Honey, I shrunk Pakistan!

http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2009/936/op7.htm

The Taliban are coming, shouts Muqtedar Khan*

The Pakistani government has now made a deal with a Taliban group called Tahrik-e- Nafiz Shariat Mohamedi (Movement for the Establishment of Mohamed's Sharia) that ends military conflict between them and the Pakistani army and brings "Islamic law" to the region called Swat and its neighbouring districts.

The Swat area is in the northeastern part of Pakistan's troubled North Western Frontier Province (NWFP), a region where both the Taliban and Al-Qaeda have according to US intelligence sources reconstituted.

The government of Pakistan is spinning this deal as a smart move to combat extremism. By giving the extremist what they demand -- Sharia law -- it hopes to deprive them of a cause that gives them legitimacy, purpose and public support.

The rest of the world on the other hand is profoundly disquieted. Western powers see the ceasefire and peace settlement as a misguided initiative that will provide Al-Qaeda and the Taliban the opportunity and freedom to regroup and retrench itself further.

The Taliban style insurgency is recent to Swat. Though the Tahrik has existed since the 1990s the insurgency has engaged Pakistani military and terrorised civilians only since 2007.

In the past few months alone, the Taliban have banned education for girls, burned and blown up over 30 schools, beheaded over 30 people, attacked and destroyed the public library and State Museum in Mingora (Swat's capital). Pakistan already has very low literacy levels and this campaign against education is a shortcut to underdevelopment. Realising their dire predicament, many of the residents of Swat have already fled from the area.

Even though the Pakistani government is projecting its latest move as a victory, in reality it is a complete surrender to the Taliban. The Pakistani government has both de jure and de facto conceded sovereignty over part of its territory to them.

Successive Pakistani governments are making a habit of surrendering territory and sovereignty to the Taliban in exchange for nothing. General Pervez Musharraf lost North and South Waziristan in a similar deal a few years ago and now President Asif Ali Zardari has provided the Taliban with a foothold within striking distance of Islamabad. Pakistan is slowly shriveling up. I guess the next time Benazir Bhutto's ghost visits her dear husband President Zardari, his one line report will say, "Honey, I shrunk Pakistan!"

Deals such as this one that the Pakistani government made with the Taliban are comprehensive strategic victories for the Taliban and Al-Qaeda.

One, they ensure that the over 100,000 Pakistani troops in the region are no more a threat to them or to their goals. By securing their eastern front through peace deals with Pakistan, the Taliban and Al-Qaeda are free to focus their entire firepower on American and NATO forces.

Two, the deals give the Taliban and Al-Qaeda safe havens where they can train, recruit and fundraise. These provinces give them a strategic depth against Western forces. Now they have safe homes in Pakistan to retreat and resuscitate in and return to fight another day in Afghanistan.

But the most dangerous consequence is the loss of land. The Taliban now control vast territories in the southeast of Afghanistan and north and west of Pakistan. They are steadily carving out a Talibanistan -- a state perpetually at war -- that will nestle between Afghanistan and Pakistan and prey on both of them for territory, for fighters and for resources.

Pakistan has now become a strange and complex entity in which contradictions not only endure, but also seem to thrive. Parts of it are stable and rich (like Punjab) while others like the NWFP are in complete chaos. It has recently returned to democracy and civilian rule and yet parts of it are in the hands of authoritarian anti- democracy militias. It is an American ally and yet many of its citizens are at war with America. These contradictions are fault lines that will eventually lead to an implosion.

Unless the Pakistani government and the military, with the help of the US and regional powers like India and Iran, can find a way to reintegrate Pakistan into a cohesive modern state, it will become the epicentre of a violent storm that will engulf South Asia with global repercussions.

* The writer is director of Islamic Studies at the University of Delaware and fellow of the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding.

The gutless cowards ruling Pakistan

It was only inevitable that the Pakistan government would sue for peace with the Taliban. In a desperate bid to stave of the approach of insurgency in the Punjab and Sind provinces, the spineless government caved into the demands of a bunch of thugs and virtually signed away a province over to these miscreants.

Any follower of the history of Pakistan will not be surprised. There is a precedent to this too. In 1965, Pakistan fought a war with India trying to settle the Kashmir issue, once and for all. The war ended in a stalemate. Although the territories of the then state of Pakistan was divided into West and East Pakistan, over 90% of the armed forces were concentrated in the West, essentially protecting Punjab and Sind from India. This was in line with the strategic doctrine that defense of East Pakistan lay in West Pakistan. Thus on the eastern front, the Indians outnumbered the Pakistani troops defending East Pakistan by more than three to one.This fact was not lost on the East Pakistanis who increasingly started viewing the army as a west Pakistani entity created to defend only West Pakistan. The seeds of secession which culminated with the creation of Bangladesh were firmly sown as a result of the 1965 War.

The good people of Swat and the North West frontier province are also learning the same lessons. When it come down to it, it is the most vulnerable of the citizens of Pakistan who are suffering. Statistically, the NFWP province are eons behind in development of human resources, infrastructure and other amenities as compared to the Punjab and Sind provinces. They are the one who need the support and help from the Pakistan armed forces to repel the raga tag bunch of hoodlums who have forcibly taken over their state. Yet the Pakistan government prevaricates. Despite the fact that thru a open and fair election, a secular progressive government under the Awami National Party (ANP) was elected to power, ( clearly throwing out the Islamist incumbent party which was in power) the central government claims that they are honouring the wishes of the "majority" of the people of Swat by "allowing" the Taliban to take over power in the state.

The hope of these spineless, gutless bunch of morons in power in Islamabad is that the blood lust of the Taliban vampires will be sated by the sacrifice of the boon dock provinces. Reading the Pakistani blogs, you see the same picture. What they don't realize is that once the slim pickings in these provinces are sucked dry, the Taliban will be looking greedily at the fat, rich and decadent core provinces of Pakistan. They will start with Baluchistan. It is out of the way and the same threat of random human suicide bombings will scare the government into relinquishing control into Taliban hands. Quetta is already under quasi Taliban control. Next will be Sind starting with Karachi where the MQM and the Pathan are already at war, with the Sindhis as silent spectators. Punjab seen as the Babylon of vices will pay the price last. And all because the government was not willing to take a stand.

What the government should do is to establish the writ of the state in every corner of Pakistan. What is the point in bemoaning the loss of sovereignty of Pakistan when the US blatantly bombs the NWFP, when at the same time not a whisper is raised about the existence of non Pakistani players extracting taxes and holding courts where they are police, prosecutor and judge.

Currently neither the Army nor the bureaucrats not the common citizen care about the fate of the outer lying provinces. What they don't know is that by not acting now, they have embolded the Taliban. Small two bit players are parleying with the government representatives as equals nay as superiors bargaining from a position of strength. If the government keeps this going, its only a matter of time before the inevitable happens. The Taliban version of hell will spead into every corner of Pakistan.

Zardari, Sharif and Musharraf, the bells of Taliban hell are tolling. They are tolling for you.

Destabilizing Pakistan, America Plays with Fire

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=12325

With the Obama administration preparing a major military escalation across South Asia, the corrupt ruling elites perched in their palaces in Lahore, Islamabad and Karachi have demonstrated their contempt for the Pakistani people. Unable, and unwilling, to solve the deep-seated structural problems facing their nation--unemployment, lack of security, rampant crime and corruption, the lack of public education, the absence of health care, free expression and the right to be left alone to live in peace--like the Musharraf clique, the Zardari administration has cut a deal with the imperialist overlords who now threaten destruction on a planetary scale. Caught between the jihadi Frankenstein and the American Draculas waiting in the wings, it is the people of South Asia who will pay a steep price as the Pentagon and their corporatist masters seek a "solution" to what Washington insiders have dubbed the "Af-Pak" problem.

CIA Predators Strike from Pakistan

As the United States ramps-up regional military operations, U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), the chairwoman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, dropped a bombshell when she revealed that CIA Predator drones are flown from an airbase in Pakistan, the Los Angeles Times reported.

