The fall of the neutral umpire

While the security establishment had played footsie with domestic, regional and transnational jihadists for decades, it threw the decision to act against them in the PM’s lap

• Dr Mohammad Taqi
• September 04, 2014
• Daily Times, Pakistan 
•  http://bit.ly/1w7r3YS 

The so-called neutral umpire that the chief of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf (PTI) Imran Khan had been looking up to for a decision was neither neutral nor an umpire and now has fallen flat on its face. None other than the veteran politician and the elected president of the PTI, Mr Javed Hashmi, took the wind out of Imran Khan and his umpire’s sails. Mr Hashmi vented his spleen not just about the dictatorial tendencies of Imran Khan but also ripped apart the PTI’s ‘clean politics’ facade. The maverick from Multan flayed to shreds the sordid collusion between certain leaders in the PTI, its fellow travellers and the establishment. What Mr Hashmi, popularly known as the baghi (rebel) for bucking both the civil and military demigods, said has been known since at least this past April. The original plan was to unfold right after Ramzan but was delayed due to the military operation in North Waziristan. However, hearing it from the horse’s mouth vindicates everyone who has suspected that Imran Khan was merely the establishment’s 12th man who had been fielded to do its dirty work.

The whispering campaign against the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) started when elected Prime Minister (PM) Nawaz Sharif refused to give the former military dictator General Pervez Musharraf a free pass in the treason trial. The PM, appointing Khawaja Muhammad Asif, a man that the security establishment has despised for his clear anti-dictatorship stance, did not go down well with the boots. Attitudes hardened when the PM made peace overtures at his Indian counterpart’s inauguration. The tipping point, however, was PM Sharif’s courtesy visit to the wounded television anchor-journalist Hamid Mir who had implicated an intelligence agency in the attack that he narrowly survived. The battle lines were thus drawn. It was more about the security establishment losing face due to General Musharraf’s trial and ceding domestic political space to the civilian PM in appointments such as that of the defence minister than just about foreign policy. A decision seemed to have been made then that PM Nawaz Sharif had to be reined in. The PML-N’s comfortable parliamentary majority and former President Asif Ali Zardari’s judicious decision to divest the president of his powers to dissolve the National Assembly, made undermining the PM ‘constitutionally’ impossible.

A smear campaign then started in earnest about how Mian sahib was an unforgiving, stubborn man who was overreaching way too early in his term. While the security establishment had played footsie with domestic, regional and transnational jihadists for decades, it threw the decision to act against them in the PM’s lap. Interestingly, the most vocal opponents of the military operation in Waziristan were the military-friendly Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan and Imran Khan, not PM Sharif. Piggybacked on this was the time tested establishment mantra to berate civilians for corruption and poor governance. The PML-N government has not delivered the stars and moon but its economic performance has not been any worse than past governments at a similar stage and is certainly better in its home province of Punjab. The chatter was gradually ratcheted up that the PM must be restrained or replaced. Rumours about the so-called minus-one formula through which the PM would be replaced by his brother or another PML-N stalwart were rife. In tandem with this rumour mongering, the private media group that the establishment perceived to be a thorn in its side was relentlessly targeted and neutered. The pro-establishment media was thus enabled to peddle a vicious anti-democracy narrative virtually unchecked.

None of these gimmicks and speculations alone could topple PM Sharif however. Pawns were needed to actually create enough political turbulence where the powers that be could step in on the pretext of steadying the helm. Sitting and former servicemen, as Mr Javed Hashmi has now revealed, reportedly psyched Imran Khan up that he had until October this year to upstage PM Nawaz Sharif unless he wanted to wait another 10 years. The Barelvi firebrand of the Pakistan Awami Tehreek (PAT), Allama Dr Tahirul Qadri, and certain other Barelvi and Shia outfits were enlisted through the ruse that the establishment had had a change of heart and it no longer backed the Takfiri jihadists. The idea was to amass a good 100,000 protestors in Islamabad to squeeze a resignation out of PM Nawaz Sharif. The neutrality of at least sections of the military appeared moot when the communiqués from the Inter-Services Public Relations’ (ISPR’s) August 19 tweet calling for “patience, wisdom and sagacity from all stakeholders to resolve prevailing impasse through meaningful dialogue” effectively acknowledged even Dr Qadri as an equal party. Under the thin veneer of neutrality was lurking a desire to reprimand the government.

PM Nawaz Sharif almost fell into the trap when he sought the establishment’s help to intercede with the protestors, who by that time were at parliament’s gates. However, as luck would have it, Chief of Army Staff (COAS) General Raheel Sharif called Imran Khan and Dr Qadri to meet him under the full glare of the television cameras. The optics of those meetings backfired and even those sceptical of the whole dharna (sit-in) being an orchestrated manoeuvre shook their heads in disgust over the blatant interference. Mr Javed Hashmi’s press conference was the coup de grâce for the dharna and effectively shut the door on an imminent overt or subtle military intervention. Mian Nawaz Sharif seemed to have regained his nerve by then and quickly mustered parliamentary support across party lines. The unprecedented marathon joint session of the Pakistani parliament underway now is effectively the civilian leadership’s way of telling the boots that the parliamentarians would have to be dragged out of that august house if the establishment were still inclined to intervene. The opposition leader Syed Khurshid Shah’s speech, a fine piece of oratory and political defiance, appears to have gone a long way to buttress Mian Nawaz Sharif’s resolve to say no to the calls or diktat for his resignation. Mian sahib has done a wonderful job of rallying parliament but he must now take the people who have elected it on board too.

As we go to press, the rioters, their numbers dwindling though, are still outside parliament and the Imran Khan-Qadri duo — now together as predicted by most — is still calling for the government to go. However, the mood inside parliament is buoyant and its resolve steely. Regardless of the outcome of the negotiations that are still underway with the PTI and PAT, the so-called neutral umpire they were seeking help from has fallen from grace before it could lift its finger. The first privatized coup d'état is fizzling out now. All hail parliament!

 The writer can be reached at mazdaki@me.com and he tweets @mazdaki

Church attack: when state offers the other cheek

Church attack: when state offers the other cheek

By Dr. Mohammad Taqi

Daily Times

September 25, 2013

Terror unleashed on yet another bloody Sunday in Pakistan and yet another round of apologetics for the mass murderers ensued. My city, Peshawar, has grown used to the death inflicted on it consistently by the religious zealots. But even by Peshawar standards the havoc unleashed this September 22^ndis particularly brutal as it targeted one of the smallest, weakest and most peaceful communities of the city. Over eighty Christian worshipers were slaughtered in a double suicide bombing when they had gathered for the Sunday mass at the All Saints Memorial Church, Kohati Gate. We have come a long way from when the All Saints first opened its doors in 1883, to when the local elders and tribal Pashtun chiefs attended the service there with one of its pioneer missionaries Thomas Patrick Hughes, to this carnage.

Reverend Hughes had written in his 1885 monograph, “This Memorial Church now stands in an Oriental dress. It is an attempt to adapt Saracenic (Islamic) architecture to the purposes of Christian worship, the whole building having been constructed by a native architect under the superintendence of the Missionaries”. All Saints Church or the “Girja”, as they have always called it, has been a landmark for generations of Peshawaris. It stood as a serene structure through most turbulent of times next door to the Edwardes Church Mission High School – the province’s oldest school – built in 1855 by another early priest, Robert Clarke with help from the Commissioner of Peshawar, Sir Herbert Edwardes. I must have strolled pass by it hundreds of times without once fearing that those buildings or the hustle and bustle around mid-day Sundays endangered my faith or political beliefs. But those who soaked the peaceful white building in the innocent blood of the martyred worshipers must have thought otherwise. Perhaps we would never be able to look at the snowy façade of the All Saints Church – and the white strip in the Pakistani flag representing minorities - the same way again.

