The missing link in drone debate

Viewpoint
Online issue # 27
November 19,2010

http://tinyurl.com/2b6vhtt


The missing link in drone debate

by Dr. Mohammad Taqi |
Politicians have been coerced by the Army to publicly condemn the drone attacks and parliamentary resolutions were used to indicate to the US the purported public outrage. However, privately, many are appreciative of the drone campaign

With about a hundred drone attacks this year and roughly two hundred since June 2004, in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) of Pakistan, the discussion over this issue does not seem to go away. In fact, since David Kilcullen and Andrew Exum last year, Peter Bergen this year and Hamid Karzai this week, weighed in against the use of drones – at least under the current ‘rules’- the debate has only heated up.

Between 2004 and 2007 there were about ten attacks by the CIA-operated Predator drones but the number rose exponentially after George W. Bush commissioned the CIA to conduct action against the al-Qaeda and its Taliban allies in FATA. However, the covert nature of the program and the murkiness around the understanding regarding these attacks, between the United States and Pakistan , more specifically the Pakistani Army, continues to give rise to endless questions and myths. In his recently published book, Decision Points, George Bush notes:

“By the middle of 2008, I was tired of reading intelligence reports about extremist sanctuaries in Pakistan . I thought back to a meeting I’d had with Special Forces in Afghanistan in 2006.

‘Are you getting everything you need?’ I asked.

One SEAL raised his hand and said, ‘No, sir.’

I wondered what his problem might be.

‘Mr. President,’ he said, ‘we need permission to go kick some ass inside Pakistan .’

I understood the urgency of the threat and wanted to do something about it. But on this issue Musharraf’s judgment had been well founded… no democracy can tolerate violations of its sovereignty.

I looked for other ways to reach into the tribal areas. The Predator, as unmanned aerial vehicle, was capable of conducting video surveillance and firing laser-guided bombs. I authorized the intelligence community to turn the pressure on the extremists. Many of the details of our actions remain classified…”

This brief anecdotal section of Bush’s memoir gives some insight into the genesis, success and the criticism of the drone operations. The issues of sovereignty and the alleged civilian casualties remain perennial favorites with the Pakistani right wing and the international left. The common intuitive response to a foreign power’s actions in what is otherwise considered sovereign territory is usually that of condemnation but the militant menace in FATA significantly changes the equation.

Minds entrenched in the notions of Westphalian and international legal sovereignty are inclined to denounce, in a knee-jerk manner, any violation of the international geographical borders or presence of an external authority. While it may, prima facie, appear a reasonable approach but it ignores that legitimacy and authority – two key components of the modern concept of sovereignty- are not enough by themselves to support a nation-state’s claim to sovereignty. The sine qua non of sovereignty is the ability and willingness of the entity claiming such sovereignty to exercise control and establish its writ over its territories and prevent them from being used against other sovereign entities.

The Pakistani state’s de facto policy since the 1973 has been to use the FATA as the point d'appui for launching its Islamist militant proxies against Afghanistan . Faced with the post-9/11 predicament of how to preserve its jihadist assets – then on the run from Afghanistan- the Pakistani security establishment opted to use the FATA to provide such sanctuary. The Pakistan army had retracted its Taliban and Al Qaeda allies into FATA right after the Tora Bora battle and ushered them through Kurram agency into Orakzai and the North and South Waziristan agencies, where they thrive to date.

The traditional tribal elders-led Maliki system of governance however, was a hindrance in the movement, settlement and operations of these jihadist forces. The Pakistani state, therefore, aided and abetted the systematic elimination of the traditional power structures of the Maliki system between 2002 and 2004 and hundreds of tribal elders were killed by the jihadists. Territory and authority was either ceded to or held jointly with panoply of jihadists ranging from the Haqqani network in North Waziristan to local thugs-turned-jihadists like Mangal Bagh in Khyber Agency.

The operations against the US and ISAF troops in Afghanistan were planned and executed from the bridgeheads used by jihadists throughout FATA. Where the Pashtun tribes resisted the jihadists e.g. in the Kurram agency, the state sided with the jihadists against its own people. The Pakistani establishment literally created a Somalia-like situation in the FATA where its favored warlords ruled the roost. What that navy SEAL was referring to was true from his vantage point but it was important from the Pakistani people’s standpoint too.

While the ideological heart of jihadism throbbed throughout Punjab and its brains resided in Rawalpindi , its execution arm remained active in the FATA. Hundreds of bombings across Pakistan with the resultant death toll in the thousands were planned and launched from the tribal areas. On the face of it, the covariation between the Pakistani state’s proclaimed authority and the effective control of its territories remains nonexistent. But the state has actually been perpetuating a massive fraud on its people and the world at large, as it continued to remain in bed with the jihadists, who now exercised authority on behalf of the security establishment.