Expressing surprise at Pakistan's opposition to missile strikes launched in that country's borderlands with Afghanistan, Feinstein said "As I understand it, these are flown out of a Pakistani base."

If true, this latest revelation will only serve to destabilize the civilian government of Pakistan Peoples Party President Asif Ali Zardari.

As if the underscore Feinstein's disclosure, The Guardian reported February 16 that "A US missile strike against suspected militants in a tribal area of Pakistan killed 30 people today, as Islamabad announced a peace deal with extremists in another region that includes the imposition of Islamic law."

The latest strike allegedly targeted a home used by a "Taliban commander close to the Afghan border." This was the fourth Predator missile attack on Pakistan since Obama became President.

Monday's attack followed a strike on February 14. The New York Times reported that two Hellfire missiles fired from CIA Predators struck a compound in South Waziristan killing upwards of 32 people.

According to reports, the target was alleged to be a safe house where Baitullah Mehsud, a Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) "emir" and his henchmen often gathered. The New York Times, citing a Pakistani "intelligence official" claimed that "Arab and Uzbek" foreign fighters allied with the Taliban and Osama bin Laden's Afghan-Arab database of disposable Western intelligence assets were among those killed.

Caught between the pincers of U.S. imperialism and a home-grown Islamist insurgency with ties to the Afghan Taliban, Washington's "former" allies, al-Qaeda, and elements of its own Army and intelligence services, the Zardari government is in full crisis mode.

The disclosure by Feinstein came during testimony February 12 before the Committee by U.S. Director of National Intelligence, Dennis C. Blair.

While the CIA refused to comment and DNI Blair did not respond to her statement, unnamed "U.S. intelligence officials" described the senator's remarks as "accurate." Feinstein's spokesperson, Philip J. LaVelle, claimed the senator's comment "was based solely on previous news reports that Predators were operated from bases near Islamabad," the L. A. Times reported.

Pakistani officials were quick to discredit Feinstein's remarks. Defense Minister Ahmad Mukhtar told Daily Times, "We do have the facilities from where they can fly, but they are not being flown from Pakistani territory. They are being flown from Afghanistan."

The revelations will not sit well with elements within the military and intelligence establishment that continue to favorably view terrorist proxies such as Lashkar-e-Toiba (LET) or for that matter the TTP.

As I previously reported, on January 23 twenty-two people, including 8 or 10 alleged members of al-Qaeda, the rest civilians, were killed when CIA Predator drones slammed into houses in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA). Despite an escalating campaign that saw some 30 CIA Predator strikes in the latter half of 2008, American officials conceded that the CIA had failed to kill "senior al-Qaeda commanders."

Feinstein's remarks are certain to enflame tensions against Pakistan's civilian government. But with a history of destabilizing civilian regimes viewed as "problematic" to wider geopolitical goals--the U.S. after all, was complicit in the Army and ISI's "soft coups" against Bhutto twice during the 1990s--this may be Washington's intent.

The symbolism of the Predator attacks couldn't be clearer: most of the CIA missile strikes were launched since September when the Zardari administration took power. If this is the case, the United States is playing with fire and most assuredly will get burned, along with millions of South Asia's people caught in the cross-fire.

"Winning" Through Capitulation: the TTP's Long March to Power

Predator missile strikes and American threats aren't the only problems plaguing Pakistan. A home-grown Islamist insurgency has been steadily gaining ground since 2007 and the latest moves by that government's nominal secular leadership is cause for concern.

President Zardari told CBS News' "60 Minutes" Sunday, "We are aware of the fact (the Taliban are) trying to take over the state of Pakistan. So, we're fighting for the survival of Pakistan." However, the government has responded by capitulating to the TTP's demands in NWFP's Malakand district that includes the Swat Valley.

A target of the CIA's February 14 missile strike, Baitullah Mehsud and Maulana Fazlullah, Pakistani veterans of America's anti-Soviet jihad of the 1980s, command a formidable army.

With links to elements within Pakistan's organized crime-tainted Inter Services Intelligence agency (ISI) and Army officers (serving and retired) who came to prominence during the reign of dictator General Zia ul-Haq, the TTP have been marching eastward from their redoubts in North and South Waziristan, the North-West Frontier Province and now threaten chaos within Pakistan's major population centers.

In the past year alone, TTP militants have launched more than 600 terrorist attacks, killing 2,000 people. Last September, a truck packed with explosives demolished the Marriott hotel in downtown Islamabad, killing 60 and injuring some 260 others. The political fallout was devastating to the Zardari administration when it emerged that the perpetrators were Pakistanis. With a reputation as a grifter--after all, Asif and Benazir had amassed some $1.5 billion in assets after Bhutto's two terms in office--the Yankee overlords made it clear they had no confidence in his administration and would prefer another compliant military "Big Man" to rule the roost.

Since September, the situation has grown markedly worse. TTP and al-Qaeda fighters along with their Afghan Talib cousins, have virtually cut NATO's supply lines into Afghanistan through the Khyber Pass and now threaten Peshawar, the NWFP's capital, a sprawling city of three million people.

According to the latest reports in the Pakistani press, the TTP now control some eighty percent of the territory of the Swat Valley where Mehsud's local commander, Maulana Fazlullah has instituted a reign of terror under the banner of "Sharia Law." The Pakistan military, according to local politicians, lawyers, teachers and residents under threat of death by the militants, has waged an ineffective and counterproductive campaign that has relied on punishing artillery barrages that kill and maim civilians.

While top political and military leaders have "vowed to crush militancy in the North Western parts of the country" according to The Nation, it appears that the government's strategy for "winning" entails a complete capitulation to the TTP's demands, including the imposition of draconian religious strictures on the people of Swat that will be "administered" by the Taliban themselves!

Since the Lal Masjid (Red Mosque) affair in 2007, the TTP has challenged the state's writ and has spread sectarian medievalism across Pakistan, launching terrorist strikes in major cities, bombing girls' schools, burning down video shops, executing "immoral" women and beheading secular and leftist opponents. Along with the carnage, organized crime and the drug traffic has markedly increased. Dawn reported,

A high-level security meeting presided over jointly by President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani on Friday reviewed the situation in tribal areas and the NWFP and decided to continue the military operation in Swat till the establishment of government’s writ. (Syed Irfan Raza, "Operation to go on till writ is restored: Jammers to block Maulana's radio," Dawn, February 14, 2009)

Critics charge however, the government's rhetoric is no more than a band-aid over a gangrenous wound. In a move designed to placate the jihadist Frankenstein and bolster charges of complicity levelled by secular critics, NWFP Information Minister Mian Iftikhar Hussain "has said that headway has been made towards implementation of Shariah regulation in Swat valley," according to a report in The News.

Following these talks, The News reported February 15, the government had "finalized" a "five-point agreement," one that negotiated the surrender of women's and worker's rights with Maulana Sufi Mohammed, the chief of the banned Tehrik Nifaz Shariat-i-Muhammadi (Movement for the Enforcement of Islamic Law, TNSM) and father-in-law of TTP "emir" Fazlullah.

On February 16, Amir Haider Khan Hoti, the NWFP's Chief Minister announced that the Army will pull out of of active operations in the Malakand district, which includes Swat Valley, after reaching an agreement that will see the imposition of Sharia law on the people--against their wishes.

While Hoti claims that the fundamentalists will "lay down their arms" as a result of the agreement, Pakistani critics believe that the organization will use the state's climb-down to regroup and rearm, gathering strength to launch new operations aimed at the centers of power. Feebly, Hoti told The News, "It is my hope that the armed people will disarm themselves, give up the path of violence and work for restoration of peace in Swat."

NWFP's Information Minister Mian Iftikhar Hussain announced that "after successful negotiations, all un-Islamic laws related to the judicial system, those against the Koran and the Sunnah, would be subject to cancellation and considered null and void," according to The New York Times.