But the Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaf (PTI) – the ruling party in the Khyber-Pukhtunkhwa province- wants the public to quickly ignore the blood splatters and the dozens of Christian caskets and hop back on to the peace talk bandwagon. The PTI leader Mr. Imran Khan, its spokesmen and cadres are out full force with their callous confabulations about some mysterious forces trying to sabotage the peace with the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP). By Mr. Khan’s immediate response after the Peshawar carnage it would seem that the outgoing Awami National Party (ANP) and not the TTP is to blame for the massacre. Thankfully, Mr. Khan stopped short of directly blaming the Christians for bringing it upon themselves as he had done with Benazir Bhutto after the Karsaz bombing. Mr. Khan keeps invoking ANP’s actions to justify his inaction. He forgets that nothing exposes a government and its leader more than their dithering. In their protests the battered and grieving Christian community showed more political maturity than everyone else. The mourners could see through Mr. Khan bending over backwards to justify every atrocity the jihadists have perpetrated including this tragedy. By agitating against Mr. Imran Khan specifically, the tiny Christian community has underscored the most important fact that it is not merely the TTP that is an existential threat to society but also those leaders that afford the jihadists an ideological space to thrive in.

Mr. Imran Khan claims that others like the ANP are doing politics in a time of grief. That coming from a man who has literally made his political career out of cheerleading for the jihadists at every turn is quite disingenuous. From the so-called drone march to anti-NATO sit-in to his malignant and foul-mouthed bashing of the anti-Taliban intelligentsia and politicians, Mr. Khan is the personification of playing politics over the corpses. Even that might be overlooked if the man had a plan to act on what he has been professing for years. But unfortunately, Mr. Khan neither has a strategy nor the intention it seems to develop one on the go. As the one championing talks, Mr. Khan could have done some spadework and opened channels to the TTP affiliates that might be amenable to talks. But he clearly wants to gain political mileage out of the situation by blaming everything on the present federal government and the past dispensation(s).

The Prime Minister Mr. Nawaz Sharif has already conceded way too much in the All Parties Conference to both the PTI and the TTP. Mr. Sharif can rely on the only legitimate fighting force that any state has i.e. the army and paramilitaries to respond to the TTP as the latter, through continued violence, keeps bolstering its position vis-à-vis the state. The opinion within the army is broadly divided into three sections: a) a smaller old guard that considers TTP a menace and wishes to fight it but not the Afghan Taliban; b) an ascendant ISI mindset that wants the good Taliban preserved for the Afghan‘endgame’ and at the most contain the bad ones to the tribal ‘badlands’; and c) a delusional section that seriously thinks that the TTP suicide bombers are somehow US-Indo-Zionist proxies. The last bunch’s weightage counts towards the ISI coterie. Any action by the Pakistani state against the TTP will ultimately depend on whether the ‘traditionalists’ or the ‘adventurists’ prevail within the army. In the end analysis Pakistan army always acts in unison and the opinion divided no matter how widely, will not translate into an open rift.

Mr. Imran Khan’s rhetoric, which blames foreign elements for sabotaging dialogue while also calling ironically to make peace with them, creates a milieu highly favorable to the dominant sections of the army dragging their feet on acting against the TTP. Mr. Khan and his ilk have virtually paralyzed a state that has already kept second-guessing its own campaign against terrorism. Confusion is the name of Mr. Khan’s game and in this chaos the TTP or Jundullah or Junud-al-Hafsah, continues to regroup, plan and kill with impunity. Mr. Nawaz Sharif appears to have missed the window of opportunity he had after the martyrdom of General Sanaullah Niazi and the All Saints Church massacre to wrestle back the narrative from Mr. Khan and his rowdy hordes. Going by the fact that the National Assembly could only come up with condolences and condemnation of the Church attack, it seems that the Pakistani state has offered the other cheek to the TTP.

(The writer can be reached at mazdaki@me.comand he tweets @mazdaki)

Bashir Bilour: the lion slain

Bashir Bilour: the lion slain

By Dr Mohammad Taqi

December 23,2012

The Awami National Party (ANP) has lost one of its bravest leaders. Senior provincial minister of the Khyber-Pukhtunkha Bashir Ahmed Bilour was martyred this past weekend. One of his party colleagues and a fellow Peshawari said: the lion of Peshawar has been slain.

Bashir Ahmed was born on August 1, 1943 in the walled city of Peshawar in mohallah Hodah inside the old Ganj gate to Bilour Din sahib. He came from the prominent business and trader family of Peshawar called the Kalals. To my generation he was Bashir Lala, or the elder brother , but to his peers and most of the common Peshawaris he just remained Bashir jan - the dear Bashir. The bereaving Peshwaris are lamenting: Bashir jan tannay barri zidyadti keeti aiy - this is not fair Bashir jan!

My first recollection of the politician Bashir Lala is from a 1977 election poster, when I believe he was contesting a provincial assembly seat on the National Democratic Party (NDP)/Pakistan National Alliance candidate. The PNA ended up boycotting the provincial elections. But Bashir Lala and his older brothers Haji Ghulam Ahmed and Ilyas Ahmed, presently a federal minister and senator, respectively, had joined the National Awami Party (NAP) -and by extension the Pashtun nationalist movement- somewhere in the early 1970s. His younger brother Aziz Bilour remained in civil service and never did join politics though there came times that all four brothers were imprisoned by the government of the time for their political affiliation. The NAP was banned and disbanded but Bashir Lala and his family remained committed to Baacha Khan and Wali Khan's political thought. The ANP was formed in 1986 after the merger of the NDP, Mazdoor Kissan Party, Awami Tehrik and Pakistan National Party. Bashir Lala was to later become the provincial president of the ANP.

Today Bashir Lala is remembered for the five consecutive elections he won. I saw him at his finest after his first election and the first and only election defeat in 1988. He was as gracious in defeat as he was in his five wins. The ANP morale was down as it was routed in the 1988 polls in Peshwar valley. That is where the work horse Bashir Lala came into picture. He crisscrossed Peshawar alleys to reach out, support and encourage the party cadres.  If his oldest brother had the social suave to reach out to the Peshawar families it was Bashir Lala's political muscle that held together the ANP election machine in Peshawar from the non-party-based local bodies election of the 1980s to a thumping victory in the 1990 general elections. Peshawar city has traditionally been a stronghold of the assorted Muslim Leagues and then the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP). Having lost his first election to Syed Ayub Shah of the PPP,Bashir Lala was truly the architect of the Pashtun nationalists finally wrestling away Peshawar from the League and the PPP. While deeply inspired by Wali Khan he was an extremely effective traditional politician who understood the complexities of a large city and the problems of its people. He reached across language and sectarian barriers and stood up for his constituents regardless of the party affiliation. But he was one of the few leaders who were readily accessible to party workers whenever they needed him.

When the ANP secured a majority in the 2008 provincial elections he was one of the front runners for the chief ministership. Some Peshawaris complain that if he was not a Hindko speaker he may have secured the top slot. But Bashir Lala was not only above the parochial divisions and very secular in outlook personally but he was also a very pragmatic politician and not an ideologue in any sense. Not an ideologue till perhaps an ideology of hate befell his city and the province. He became ideologically committed to fight the obscurantists with whatever, whenever and wherever it took. If Mian Iftikhar Hussain is the face of the anti-Taliban ANP Bashir Lala was its soul. In a country bogged down by confusion over what to do about the Taliban menace his was a clear vision and message: fight and trounce them for their thought and savage means are incompatible with anything modern.

Lately we have heard the Pakistani security establishment ostensibly lamenting that the civilians do not show leadership against terrorism. Bashir Lala was a civilian politician who lead from the front knowing full well that it would cost him his life. He had told his wife, the daughter of the Peshawari steel magnate the late Gul Muhammad Khan, that if my dead body has wounds on the back, you must not see my face. But as we know he took the bomb shrapnel on the chest. His brothers, his wife and his two sons,Usman and Haroon, along with his compadres in the ANP are proud of Bashir Lala. To me this is nothing new. Whether it was the bombings in Peshawar in the 1980s or the siege of the city's Shia in 1992 Bashir Lala would always be on the frontline. He would barge in with true grit and not leave till the job was done. He always did his part as he has done this time. But can his resolve and example be followed?  He is the last fallen along a perilous path on which Salmaan Taseer and indeed Benazir Bhutto were slain but would certainly not be the last one. While continuing to play footsie with its jihadist proxies the security establishment is passing the hot potato of decision making to the civilians as their cower under fear and political expediency.