Under pressure from its military commanders in Afghanistan , the US political leadership had to act. But like the original anti-Taliban campaign of 2001, they tried to take the easy route and do it at a minimum dollar and human cost. Instead of openly confronting Pakistan they opted to press, appease and buy off the junta at the helm in Islamabad . What should have been a declared joint operation with publicized and documented status of forces agreement (SOFA) with Pakistan became a legally and politically tainted back-street gig.

Musharraf at the head of the army, as Bush notes in his book, was successful in scaring the Americans away from not only direct action but also to sufficiently muddle the venture, making it nearly impossible to evolve a public opinion favorable to drone attacks. However, not willing to risk a US incursion into FATA, Pakistan reluctantly acquiesced to the drones operating from places like Shamsi airbase inside Pakistan . But the buffer created by the absence of a (publicized) legal instrument of understanding between the Pakistan and the US outlining the parameters governing the drone operations has served the Pakistan Army well, while the Americans and the Pakistani people who support the drone attacks are readily painted as evil.

The Pakistani politicians from across the political divide have been coerced by the Army to publicly condemn the drone attacks and parliamentary resolutions were used to indicate to the US the purported public outrage. However, privately, many of the center-left politicians, including from the ruling parties, are appreciative of the drone campaign but are reluctant to say that openly. This attitude of the civilian leadership has weakened the case for pursuing the jihadists through drones or other armed means. It also sends a mixed message to the US military and political leadership who then tend to rely more upon the Pakistan Army.

A corpus of research- predominantly through the efforts of the Pashtun intelligentsia- has emerged over the last two years that debunks the myths of civilian casualties and public outcry in FATA over the drone attacks. However, to let the intellectuals do all the heavy lifting on this issue is somewhat unfair and also has its limitations. Without the political leadership taking a lead in shaping the narrative in favor of sustained action against the militant sanctuaries, the public opinion could be swayed with planted news and slanted views. We have seen that, despite claims to the contrary, the Pakistani mainstream media remains beholden to the Army and whether it is the Kerry-Lugar Law or NATO incursion over Mata Sangar, it sings in chorus with them. However, when politicians speak – on record – it is hard for the media and the world powers to ignore their concerns.

It is important not just for the US to hold the Pakistani Army’s feet to fire but for the Pakistani politicians to clearly state their position on the subject of drone attacks in FATA. Americans have the luxury to pack up and leave but most Pakistani politicians do not. They must seek a formal and public state policy on the drones operations preferably through the parliament. With the Pakistan Army’s reluctance to move against the jihadists holding the FATA hostage, the Predator drones remain the most viable option against terror. Only a bold political stance can clear the fog over the FATA skies; the politicians must speak up to regularize the drone campaign.

US mid-terms and Af-Pak policy: what lies ahead

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Daily Times
Thursday, November 11, 2010

COMMENT: US mid-terms and Af-Pak policy: what lies ahead —Dr Mohammad Taqi


The mid-term defeat has shattered Obama’s walking-on-water myth. He, therefore, will remain engaged with India, the Central Asian Republics and even Iran, as the counterpoise to Pakistan. The Pakistani establishment obviously does not like this scenario and that is the catch-22 for the US


The dust has started to settle on the US mid-term elections. With 239 seats, the Republican Party has gained control of the US House of Representatives while the Democrats have managed to hang on to a majority in the Senate with 53 seats. Out of the 37 state gubernatorial races, the Republican candidates have won 29, including 10 key swing states.

For more than half the US electorate, the economy was the top priority followed by the related issue of the budget deficit. The education, healthcare and immigration reforms were next on the voters’ mind, with environment and energy trailing way behind. While Mr Barack Obama may have literally saved the faltering world of capitalism from demise, the gains were not tangible enough for the common man to have voted for the president’s party.

Interestingly, but not surprisingly, the national security issues, including foreign wars and homeland security, were mentioned neither by the voters nor the candidates. Indeed, the words ‘war’ or ‘conflict’ did not feature in the election-day network television coverage at all. November 2, 2010 showed the wisdom of the dictum: ‘All politics is local,’ But around the world, and especially in the Pak-Afghan region, people and pundits alike are trying to make sense of what lies ahead in terms of US foreign policy, especially how it projects hard power.