Needless to say, like those conducted by their imperialist overlords, the agreement was negotiated behind the backs of the people affected by Taliban depredations. Following the announcement of the deal the McClatchy Washington Bureau reported,

Many Pakistani Army and intelligence officers ... oppose using force against fellow Muslims, and some have ties to militant groups.

"This (new agreement) is definitely a surrender," said Khadim Hussain of the Aryana Institute for Regional Research and Advocacy, a policy institute in Islamabad, the capital. "If you keep treating a community as something different from the rest of the country, it will isolate them."

Javed Iqbal, a retired judge, speaking on Pakistani television, said: "It means that there is not one law in the country. It will disintegrate this way. If you concede to this, you will go on conceding." (Saeed Shah, "Pakistani government makes deal with Islamic militants," McClatchy Washington Bureau, February 15, 2009)

Human- and women's rights activist and political commentator, Saba Gul Khattak, the author of Inconvenient Facts: Military regimes and women's political representation in Pakistan writes,

A host of other explanations tell us how the Taliban have managed to spread. For example, some middle ranking army officers and bureaucrats bitterly accuse their superiors of betrayal. They feel frustrated and demoralized by the perception that the Americans, in cahoots with some in leadership positions, play double games, e.g. equipping select Taliban groups with sophisticated technologies that are effectively used against their attempts to restrain the activities of the Taliban. Many analysts blame the Musharraf government for deliberately looking away while the MMA encouraged right wing organizations to spread their operations. ...

These forebodings are augmented by stories of the Taliban's viciousness, their monopoly over the weapons of fear as they demonstrate their brutality by skinning people, slitting their throats and mutilating bodies, collapsing the difference between human beings and animals.

Meanwhile, the affected people continue to protest in a mute manner, bitter against the armed forces and political government for failing them; and, loathing the Taliban for dislodging them from their homes. Some even contend that the military and the Taliban are one and the same--the soldier who guards his security camp in the day wears a turban and becomes a Talib in the evening. ("Are Taliban Inevitable?," The News, February 16, 2009)

The fact is, most Pakistanis believe religion is a private matter and should be separate from the public sphere. But that doesn't inhibit the TTP and other jihadist outfits from imposing their sectarian will by force and now, with the complicity of the state.

While the Western media portray the country as a hot-bed of fundamentalist extremism, the Taliban-linked parties were shown the door in the 2008 national elections, installing "secular" parties busily negotiating their rights away. Closely associated with the venal Musharraf regime, the five-party alliance, the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA), which had garnered some 15% of the vote in 2002 and controlled the NWFP government suffered a devastating loss. As socialist critic and historian Tariq Ali wrote on the deadly embrace of Pakistani elites and their American neocolonial partners,

Back in the heart of Pakistan the most difficult and explosive issue remains social and economic inequality. This is not unrelated to the increase in the number of madrassas. If there were a half-decent state education system, poor families might not feel the need to hand over a son or kdaughter to the clerics in the hope that at least one child will be clothed, fed, and educated. Were there even the semblance of a health care system, many would be saved from illnesses contracted as a result of fatigue and poverty. No government since 1947 has done much to reduce inequality. ...

I spent my last day in Karachi with fishermen in a village near Korangi Creek. The government has signed away the mangroves where shellfish and lobsters flourish, and land is being reclaimed to build Diamond City, Sugar City, and other monstrosities on the Gulf model. The fishermen had been campaigning against these encroachments, but with little success. "We need a tsunami," one of them half joked. We talked about their living conditions. "All we dream of is schools for our children, medicines and clinics in our villages, clean water and electricity in our homes," one woman said. "Is that too much to ask for?" Nobody even mentioned religion. (The Duel: Pakistan on the Flight Path of American Power, New York: Scribner, 2008, p. 27)

Not that any this matters to the ruling class in Islamabad who "win" no matter what the cost to the victims of the Army and the jihadi Frankensteins for whom cutting a deal--or a throat--is just another day at the office.

A. Q. Khan's Rehabilitation: Placating the Army

The release of nuclear proliferator Dr. A. Q. Khan from house arrest earlier this month, lifting restrictions imposed in 2004 when the scandal surrounding Pakistan's illicit black market in nuclear technology first broke, is another sign that Zardari is in deep trouble at home. Khan's release was a political decision intended to shore-up support on the president's right flank.

Khan was released February 7 according to Defense Minister Chaudhry Ahmed Mukhtar "under an agreement" that was not disclosed. Intending to cut-off American criticism of the deal with Khan, IPS reported that

Pakistan Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi has categorically stated that Khan stands relieved of his duties and had nothing to do with the country's nuclear-related policies.

"We have successfully broken the network that he had set up and today he has no say and has no access to any sensitive areas of Pakistan," Qureshi said. "A.Q. Khan is history." (Beena Sarwar, "Opening the A. Q. Khan Can of Worms," Inter Press Service, February 11, 2009)

Other Pakistanis however, are far more sceptical of the timing of Khan's rehabilitation.

"The disinformation is so extreme, it is shocking how the private television channels celebrated his release," one Karachi-based observer told IPS, asking not to be named. "How come people are not curious about how he made so much money and brought international disgrace upon the country? He should be in jail and tried for treason."

That is unlikely to happen, say observers, because at least some elements of the Pakistan army must have been involved in Khan's deals, without which they would not have been possible. (IPS, ibid.)

In a July 2008 interview, Khan described how a shipment of centrifuges from Pakistan to North Korea in 2000 was "supervised by the army during the rule of President Pervez Musharraf... the army had complete knowledge about it and the equipment," according to IPS.

While London and Washington accepted Musharraf's fairy-tale that Khan was a "rogue scientist" whose ring operated solely for its own profit, for three decades America turned a blind-eye to Pakistan's proliferation schemes and covered-up the deadly trade.

Indeed, for "reasons of state" successive U.S. administrations, stretching from Gerald R. Ford through George W. Bush, utilized the same shadowy intelligence and organized crime networks as did Khan, from the Bank of Credit and Commerce International's "Black Network" to Dawood Ibrahim's D-Company (an ISI asset used in last November's Mumbai terror attacks) as a sources of illicit funds for covert operations and as proxies to attack strategic targets of the United States.

Despite feeble expressions of "concern" from the U.S. State Department, like Islamabad, Washington capos echo the sentiments of Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi who said just after the High Court ruling, "as far we are concerned, we have said time and again, this chapter is closed."

While the Khan "chapter" may be "closed," the crisis may be far worse than imagined. Daily Times reported February 4 that the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Mohammed ElBaradei "has said Pakistan's nuclear weapons can fall into the hands of terrorists due to the prevailing instability in the South Asian country." Instability, I might add, that the United States and their NATO partners seem hell-bent on spreading far and wide.

Why then, would the United States embark on such a deadly adventure? If Pakistan were pushed by internal and external forces to fly-apart, it would set the stage for the military occupation of the country by the U.S. and their partners under the guise of "peacekeeping" and "stability operations."

Bordering Iran, Afghanistan, India and China, and occupying a strategic position south of the Central Asian republics of the former Soviet Union, a balkanized Pakistan under the control of the United States would be a spear-tip aimed directly at resource-rich China, India and Russia. However mad such a scenario appears initially, particularly when the threat of catastrophic nuclear war could be one outcome, American brinksmanship cannot be dismissed out of hand.

The global capitalist economic crisis is accelerating and deepening; that much is certain. Attempts by financial mandarins in New York and Washington have failed to ameliorate the underlying contradictions plaguing the system as a whole; a crisis in classic Marxist terms partaking of both a crisis of overproduction and a falling rate of profit.

With financial systems on hair-trigger alert, and governments around the world seeking to balance the books on the backs of the people through massive cut-backs and the destruction of workers' rights, America's corporatist masters may not be looking towards Roosevelt's New Deal as a model but rather to an updated, thoroughly technophilic 21st century fascist model first devised by Hitler and Mussolini--with great fanfare I might add, by political elites in the United States.

In this context, imperialist military adventurism in South Asia and the Middle East may very well be the opening act for new wars of conquest, with incalculable risks for the planet. The people of South Asia would be well-advised to heed Tariq Ali's sage advice: Empires old and new have no friends. They only have interests.