Gunter Grass had noted somewhere that it is a crime to hope when there are no reasons for hope. I am not about to commit that crime. I really do not know what the fates have in store for Peshawar but RIP Bashir Lala, you will forever in the hearts of the Peshawaris wherever we are.

(The writer can be reached at mazdaki@me.com. He tweets @mazdaki) 

- originally published in the Daily Times, Pakistan

Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaf: TTP's Sinn Féin

http://bit.ly/GA8R5m

COMMENT : Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaaf: the TTP’s Sinn Féin — Dr Mohammad Taqi

 The original proposal to talk directly to the TTP yet again — despite its past history of signing and flouting scores of talks and agreements — is getting nowhere due to the continued jihadist terrorism 

Peshawar — one of the oldest living cities on earth — is the heart of the Pashtun lands from Kandahar to Khyber and the Qissa Khwani bazar is the heart of this city. My hapless city was stabbed through its very heart when the jihadist terror struck again this past weekend, leaving at least 40 dead — 17 from one family — and scores maimed. Site of this bombing, apparently carried out through a remote-controlled device, is barely a mile from the All Saints Church where 100 Christians were martyred just days ago. It is but a few furlongs from where the lion of Peshawar, Bashir Ahmed Bilour, was slain in another bombing. The upright police officers Malik Sa’ad and Khan Raziq were martyred in a bombing not too far from this spot. Well, yet another sorrowful chapter has been added to the endless tale of blood and tears that the Qissa Khwani — the storytellers’ — bazar has been telling for years now. But as the Khyber-Pukhtunkhwa bleeds and grieves, its ruling party the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf (PTI) has a different story to tell and a heinous theory to sell.

The PTI spokespersons claim that the recent string of terrorist atrocities has not been committed by the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP). They blame unknown foreign elements for unleashing this dance of death on the Khyber-Pukhtunkhwa province to undermine the so-called peace talks that the PTI champions. They assert that there are ‘fake’ Taliban within the TTP who have been put up to this by the Afghan-US-Indo-Zionist combine. They even discard the vicious Mullah ‘FM Radio’ Fazlullah’s own admission that he ordered the hit against the martyred General Sanaullah Khan Niazi, claiming that Fazlullah is not ‘TTP proper’. PTI’s Chief Minister Pervez Khattak has blamed even the media for somehow triggering the bombings! Another absolutely rubbish idea peddled by the Khyber-Pukhtunkhwa’s Information Minister Shah Farman is that the present mayhem in that province is somehow related to the bombings that took place there in the 1970s-80s and were blamed on the nationalist and communist governments of Afghanistan then. Never mind the political context then and now and that just the recent church bombing killed more people than all explosions of the 1970-80s put together.

Not to be outdone by his lieutenants, the PTI chief Imran Khan demanded the TTP be allowed to open its office in mainland Pakistan to conduct talks. Implied in this demand is some form of immunity for at least those TTP members who would run this shop. While some in the PTI disowned Mr Khan’s outrageous demand and comparison to the Afghan Taliban’s office in Qatar — note that it was not in Kabul or Kandahar — most of his party stood by him. The PTI’s vigorous defence of the brutal and criminal TTP, absolving it of any fault, makes the PTI look like the political face of the jihadist outfit and Mr Khan its opening batsman. The original proposal to talk directly to the TTP yet again — despite its past history of signing and flouting scores of talks and agreements — is getting nowhere due to the continued jihadist terrorism. The recent All Parties Conference (APC) declaration, which had disastrously elevated the TTP to the ‘stake holder’ level, is virtually dead now. It may be time for the Pakistani state to negotiate with the PTI not the TTP.

The PTI is particularly fond of citing the British handling of the IRA insurgency as a template for talks with the TTP. The fact is that British did not directly negotiate with the IRA but with its political wing Sinn Féin. While there is nothing common between the savages of TTP and a modern nationalist IRA, in Mr Khan and the PTI, Hakeemullah Mehsud may still have found his Sinn Féin. Let the PTI make clear the nuts and bolts of what it is demanding on behalf of the TTP. The PTI leaders are already putting up a grotesque defence of the TTP’s brutalities daily; let them now serve officially as the banned outfit’s emissaries and guarantors. It would also obviate the need for a TTP office.

The fact is that the PTI is providing the TTP prized ideological and political space as well as a tremendous amount of time to hone their machetes. Mr Khan and his confidants are actually mainstreaming a savage group that rejects the Pakistani state and its constitution and anything that is modern. Mark my words, the TTP is no Provisional IRA; it will eventually go after even Mr Khan when they have no use left for him. For now he is serving them well by muddying the waters enough to delay any operation against them. The TTP has no intention to enter a meaningful dialogue, not now, not ever. If the TTP were to accept Mr Nawaz Sharif’s naively stated conditions of dropping their guns and upholding the constitution before the talks, there would be no need for talks at all — as the TTP spokesman has already pointed out. But Mr Sharif seems quite content so long as the terrorist pyres burn down the Pashtun homes while the Punjab — his home province — is safe. Using the Pashtun lands as a buffer is neither new nor a foolproof policy and Mr Sharif will discover that soon — most likely in his present term.

Both the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz and PTI invoke their recent electoral mandate to deliver peace as the carte blanche to give the TTP whatever they wish. They cannot be more wrong. These parties won an election not a referendum to pawn away the Pashtun lands to whomever they wish. The APC declaration is at best a political statement, not a constitutional one. It is not worth the paper it is written on, no matter what Mr Khan says. The APC declaration’s only significance now is that Mr Khan is using it to delay or thwart any military action against the TTP. The TTP may have the guns but it is their political face — the PTI — that is holding the Pakistani state hostage. This paralysis of the state, however, is untenable and must be upended with a robust action against the terrorist TTP and its affiliates. The Pakistan army has said that it can inflict a befitting response on the terrorists. It is time perhaps to take the army up on its word. The venue to chalk out course of such action must be the parliament, where the TTP’s Sinn Féin is represented too, not another APC.

The writer can be reached at mazdaki@me.com and he tweets @mazdaki

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

وزیر چنیں  از  ن م راشد 

تو جب سات سو آٹھویں رات آئی
تو کہنے لگی شہرزاد
اے جواں بخت ایران میں ایک رہتا تھا نائی
وہ نائی تو تھا ہی
مگر اس کو بخشا تھا قدرت نے ایک اور نادر گراں تر ہنر بھی
کہ جب بھی
کسی مردِ دانا کا ذہن ذہنِ رسا زنگ آلود ہونے کو آتا
تو نائی کو جا کر دکھاتا
کہ نائی دماغوں کا مشہور ماہر تھا
وہ کاسہء سر سے انکو الگ کر کے
ان کی سب الائشیں پاک کر کے
پھر اپنی جگہ پر لگانے کے فن میں تھا کامل
خدا کا یہ کرنا ہوا کہ ایک دن اس کی دکان سے ایران کا ایک وزیر کہن سال گزرا
اس نے بھی چاہا
کہ وہ بھی ذرا اپنے الجھے ہوئے ذہن کی از سر نو صفائی کرا لے
کیا کاسہء سر کو نائی نے خالی
ابھی وہ اسے صاف کرنے لگا تھا
کہ ناگاہ آ کر کہا ایک خوجہ سرا نے
"میں بھیجا گیا ہوں جنابِ وزارت پناہ کو بلانے"
وہ اس پر سراسیمہ ہو کر جو اٹھا وزیر ایک دم
رہ گیا پاس دلاک کے مغز اسکا
وہ بے مغز سر لے کے دربار سلطاں میں پہنچا
مگر دوسرے روز
جو اس نے نائی سے تقاضا کیا تو وہ کہنے لگا "حیف!
کل شب پڑوسی کی بلی جناب وزارت پناہ کے دماغِ فلک تاز کو کھا گئی ہے!"
اور اب حکمَ سرکار ہو تو کسی اور حیوان کا مغز لے کر لگا دوں؟"
تو دلاک نے رکھ دیا دانیالِ زمانہ کے سر پر کسی بیل کا مغز لے کر
تو لوگوں نے دیکھا
جناب وزارت پناہ اب فراست میں
دانش میں
اور کاروبارِ وزارت میں
پہلے سے بھی چاک و چوبند تر ہو گئے ہیں

Zia-ul-Haq Obituary by Anatol Lieven

The not so vindictive Zia

PTI's financial scruples

Daily Times
Thursday, November 10, 2011


COMMENT: PTI’s financial scruples —Dr Mohammad Taqi

If one red US cent goes towards putting a US soldier in harm’s way, that does not reflect well on the US officials who had been cosying up to Imran Khan and had a meeting with him just before the Lahore rally

http://t.co/tLNTjer0


In the wake of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) rally at Minar-e-Pakistan Lahore last month a flurry of reports and opinions has appeared. These perspectives range from laudatory and supportive of the PTI and its leader Imran Khan to strong criticism and downright condemnation. A lot of information and perhaps disinformation has been circulating on the traditional and contemporary media about the financial disclosures of the PTI and indeed, of its leader.