The US constitution provides for both the executive and the legislative branches of the government to have a share in drafting foreign policy. Perhaps the best interpretation of these constitutional parameters came from Edward S Corwin, who wrote: “What the constitution does, and all that it does [sic], is to confer on the president certain powers capable of affecting our foreign relations, and certain other powers of the same general kind on the Senate, and still other such powers on Congress; but which of these organs shall have the decisive and final voice in determining the course of the American nation is left for events to resolve.”

However, historically, US presidents have considered and projected foreign policy as their domain. Presidents like Bill Clinton or Ronald Reagan before him had reinvented themselves by literally going extrovert after election defeats at home. The US presidents have constitutional powers to formulate foreign policy in a considered manner through policy statements and implementation, proposing legislation and negotiating international agreements and treaties. Alternatively, a reactive — but still constitutional — foreign policy measure could come as a response to a world event or an altered dynamic in events already underway.

Obama has roughly 13 months to lay out his foreign policy agenda, before the Iowa Caucus in January 2012 kick-starts the presidential election campaign. Going by the recent election results and the way he has been walking on eggshells during the present tour, it seems highly unlikely that Obama will make any monumental independent decisions in the foreign policy realm. While trying to prevent any unexpected events from forcing his hand, the US president will strive to stay the course in various hotspots around the world, including Pakistan’s both frontiers.

The change of guard in the House of Representatives or the addition of a few Senate seats to the Republican tally will have negligible bearing on how the president projects both hard and soft power. The most important landmark in the congressional oversight of the current foreign policy will be the review of the Afghan war next month. In all likelihood, the policies and plans presented originally in 2008 — including the drawdown date of July 2011 — will be endorsed again without any major changes. The military side of the effort would continue to be funded but there remains a potential for political arm wrestling when it comes to financing the civilian projects, especially in Afghanistan, due to alleged corruption issues.

The same review will also focus on Pakistan’s role in the Afghan imbroglio. That Pakistan is essential for US success and ultimately peace in Afghanistan is understood clearly by both Obama and the Congress. However, the perception — and to a large extent the reality — remains that Pakistan continues to come to the negotiating table with its suicide jacket on. If — and a mighty if that is — Obama can miraculously manage to talk Pakistan’s establishment out of its delusional belief in its zero-sum regional policy, that alone may be sufficient to earn him immortality in history. Alas, the mid-term defeat has shattered Obama’s walking-on-water myth. He, therefore, will remain engaged with India, the Central Asian Republics and even Iran, as the counterpoise to Pakistan. The Pakistani establishment obviously does not like this scenario and that is the catch-22 for the US.

Around this time last year, Obama took a page out of Mikhail Gorbachev’s ‘get out of Afghanistan’ manual. To allay Pakistani concerns regarding India, he may have to revisit his handbook. A key issue at the 1988 Geneva Accords was how the various powers continued to arm their proxies in Afghanistan. George Shultz, the then US Secretary of State, had noted at the signing of the accord: “It is our right to provide military aid to the resistance. We are ready to exercise that right. But we are prepared to meet restraint with restraint.” He was alluding to what became known as negative symmetry. Unless Obama is willing to take on the Pakistani establishment militarily, establishing negative symmetry, i.e. getting all regional powers, including India, to lay off Afghanistan, may be his only realistic chance at enduring peace in that hapless country.

With the Republican victories across the board, especially in the swing states, a plethora of domestic problems that are not likely to go away, winning a UN Security Council seat for India or using trade agreements with it to force China into playing ball on currency issues, are unlikely to give Obama an edge in his re-election bid. Even an unlikely breakthrough in the stalled Middle East talks is not going to be of much help when all politics again become local. Come 2012, Obama would not be able to afford a disaster in or originating from the Pak-Afghan region. President Carter had learned something similar at his peril. What seems now like a long shot in the Pak-Afghan region could become Obama’s foreign policy legacy. But does he have any fire left in his belly?

The writer can be reached at mazdaki@me.com

Kurram: the forsaken FATA

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Daily Times
Thursday, November 04, 2010

COMMENT: Kurram: the forsaken FATA —Dr Mohammad Taqi

The flat out refusal of the Kurramis, who have lost over 1,200 souls since April 2007, to cede their territory and pride to the jihadists and their masters has thrown a wrench in the latter’s immediate plans. Having failed to dupe the citizenry, the establishment has elected to bring them to their knees by force

General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani visited a tribal agency last week but he did not tender an apology to some local families, whose dear ones — including children — were killed by the Pakistan Army gunship helicopters this past September. Not that one was holding one’s breath for the general’s regrets but it would have presented some semblance of fairness given the Pakistan Army’s demands for apology and furore over the NATO choppers killing its troops in the same region during the same month. Well, life is not fair as it is, especially for the people of Kurram — the third largest Federally Administered Tribal Area (FATA).

