorable to Islamabad, opposed to the U.S., and hostile to Baitullah Mehsud) were also on the list, as they have since threatened Islamabad after U.S. drone attacks in their vicinity. Also on the list were figures who, unlike the aforementioned, have declared war on the Pakistani state: various al-Qaeda leaders and operatives as well as Mehsud.
Strangely, the report received scant coverage in the boisterous Pakistani media. A week and a half later, a Washington Post news report reasserted the claims made in Ignatius’ column, albeit without mentioning specific approved targets. This piece received immediate attention in Pakistan and even more days later when U.S. drones hit ‘mainland’ Pakistan for the first time. The Peoples Party-led government played according to script; it and the Foreign Office condemned the attacks and denied the existence of a deal.
Conspicuous was the relative silence of the Pakistan Army. In September, Gen. Ashfaq Kayani promptly and vigorously denied claims that he agreed on the USS Abraham Lincoln to U.S. ground operations inside Pakistan. He vowed to defend Pakistan’s sovereignty “at all costs.”
In contrast, this month his press office did not respond to the Ignatius piece (Kayani was out of the country at the time). Inter-Services Public Relations spokesman Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas did speak with the media to deny claims made in the subsequent Post news article. But there was no strongly worded press release or reaction from Kayani himself.
The reality is that none of the latest U.S. drone attacks could have occurred without the provision of intelligence by Pakistan’s military. This is why the targeting seems to be more precise — in clear contrast to the Angor Ada raid that yielded no high value targets and killed mainly innocent Pakistani civilians. In fact, most of the good U.S. intelligence on the tribal areas and al-Qaeda comes from the ISI. And this is why Nazir and Gul Bahadur smell change in the air.
…BECAUSE IT IS FACING BANKRUPTCY?
What occurred in between now and September that would alter the perspective of the Pakistan Army leadership? A change of heart? No. Too quick. Most likely: a change in ground realities.
One, Pakistan’s economy has deteriorated. Coalition Support Funds (CSF) and possibly even aid packages have been held back to induce cooperative behavior from Islamabad. In October, Pakistan’s outgoing Defense Secretary Kamran Rasool told a Senate committee that the country was nearing bankruptcy and could not afford a confrontation with the United States.
Two, if the above was not the single factor, then there has to have been something operational. Perhaps the Pakistani army is coming to recognize its limitations, at least in the short term. Presently, it is operating in Bajaur, Swat, and more recently, Mohmand. There has been some success in Bajaur and Swat, but the militants are proving to be formidable. Only until recently have U.S. forces complemented operations in neighboring Kunar (on the flip side, Pakistani peace agreements in FATA increased attacks on the other side of the border). Prior to that, insurgents were pouring into Pakistan from Afghanistan. An additional American brigade will be heading to Regional Command East in January. But it will get worse before it gets better. South Waziristan is a long time away for the Pakistan Army. It will host the mother of all battles in this brutal counterinsurgency.
Three, though Kayani is difficult to decipher — poker face and all — he seems to have developed a healthy, working relationship with senior U.S. and NATO commanders. The Tripartite Commission now meets regularly and Kayani recently went to Brussels to attend a NATO summit. Whether or not his colleagues on the other side have fully embraced his major recommendations is unclear. But Kayani is smiling a lot more than he did in September.
It is possible that the Pakistan Army will remain extremely reluctant to share intelligence on its major ‘assets’ (e.g. Mullah Omar). There is also the possibility that the Army has a different understanding/terms of the agreement than the civilian government. Or, Ignatius’ list could be partially inaccurate. After all, is it really possible to take out Mullah Omar with a missile strike or even a helicopter/ground raid in the middle of Quetta (if that’s where he is)?
Recent comments from the Pakistani civilian and military leadership seem to suggest that they are hoping for a new deal with the incoming Obama administration. That could just be for public consumption. Anyway, Gen. David Petraeus is said to have told them during his latest visit that the next government will not change policy toward the region.
POTENTIAL CONSEQUENCES: DEFEATING TRANSNATIONAL TERROR, SPURRING ETHNIC AND TRIBAL WARFARE, AND WITHERING THE PAKISTANI STATE
The expansion of the U.S. military role inside Pakistan and other parallel changes (ongoing Pakistan Army operations) have the potential to vastly change dynamics on the ground.