Ali Aftab, the lead vocalist of the band Beygairat Brigade, whose single ‘Aaloo Anday’ has been a hit political satire, took a crack at it in a contemporary this past weekend. Aftab wrote: “Imran Khan is very determined about keeping a check on the assets of the current political figures. But shouldn’t these good intentions begin at home? A well-known political analyst from PTI said that Imran’s annual income culminates to 2 crores from which he donates around 1 crore to Shaukat Khanum and other non-profit institutions. But one can’t but have conjectures about where the dough is coming from for all his campaigning”. Aftab also asked as to who picked up the tab for the logistics including the fanfare, musical entertainment and floodlighting at the PTI’s very successful event.



But even before the PTI’s Lahore rally a lot questions were being asked about the party’s resources to support its high-profile anti-government and anti-United States campaign. Several media people, especially in informal interactions on the social media, have pointed finger towards the PTI drawing financial support from its foreign and domestic patrons, including the Pakistani establishment. Others have raised concern if funds from Imran Khan’s philanthropic projects were diverted to shore up his political fortunes. A media anchor who had tweeted about whether funds from Shaukat Khanum Memorial Hospital (SKMH), were going towards the PTI, was apparently being threatened by the PTI-walas. On the other hand, senior editor and seasoned analyst, Najam Sethi had tweeted:” FACT: Public donated Rs. 3 bn (billion) to Imran’s ‘flood relief fund’. Qs: How much was spent? On what? Where is the balance? Public has a right to know.”



In my last column I maintained that there is no reason to doubt Imran Khan’s personal financial integrity and so far I have not seen anything that will change my opinion. But what I have noticed is that there are several genuine questions that have either not been handled well by the PTI and its leaders or answered in a way that added to the confusion rather than clearing the fog over their financial scruples.



For example, one of the newest converts to the PTI, Mian Muhammad Azhar had, ostensibly, remarked on a recent television show – the YouTube clips of which have now mysteriously disappeared- that Imran Khan does raise funds (simultaneously) for the SKMH and the PTI. A prominent anchor and former information secretary of the PTI, Nasim Zehra, despite her kid-glove treatment of Imran Khan in a recent interview, was forced to ask about his personal assets and property. Even though Ms Zehra did not ask pertinent follow up questions, Imran Khan was visibly antsy answering queries about his financial propriety.



The fact is that the media people are not the only ones concerned about the mixing of philanthropy and politics to the extent where it becomes hard to tell one apart from the other. My considered opinion is that SKMH funding remains squeaky clean and it would be highly inappropriate to cast aspersion on that wonderful humanitarian service. There, however, remains a serious issue with how Imran Khan has over the years used the SKMH platform and its fundraisers to peddle his brand of anti-politician politics. About a year ago, at an SKMH charity dinner in Houston, he went on his usual drivel against the Pakistani politicians and especially the President Asif Zardari. A Pakistani-American doctor subsequently got up and protested very vocally that they were there to raise money for a good cause and not to listen to Imran Khan’s political spiel.



In the interest of maintaining his own good name and that of the stellar charities that Imran Khan has championed, he must not wait for someone to call an audit by saying “ mera ihtisaab kar leiN ” (I am ready for accountability). If he had a transaction where his ex-wife gifted him a 300 kanal land parcel, rather than a transfer transaction entailing potentially higher fees and taxes, he should declare the details of the deal. Similarly, if there is a legitimate reason for him to have declared his ancestral properties at their fifty year-old value, the people should be taken into confidence about it.



Another important disclosure that Imran Khan has been remiss in making is his political fundraising and lobbying outside Pakistan. For example, the PTI is registered in the US under the Foreign Agent Registration Act 1938, with the stated objectives of organizing the party, lobbying the elected and appointed US functionaries and above all for fundraising for political purposes. Pervez Musharraf’s APML and the MQM are the only other Pakistani parties similarly registered in the US.



Imran Khan is a frequent flyer to the US and shortly before his Lahore rally he raised 140,000 dollars for PTI at two events in Florida. Now what the PTI USA does is perfectly legitimate and according to the US law as they operate under a US tax identification number and maintain a bank account in the US. But the waters become murky when the US taxpayers’ (in this case predominantly Pakistani-Americans) money is channelized to PTI Pakistan and potentially used for whipping up anti-American hysteria there. Chiding the US Secretary of State, as “Chaachi Clinton” can be conceded as just political theater. However, it gets trickier when the PTI puts the US service men and women at risk by blocking the NATO supply lines in Pakistan, which it has done at least twice this year.



If one red US cent goes towards putting a US soldier in harm’s way, that does not reflect well on the US officials who had been cozying up to Imran Khan and had a meeting with him just before the Lahore rally. The PTI’s anti-US leader – like many politicos he detests - is perhaps oblivious to the ethical dimension of biting off the hand that has been steadily feeding him. Regardless, he must become the change he wants to see and answer questions about the PTI and his own financial scruples. It would only raise his stature not harm it.

A passport to dystopia?

Daily Times Thursday, March 03, 2011

COMMENT: A passport to dystopia? —Dr Mohammad Taqi

Professor Ali has taken serious liberties with the facts and has tried to denigrate the Pashtuns by portraying them as a people inherently incapable of living under a democratic dispensation. He simply ignores the secular-democratic Khudai Khidmatgar Movement (KKM) that dominated the Pashtun polity in the first half of the 20th century

When Samuel Huntington and Warren Manshel co-founded the Foreign Policy magazine (FP) in 1970, they felt that “in the light of Vietnam, the basic purposes of American foreign policy demand re-examination and redefinition”. They pledged to do so through “an effort to stimulate rational discussion of the new directions required in American foreign policy”. They described their vision in their first editorial dated January 1, 1971:

“Our goal is a journal of foreign policy which is serious but not scholarly, lively but not glib, and critical without being negative. And we frankly hope that the discussions of these issues in our pages will affect the actions, or at least the thinking, of those in government, academia, business or elsewhere who shape our foreign policy.”

FP has since gone through many phases, editors and management, but has more or less stuck to the original vision of a lively yet serious debate. Even those of us who have never subscribed to Huntington and FP’s US-centric view of the history and future, considered the periodical a sober entity — well, up until last week.

On February 25, 2011 an article titled ‘The Islamic Republic of Talibanisation’, by Professor Saleem Hassan Ali of the University of Vermont, was published online by FP in its section titled “Argument”. The gist of Professor Ali’s outlandish theory is that having failed to rout the Taliban in Afghanistan through military means, the US should somehow arrange for a referendum to be held in Afghanistan and several adjoining parts of Pakistan, in which people would opt for an Islamic emirate under the Taliban rule. If and when such a referendum is successful, the people of Afghanistan and Waziristan subscribing to the Taliban worldview can immigrate to this autonomous emirate. The US and its allies would have to make sure that this entity is encapsulated from the surroundings so as to prevent export of violence but would be induced to trade with the neighbours and encouraged to “try its hand at governing”, which shall eventually result in everyone and their uncle living happily ever after.