The crime of these civilians, killed by their own army, was that they had been resisting the influx of foreign terrorists into their territory. Despite the claims put forth by the military about the NATO incursion, it is clear now that the latter had attacked the members of the Haqqani terrorist network who were using the village of Mata Sangar in Kurram to attack the ISAF posts in neighbouring Khost, Afghanistan. Reportedly, the de facto leader of the Haqqani network, Sirajuddin Haqqani, was in the region at the time of the NATO attack.

What has also become increasingly clear is that the Pakistani establishment is trying its level best to relocate its Haqqani network assets to the Kurram Agency in anticipation of an operation that it would have to start — under pressure from the US — in the North Waziristan Agency (NWA) sooner rather than later. This is precisely what the establishment had intended to do when it said that the NWA operation would be conducted in its own timeframe. The Taliban onslaught on the Shalozan area of Kurram, northeast of Mata Sangar, in September 2010 was part of this tactical rearrangement. When the local population reversed the Taliban gains in the battle for the village Khaiwas, the army’s gunships swooped down on them to protect its jihadist partners.

This is not the first time that the security establishment has attempted to use the Kurram Agency to provide transit or sanctuary to its Afghan Taliban allies. It did so during the so-called jihad of the 1980s and 1990s when the geo-strategic tip of the region called the Parrot’s Beak served as a bridgehead for operations against the neighbouring Afghan garrisons, especially Khost. In the fall of 2001, the Pakistan Army moved into Kurram and the Tirah Valley straddling the Khyber and Kurram agencies, ostensibly to block al Qaeda’s escape from the Tora Bora region. The Tirah deployment actually served as a diversion, as al Qaeda and key Afghan Taliban were moved through Kurram and in some instances helped to settle there.

The use of diversions and decoys has also become a de facto state policy when it comes to Kurram. The crisis in the region has been described as a sectarian issue since April 2007. However, the fact of the matter is that the Wahabi extremists, sponsored by the state’s intelligence apparatus, were used to prepare the ground for a larger Taliban-al Qaeda presence in the area. A local mosque in Parachinar served then as the staging ground for rolling out the Taliban rule in the Kurram Agency like similar operations in other tribal agencies. At the time, the Nasrullah Mansur network — an affiliate of the Afghan Taliban — along with the Pakistani Taliban was part of the alliance that had taken over the mosque. The resistance by the Kurram people was extraordinary and the jihadists were dislodged, albeit at great cost to the life, property and peace of the region. A son of Nasrullah Mansur, Saif-ur-Rahman was reportedly killed in a later round of fighting in December 2007.

From that point on, the Kurram tribesmen have come under increasing pressure from the establishment and its Taliban assets to allow the use of their territory for waging war against Afghanistan. The Parachinar-Thall road was effectively closed to the people from upper Kurram through jihadist attacks right under the establishment’s nose. The blockade became so intense that the people had to either use an unreliable and highly expensive small aircraft service operated by the Peshawar Flying Club to reach Peshawar or look for alternative routes.

A land route to Kabul was later opened through the efforts of some Peshawar based tribal and political elders. For about two years, this 230 mile-long arduous journey has literally been upper Kurram’s lifeline and its only land route to reach the rest of Pakistan via Peshawar. Given the fact that the Kurram Agency, with its over half a million population and a 3,380 square kilometre area, is the third largest tribal agency, this route has helped avert a massive humanitarian disaster by allowing food, medicine and supplies to reach the locals. The state did not stand just idle; it actively assisted in the blockade of its own citizens.

The establishment’s strategy over the last month has been to impose the Haqqani network as the ‘mediators’ over the Kurram Agency to help resolve the ‘sectarian’ conflict there. They had coerced and co-opted three leaders from Kurram, Aun Ali, Zamin Hussain and the MNA Sajid Turi, to meet Ibrahim and Khalil Haqqani, sons of the network’s ailing chief Jalaluddin. The three Pakistani men, however, did not have the waak — a customary power of attorney or designation — to conduct a jirga or negotiation or seek nanawatai (sanctuary) on behalf of the Kurram people and therefore were not able to guarantee that Kurram would not resist the new Taliban-Haqqani network incursion there.