The Good
Eliminating or neutralizing al-Qaeda, if it is possible, has its obvious advantages for all state actors. Rooting it out from Pakistan’s Pashtun belt is somewhat like taking gum out of one’s hair. Peanut butter is better than a scissor. If you have to cut, leave as much hair as possible.
The Bad
The number of internally displaced persons (IDPs), currently between 100,000 and 150,000 will likely grow in the coming year. Pakistani officials have indicated the IDPs will remain in camps for at least a year. Within that time period, they could be joined by Pakistanis from other tribal (or even settled) areas, which would double or triple the number.
The IDPs have left their property at home, which, more likely than not is destroyed. Having lost family members who remained behind or died in transit, they are likely bitter and conflicted.
There is no reason to believe that Islamabad and others vested in its counterinsurgency have and will adequately address the issue of IDPs. The anger of these displaced persons, particularly the youth, will fester, replacing, to some degree, the militants being killed back in Bajaur, Swat, and Mohmand.
The IDP camps do provide an opportunity to engage tribals in an environment less threatening than their home areas. Providing IDPs with basic services, respectable amenities, literacy and job training, as well as primary and secondary education can give Islamabad a head start on the last leg of a clear, hold, build strategy for FATA.
The Ugly
Putting all of the militants in the same box, as the Ignatius article claims is being done, could result in the consolidation of militant entities. Presently, Pakistan is being targeted by the Tehreek-e Taliban Pakistan, Tehreek-e Nifaz-e Shariat-e Muhammadi, al-Qaeda, al-Qaeda-like freelancers, Lashkar-e Jhangvi, and other outfits.
Now, if the Ignatius column is correct, add to the above: Mullah Omar-led Taliban, Hekmatyar’s Hezb-i Islami Afghanistan, the Haqqani group, Maulvi Nazir, and Hafiz Gul Bahadur. Note that Nazir and his fellow Wazirs are a natural rival to Mehsud. Gul Bahadur split from the Tehreek-e Taliban Pakistan. Haqqani provides Pakistani intelligence with information on Mehsud & Co. And he is well rooted in the tribal structure in North Waziristan and neighboring areas of Afghanistan.
The Pakistan Army, in adopting the adversaries of coalition forces in Afghanistan, gains new enemies and loses old assets. Playing the militants off of one another has been a key part of of Islamabad’s strategy toward the militants. It has not been perfect, but U.S. officials seem to have endorsed a similar approach in Afghanistan. If the militants in Pakistan bridge their differences, induced by a one-two punch from Islamabad and Washington, then Pakistan could face a brunt of urban violence the likes of which it has never seen before.
Not only will militants pressed in the tribal areas will push deeper into the North-West Frontier Province’s settled areas, but they will also hit Pakistan’s urban centers — most important of which is Karachi, whose port brings in a majority of U.S. and NATO supplies in Afghanistan. The potential number of civilian casualties, on venues such as M.A. Jinnah Road, which runs from the Karachi Port through the heart of Karachi to a Peshawar/Torkham-bound national highway. Terrorists could, for example, attack oil tankers crossing through the city. Or they could spread things out and lay IEDs anywhere along the stretch of highways N5 (Karachi-Torkham) and N25 (Karachi-Chaman).
In expanding the war theater, militants could ignite ethnic tensions, the seeds of which are already rooted in Pakistan’s soil. Altaf Hussain, the London-based head of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM), a party that represents a segment of Pakistanis who migranted from India and their descendants, has once again called for young men in his city to acquire arms and training to use them. He has repeatedly warned of Talibanization in the city. Combating a violent non-state actor with another non-state actor provides a recipe for uncontrolable urban warfare. And while Karachi is a likely terrorist target, many fear Altaf is conflating the militant infiltration with the inflow of Pashtun migrants from war afflicted areas of Pakistan. Altaf has called for new entrants into Karachi to register themselves, precipitating a harsh denunciation from the Pashtun nationalist Awami National Party (ANP). The ANP and MQM have had a difficult relationship over the years. The latter’s hold on Karachi is challenged by the growth in the Pashtun population.