Reading the 1360-word piece left me scratching my head. Was this a tongue-in-cheek swipe at both the Taliban and the regional and world powers? I wondered if some political fiction had gone totally haywire. Is this what Huntington and Manshel had meant by serious, rational and lively debate, without being negative? But reading the comment section underneath the article one could almost hear the Twilight Zone music playing: Professor Ali in his responses to a barrage of criticism appeared to be seriously defending an atrociously glib thesis!

Making a case for a fundamental change in the western and US strategy to cope with the Taliban’s ‘staying power in Afghanistan’, Professor Ali starts with a frontal assault on the Pashtun nation itself. In an utter disregard for the history of the region, he writes: “The fact is that the Taliban and other Islamist elements are popular in the region out of which they operate, the Pashtun tribal belt between Afghanistan and Pakistan. This has always been an utterly conservative locale where the local population has generally favoured Islamic fundamentalism. Even going back to the 1930s, Waziristan’s rallying flag against the British was a simple white calligraphic ‘Allah-Akbar’ (God is Great) on red fabric.”

Well, the fact is that Professor Ali has taken serious liberties with the facts and has tried to denigrate the Pashtuns by portraying them as a people inherently incapable of living under a democratic dispensation. He simply ignores the secular-democratic Khudai Khidmatgar Movement (KKM) that dominated the Pashtun polity in the first half of the 20th century. He then mentions the doctored elections of the 2002, stating: “In Pakistan’s frontier province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Islamists were freely elected into power in one recent election.” However, cherry-picking the history, he skips the electoral rout of these same Islamist political parties at the hands of the secular Awami National Party (a continuation of the KKM) in 2008 elections that were widely accepted as free and fair. And even before that, the Pashtuns of the tribal belt have elected people with impeccable secular credentials like Abdul Lateef Afridi (Khyber), Shahabuddin Khan (Bajaur) and Dr Javed Hussain (Kurram) in various national assembly elections.

Professor Ali quotes a New America Foundation poll, which had suggested that the majority in Waziristan opposes the west’s military presence and that the parties (JI, JUI, PTI) with Islamist inclinations would gain almost half of the votes in a free and open election. Ironic that an article published under the section “Argument” would have a deductive fallacy bigger than the Hoover Dam: most Waziris despise foreign presence while all Taliban fight the foreigners, therefore the Waziris want to be ruled by the Taliban!

But this is not it. The article lectures the geopolitical strategists to seriously consider a canton under the Taliban where they may be free to flog and maim people. Professor Ali writes: “Although the west and its allies in Pakistan and Afghanistan have been terrified by the spectre of a second Islamic republic, there is a way to mitigate the threat: the creation of a semiautonomous region where Islamists can exercise their draconian system of law — if that is what the people agree to impose upon themselves.” In the most blatant manner Professor Ali not only blames the victim but also expects that the Pashtuns of FATA, held hostage by the armed mercenaries and their masters in Rawalpindi, will somehow vote freely in a fair referendum.

Pashtuns are outraged at FP for allowing its pages to be used not just to disparage a proud people but also to propose creating a terrorist haven. FP calls its flagship blog, ‘Passport’. But with this new low in geopolitical discourse it seems more like a passport to a barbarian dystopia, where new techniques of torture and terror would be perfected.

Sam Huntington had said in an NPR interview: “I think clearly the US, as well as other western nations, should stand by their commitments to human rights and democracy and should try to influence other to move in that direction.” This is precisely what Barack Obama has decided to do in the rapidly unravelling situation in the Arab world. But apparently, Professor Ali has opted to stand on the wrong side of not just the Pashtuns but also the history itself. As for FP, it ought to revisit its first editorial.

The writer can be reached at mazdaki@me.com

Beyond Egypt: the changing face of the Middle East

Daily Times Friday, February 18, 2011

COMMENT: Beyond Egypt: the changing face of the Middle East — Dr Mohammad Taqi

The Saudis are deeply worried by the Bahrain-like events where the demographic makeup of the population and regime are lopsided and the socio-political unrest has the potential to topple the regime

The toppling, within a month of each other, of two autocratic rulers, due to popular uprisings, is a first in North Africa and the Middle East (ME). Well, as a placard in the Tahrir Square read last week: “Two Down, Twenty To Go!” These events have monumental geopolitical implications for the broader region — a region where despots and destitution both abound.

We noted last week that the US pundits, wearing their geostrategic interest blinders, had completely missed the ball on Egypt. On the eve of Hosni Mubarak’s disgraceful exit, Zbigniew Brzezinski — in a state of denial matched only by Mubarak himself — was still talking about how democratic transitions in the ME could really have adverse outcomes! I was reminded of Benazir Bhutto’s lament that such US and western double-speak treats democracy as a non-universal value, applied only selectively in pursuit of foreign policy objectives. She wrote in her Reconciliation: Islam, Democracy and the West::

“Here again, one can only wonder how different the history of the Middle East, the Arab world, and the Muslim world would have been, if Egypt, the cultural leader of the Arab world, had been encouraged and allowed to develop a sustained, viable democratic government. It could very well have triggered the domino effect of democracy throughout the ME that the United States hoped to achieve with its intervention in Iraq in 2003.”

Benazir was spot-on about Egypt’s pivotal position in the Arab world and her book is a must read in the backdrop of the Tahrir uprising. The way things are unfolding in the Arab capitals from Algiers to Amman, it is no longer a matter of if, but of when the dominoes will start falling. The key questions are how would such a change start and what would be the extent of it? The Rock of Gibraltar is in a sea of uncertainty since the status quo is no longer acceptable to the — largely young — Arab population.

Whether it is the people’s perception of the economic inequalities in society or a desire for civil liberties, it would not be placated by the autocracy’s belated perestroika from above. It is premature to say how events will unravel in the Maghreb and the ME because the objective conditions in each country will ultimately determine the course and extent of change. However, it is clear that the one-size-fits-all model of revolutionary change will not be applicable any more. It is the inspiration and not the revolution itself that has become the biggest Egyptian export to the region. For future political changes in the ME to succeed, there cannot be copycat upheavals. The secularists and the Islamists both cannot afford to ignore the ground realities, including the pan-Arab aspiration for democracy.

A traditional classification of the Arab world has the oil-rich monarchies with sparse populations on the one hand and the states without oil but with sizeable populations, on the other. Historically, the countries without oil have had strong opposition movements, which, despite severe state repression, maintain a certain level of political organisation. Algeria, Syria, Jordan and Palestine fall under this category and until last week included Egypt as well. Yemen, with its tribal structures intact is rather unique but also belongs in this group.

The West and the US have no love lost for the regimes at the helm in these states, except for Jordan, and are likely to remain neutral towards, if not encouraging of the change. Jordan — essentially a US-Israeli protectorate — had remained a cornerstone, along with Egypt and Saudi Arabia, of the American ME policy. Nothing would rattle the Saudis and Americans more than an imminent political change in Jordan. But despite that, it is likely that a fairly representative constitutional monarchy, accommodating even the Islamist Action Front is in the offing. But if one were to take a pick, Abdelaziz Bouteflika appears to be the next one out the door, leaving behind an Algeria not too different from post-Mubarak Egypt.

A key question is whether the oil-rich countries like Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the UAE and smaller sheikhdoms are immune from an Egypt-style change. The UAE with its liberal economy and society would perhaps be the last one from this group to experience any major upheaval. And while many would like to see a regime change in Riyadh, the monarchy appears relatively safe in the short to midterm. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia’s (KSA’s) unique geography with population, business, political and religious centres being far apart from each other, near absence of past or present political activity — notwithstanding one political party created last week — and coffers flush with cash, suggest that the rentier model of state may still work for perhaps another generation. Outside of some unexpected external force causing a major shift in the kingdom’s dynamics resulting in geographic as well as regime change, the impetus for transformation coming from the liberalised royals and restive youth would result only in a veneer of openness.

The Saudis, however, are deeply worried by the Bahrain-like events where the demographic makeup of the population and regime are lopsided and the socio-political unrest has the potential to topple the regime. Similar events in Kuwait can trigger uprisings by the population in the oil-rich eastern KSA, which can become a pain if not a threat for the kingdom.