The flat out refusal of the Kurramis, who have lost over 1,200 souls since April 2007, to cede their territory and pride to the jihadists and their masters has thrown a wrench in the latter’s immediate plans. Having failed to dupe the citizenry, the establishment has elected to bring them to their knees by force. It announced last week that it is closing down the Parachinar-Gardez-Kabul route, trapping the people of Kurram in a pincer of twin blockades. Announcing the embargo, Colonel Tausif Akhtar of the Pakistani security forces claimed that they are closing down five border entry points to clamp down on sectarian violence. The people of Kurram, however, see this as the state opening the floodgates of oppression on them. But as long as the rest of Pakistan and the world at large do not take notice of the establishment’s tactics in Kurram, this forgotten part of FATA will be completely forsaken.

Afzal Bangash: The Marxist maverick

Afzal Bangash: The Marxist maverick Dr. Mohammad Taqi The Statesman & Daily Times I count myself in nothing else so happy, As in a soul remembering my good friends (Shakespeare in Richard II) Reminiscing some of the stars of the secular galaxy of Pakistan and especially Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, is an obligation not just due to a family association or personal feel-good, nostalgic reasons. It is a must because the current generations - being fed a steady diet of religious extremism masquerading as non-denominational Islam - ought to get acquainted with the history of this land. In a country where first the state-controlled, and now the state-indoctrinated, media persons have systematically relegated both our saints and secularists to oblivion, while projecting larger-than-life images of the obscurantist characters from the Pakistan and Islamic studies textbooks, such recollections become a moral duty. One such distinguished progressive, secular person was the leader of the Mazdoor Kisan Party (MKP), Muhammad Afzal Bangash who died on this day (October 28th) in 1986. Somewhere in the middle 1986, Bangash returned from exile and took up residence on Kohat Road in Peshawar. The word spread around quickly and this scribe got to tag along with a group of friends and family who called upon him. For some reason, the conversation started in Urdu. But then Bangash asked “Tussi saray Hindko samajhdayo na?” (Do all of you understand Hindko?) Some nodded and others verbalised in an affirmative. He then quipped: “Bohat achha aiy, kyoonkeh mein Urdu bolna waan tey inj lagda aiy jhoot bol riya waan” (Great then, because if I speak in Urdu I feel I am lying). In one sweep he had thus made a case for the mother tongue; Bangash was not known for subtleties. Twenty-four years later a study by the British Council Pakistan recommended last month that the mother tongue be the medium of instruction in elementary schools. Afzal Bangash was above any chauvinism and parochialism though. He spoke and wrote in Urdu, Pushto and English and had great command of the Peshawari and Kohati dialects of Hindko. In fact he remained part of the Ulasi Adabi Jirgah (People’s Literary Guild) along with the Urdu poets Farigh Bokhari and Raza Hamdani. He shared the forum with progressive nationalist poets like Ajmal Khattak and Qalandar Momand on one hand and the religio-romantic nationalist masters like Amir Hamza Shinwari and Dost Muhammad Kamil on the other. The guild was founded by his mentor Kaka ji Sanober Hussain Momand, a revolutionary leader of the Indian freedom movement, after whom Bangash later named the MKP weekly “Sanober” that also carried Kaka ji’s verse on the cover. In fact Bangash detested labels and branding. While many characterised him as a Maoist, he took umbrage at the tag for he was the Marxist maverick who had officially documented his opposition to the Chinese invasion of Vietnam, in the MKP’s journal “Circular” and parted ways with his colleagues who had endorsed it. After the Afghan revolution Hafizullah Amin wanted Bangash to form a Pakistani party allied with his Khalq faction. Not only did he snub Amin but further admonished him for their aggressiveness and advised them to take the local culture and norms into serious consideration. As a son of the soil, Bangash was not fond of importing or exporting revolutions and believed in an indigenous struggle and means to his revolutionary ends. He was of the opinion that only the local circumstances can dictate such ways and means. To him the most essential tool was the revolutionary self-reliance meaning a combination of the mass mobilisation of the oppressed people through an astute leadership, culminating in the directly concerned people shouldering the burden of waging the struggle. In an agrarian society this meant that the peasantry was to be the vanguard of such a movement. But having served as Mohtarma Fatima Jinnah’s provincial campaign manager in her bid against Ayub Khan, in an election rigged by the General, Bangash was acutely aware of the deck stacked against the masses. He had been a member of the Communist Party of Pakistan (CPP) since 1948 and had seen the Quaid-i-Azam watch helplessly as the West Punjab Assembly flouted the recommendations of its own land reform sub-committee within six months of independence. Whether it was fixing the tenant’s share in the crop, the abolition of begaar (unpaid forced labour), making cheap credit available to the tenant or preventing their