In recent weeks, the Pakhtunistan bogeyman has also reappeared. Somehow posters in Pashto calling for the creation of an independent Pashtun state appeared in the NWFP. Combine that with the opposition of the two major Muslim League factions to renaming NWFP Pakhtunkhwa (Hazaras, non-Pashtuns in the NWFP who oppose the renaming, vote for the two parties), and the current national dynamic (PPP & the rest vs. PML-N, i.e. urban Punjab) and you have a strong potential for balkanization. [Add to that sectarian violence that has been rising in Dera Ismail Khan and continues to plague the Kurram Agency.]
Mission creep on the part of the United States could break open the levies. Consider the recent comments of former CIA Islamabad station chief, Robert Grenier:
“… as we work out with [the Pakistanis] a rough division of labor, the U.S., I believe, ought to be taking the lead in addressing the issues in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas.”
The excerpt is from an otherwise very reasonable set of comments. Grenier’s proposal would further dilute whatever waning influence Pakistan has in the region. Local actors would either become loyal to the new power broker in the area, the United States, or to a third party, rendering the Pakistani state irrelevant or an enemy.
The logic seems to be that if Islamabad has no writ in territory X, it has effectively lost sovereignty, giving a free hand to other parties to take action in the area. That, however, serves to reify or exacerbate Islamabad’s distance from the region. And the authority vacuum, a source of instability, can only truly be filled by Islamabad.
The loss of local assets, the weakening (at least) of the malik system, and the alienation of locals (via drone attacks), makes that impossible. FATA, in fact, could fall permanently out of the hands of Islamabad.
That, combined for the spread of violence into Pakistan’s cities (particularly Karachi) could accelerate the breakdown of the Pakistani state. Indeed, there is the potential for a 1,001 separate wars to go on simultaneously (given the ethnic and tribal differences, the proliferation of criminal networks, and the role of badal, or revenge, in Pashtunwali). Like Iraq, Pakistan would witness the flight of capital abroad (Amman certainly benefited from Iraqi expats); the departure of the haves (doctors, bankers, and other professionals) to safer shores, such as Dubai, London, and Canada; and leaving the country to the have nots. Middle class and poorer Karachiites would be left to fend off militants and criminal gangs (not entirely different from today!). Karachi, I fear, would burn incessantly.
There is no alternative to strengthening the Pakistani state. Pakistan must be the predominant agent on the ground; a big part of that is the requisite training and equipment (e.g. nightvision goggles, jammers, and secure radio systems). Establishing the rule of civil law, from Karachi to Khyber, is also essential. The use of drones should be limited. Consider that the cost of a Hellfire missile shot from Predator/Reaper drones is roughly the same as that of building a school in a Pakistani village. Given the danger posed to Westerners, development aid might be better routed through more expressly Pakistani entities/persons.
Finally, the fundamental contradictions in the U.S.-Pakistan partnership must be ironed out. This requires the Pakistan Army to redouble efforts to root out al-Qaeda and other transnational takfiri terrorists. It also requires the United States to come to terms with the fact that a great number of important Pashtun actors quite simply oppose its presence in their lands. Washington should let them know it is ready, in a phased and conditionalized fashion, to say goodbye.
http://pakistanpolicy.com/2008/11/25/toward-the-iraqization-of-pakistan/#comments
Earlier this month, David Ignatius revealed that Islamabad and Washington have a “secret deal” that permits the latter to freely take out previously off-limit insurgent leaders inside Pakistan. The list related to Ignatius by an anonymous Pakistani source, likely Ambassador Husain Haqqani, was big stuff. Islamabad had consented to the liquidation of its major ‘assets’ in the tribal areas and nearby: Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, Jalaluddin Haqqani, and Mullah Muhammad Omar. Presumably Hafiz Gul Bahadur and Maulvi Nazir (militants favorable to Islamabad, opposed to the U.S., and hostile to Baitullah Mehsud) were also on the list, as they have since threatened Islamabad after U.S. drone attacks in their vicinity. Also on the list were figures who, unlike the aforementioned, have declared war on the Pakistani state: various al-Qaeda leaders and operatives as well as Mehsud.
Strangely, the report received scant coverage in the boisterous Pakistani media. A week and a half later, a Washington Post news report reasserted the claims made in Ignatius’ column, albeit without mentioning specific approved targets. This piece received immediate attention in Pakistan and even more days later when U.S. drones hit ‘mainland’ Pakistan for the first time. The Peoples Party-led government played according to script; it and the Foreign Office condemned the attacks and denied the existence of a deal.