Tom Burghardt is a researcher and activist based in the San Francisco Bay Area. In addition to publishing in Covert Action Quarterly and Global Research, an independent research and media group of writers, scholars, journalists and activists based in Montreal, his articles can be read on Dissident Voice, The Intelligence Daily, Pacific Free Press and the whistleblowing website Wikileaks. He is the editor of Police State America: U.S. Military "Civil Disturbance" Planning, distributed by AK Press.

Tom Burghardt is a frequent contributor to Global Research. Global Research Articles by Tom Burghardt

WASHINGTON DIARY: The advancing enemy —Dr Manzur Ejaz

http://dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2009\02\18\story_18-2-2009_pg3_3

Rulers averse to an independent judiciary and an equitable socio-economic order; an economic upper class hostile to paying its fair share in taxes; self-obsessed intellectuals and media persons; and a poverty-stricken population — this presents the perfect mix for the forces of destruction

Our ruling elites kept crying ‘Wolf!’ for decades to scare the West into supporting their tenures. And now, as the NWFP government prepares to promulgate sharia law in Swat and Malakand, the proverbial wolf has finally arrived. President Zardari’s statement regarding Taliban designs to take over Pakistan should have read: “The Taliban have already captured parts of Pakistan and they are on their way to grab the rest.”

Given the narrow vision of the governing elite, the prevailing anarchy in the country and absence of any alternative movement of resistance, the Taliban takeover of Pakistan or large parts of it seems a very real possibility now.

Up until the recent past, many of us believed that, beyond the tribal belt and its adjoining areas, the Taliban’s appeal could never be translated into a theocratic state. The underlying theoretical belief had been that backward ideologies cannot take over or overrun economically and socially more advanced societies. This belief has been shaken because of the state’s failure to stop the Taliban’s continuous penetration into settled areas.

Looking at the ruins of Harappa and Mohenjodarao, two sites of the great Indus civilization, one feels in awe of the level of advancement those societies had achieved. These ruins indicate that these cities had better civic planning than many contemporary cities of the subcontinent. But they could not defend themselves from less advanced invaders and perished. Although the destruction of the Indus civilisation may have been caused by natural forces as well, the way Vedic literature narrates the destruction and burning of enemy cities, it is clear that this great civilisation was invaded from without too.

Similarly, the Muslim invaders coming from West and Central Asia were not socially and economically more developed then the Indians. And it is puzzling how with a few thousand soldiers they defeated grand Indian armies of several hundred thousands, which were equipped with thousands of elephants as well. And it happened many times between the 10th and 16th centuries. Can it happen again?

Security agencies have reported to the government that about 18,000 Taliban are armed and organised. Furthermore, there is every indication that the Taliban are equipped with the most modern arms and accompanying technology. If their influence expands, as it happens with every successfully advancing force, Taliban numbers are going to swell because many opportunistic influential families will start joining them. Moreover, the Taliban already have a very well configured network in Punjab, which makes itself visible every time militant commanders want to display their strength to the Pakistani state.

Many knowledgeable observers had noted these militants’ organisation and force — especially those based in Muridke — when they attacked the Mall in Lahore to express their rage against Dutch cartoonists. A senior political figure opined that, based on the organisation of these groups, including the Laskhar-e Tayba, one can say with certainty that the militants can take over Lahore whenever they want. This may be an exaggerated projection but the larger point is valid.

And one should not forget that almost all of the Mumbai attackers belonged to the Punjab. Therefore, the Taliban have already sunk their tentacles in the Punjab and the rest of the country. Their advance can hardly be stalled because of the narrow mindedness of the ruling elites, petty thinking of the economically rich sections of society and the apathy of the general public.

As a matter of fact, contemporary Pakistan is an ideal example to solve the historical puzzles of the past where retrogressive forces ruined much advanced societies. The rulers in Islamabad are only minding the interests of their feudal clique; the rich do not want to share their wealth with society and fulfil their civic duty; the people are consumed by their daily socio-economic agonies; and the intellectuals are absorbed by political correctness and anti-US rhetoric. No section of society is prepared to recognise the imminent threat.

Rulers averse to an independent judiciary and an equitable socio-economic order; an economic upper class hostile to paying its fair share in taxes; self-obsessed intellectuals and media persons; and a poverty-stricken population — this presents the perfect mix for the forces of destruction.

The armed institutions of such societies have no will to fight the real enemies, not to mention a section of these institutions may be inviting this destruction in post-Ranjeet Singh Darbar style when they invited the British to destroy the Khalsa army.

The stage is therefore set for Northern invaders overrunning Punjab and Sindh. And, unfortunately, such dangers are never recognised until it is too late.

Well, let us continue playing Nero’s flute because “hanooz Dilli dur ast” (‘Delhi is still far away’).

So the rulers obsessed with control will have their wish fulfilled, though the mullahs will be in control. The rich will rejoice if they can do without their parties. And the intellectuals will have to start practicing to write and speak for their ‘independent’ theocratic state.

The people, used to suffering for centuries, will hardly notice any change. And, most of all, the clean-shaven supporters of Osama bin Laden and Mullah Omar will get a real taste of living under the system of their beloved heroes. The dream of making Pakistan a real ideological state may come true after all.

The writer can be reached at manzurejaz@yahoo.com

Home | Editorial

Faith Wars

http://dawn.net/wps/wcm/connect/dawn+content+library/dawn/news/pakistan/Faith-Wars-yn?

Ayesha Siddiqa speculates on the challenges which face this country in future years as part of Dawn.com's launch special 'Flash Forward Pakistan: Where do we go from here?'

Recently, Pakistan’s Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gillani lauded the role Sufi Islam could play in keeping the society away from religious extremism. Lest we consider this a personal bias, since he represents the Sufi tradition himself, similar sentiments were expressed by others as well. One such example is the 2007 RAND Corporation paper, Building Moderate Muslim Networks, which identifies Sufi Islam as one of the potential forces within an Islamic society that must be strengthened to fight the rising intolerance, extremism, and violence in Muslim societies. Although the RAND report pertained to the Middle East, it could be equally applied to Pakistan, which suffers from a high risk of religious conservatism often bordering on extremism.

Pakistan, in fact, makes an interesting case study for the battle between Sufi Islam and the much more rabid Salafi Islam for two obvious reasons. First, it is a country with equally dominant traditions and institutions of Sufi Islam that were critical in spreading the religion in the Indian Subcontinent. For that reason, many argue that Punjab, especially southern Punjab, which has drawn international attention particularly after the Mumbai attacks, cannot fall to Salafi Islam because it is a hub of Sufi – or what is popularly known as Barelvi – Islam. The wife of Pakistan’s ambassador to the US, Farahnaz Isphani, expressed such views a few months ago in a CNN interview. Second, unlike Turkey, where Sufi institutions were throttled by Kamal Attaturk, or Saudi Arabia, where the state shut down similar institutions to accommodate Salafi Islam, Sufi traditions have continued to thrive in Pakistan.

This raises the question about the viability of Sufi Islam to push back the forces of religious fundamentalism and extremism. Will Sufi Islam ultimately win the battle against Salafi Islam? More importantly, how has Salafi Islam managed to build inroads in areas once considered to be strongholds of Sufi Islam? The prime minister’s own home town Multan and all of southern Punjab have fallen pray to militancy and extremism. So, what is it that has pushed people away from the traditional patterns of faith?

For some scholars of Islam, especially those from the West such as Carl W. Ernst, Sufi Islam is a powerful force. In Pakistan’s society and politics, Sufi Islam represented by the shrines and pirs has always played a critical role. In fact, successive governments including that of Ayub Khan, Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto and Ziaul Haq representing different political traditions wooed the pirs or sajjada nasheens. There are many who believe that the rise in extremism is not a reflection on the waning strength of Sufi Islam because a majority of the people continue to owe allegiance to pirs. Quantitatively, Sufi Islam remains part of the popular religious tradition or a religion of the masses. Go to any shrine and you will observe hundreds and thousands of people, mainly the poor and destitute, congregating around the shrine and seeking forgiveness and a passport to heaven stamped by the living saint or pir.