forced evictions, the legislative help was not on the horizon. Bangash was also elected as the first general secretary of the National Awami Party (NAP) in 1957 and was intimately familiar with the workings of such multi-class leftist fronts which in many instances meant the feudal nationalist elements holding sway over the party decisions. It was one such decision by the NAP leadership barring Bangash and others from working in the peasant committees that led to his parting ways with NAP and founding on May 1, 1968, the MKP – perhaps the largest revolutionary leftist party in Pakistan’s history that openly eschewed electoral politics. The MKP’s red flag with a white star became a symbol of resistance to the feudal lords in Hashtnagar (Charsadda), Peshawar, Mardan and Swat/Malakand. It drew support from not only the tenants, agri-labourers but also from white-collar people like lawyers. In fact Wali Khan’s nephew Faridoon Khan hoisted the MKP flag in his father Ghani Khan’s house and ‘de-classed’ himself to join the peasant uprising. After a tenant, Sardar Shah raised the MKP flag as a challenge against his landlord Usman Ali “Wawa” Khan’s eviction order, the scene was set for a mass uprising in Northern Hashtnagar and an armed struggle ensued. The peasant uprising lasted through three successive governments including that of the NAP. Along with its contemporary Naxalite struggle and the Peruvian and Nepalese peasant movements that followed it, the Hashtnagar peasant struggle provides a unique case study in an era when urban fascists are trying to claim the mantle of anti-feudalism. Bangash was well-versed in Marxist theory and many of his speeches and writings reflected this command but he was not a dogmatist. However, he did develop a methodology of ‘theory-practice-feedback-theory-practice’ to keep adjusting both the ideological framework and the means to achieve the ideological goals. He was highly proud of his comrades like Major Ishaq Muhammad, Prof. Eric Cyprian and Imtiaz Alam who contributed to both to theoretical and practical side of the struggle. During the recent judiciary movement some of his former associates like Latif Afridi and Justice Shahjahan Yousufzai demonstrated, from the bar and the bench respectively, the acumen and resolve of the seasoned campaigners that Bangash had trained by the dozen. Bangash did gradually move towards mainstream politics starting with the Movement for the Restoration of Democracy (MRD) of which the MKP was a founding and highly functional component. He had great working relationship with Benazir Bhutto during that era. Along with Sardar Ataullah Mengal, Mumtaz Bhutto and Hafiz Pirzada, Bangash formed the Sindh Baloch Pashtun Front (SBFP) in 1985 to counter the establishment’s hegemony and proposed a confederal state. Upon his arrival back in Pakistan, he remained involved with the merger of the left-oriented parties and closed the door on a generation-long rift with Wali Khan. The MKP, a faction of the PNP, Rasool Bux Paleejo’s Awami Tehrik and the NDP thus came together to form the Awami National Party. Wali Khan became its first president while MKP’s Sardar Shaukat Ali was elected as its general secretary. The legacy of Bangash is that of highly secular, selfless devotion to the deliverance of the wretched of the earth from oppression and exploitation, if needed, by challenging through all means available, the Weberian concept of the ‘legitimate monopoly on violence’ as well the hegemony of the forces of tradition. He may not have achieved a political high office but being not the one to be suborned by such temptations, he remained loyally committed till last breath to the cause he championed. He was originally buried in his native Shadi Khel village, Kohat but later his mortal remains were transferred to Hashtnagar where he rests in peace along with his comrades and cadres. A newspaper column cannot do justice to a political life spanning more than four decades but younger friends should remember the words of Iqbal and Hafiz: سر خاک شہيدے برگہاے لالہ مي پاشم کہ خونش با نہال ملت ما سازگار آمد بيا تا گل برافشانيم و می در ساغر اندازيم فلك را سقف بشگافيم و طرح نو در اندازيم Sir e khaak e shaheeday barghaiy lala mi paashem Keh khoonash baa nehaal e millat maa sazgar aamed Biya ta gul barafshaanem o mai der saghar andaazem Falak raa seqf beshigafem o tarh e nau darandaazem I scatter the petals of tulips upon the dust of martyrs For their blood profits the sapling of the community; Come so that we may strew roses and pour wine into the cup; Let us tear open the roof of Heaven and think upon new ways. Thanks are due to Kamil Bangash, a former vice-president of the ANP and son of Afzal Bangash, for his help in verifying certain information and the priceless gift of Bangash Sahib’s portrait. The writer can be reached at mazdaki@me.com

Karachi’s civil war: politics by other means

Daily Times	Saturday, October 23, 2010

COMMENT: Karachi’s civil war: politics by other means —Dr Mohammad Taqi

It would be erroneous to assume that the criminal outfits of Karachi are just a function of the urban sprawl and disarming them, without a concomitant political solution, is going to be useful or even possible

About 90 people — 12 in just one instance — were assassinated in Karachi earlier this week and approximately 1,300 have been killed in various acts of violence in the city this year. These are not random or targeted killings: this is civil war.