Conspicuous was the relative silence of the Pakistan Army. In September, Gen. Ashfaq Kayani promptly and vigorously denied claims that he agreed on the USS Abraham Lincoln to U.S. ground operations inside Pakistan. He vowed to defend Pakistan’s sovereignty “at all costs.”
In contrast, this month his press office did not respond to the Ignatius piece (Kayani was out of the country at the time). Inter-Services Public Relations spokesman Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas did speak with the media to deny claims made in the subsequent Post news article. But there was no strongly worded press release or reaction from Kayani himself.
The reality is that none of the latest U.S. drone attacks could have occurred without the provision of intelligence by Pakistan’s military. This is why the targeting seems to be more precise — in clear contrast to the Angor Ada raid that yielded no high value targets and killed mainly innocent Pakistani civilians. In fact, most of the good U.S. intelligence on the tribal areas and al-Qaeda comes from the ISI. And this is why Nazir and Gul Bahadur smell change in the air.
…BECAUSE IT IS FACING BANKRUPTCY?
What occurred in between now and September that would alter the perspective of the Pakistan Army leadership? A change of heart? No. Too quick. Most likely: a change in ground realities.
One, Pakistan’s economy has deteriorated. Coalition Support Funds (CSF) and possibly even aid packages have been held back to induce cooperative behavior from Islamabad. In October, Pakistan’s outgoing Defense Secretary Kamran Rasool told a Senate committee that the country was nearing bankruptcy and could not afford a confrontation with the United States.
Two, if the above was not the single factor, then there has to have been something operational. Perhaps the Pakistani army is coming to recognize its limitations, at least in the short term. Presently, it is operating in Bajaur, Swat, and more recently, Mohmand. There has been some success in Bajaur and Swat, but the militants are proving to be formidable. Only until recently have U.S. forces complemented operations in neighboring Kunar (on the flip side, Pakistani peace agreements in FATA increased attacks on the other side of the border). Prior to that, insurgents were pouring into Pakistan from Afghanistan. An additional American brigade will be heading to Regional Command East in January. But it will get worse before it gets better. South Waziristan is a long time away for the Pakistan Army. It will host the mother of all battles in this brutal counterinsurgency.
Three, though Kayani is difficult to decipher — poker face and all — he seems to have developed a healthy, working relationship with senior U.S. and NATO commanders. The Tripartite Commission now meets regularly and Kayani recently went to Brussels to attend a NATO summit. Whether or not his colleagues on the other side have fully embraced his major recommendations is unclear. But Kayani is smiling a lot more than he did in September.
It is possible that the Pakistan Army will remain extremely reluctant to share intelligence on its major ‘assets’ (e.g. Mullah Omar). There is also the possibility that the Army has a different understanding/terms of the agreement than the civilian government. Or, Ignatius’ list could be partially inaccurate. After all, is it really possible to take out Mullah Omar with a missile strike or even a helicopter/ground raid in the middle of Quetta (if that’s where he is)?
Recent comments from the Pakistani civilian and military leadership seem to suggest that they are hoping for a new deal with the incoming Obama administration. That could just be for public consumption. Anyway, Gen. David Petraeus is said to have told them during his latest visit that the next government will not change policy toward the region.
POTENTIAL CONSEQUENCES: DEFEATING TRANSNATIONAL TERROR, SPURRING ETHNIC AND TRIBAL WARFARE, AND WITHERING THE PAKISTANI STATE
The expansion of the U.S. military role inside Pakistan and other parallel changes (ongoing Pakistan Army operations) have the potential to vastly change dynamics on the ground.
The Good
Eliminating or neutralizing al-Qaeda, if it is possible, has its obvious advantages for all state actors. Rooting it out from Pakistan’s Pashtun belt is somewhat like taking gum out of one’s hair. Peanut butter is better than a scissor. If you have to cut, leave as much hair as possible.
The Bad
The number of internally displaced persons (IDPs), currently between 100,000 and 150,000 will likely grow in the coming year. Pakistani officials have indicated the IDPs will remain in camps for at least a year. Within that time period, they could be joined by Pakistanis from other tribal (or even settled) areas, which would double or triple the number.