Pertinent to note are the events in a non-Arab entity, i.e. Iran, which can have an impact on two Levant states. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad wanted the world to believe that the Egyptians were following Khomeini’s lead but the Iranian opposition showed that the converse is true. The desperate call by the hardliner Iranian MPs to execute the opposition leaders has lifted the regime’s façade of strength. What had started in the Muharram of 2009 will end like the Muharram of 1979 — the fall from power and grace of the tyrants. This will remove key support that Iran extends to Syria and Hezbollah, leading to a weakened regime in Syria and strengthened anti-Hezbollah forces in Lebanon. A regime change in Iran could drag down Bashar al-Assad with it or at least tamper with his tremendous capacity to use brute force.

Alexis de Tocqueville had said that the power of the periodical press is second only to that of the people. The social media has now upended the traditional media. But it is the people who ultimately remain the most powerful agents of change and only they will determine what the changing face of the Middle East looks like.

The writer can be reached at mazdaki@me.com

US policy in Egypt: potential and pitfalls

Badshah Khan: the frontier’s grand old man

Salmaan Taseer: the content soul

Salmaan Taseer: assassinated on a perilous path

Tripping democracy — again?

Daily Times Thursday, December 30, 2010

COMMENT: Tripping democracy — again? —Dr Mohammad Taqi



Benazir Bhutto wrote extensively about reconciliation between the Islamic world and the west. Unfortunately, she did not live to see it materialise. But even before that she had started a rapprochement with Mian Nawaz Sharif and had outlined a roadmap for it too

http://tinyurl.com/25byw2q

I write these lines on the evening of December 27, 2010 at exactly the same time when Benazir Bhutto breathed her last, three years ago. Her martyrdom remains one of those immense tragedies where one cannot forget the place where one was or the thoughts that crossed one’s mind upon receiving the tragic news.

I was visiting Lahore to see Barrister Aitzaz Ahsan who was under house arrest at the time, with his residence having been designated a sub-jail. Thanks to his family, I managed to slip past the police to see him for almost an hour-long session in his living room. After seeing Barrister sahib, I was ushered back to his law chambers next to the residence. But that is not really what I wish to reminisce about here. Walking into his office, I heard his family and associates talking about a bomb blast at the PPP’s Liaquat Bagh rally and that perhaps Benazir Bhutto had succumbed. It was the dark, cold, blood-soaked evening of December 27, 2007. And I clearly remember the first thought that passed my mind upon hearing the heartrending news.

It was almost like a flashback and relegating the hectic talk around me to the background, I thought of the first time I saw Benazir Bhutto and the first words I heard from her. It was at her mammoth rally at the Cunningham (Jinnah) Park in Peshawar circa May 1986. Peshawar was her second or third stopover after returning to Pakistan from exile in April that year. The news of her historic welcome at Lahore had already reached far and wide. As a young worker of the Movement for the Restoration for Democracy (MRD), I had decided along with my other colleagues from the Pashtun nationalist and progressive parties that we would attend the PPP rally. None of us was a member of the PPP or its students’ wing but having developed a great working relationship with the PPP under the aegis of the MRD, we came in hordes, and early. The rally was scheduled to start around 2:00 pm or so but we came in at 10:00 am only to find that the park was already packed. But Benazir Bhutto’s procession did not arrive till very late in the evening. But it is not even the size of the procession or the magnitude of the rally that I wish to remember. Benazir Bhutto’s first words from that stage were in Pashto: “Za za, Zia za” (Zia must go). The predominantly Pashtun audience immediately bonded with her and erupted in a chorus of ‘Za za, Zia za, za za, Zia za’, calling upon the military dictator Ziaul Haq to go, to leave, to vanish from the political scene. Hearing the news of her death, this is the political statement I remembered hearing from Benazir Bhutto as if it was yesterday.

But did the ghost of Ziaul Haq’s Islamo-fascism ever leave us? Did that ‘go Zia go’ slogan ever materialise? The stark, unfortunate reality is no, it did not. The birds of the Ziaist feather are flocking together again, nay, political vultures are hovering over the current PPP government. They always do. After those 1986 rallies, Zia was forced to cobble together a king’s party. He created his version of the Muslim League and many, including the current prime minister, hopped on to that anti-Bhutto bandwagon.

As a party, that particular Muslim League was not a winning horse on its own but bringing together the Bhutto-haters from across the political spectrum became the establishment’s favourite trick to either keep the PPP out of power or to dislodge its governments, which it has managed to form despite all odds. No one could have put it better than the senior columnist and friend Kamran Shafi who had told the television anchor Nasim Zehra: “Fauj jamhooriyat ko thibbiyan laga rahi hai” (the army keeps trying to trip democracy over). Nothing sums up the relationship of the Pakistani establishment with the left-of-centre political parties, especially the PPP better.

The establishment’s inherent mistrust of the PPP remains entrenched largely in the latter’s popular roots and, to an extent, in both Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and Benazir Bhutto’s maverick style of leadership. Even when the shadows of political adjustments or reconciliation with the establishment have lurked over the PPP’s coming to power, the former remained deeply suspicious of the PPP leadership and feared their independent streak.

Over the last decade, the establishment has included Mian Nawaz Sharif in the list of the leaders it fears. The reason simply being that with a reasonable mass following, the politicians draw political legitimacy from the consent of those governed and tend to free themselves of the dependence on the establishment. This independence — however small it might be — is unpalatable for the deep state because unlike politicians it has no other way to seek political legitimacy. Even the most brutal martial law regimes ultimately had to seek the fig-leaf of rubber-stamp parliaments, ‘mandates’ from the Supreme Court or doctored referenda. No matter how strong the ruling establishment might be, its desire to rule (directly) is eventually incongruent with the nature of the modern nation state.

This fact is not completely lost on the Pakistani establishment but unable to reconcile to this reality, it continues to attempt every so often to manufacture dissent against the democratically elected dispensations. Its allies — with some variation in names and faces — in such attempts to trip democracy remain the usual parasites like the MQM, JUI, JI, PML-Q and Imran Khan. Fortunately, Mian Nawaz Sharif and his PML are way past such blatant intrigues and over the term of the present set-up have shown political maturity that has kept many adventurists at bay.

Benazir Bhutto wrote extensively about reconciliation between the Islamic world and the west. Unfortunately, she did not live to see it materialise. But even before that she had started a rapprochement with Mian Nawaz Sharif and had outlined a roadmap for it too. On the eve of Benazir Bhutto’s third death anniversary, the beat of the political war-drums is getting louder. Nothing would put a damper on those yearning for snap polls, in-house change, benevolent dictatorship or the ‘Chinese model’, except a robust revival of the PPP-PML-N partnership. Benazir Bhutto knew that Zia’s ghost lurks under the surface of such proposals. She would have wanted the PPP and the PML-N to stick together post-haste or prepare to be tripped over, along with democracy — again.

The writer can be reached at mazdaki@me.com

The Pamir Knot and beyond

Daily Times	Thursday, December 23, 2010

COMMENT: The Pamir Knot and beyond —Dr Mohammad Taqi

http://tinyurl.com/26zcb9d

 

There is nothing really ideological or fraternal about the Chinese investments in Pakistan, as some Pakistani newspapers would like us to believe. Interestingly, while the Pakistani media has a knack for comparing everything to India, it has really remained mum over premier Jiabao’s visit to Delhi

The relationship between the US and Pakistani intelligence agencies appears to be moving from playing uneasy footsie to a fairly sordid affair. The blowing of the CIA’s Islamabad station chief’s cover, allegedly at the behest of the host country’s spooks, has not gone down well with the US. That this happened on the eve of the Chinese premier Wen Jiabao’s much-trumpeted visit to Pakistan raises a question if Pakistan is using grandpa Wen to help fend off the ‘big bully’ US.

The Chinese leader’s visit, in turn, came on the heels of the US strategic review of the Afghan war chiding Pakistan and asking it to do more to fight the Islamist terrorists operating from within its borders. This review has not set any benchmarks — at least publicly — to gauge Pakistan’s success in what is being demanded of it. Additionally, President Barack Obama, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Defence Secretary Robert Gates have reiterated in separate statements their concern about Pakistan’s role in the Afghan war.