Unlike interstate wars, a civil war is defined as “an armed combat within the boundaries of a recognised sovereign entity, between parties subject to a common authority at the outset of hostilities”. While all wars are hell, civil wars are particularly nasty and are aptly termed dirty wars as the common authority usually stands eroded and the combatants who deem every foul act fair, do not abide by the customary laws of war.

In most instances, a civil war is the continuation of politics by other means and must be understood in this context. An inaccurate narrative of the conflict and use of incorrect nomenclature and descriptive terms, especially by the media and analysts, may mask the political motives of the warring factions and make the already elusive solutions even harder to find.

Whereas an overexposure of the brutalities can desensitise a population, the attempts to sanitise the narrative are also counterproductive. Using euphemisms like target or targeted killing makes the conflict opaque to the people, hampers their understanding of the situation and, in a land where human life is the cheapest commodity, keeps them from demanding answers and definitive action from their elected representatives.

Historically, civil wars have been used to make cities and regions ungovernable, thus making the competing sections of the population and the rulers cede territory and political control. Traditionally, the root cause of many civil wars has been ethnic and religious antagonisms endemic to that region, but in Karachi’s case the continued prevalence of an armed conflict is the composite result of such hostilities, a steady accumulation of unresolved conflicts since at least the 1970s and the gradual emergence of new demographic and political realities.

Political instability — real or perceived — at the federal level indicates disorganisation, weakness and erosion of the state’s monopoly over the coercive and administrative apparatus. This provides a milieu as well as a cue for the various competing groups to contest with each other and the state for power and in the process worsens the perception of governmental weakness. In order to protect their interests, the major political players, therefore, respond to this perceived weakness by seeking means to project their soft and hard power.

In a multi-ethnic, mega city like Karachi, where an overt secessionist movement or insurgency does not exist, various ethnic — and occasionally religious — groups use systematic violence to project hard power. Violence is also used as a coercive adjunct to negotiating and obtaining concessions from opponents, competitors and partners. The so-called land-grabber, drug and extortion mafias or the gangs operating with impunity, serve as the coercive muscle that the different ethnic and political outfits use to demonstrate hard power.

Whereas the Mafiosi and gangsters are a problem by themselves, their importance lies in their association with various political outfits. In some ways these gangs are a revival of certain armed student outfits of the 1970s and 1980s that various political parties, especially the Jamaat-e-Islami and later the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM), had used to bring the university campuses under their control. It would be erroneous to assume that the criminal outfits of Karachi are just a function of the urban sprawl and disarming them, without a concomitant political solution, is going to be useful or even possible. However, political rapprochement by itself would also be insufficient and ineffective.

This is precisely the predicament that the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) finds itself in: damned if it takes a stern action and damned if it does not. The PPP’s central leadership, especially President Asif Zardari, is under pressure from its own Sindh and Karachi leaders, as well as allies like the Awami National Party (ANP) to call in the military in support of the civilian administration. So far it has resisted these calls because its other coalition partner, the MQM, is totally averse to the idea of an army operation.

The PPP thus faces a political dilemma at two levels. Firstly, and perhaps more importantly for the PPP and others, an army action has its own dynamics and may take a life of its own with consequences that in the long run could undermine the democratic process. Secondly, if the MQM were to exit the provincial and central coalitions, the Sindh government could sustain itself numerically, but the central government would lose its simple majority.

At a juncture when Mian Nawaz Sharif has kept completely mum about the Karachi situation while opting to castigate President Zardari, the PPP would not want to rely on his support to run a minority government. If the PPP’s central government is weakened, Mian sahib — who does not seem to be in a conciliatory mood — may nudge the things towards an in-house change or early polls.

However, the rise in the Pashtun population of Karachi and the resultant ascendancy of the ANP there is something that the PPP cannot ignore. The ANP and its predecessors like the NDP have had political roots in Karachi but the higher profile of the party is reflective of the changing demographics that make the MQM cower. Unlike the rather unnatural and uneasy PPP-MQM coalitions that historically have ended in failure, the ANP perhaps would be the PPP’s natural ally in the Karachi politics in the years to come.