The IDPs have left their property at home, which, more likely than not is destroyed. Having lost family members who remained behind or died in transit, they are likely bitter and conflicted.
There is no reason to believe that Islamabad and others vested in its counterinsurgency have and will adequately address the issue of IDPs. The anger of these displaced persons, particularly the youth, will fester, replacing, to some degree, the militants being killed back in Bajaur, Swat, and Mohmand.
The IDP camps do provide an opportunity to engage tribals in an environment less threatening than their home areas. Providing IDPs with basic services, respectable amenities, literacy and job training, as well as primary and secondary education can give Islamabad a head start on the last leg of a clear, hold, build strategy for FATA.
The Ugly
Putting all of the militants in the same box, as the Ignatius article claims is being done, could result in the consolidation of militant entities. Presently, Pakistan is being targeted by the Tehreek-e Taliban Pakistan, Tehreek-e Nifaz-e Shariat-e Muhammadi, al-Qaeda, al-Qaeda-like freelancers, Lashkar-e Jhangvi, and other outfits.
Now, if the Ignatius column is correct, add to the above: Mullah Omar-led Taliban, Hekmatyar’s Hezb-i Islami Afghanistan, the Haqqani group, Maulvi Nazir, and Hafiz Gul Bahadur. Note that Nazir and his fellow Wazirs are a natural rival to Mehsud. Gul Bahadur split from the Tehreek-e Taliban Pakistan. Haqqani provides Pakistani intelligence with information on Mehsud & Co. And he is well rooted in the tribal structure in North Waziristan and neighboring areas of Afghanistan.
The Pakistan Army, in adopting the adversaries of coalition forces in Afghanistan, gains new enemies and loses old assets. Playing the militants off of one another has been a key part of of Islamabad’s strategy toward the militants. It has not been perfect, but U.S. officials seem to have endorsed a similar approach in Afghanistan. If the militants in Pakistan bridge their differences, induced by a one-two punch from Islamabad and Washington, then Pakistan could face a brunt of urban violence the likes of which it has never seen before.
Not only will militants pressed in the tribal areas will push deeper into the North-West Frontier Province’s settled areas, but they will also hit Pakistan’s urban centers — most important of which is Karachi, whose port brings in a majority of U.S. and NATO supplies in Afghanistan. The potential number of civilian casualties, on venues such as M.A. Jinnah Road, which runs from the Karachi Port through the heart of Karachi to a Peshawar/Torkham-bound national highway. Terrorists could, for example, attack oil tankers crossing through the city. Or they could spread things out and lay IEDs anywhere along the stretch of highways N5 (Karachi-Torkham) and N25 (Karachi-Chaman).
In expanding the war theater, militants could ignite ethnic tensions, the seeds of which are already rooted in Pakistan’s soil. Altaf Hussain, the London-based head of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM), a party that represents a segment of Pakistanis who migranted from India and their descendants, has once again called for young men in his city to acquire arms and training to use them. He has repeatedly warned of Talibanization in the city. Combating a violent non-state actor with another non-state actor provides a recipe for uncontrolable urban warfare. And while Karachi is a likely terrorist target, many fear Altaf is conflating the militant infiltration with the inflow of Pashtun migrants from war afflicted areas of Pakistan. Altaf has called for new entrants into Karachi to register themselves, precipitating a harsh denunciation from the Pashtun nationalist Awami National Party (ANP). The ANP and MQM have had a difficult relationship over the years. The latter’s hold on Karachi is challenged by the growth in the Pashtun population.
In recent weeks, the Pakhtunistan bogeyman has also reappeared. Somehow posters in Pashto calling for the creation of an independent Pashtun state appeared in the NWFP. Combine that with the opposition of the two major Muslim League factions to renaming NWFP Pakhtunkhwa (Hazaras, non-Pashtuns in the NWFP who oppose the renaming, vote for the two parties), and the current national dynamic (PPP & the rest vs. PML-N, i.e. urban Punjab) and you have a strong potential for balkanization. [Add to that sectarian violence that has been rising in Dera Ismail Khan and continues to plague the Kurram Agency.]