It is precisely in these areas that Wahabism and Deobandi Islam seems to spread slowly but gradually. In fact, southern Punjab, once considered a hub of Sufi Islam, is a region lately making waves in terms of growing militancy. This is not to argue that the influence of pirs has reduced, but that there is a certain vacuum which is now being filled by a more rabid brand of Islam.

The reason for such developments pertains to the various complex socio-political and socioeconomic developments which have changed the face of the society. First, successive governments systematically tried to tailor institutions of Sufi Islam according to their own political needs. According to the scholar of Sufi Islam, Katherine Ewing, General Ayub Khan viewed the pirs and shrines as an impediment to his agenda of modernizing Pakistan and thus tried to control their growth and behavior by establishing alternative institutions such as the Auqaf. The ministry was meant not only to regulate the shrines and bring them under state control, but also use the opportunity to reduce the influence of the pirs and sajjada nasheens.

This objective, however, could not be achieved, as the control of the shrine did not minimize the influence of the pir who was considered by the people as the key interlocutor between them and God.

Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, who followed Ayub Khan, did not directly challenge Sufi Islam as it was the popular religion followed by the masses. However, he continued with the Auqaf with the intent of regulating the influence of the pirs, some of whom were considered as political rivals. The pirs and shrines were so important as part of the indigenous religious tradition that despite the fact that Ziaul Haq subscribed to Salafi Islam, he could not demolish the influence of the pirs. However, the politics of successive governments further co-opted pirs in power politics.

Second, the decade of the 1980s was a major catalyst in providing new direction to traditional and conservative cultures. For instance, the call to jihad to free Afghanistan from Soviet invasion attracted a lot of people from southern Punjab. This influence was predated by the impact of southern Punjabis who had migrated to Saudi Arabia and the Gulf countries to work. These people brought Deobandi and Wahabi influences back with them.

Third, part of the process of the co-option of pirs by the state was the increase in their political power. Traditionally, the rulers cultivated the pirs through award of land and similar rewards. So, the pirs were effectively also major landowners of their area. Gradually, the pirs of their families began to take part in state politics as well, hence, becoming part of the hegemonic order in their areas. A pir was not just a spiritual leader, but also a major economic and political stakeholder.

Greater power not only enhanced the greed for more power but also resulted in corruption of the Sufi order. The spiritual control of people was used to manipulate the public in order to maintain political and economic power. Thus characters such as Pir Pagara used their following to build their political strength, which, in turn, was used to manipulate the state and gain greater personal dividends. The manipulation worked both ways. For instance, Ziaul Haq installed his hand picked man as the sajjada nasheen of the shrine of Bari Imam to influence the followers. The original family of pirs was thrown out and a new pir installed who was under greater control of the military dictator. Moreover, since, even powerful political people visited the shrines, these turned into places where important negotiations were carried out with the pirs acting as interlocutors. Senior bureaucrats and government officials would visit pirs who were frequented by top political leaders. The pir of Golra Sharif is one such example.

While the pirs became part of a hegemonic order that concentrated power in the hands of a few, a new class began to emerge which can be termed as the new capital. The trader-merchants in the rural areas, in particular, who represent the middle class, have the money but not the political capital. Their anxiety to gain political power emanates from the fact that the political system has no space to renegotiate power. This class then is critical in supporting and aiding the Wahabi and Deobandi forces through funding madrassahs and militancy. Contrary to the view that religious seminaries were always part of the local tradition, the new generation of madrassahs that are critical in encouraging militancy are a new phenomenon. Most of these began to grow under Ziaul Haq’s reign and were initially known for fanning sectarian hatred that then evolved into encouraging extremist values.

The madrassahs and militant outfits attracted pockets of lower class and politically and economically dispossessed people who did not have a future due to the hegemonic system. Since the pirs were also the hegemons, the Wahabi and Deobandi clerics could not only build a case against them, but also against Sufi Islam.

Hence, purely in qualitative terms, Wahabi and Deobandi Islam appear an alternative to the dispossessed, especially the youth. While the educated ones amongst the younger lot of the population see Salafi Islam as a way of challenging the hegemonic order, though unconsciously, others are attracted to this brand of Islam due to the sense of empowerment it provides and its comparative modernity. In a hegemonic system where access to God is based on the whims of an individual, Salafi Islam appears attractive to many, as it does not pose such conditions. The path to God and spiritualism also means that people can only get access through the pir, which in turn means negotiating through the cronies or khalifas (religious assistants) of the pir. This is certainly an arduous task as compared to what Salafi Islam offers – the route to God and forgiveness can be obtained through martyrdom. Further, martyrs contribute to transforming the future of other Muslims, which ensures that they would be rewarded in the next life. In addition, the martyr would earn greater rewards such as 70 hooris, a crown of gold and jewels, and the ability to seek forgiveness for seventy other people. Interestingly, the visualization of jihad is about freeing helpless Muslim women from brutal un-Islamic governments.

Furthermore, Salafi Islam appears much more modern in outlook. For instance, the militant outfits use published literature, CDs, and DVDs to disseminate their message. The pirs on the other hand depend on word of mouth and traditions to attract people. In any case, the pirs and sajjada nasheens are limited in their capacity to reach out to people. While they seek offerings from the disciples, they hardly use modern techniques to reach out to the people.

Sufi Islam certainly has a lot of potential in stemming the tide of extremism in the country. It is also a much more tolerant and secular form of religion that reaches out to all sorts of people irrespective of their caste, creed, ethnicity, colour, or race. However, the fulfillment of this potential is another matter. In the coming decade, more and more people will continue to drift towards Salafi Islam due to a lack of options.

The Fallacies of Mainstreaming ‘Jihad’

http://dawn.net/wps/wcm/connect/dawn+content+library/dawn/news/pakistan/The-Fallacies-of-Mainstreaming-Jihad-yn

Ayesha Jalal speculates on the challenges which face this country in future years as part of Dawn.com's launch special 'Flash Forward Pakistan: Where do we go from here?'

Not for the first time in its short and eventful history, Pakistan stands poised to make the proverbial descent into anarchy or, if wiser counsels prevail, settle down to being the normal place so many of its citizens and well wishers abroad would like it to be.

As on many occasions in the recent past, Pakistanis are divided and confused about how to avert disaster without compromising on what they value as emblems of their national sovereignty and Islamic identity. Whether reading newspapers or watching any of the newly set up television channels, it is impossible to avoid the sinking feeling that comes from a realization of an ever-widening gulf between ground realities and the sharply varied perceptions of them among Pakistanis. Being in denial about the threat posed by the expanding web of militancy gripping the northwest of the country is a relatively minor problem compared to the naïveté expressed in some newspaper columns and television talk shows about settling matters with the militants through political dialogue and accommodation.

It is true that purely military solutions never work and have to be supplemented by political approaches in order to resolve intractable conflicts that have got out of hand. Yet, history is replete with evidence that there can never be lasting peace unless all sides in a dispute acknowledge some sort of constituted authority and agree to work within its legal parameters. However well-meaning, suggestions by certain ‘experts’ in Pakistan to bring the bands of armed men galvanized around the likes of Maulana Fazlullah in Swat and Beitullah Masud in South Waziristan into the political fold, are ultimately wrong headed.

Unless they agree to lay down their arms and accept the writ of the state, it is futile to expend energy on engaging in political dialogue with such elements. Talking to random armed militias that are devoid of any legitimate authority – popular, lay or religious – defies all logic. These elements have no qualms about taking human life or destroying public and private property and have shown themselves to be enemies of not just education for girls but all forms of knowledge. The excesses of American firepower in Afghanistan, and of late in Pakistani territory, may be fuelling this tortured line of reasoning that favors concessions to murderous obscurantists. It is hardly the best way of resisting the United States and its self-seeking designs in the region.