Wen Jiabao obviously did not disappoint his hosts, and speaking to the joint session of the Pakistani parliament said what they really wanted to hear: “Pakistan was at the front of the international fight against terrorism and made big sacrifices and important contributions, which were obvious to all. The international community should affirm that and give great support as well as respect the path of development chosen by Pakistan. The fight against terrorism should not focus on specific religions or ethnic groups, but rather on eradicating the root factors breeding terrorism.”

While appearing to be a shot in the arm for the Pakistani regional policy, Mr Jiabao’s speech reinforces what is already known about Sino-Pak relations and the Chinese ambitions in the second decade of the 21st century. The Pakistani policy planners, especially those directly or indirectly associated with its ruling establishment, take a vicarious pride in the strides China has made and tend to believe that in the coming decade it would surpass the US as a global power.

However, the Chinese quest to revive the land-based Silk Route and develop jumping boards to Africa like the Gwadar port, point to its significant handicap in overcoming its geographical limitations. Resource-hungry China might take more than 10 years to develop a navy to be competitive with South Korea and Japan-supported US, even in the Pacific Rim. It is therefore, imperative for China to develop cheap and relatively direct access to resources, especially fossil fuels, from Central Asia, the Persian Gulf and Africa.

There is nothing really ideological or fraternal about the Chinese investments in Pakistan, as some Pakistani newspapers would like us to believe. Interestingly, while the Pakistani media has a knack for comparing everything to India, it has really remained mum over premier Jiabao’s visit to Delhi. A right-wing contemporary in its editorial praising China for its ‘stellar words and deeds’ vis-à-vis Pakistan opted to black-out the fact that just days ago the Chinese leader was quoting from the Upanishads, eulogising Mahatma Gandhi and buoyantly claiming Manmohan Singh’s friendship. With about $ 60 billion in exports, China has become India’s largest trading partner. By 2015, this sum is expected to rise to around a whopping $ 100 billion. The $ 30 billion of Chinese investment in Pakistan over the next five years does not look that massive after all. The point remains that it is the confluence of economic and geo-strategic interests — not words from scriptures or leaders — that dictate the Chinese or any other nation’s interest in Pakistan and for that matter in India.

That China will expand manufacturing exchanges, develop the transport and (nuclear) energy sectors in Pakistan, and even do a currency swap agreement, is not moot. However, what it might not tolerate is very similar to the world demands about countering the terror networks operating in and out of Pakistan. For China to have viable, uninterrupted resource supply routes from Central Asia and through Pakistan, it has to have a western border free of the jihadist menace. To metamorphose from a global moneylender to a global power, China will be confronting the question of how to tackle jihadism sooner than later. It may have saved the skins of the likes of General Hamid Gul — even at the UN level — but doing business in the global economy would entail China actually policing such characters rather than encouraging or protecting them.

The Chinese global interests, therefore, are more congruent with the US, and perhaps even India, than a Pakistani establishment with a jihadist mindset fossilised in the past. Internally, China is extremely sensitive about any socio-political upheavals that could pitch its impoverished central and western provinces against the affluent coastal regions and potentially lead to the unrest prevalent on the eve of Chairman Mao’s revolution. Issues like Tibet and Uighur autonomy are thus taken quite seriously, and dealt with harshly, by the Chinese. Moreover, China’s status as the world’s ATM machine is hugely dependent on its trade with the US and western consumer societies. While it would love to see the Pamir Knot and northern Silk Road revived with economic vigour, China would not be interested in undoing the Gordian knot of Afghanistan with the tip of its sword and neither would it give Pakistan a free hand to do so — a fact not lost on the Pak-Afghan policy planners in the US.

The New York Times (NYT) report that the US military seeks to expand raids inside Pakistan appears to be part of this seemingly endless game of analysing the projection of power, perception of strength or weakness and posturing of the geo-strategic players. Speaking to this writer, a CENTCOM spokesman, Lieutenant Colonel Michael Lawhorn cited the International Security Assistant Force statement, which categorically rejects the NYT report and claims everything to be hunky dory between the US and Pakistan: “There is absolutely no truth to reporting in the NYT...Cross-border coordination has and continues to disrupt and dismantle insurgent networks in select areas, with significant operations on both sides of the border removing large numbers of insurgent leaders and fighters.”

The last part of the statement is ambiguous about who exactly is conducting those raids but seems to indicate that for now the US planners have opted to ignore grandpa Wen’s words and innuendo in Pakistan. They seem to be focused more on the great-grandpa Hu Jintao’s Washington, DC visit next month.

The writer can be reached at mazdaki@me.com

US Afghan war review

Daily Times Thursday, December 16, 2010

COMMENT: US Afghan war review —Dr Mohammad Taqi

The word victory has never featured in Mr Obama’s speeches in the Afghan context and is unlikely to pop up now. We will hear a lot from him about the build-hold-clear-stabilise-handover process and the long term US ‘commitment’, but there will be hardly any reference to nation-building or even sustained counterinsurgency

http://tinyurl.com/36u39go

US president Barack Obama will announce his annual review of the Afghan war today (December 16, 2010). A successful legal challenge to Mr Obama’s healthcare plan and hectic congressional activity to extend the Bush-era income tax cuts had pushed this review off the US media radar, but the death of the Special Representative Richard Holbrooke has managed to put it back in the news-cycle, at least for the time being. What was expected to be a low key affair will still remain a whimper but more questions are being asked about the shape of the things to come as a larger-than-life member of Mr Obama’s Pak-Afghan team made his exit from the diplomatic and world stage.

The Washington Post has reported that Mr Holbrooke’s last words, spoken to his surgeon, were: “You have got to stop this war in Afghanistan.” Incidentally, Mr Holbrooke’s surgeon happened to be a King Edward Medical College-educated Pakistani. Of course, neither the surgeon nor the common Pakistanis have much to do with the war in Afghanistan but given the Pakistani establishment’s massive involvement in favour of the Taliban, Mr Holbrooke’s last words seem almost surreal.

Mr Holbrooke, however, was not the only one calling for ending the war in Afghanistan. On the eve of the Afghan war review, a 25-member group of experts on Afghanistan, which includes respected names like Ahmed Rashid and Professor Antonio Giustozzi, has published an open letter to Mr Obama, calling on him to authorise a formal negotiation with the Afghan Taliban and seek a political settlement. However, buried in the text of the 1,030-word long plea to talk to the Taliban is the key sentence: “With Pakistan’s active support for the Taliban, it is not realistic to bet on a military solution.”

Mr Obama is very likely to claim progress in his statement (no speech is expected) and declare that the strategy he announced a year ago at the West Point Military Academy is working. However, he has very little to show in terms of tangible progress, especially in dealing with the continuous Pakistani intervention in Afghanistan. He may reiterate what he had told the US troops on his recent visit to Afghanistan: “We said we were going to break the Taliban’s momentum. That’s what you’re doing.” The idea being that the use of military force to change the political landscape of Afghanistan will continue as planned. The only addition anticipated is a prominent mention of the year 2014 as the withdrawal date for the NATO troops and security handover to the Afghan national forces. But the start of the troops’ drawdown in July 2011 will still remain as one of the objectives, albeit more as a rest stop rather than a milestone.

However, it is erroneous to make a claim about breaking the Taliban momentum during the winter months, which is literally the ‘down time’ of the war. During the anti-Soviet war of the 1980s one could tell by the drop in price of a Kalashnikov in Peshawar that the winter lull in fighting was about to start. But then again nobody claimed Mr Obama to be an expert on Afghanistan.

In fact Mr Holbrooke, along with his boss Hillary Clinton and Robert Gates, had vociferously criticised the president when the latter was putting together his Afghan strategy, commenting: “It cannot work.” However, all of them and General David Petraeus did sign on to Mr Obama’s flawed plan. At the time I had noted in an article ‘The Alsatia of FATA’ written for the Aryana Institute that “the American and NATO planners need a paradigm shift in their approach to handling the mess in FATA. Without setting up metrics for specifically measuring the Pakistan Army’s efforts in dismantling its jihadist assets, the US will be setting itself up for failure.”