Mission creep on the part of the United States could break open the levies. Consider the recent comments of former CIA Islamabad station chief, Robert Grenier:
“… as we work out with [the Pakistanis] a rough division of labor, the U.S., I believe, ought to be taking the lead in addressing the issues in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas.”
The excerpt is from an otherwise very reasonable set of comments. Grenier’s proposal would further dilute whatever waning influence Pakistan has in the region. Local actors would either become loyal to the new power broker in the area, the United States, or to a third party, rendering the Pakistani state irrelevant or an enemy.
The logic seems to be that if Islamabad has no writ in territory X, it has effectively lost sovereignty, giving a free hand to other parties to take action in the area. That, however, serves to reify or exacerbate Islamabad’s distance from the region. And the authority vacuum, a source of instability, can only truly be filled by Islamabad.
The loss of local assets, the weakening (at least) of the malik system, and the alienation of locals (via drone attacks), makes that impossible. FATA, in fact, could fall permanently out of the hands of Islamabad.
That, combined for the spread of violence into Pakistan’s cities (particularly Karachi) could accelerate the breakdown of the Pakistani state. Indeed, there is the potential for a 1,001 separate wars to go on simultaneously (given the ethnic and tribal differences, the proliferation of criminal networks, and the role of badal, or revenge, in Pashtunwali). Like Iraq, Pakistan would witness the flight of capital abroad (Amman certainly benefited from Iraqi expats); the departure of the haves (doctors, bankers, and other professionals) to safer shores, such as Dubai, London, and Canada; and leaving the country to the have nots. Middle class and poorer Karachiites would be left to fend off militants and criminal gangs (not entirely different from today!). Karachi, I fear, would burn incessantly.
There is no alternative to strengthening the Pakistani state. Pakistan must be the predominant agent on the ground; a big part of that is the requisite training and equipment (e.g. nightvision goggles, jammers, and secure radio systems). Establishing the rule of civil law, from Karachi to Khyber, is also essential. The use of drones should be limited. Consider that the cost of a Hellfire missile shot from Predator/Reaper drones is roughly the same as that of building a school in a Pakistani village. Given the danger posed to Westerners, development aid might be better routed through more expressly Pakistani entities/persons.
Finally, the fundamental contradictions in the U.S.-Pakistan partnership must be ironed out. This requires the Pakistan Army to redouble efforts to root out al-Qaeda and other transnational takfiri terrorists. It also requires the United States to come to terms with the fact that a great number of important Pashtun actors quite simply oppose its presence in their lands. Washington should let them know it is ready, in a phased and conditionalized fashion, to say goodbye.
Monday, January 5, 2009
Why Pakistan must reform
| Addressing Mumbai | |
| Saturday, January 03, 2009 | |
| By Babar Sattar http://www.thenews.com.pk/arc_news.asp?id=9 The writer is a lawyer based in Islamabad. He is a Rhodes scholar and has an LL.M from Harvard Law School External pressure diminishes the ability of people to undertake critical self-evaluation. It is natural to get angry over the beating that Pakistan's image has taken in the international arena. But we must not allow false pride to create a disconnect between Pakistan and the reality as the rest of the world sees it, or stand up to defend the indefensible just because we find ourselves isolated in a corner. We can curse our misfortunes as a nation or wish for better luck, but we need to play with the cards we have been dealt with. And there is a whole lot that we can do to help ourselves. But in order to get out of the hole we have dug ourselves in we need to develop national consensus over three fundamental questions: One, as a nation-state how do wish to be characterized in the comity of nations? Two, how do we define our identity as a nation? And three, what kind of a society do we wish our children to grow up in? Let us start with the first. Probably the gravest national security concern shared by analysts in Pakistan is that global powers are not comfortable with Pakistan's nuclear weapons programme and wish to take our weapons out. There are at least two doomsday scenarios painted in simulation exercises in western capitals that provoke a desire to take control of Pakistan's nukes. One, that the Taliban prevail over the armed forces in their insurgency against the state and succeed in assuming control over Islamabad. And two, that support for jihadists within the armed forces grows to a stage where the military can no longer be trusted as an ally by the US-led international community. In short, the biggest threat to Pakistan's nuclear capability could be posed by a shared international belief that Pakistan army is either an unreliable partner in the struggle against terrorism or too weak to contain the Taliban and other insurgents within Pakistan. If the whole world were to gang up against Pakistan's nuclear programme, there is only so much we would be able to do to save it. This is not to promote a