Of all the fallacies informing the debate on how to tackle the encircling militancy, none is more misplaced than the notion that those locked in grim battle against the Pakistani state in parts of the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), Swat and surrounding areas are ‘jihadis’. By no stretch of the imagination, far less by the principles of Islamic law and history, can the current war being waged by the militants be described as a ‘jihad’. In the Islamic tradition, an armed jihad can only be sanctioned and directed by the state upon the advice of the religious guardians.

Today so-called ‘jihadis’ reject these restrictions by maintaining that those at the helm of modern Muslim nation states like Pakistan are complicit with infidels and, therefore, traitors who cannot be deemed legitimate rulers under Islamic law. This is a debatable argument at best since even by their own supposedly high standards of Islamic morality, these non-state ‘jihadis’ can be found seriously wanting. Those calling so loudly for the establishment of Shariah cannot violate the sanctity of life, property, knowledge, and human dignity without subverting the very basis of Islamic law. This is why Muslim jurists throughout history have always held that these vital principles of human society cannot be protected and preserved without a semblance of order and stability. Those undermining law and order in a Muslim society are perpetrating fitna, literally social and political disorder, and not jihad. This type of fitna is fundamentally at odds with jihad as a central principle of Islamic ethics.

The call to negotiate with those who are fomenting fitna has arisen because the Pakistani state has in recent years surrendered a lot of ground to the forces of disorder. If talking to armed militants has become to some extent a matter of pragmatic necessity, such negotiations cannot be conducted by undermining the legitimacy of parties and popular representatives that won the confidence of the people in the north-west frontier regions as recently as the elections of February 2008. That reference to the people had been a substantially free and fair one and its verdict ought not to be set aside lightly. The electorate rejected the politics of religious extremism by a substantial margin. The recent assassination attempts on Awami National Party leaders and killings of elected representatives by the extremists are instances of a lethally armed minority holding to ransom the will of a democratically inclined majority. To concede to such intimidation would be to acquiesce in a virtual coup by religious extremists.

This is not to say a fitna cannot be dealt with through a combination of firm resolve and a willingness to talk without surrendering the irreducible elements of state authority and the basic principles of democratic governance. The mainstreaming of jihad in its true sense would mean restoration of ethics and humanity in the politics and public affairs of Pakistan. Allowing those who are engaged in the current fitna that violates all principles of humanity and equity to steal the mantle of jihad would be an unholy compromise with injustice and wrong.

Flash Forward Pakistan: Calling on the middle class

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Rehan Ansari speculates on the challenges which face this country in future years as part of Dawn.com's launch special 'Flash-forward Pakistan: where do we go from here?'

Through anecdotes I want to tell a Pak-India story. This piece is aimed at middle-class and poor Pakistanis and Indians, that is, anyone who wants to make a living. Those who get by in Islamabad by holding a gun to their head – to slightly adapt Stephen Cohen’s description of General Musharraf’s argument for his indispensability to the West – and those 70-year-old congressmen or congressmen-in-waiting in New Delhi need not read ahead.

In 2005, the publishers of a new English-language daily newspaper in India out of Mumbai were interested in Pakistan coverage. They thought that my experience of living and working in Pakistan would be an asset for them. Of course, that was not the only reason for hiring me. They were also interested in my experience as a journalist in the US, and the fact that I have been writing for the Indian media for a decade. But the point is, my Pakistani origins were an asset. The paper also planned to place correspondents in both Karachi and Lahore as they were keen on non-political news as well.

In 2006, the business editor of the paper – currently the editor of the paper – wanted a profile of the business houses of Karachi.

In 2007, Zee, one of the owners of the paper, started the Indian Cricket League and wanted Pakistani players to play in it. In reaction, the BCCI created the Indian Premier League, which also hired Pakistani players. This last story is well known.

In 2008, the Mumbai festival approached me to recommend a Pakistani event for them. The convener of the festival, a Konkan politician, was so interested in programming from Pakistan that he came over to my house in Bandra to talk to me about it. I recommended that they bring Zeb and Haniya from Lahore and the Aunty Disco Project from Karachi, since I had recently seen them perform in Karachi at a private party. I had thought that Zeb and Haniya’s bluesy numbers would find a fine home at the Blue Frog in Mumbai, a venue that stylishly recalls old-world European cabarets. But then came the Mumbai attacks. The Mumbai festival got cold feet while I argued in vain that it would be just the right time to have a peace concert. Indeed, after the Mumbai attacks, as the Indian middle class’s goodwill towards Pakistan recedes, all such ventures will end or be severely curtailed.

Not that this culture shift does not pose a crisis for other kinds of Pakistani professionals. In my first week in Karachi after the attacks, I met up with three professionals. One worked for Shell, another for GE (out of Australia), and the third worked for an Arab venture capitalist firm. All three needed to go to India for work, but none of them were getting visas, even though two of them also had first-world passports. I grew up with these men and in the 1980s we looked to New York and London, not India. But now, whether we like it or not, whether our pride can take it or not, the India story next door has our attention. It’s too bad for professionals such as these if the Mumbai attacks retarded their career or projects.

But what does it matter if Pakistani cricketers don’t get to make money in India, if Indian papers don’t report out of Karachi and Lahore, if Pakistani musicians don’t get to perform in India, and if Pakistani corporates can’t travel for work to India.

It matters for India because if these Pakistanis had gone across the border to complete their projects, their networks back home in Pakistan would have probably heard some favorable things about Indian cities. Most Pakistanis who have already visited New Delhi and Mumbai have come away fascinated.

More crucially, Pakistanis not going over means that the vast Indian middle classes who already don’t know much about Pakistan get to know even less. I never thought that this would be a crisis for Pakistanis and Indians until the Mumbai attacks. That horror really made it clear that a lot of Indians as well as the Indian media – which, like mass media everywhere, is overwhelmingly nationalistic and parochial – make no distinctions between the many Pakistani cities, ethnicities, classes, social groups, media, government wings, and armed forces. It’s all one ‘Pakistan’ to them.

As I write this, A. K. Antony, the Indian defence minister, has said that the terror attacks in Mumbai have destroyed all the gains of years of peace talks between India and Pakistan. Minister Antony doesn’t compile a list of possible suspects who would want to disrupt the peace process, he simply says that the ‘onus’ is on Pakistan.

The first part of Minister Antony’s remark reminds me of what I was saying in Mumbai during the attack, in a city where I had been working as a journalist for almost four years. Even before the fighting ended, I was talking to people in Mumbai and Delhi and via chat programmes with Indian friends in Washington and London, arguing that even if we don’t know exactly who did it, we know why it was done. I pointed out that the attacks would disrupt the Pak-India peace process in a spectacular way, and so for this murder we have a motive. I felt I was only getting a patient hearing. The overwhelming feeling amongst Indians was that the attack was targeting them and that the Pakistanis did it! Meanwhile, I began to hear another argument from the liberal media as well as liberals in New Delhi: Pakistanis better be behind the attacks because if Indian Muslims are involved, then Gujarat 2002 will seem like a picnic.

Those conversations sparked some important realizations:

Partition was good for many reasons, but what use was it when the Mumbai attack and its aftermath show that India and Pakistan are still joined at the hip? Partition has resulted in nationalism, borders, and visa regimes that make sure that people know even less about each other. As a result, they are more likely to be taken for a ride by the agendas of lashkars, fascists, and the realpolitik of Islamabad and New Delhi. One of the disingenuous anti-Pakistan commentaries I read was by M. J. Akbar: in his column in the Times of India he wrote that Partition was good because Pakistan provides a buffer against the Taliban.

A United India – or even an India and Pakistan that were friendly states, much like contemporary France and Germany – would never have been vulnerable to an American agenda of jihad in Afghanistan and Pakistan against the Soviets. Better relations would also have negated this ‘problem’ of Kashmir. Considering Pakistan a buffer zone, and therefore forgetting about it, is exactly the wrong thing to think after the Mumbai attacks.