The White House is saying that Mr Obama will talk about the al Qaeda’s senior leadership, Afghanistan and Pakistan and, more specifically, about increasing cooperation with the Pakistani government. How Mr Obama fleshes up this last agenda item is what would determine the future shape of things in Afghanistan — and Pakistan. I agree with Ahmed Rashid and Professor Giustozzi et al that with Pakistan’s active support for the Taliban, a military solution is not possible. However, I maintain that without the US confronting the Pakistani establishment on its continued support for the Taliban, a political solution to the Afghan imbroglio will remain elusive as well. Mr Holbrooke had told Bob Woodward that he saw a 1 in 10 chance of a good outcome in Afghanistan. I would say that it is a safe bet to make it a 1 in 1,000 chance.

The word victory has never featured in Mr Obama’s speeches in the Afghan context and is unlikely to pop up now. We will hear a lot from him about the build-hold-clear-stabilise-handover process and the long term US ‘commitment’, but there will be hardly any reference to nation-building or even sustained counterinsurgency. At the risk of eating crow tomorrow, I submit that there would not be any reference, even in fine print, to setting up any benchmarks for measuring the Pakistani establishment’s cooperation in helping evolve a political solution to the Afghan morass.

With Mr Holbrooke’s demise, General Petraeus will be lugging many aspects of coordination with the civilians in both Afghanistan and Pakistan in the short term. He, along with Robert Gates, has a much more realistic view of the ground realities than their commander-in-chief. In fact, the Lisbon agreement on the 2014 withdrawal timetable was very much a result of their efforts. They are also cognisant of the fact that while al Qaeda has been neutralised in Afghanistan for now, even a semblance of a jihadist victory will effectively revive the Islamists’ fortunes not only there but in Pakistan as well. In fact a US debacle in Afghanistan will give the turban, jeans or khaki-clad Pakistani jihadists a morale boost that will dwarf the post-Soviet withdrawal euphoria.

Like the 25 experts on Afghanistan, Mr Obama’s Afghan war review is likely to miss the potential logarithmic growth of jihadism in Pakistan that a negotiated settlement with the Taliban will entail. This will leave Pakistan’s moderate voices and the centre-left political forces out in the cold. While Petraeus et al will provide a cushion of time to the Pakistani political forces, counting on the US would be a mistake that the latter will regret at their peril. What they need is a Pak-Afghan policy review of their own.

The writer can be reached at mazdaki@me.com

Times of universal deceit

Daily Times Thursday,
December 09, 2010

COMMENT: Times of universal deceit —Dr Mohammad Taqi

http://tinyurl.com/28rhxot

The US government has now ordered all its employees to stay away from the WikiLeaks website even on their home computers and not read what the government still considers classified information. Big Brother keeps digging itself deeper into a hole


“Thoughtcrime is death. Thoughtcrime does not entail death. Thoughtcrime IS death” —Winston Smith in George Orwell’s 1984.

Last week’s WikiLeaks had a distinct Orwellian aura to it. One could almost hear the 1984 theme music playing with O’Brien asking, “What are your feelings about Big Brother?” “I hate him,” replied Winston Smith. And then, of course, the all too familiar retort from O’Brien, “You must love him. It is not enough to obey him. You must love him.”

But, apparently, thoughtcrime has been committed. Some, who did not love Big Brother, decided to disobey him too. The 250,000 secret diplomatic cables started becoming public, one bagful at a time. Big Brother, of course, is writhing in agony because the commoners did not heed its warnings invoking sacrosanct national security or the presumed disruption of the world order. However, the agony is not just of defeat but is also compounded by the fact that “one man with a laptop” and a private, first-class sergeant carry far more credibility with the public around the globe than the super or quasi-superpowers and their clients. Prometheus has stolen the fire from Zeus and has handed it over to the mortals.

The humpty dumpty of the official truths that these diplomats and the governments that they worked for and with had so painstakingly created has taken a great fall. The common citizens feel vindicated, as they had known all along that the gospel of official truth is nothing more than a mirage they were supposed to believe blindly. All the king’s men and women have now set out to put their humpty dumpty back together again — through whatever means it might take.

What is still lost on the government functionaries around the world, and especially US officials, is that this trust deficit between them and the public did not develop overnight. Whether it was lying about the Hiroshima bombing, overthrowing Iran’s Dr Mossadegh, the slaughter of thousands of Chileans including Dr Allende, creating the Afghan mujahideen monster, the Iran-Contra scandal, lies about WMDs and stage-managing the toppling of Saddam Hussein’s statue, the list of the skulduggeries perpetrated on the world is endless. Decades of disinformation, half-truths and lies have contributed to a credibility gap between the words and actions of governments, especially the US government, which is now wider than the Grand Canyon.

What also remains lost on the US government and those abetting its campaign against the founder of WikiLeaks, Julian Assange, is that going after him on grounds as flimsy as broken condoms (the charge against Assange being that he allegedly proceeded with sex, despite protests from his previously consensual partners, after protection broke down), is eroding whatever little credibility they might have left.

From the outset it became clear to most observers that the US literally has no case against Mr Assange and would very likely resort to pressing Sweden to pursue the alleged sexual harassment charges against him. Last week, the Voice of America’s Pashto service Deewa Radio conducted a special on WikiLeaks and whether they constituted espionage or journalism. Special Representative Richard Holbrooke recorded this ‘exclusive’ observation for the telecast: “The WikiLeaks is very unfortunate. This is an appalling breach of security by whoever did it — we think we know who it is — but whoever did it violated his oath of office to the US and committed an act for which he will be charged to the full extent of the law.”

The host then asked me and other participants to comment on Holbrooke’s remark. My take was, and remains, that the US does not stand a chance in hell to prosecute Assange under the present US and international laws and that Richard ‘the bulldozer’ Holbrooke was alluding to pulverising sergeant Bradley Manning — the little guy who allegedly disobeyed Big Brother.

How much more Orwellian can it get? Apparently it can. The US government has now ordered all its employees to stay away from the WikiLeaks website even on their home computers and not read what the government still considers classified information. Big Brother keeps digging itself deeper into a hole.

At the time of this writing, Julian Assange is being remanded in British police custody, after being denied bail in the Swedish case referred to above. Republican Mike Huckabee wants Assange assassinated, a few others want the use of military force against him, and Sarah Palin wants him “hunted down like Osama bin Laden”. What these right-wing hacks keep forgetting is that, despite being subjected to decades of controlled media and manufactured truths, the world at large retains a voracious appetite for the unvarnished truth. Call it left-wing, name it anarchism or brand it treasonous, upwards of four million new-user hits on the British daily The Guardian’s website on day one of the cables’ release show that the people do not swallow the official truth. Even if nonsense is shoved down their throats, they puke it up the first chance they get.

When The New York Times had confidently reported ‘No Radioactivity in Hiroshima’ and all journalists had been ushered to see the Japanese kneel before General McArthur, Wilfred Burchett was reporting — through cable — in his landmark story for London’s Daily Express ‘The Atomic Plague’ that more than just a bomb blast had caused the deaths at Hiroshima. The US censor came down hard on Burchett and vilified him and any paper that reproduced the report. We now know that it was the first report that documented the radiation fallout and the nuclear holocaust.

Henry Kissinger used to say that states could not be held to the same moral standards as ordinary citizens. Many officials around the world apparently continue to subscribe to his thought that not only are they above any moral standards, they also have a privilege to stomp on them secretly and deny such dealings publicly. But the common man clearly subscribes to Claud Cockburn’s proviso of “do not believe anything until it is officially denied”.

George Orwell had observed: “During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act.” While Assange may not be a revolutionary himself, he has revolutionised the way tech-media has forced the traditional media to take note of information that may otherwise have ended up being much like The New York Times reporting of the Hiroshima bombing. Thoughtcrime remains the perfect antidote to universal deceit.

The writer can be reached at mazdaki@me.com