sense of defeatism, but only to highlight the need to be viewed by peers as a responsible nation-state. And as a responsible nation-state the one thing we cannot do is employ abhorrent and proscribed means to realize legitimate state interests. Notwithstanding the acrimony that we might feel toward India, nurturing jihadists to undertake subversive activities across border or even looking the other way is not an option. Even if we have proof that RAW has its handprints all over FATA and Balochistan, Pakistan's official policy cannot be to respond in kind. The proxy wars that Pakistan and India are fighting through non-state actors must end if we wish to shed the clouds of violence that are hovering over South Asia and consuming innocent civilian lives. The second pressing issue we need to address is what kind of national identity do we wish to carve out for ourselves. Have we reconciled with our existence as a Muslim majority state that shares a border and a tumultuous history with a neighbour that has an equal number of Muslims that constitute a minority? Irrespective of the affinity we feel toward the Muslims of India, can we ever be at peace in our neighbourhood so long as we allow Hindu-Muslim relations within India to determine the state of India-Pakistan relationship? How long will we remain mired in the concern that the Hindu-mindset has not accepted the creation of Pakistan? Once we begin to view the events of 1947 and the reasons for the creation of Pakistan as a matter of history and are secure in our existence as a sovereign state, what purpose could a certificate of acceptance from India serve? So long as we continue to be consumed by the construct provided by the two-nation theory, we will remain unable to have a candid debate on the role religion should play in the state as well as in shaping our national identity. If we accept ourselves as a diverse pluralistic nation comprising various ethnicities located across the four corners of Pakistan and united in our allegiance to our constitution, we will be less motivated by a desire to wage jihad in protection of Muslim minorities who are citizens of other states. Our faith is not in jeopardy and neither is our ethnicity. What we need to build upon is our identity as Pakistanis. Once we make our shared bond as Pakistanis cohesive enough and reorder our national priorities to maximize the interests and welfare of ordinary citizens instead of being overly anguished by miseries of non-citizens, we will automatically transform from a national security state into a welfare society. But the most crucial question of all is what kind of society are we becoming? Is it compatible with the role we wish to play in the world or reflective of the value structure we wish our future generations to emulate? In parts of Pakistan we have a tribal culture the proponents of which justify live burial of women. In another part we have an organized militant movement, inspired by a depraved form of faith, that wishes to burn down all schools, ban female access to knowledge and drag us back to the stone ages. We have seminaries in the centre that are imbibing flocks of impressionable youth with an ideology of hate and violence. And now we apparently also have hire-a-suicide-bomber establishments that provide self-annihilating human machines to settle monetary and political feuds. And despite all this, we somehow seem to lack the moral clarity and the resolve to shut down our jihadist outfits. We must shake ourselves out of complacency. Any attempt to draw a distinction between good and bad jihdists is a terrible idea. We need to withdraw all state-support or tolerance for non-state actors preaching hate to citizens or training them in the art of violence. We need to press upon our informed religious scholars and legitimate political parties organized under the banner of Islam to attack the ideology of hate being spewed in the name of religion. And we need to address the joint evils of disempowerment, unemployment and poverty that lead disgruntled and misguided youth into the trap set by merchants of terror. The question for us is not whether to eradicate the roots of faith-inspired militancy, but how to go about doing it in order to minimize collateral damage. The argument that the world should refrain from pressing Pakistan too hard on the issue of terrorism or else they would stir up the hornets' nest will not wash for too long. If we refuse or are incapable of effectively tackling the forces of terrorism within our territory that are eating us up internally and threatening others around the world, sooner rather than later the outside powers will step in. And in such event the cost that Pakistan will end up paying will be exorbitant. Even if we resolve to mobilize all energies against the merchants of terror, it will be a time consuming process and drying up support for religion-inspired militancy in Pakistan will not be easy. But the state cannot continue to play ball with jihdists just because there is no neat way of decommissioning them and taking them on runs the risk of turning the Frankenstein inward. This is payback time for the imprudent path our state took almost three decades back. But let us not dither now just because the challenge is mighty. This is a fight we will need to fight with all our resolve to secure our future and that of our kids. Email: sattar@post.harvard.edu |
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