One afternoon in Pune, a month before the attack, I had a long-ranging conversation with Major General Moti Dar, who has served in Kashmir and had been Sonia Gandhi’s point man in track-two diplomacy between former President Pervez Musharraf and the Congress High Command. He is amiable and drives a small car. He insisted that India is interested in the stability of Pakistan, given what is happening in the Frontier province. He added that Musharraf offered a lot, but admitted that in 2006, Congress did not have the political will to close the deal. He said he was very interested in trade with Pakistan and had tried to facilitate a deal between Bajaj Motors and some Pakistani party. The effort was scuttled by Musharraf with the comment, ‘We need to do something on Kashmir.’ General Dar rounded up the afternoon by saying that he wasn’t into India making unilateral gestures. He seemed genuinely apprehensive about the future.

Pakistan needs to make unilateral gestures. Or at least give Indians generous visas for visits and business. If Indians do not visit Pakistan or do little or no business here — keeping in mind that Hindu Indians have no family ties in Pakistan and only bear the brunt of attacks by sundry Pakistani-based lashkars – then for them and the enormously influential Indian dispora, Pakistan’s name means mud. There are a handful of Indian editors and writers who have visited Pakistan, and most of them write glowingly about the people of Pakistan. An example is the book by Amit Baruah, who as the Islamabad-based correspondent of The Hindu newspaper, is an Indian who has clocked the most time in Pakistan.

At a family wedding in Karachi this winter, I saw middle-class relatives who live in Karachi, the Punjab, London, the US, and Canada, and who have relatives in India. Overwhelmingly, the young have serious challenges with education and employment opportunities. The Mumbai attacks, the repercussion of Pakistani-based jihad, and the politics of Islamabad and New Delhi have hurt the interests of our wedding party here and abroad.

Rehan Ansari went to Karachi Grammar School, and then Vassar College. He was Foreign Editor with Daily News and Analysis, based out of Mumbai. He was Editor, Independent Press Association, New York. He was a writer on Chowk.com (I Love Nawaz Sharif), and was a columnist for Mid-Day (Mumbai) from 2000 to 2003. He is currently working on a book. ansari.rehan@gmail.com

Why the US bugged Pakistan Army generals

Monday, February 16, 2009
Book claims drone attacks began after ISI-Taliban coordination confirmed

http://www.thenews.com.pk/top_story_detail.asp?Id=20356

By Rauf Klasra

ISLAMABAD: A new book by a New York Times journalist has levelled serious allegations against Pakistan and its Army claiming the telephones of all senior officers, including the COAS General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani were bugged by Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and National Security Agency (NSA), the main eavesdropping US agencies around the world.

The book written by David E Sanger, which has hit the stands a few days back, claims that the American intelligence agencies were intercepting telephonic conversations of Army officers and the decision to attack Pakistan through drones was taken after one such high level conversation was intercepted claiming the Taliban as a �strategic asset� for Pakistan.

The book, titled �The Inheritance: The World Obama Confronts and the challenges to American power� claims the decision to invade Pakistani territories was taken after the CIA reached a conclusion that the ISI was absolutely in complete coordination with the Taliban.

The NSA intercepted messages indicating that ISI officers were helping the Taliban in planning a big bombing attack in Afghanistan although the target was unclear. After some days, the Kandahar Jail was attacked by the Taliban and hundreds of Taliban were freed, it says.

General Kayani would be the second army chief of Pakistan whose conversations have been bugged by the Americans, if the allegations in the book are true. Earlier the FBI had intercepted the telephone conversation between President Musharraf and Benazir Bhutto when Musharraf had threatened her that her safety within Pakistan depended upon her nature of relationship with him (Musharraf). The Indians had also recorded a telephone conversation between General Musharraf and General Aziz when Musharraf was in Beijing during the Kargil war days.

The author who seemed to have been given direct access to the secret record of several meetings held at the White House before George Bush left the presidency on January 20, has made several revelations in his book.

The book has also disclosed that NSA was already picking up interceptions, as the units of Pakistan army were getting ready to hit a school in the tribal areas. Someone was giving advance warning of what was coming. The book said they must have dialed 1-800-HAQQANI, said one person who was familiar with the intercepted conversation.

According to another para, the account of the warning sent to the school was almost comical. �It was something like that �Hey, we are going to hit your place in a few days, so if anyone important is there, you might want to tell them to scream�.

The book also establishes that the Americans were in full knowledge of the facts on the ground and they started attacking territories inside Pakistan as they thought the Pakistan army and intelligence agencies were no more interested in fighting the Taliban.

In chapter 8 of the book on Pakistan �Crossing the Line�, the author has also revealed that how an angry two star army officer of Pakistan army had actually unfolded the whole secret plan of Pakistan army deliberately before a US spy master McConell.

The book said, the US intelligence agencies knew very well that Musharraf was playing a double game with them as on the one hand he was assuring the Americans that only he could fight against the Taliban and on the other, he was backing the militancy and the militants. �Musharraf�s record of duplicity was well known.

The author has written this chapter on Pakistan on basis of some secret trips of America�s twwo top spy chiefs-McConnel an Haden-nicknamed as �two Mikes� who had held several meetings with the top military army officers including General Pervez Musharraf.

The author records that in late May 2008, McConnel made a secret trip to Pakistan, his fourth or fifth since becoming the director of national intelligence, trips that seemed to blur together in his head.

But this one was dramatically different from the rest- and ended up driving the push in the last days of the Bush administration to greatly step up covert action across the border into Pakistan.

The book says, packing quickly through his usual rounds of meetings with Musharraf and a raft of intelligence officials in Islamabad, McConnel and his small entourage found themselves in a conference room with several military officers, including a two star Pakistan general.

No officer was talking to other participants in the meeting as if the American intelligence chief, the visiting dignitary for the day, wasn�t in the room. Not surprisingly, he was being pressed about Pakistan strategy in the tribal areas, and he was �reluctant to start� one of the participants in the conversation recalled.

�But once he got into it, he could not contain himself�. The two-star general began making the case that the real problem was the tribal areas and in Afghanistan was not al-Qaeda or the Taliban, or even the militants who were trying to topple the Pakistani government. The real problem was Pakistan�s rival of more than sixty years which he said was secretly manipulating events in an effort to crush Pakistan and undo the 1947 partition that sought to separate the Islamic and Hindu states.

�The overwhelming enemy is India�, the Pakistani officer told the General. �We have to watch them at every moment. We have had wars with India, he said as everyone in the room needed reminding.�

The Pakistani two-star general described President Karzai�s cozy relationship with India, seeking investment and aid. With alarm, he talked about how the Indians were opening consulates around the country and building roads. What the rest of the world saw as a desperately needed nation-building programme, Pakistan saw as a threat. He was not alone in that view, conspiracy theories about Indian activities in Afghanistan are a daily staple in the Pakistani media.

As the officer talked, he became more and more animated. The Indians will surround us and annihilate us, he said, knowing McConnel was hearing every word. �And the Indians in their surrounding strategy, have gone to Afghanistan.� Those newly built roads were future invasion routes, he seemed to suggest, without quite saying so.

The consulates were dens of Indian spies. The real purpose of the humanitarian aid to Afghanistan was to run �operations out of Afghanistan to target Pakistan�.

The conspiracy theory deepened. �In the long run, America will not have the stomach to bear the burden of staying in Afghanistan,� the officer continued, still seeming to ignore the presence of the American intelligence chief. �And when the Americans pull out, India will reign. Therefore, the Pakistanis will have to sustain the contacts with the opposition to the Afghanistan government meaning the Taliban so when the Americans pull out, it�s a friendly government to Pakistan. �Therefore,� the officer concluded with a flourish, �we must support the Taliban�, two-star general announced in the meeting in the presence of US spymaster.

The last statement of the two star general stunned McConnel. For six years, the Americans had paid upward $10 billion to the Pakistan army to support its operations against al-Qaeda and the Taliban. Bush and his aides knew � though they never admitted that much of the money had been diverted to buying equipment for the Pakistan military to bulk up against the Indian. Now a Pakistani officer in his fury and frustration, was openly admitting that the Pakistani government had officially denied that it was playing both sides of the war�-the Americans side and Taliban side.

In return for the Americans billions, Pakistani forces or intelligence agencies operatives occasionally picked off a few al-Qaeda leaders (though even that had slowed to a trickle). But they were actively supporting the Taliban and even some militants in the tribal region. It was almost as if the American taxpayers were making monthly deposits in the Taliban bank accounts. Some in the Pentagon objected but were overruled.

None of this was really a surprise-except to the American people who were regularly told by President Bush that Pakistan and its leadership were a strong ally against terror. Even some of the Bush aides cringed when he uttered those words �it was like hearing him say, victory in Iraq�, one told me after leaving the muddled complexity of it all was some kind of admission of defeat.

Even some inside the While House, admitted to me (author) that �reimbursements� to the Pakistani military were just this side of fraud. They had been paid out when Musharraf had announced he was pulling back from tribal areas because of a �truce� with the tribal leaders. When Congress threatened to link the reimbursement to the Pakistan military performance, one American general summarized this reaction this way: �It�s about goddamn time�.

Bush knew the truth. Intelligence reports written over the past five years have all documented the ISI support for Taliban-something Bush had admitted to me (author) and other reporters. He knew of course that even Musharraf had little interest in sending his army into tribal areas. Every military professional who returned from Islamabad came back with the same report. Seven years after 9/11, 80 per cent of Pakistan military was arrayed against India.

McConnel himself returning from one of his trips noted that there is only one army that has more artillery tubes per unit, everything from old cannons to rocket launchers and mortars. It�s North Koreas�, he said. It was a telling statistic. Artillery tubes weigh tonnes and are useful only in holding back Indian hordes as they come across the plains. They are useless against terrorists enclaves.

Overhearing the two-star�s rant about India was not the only rude surprise McConnel experienced on this trip. He had brought with him the chart he used in the White House situation room tracking the number of attacks inside Pakistan over the past two and a half years.

One of the charts showed that about 13,000 Pakistanis had been killed in 2007 chiefly by suicide bombers, about double the numbers in 2006.

He told Musharraf and General Kayani, the former DG ISI, that the casualty numbers on the track to double again in 2008. Then he described the interviews that Osama Bin laden and his deputies had given, declaring their intention to topple the Pakistan government.

�You are aware of these casualty numbers and what Osama said of course�, McConnel asked. He got blank stares. They told him they had heard about Bin Laden statements.

�It was news�, McConnel reported to his colleagues later. �I talked to the highest level of the Pakistani government and it was news. They just were not tracking it�. It astounded him that the officials in Washington and at the American embassy in Islamabad might be keeping more careful tabs on the rising number of attacks than were Musahrraf or Pakistani crop of democratically elected leaders. Were they ignoring the obvious or were they just denying they knew about it, part of the deception within the deceptions as they supported both sides in the terror fight.

When McConnel returned to Washington in late 2008, he ordered up a full assessment so that he could match what he had heard from the single angry officer with the intelligence that had poured in over the years. His question was a basic one. Is there what McConnel called an officially sanctioned �dual policy� in Pakistan?� That was a polite way of asking whether the leadership of the country including Musahrraf had been playing both sides of the war all along.

It did not take long for McConnel�s staff to produce the answer. McConnel took the formal assessment to the White House, concluding that the Pakistani government regularly gave the Taliban and some of the militant groups �weapons and supporters to go into Afghanistan to attack Afghan and coalition forces�.

This was not news to many in the administration but McConnel wanted to have it down on paper. The assessment was circulated to the entire national security leadership and to Bush who was still giving public speeches praising Musharraf as a great ally.

�It was news to him,� said one of the officials who briefed Bush and watched his reaction to McConnel�s assessment. �And he always says the same thing, so what do you do about it?

By the summer, Bush answered his own question. For the first time in a presidency filled with secret unilateral actions, he authorized the American military to invade an ally-Pakistan.

Editor�s Note: The ISPR has been requested for a detailed response and whenever available it would be given equal and similar space.

Confronting the reality

Monday, February 02, 2009 by Talat Masood http://www.thenews.com.pk/daily_detail.asp?id=160375 Pakistan is being frequently characterised as a “failed,” “failing” or at best “fragile” state. In the latest world ranking of failed states by an influential US think tank it has been placed ninth and every year or two it has been climbing a few notches. Intelligence estimates by several countries indicate serious reservations about Pakistan’s future. Of course, many among us would discard such categorization a part of a broader conspiracy by the Indo-US-Zionist lobby to undermine Pakistan. Or consider it “unfair,” as Prime Minister Gilani said at the Davos forum. The fact, however, is that alarm bells are being sounded because the world fears that a nuclear state in the midst of internal turmoil could lead to grave consequences. Some of the country’s most crucial challenges are the rising power of Taliban in FATA and Swat, simmering nationalism in Balochistan, the faltering economy, weak state institutions and poor governance. Of foremost importance would be the quality of leadership that would be provided during these challenging times. Each of these determinants is interlinked. For example, the rise of militancy would further push the economy into a downward spiral, which in turn would weaken governance and reduce the ability to deal with the militants. In short, failures or successes in any of these areas would be mutually reinforcing, thereby weakening or strengthening the state. When countries are faced with major challenges political and military leaders have to lead from the front. It is indeed regrettable that our civilian leaders have not once visited FATA or Swat. For that matter, even General Musharraf, though otherwise full of bravado, never visited the troops in FATA. Many of the rightwing political leaders and media are not prepared to own the war, and stress that it has been imposed by the US to advance its strategic interests. But the fact remains that it is now our problem. This confusion, coupled with hostility to the US, is creating misunderstanding within the leadership and the people and also raising tensions between Pakistan and the US. Moreover, building institutional capacity is critical for the success of counterinsurgency operations. The Army and the Frontier Corps have to be further trained and equipped for counterinsurgency. There has been some progress, but a lot more has to be achieved if tribal elders and all those willing to support government efforts are to be protected and the writ of state established. The government so far has been unsuccessful in crafting political will for combating the insurgency and depends mostly on what the Americans or the army leadership has to say. The fight against the insurgency will also require improving the economy, reforming the educational system, streamlining the Madrassa education and strengthening the judiciary and the police force. In the media war militants have proved to be highly subtle and effective. Security forces have been unable to technically jam the FM transmitters or physically destroy them making it so easy for Mullah Fazalullah to spread a reign of terror. The quality of governance will be a major factor in shaping Pakistan’s future. Both politicians and military rulers have been smart at capturing power but unable to transform political power into good governance. The cry for Sharia and Islamic rule is a manifestation of how people have lost faith in the present system of justice and law enforcement. If the current state of governance is any indicator the future is indeed bleak. The PPP and the PML-N, the two main political parties, instead of competing in areas of governance are locked in intrigues and efforts to destabilise each other. In all fairness, the Punjab government is demonstrating the desire for improved governance, but whether it will be allowed to continue is a matter of speculation. At the centre and in the provinces there is less of institutional governance and more of ad hocism and patronage. The external dimension is equally crucial. If we are able to normalise relations with India in the coming years it will give a huge peace dividend. Peaceful borders would mean better prospects for the economy, less expenditure on defence and more on development. It will also deprive the militant of his motivation in Punjab. But this cannot happen unless a bold and fundamental shift in the Kashmir policy takes place, in which Pakistan relies solely on diplomatic and political tools for resolving issues with India and forsakes the use of proxies. In the past non-state armed groups may have served certain foreign and strategic objectives have now become a huge liability and need to be abandoned. And jihadi organisations not only have to be banned but demobilised and disarmed. No one expects that the multiple challenges that Pakistan faces will be resolved soon. What is needed is to set the country in the right direction and take courage’s steps to address the long standing problems, even if it means a total reversal of past policies. The writer is a retired lieutenant-general. Email: talat@comsats. net.pk