In a situation where the PPP is finding it difficult to break the cycle of violence and an army action may not be in sight, a bolstered police and rangers action with a clear mandate must start in earnest, and soon. The public perception of the PPP’s weakness is seriously damaging its political base, especially in Sindh. However, for such an action to deliver even the bare minimum, the PPP will have to restrain its coalition partners. If the PPP leadership is able to demonstrate some crisis management skills, it could project the party’s soft power through its image restoration. Karachi’s perennial inter-ethnic problems are unlikely to evaporate soon but a proactive PPP could manage to keep them from spiralling into a full intensity civil war.

The writer can be reached at mazdaki@me.com

Takfir: the ideology of hate

Daily Times Thursday, October 14, 2010

COMMENT: Takfir: the ideology of hate —Dr Mohammad Taqi

An ordinary Salafi may believe in the non-violent call to convert to their version of Islam but the Salafi jihadists are proponents of violent jihad. The doctrinal differences that set the jihadist group apart include practising takfir, i.e. labelling other Muslims as infidels or apostates

“It may be true that the law cannot make a man love me, but it can stop him from lynching me, and I think that is pretty important” — Dr Martin Luther King Jr.

While some in the Pakistani media seem to have bought into Pervez Musharraf’s Facebook flight of fantasy and were focused on his ‘Desperate Housewives’-style, primetime soap performances, the peddlers of the ideology of hate struck again.

There were two major attacks: one against yet another symbol of South Asian religious diversity — the Abdullah Shah Ghazi shrine in Karachi — and the other before that, which killed the Islamic scholar and practising psychiatrist, Dr Farooq Khan. The assassination of Dr Khan is, by far, the more significant and more ominous of the two because he was a person who had dedicated his life to preserve and promote pluralist thought, which shrines like Shah Ghazi’s have epitomised for centuries.

However, the news media, especially the television networks, covered these two stories for just about 24 hours and after that moved on with the preferred national pastime of Zardari-bashing and betting on his exit date. But, given the open jihadist tirades of certain anchors, anti-Ahmediyya vitriol of a particular televangelist and outlets that air the interviews of Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, this is hardly a surprise.

Last week, Ms Gulmina Bilal Ahmad, in her article ‘Historical distortions’ (Daily Times, October 8, 2010), has written eloquently about Dr Farooq, his thoughts and work and has alluded to those who are out to counter this thought. I did not know Dr Farooq except from a conversation we had at the humble yet dignified guest room of the late Professor Saeedullah Qazi, the then Dean of Sheikh Zayed Islamic Centre, Peshawar. His words are rather vague in my mind, but it is hard to forget his soft-spoken mannerism. What Farooq has done in his death — and Ms Ahmad has taken up in her column — is to open the debate about a virulent ideology hell-bent on eliminating anyone who does not conform to it.

In recent times, the biggest manifestation of this ideology has been the suicide bombings or the so-called ‘martyrdom missions’. While we focus on suicide bombings as the dastardly acts that have killed thousands, we have been somewhat remiss in assessing the role of the doctrine providing the religious-political and psycho-social ‘rationale’ of this foremost tactic in the global Salafi jihad.

The Salafi jihadists form an extreme fringe, even of the Wahhabiist-Salafist spectrum itself. An ordinary Salafi may believe in the non-violent call to convert to their version of Islam, but the Salafi jihadists are proponents of violent jihad. The doctrinal differences that set the jihadist group apart include practising takfir, i.e. labelling other Muslims as infidels or apostates (kafir) and concluding, therefore, that violence against the latter is permissible (halal or mubaah), condoning acts of violence against civilians and the use of suicide missions. Violent jihad is held at par with the basic tenets of Islam by the Salafi jihadists. The most explicit endorsement of killing Muslim civilians came from Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who said in a 2005 audiotape message: “The killing of a number of Muslims whom it is forbidden to kill is a grave evil. However, it is permissible to commit this evil — indeed, it is even required — in order to ward off a greater evil, the evil of suspending jihad.”

Dr Farooq was not the first Islamic scholar to have differed with the hateful ideology of takfir and to have paid with his life for this dissent. Ironically, the grandfather of al Qaeda, Abdullah Yusuf Azzam, was killed on November 24, 1989 in Peshawar, in a bomb attack by his own cohorts, for opposing takfir.

The late chief of the Jamaat-e-Islami, Syed Maududi, had also written against invoking takfir in religio-political polemics. I was told that one cannot find his books in Saudi Arabia and I did find this to be true, as far as the shops around the Holy Ka’aba and the Masjid-e-Nabvi go. This, perhaps, has something to do with his very favourable opinion of Imam Abu Hanifah in doctrinal matters, a tolerant view of the Shiite and a general condemnation of takfir.

Indeed, the key pan-Islamists such as Muhammad Abduhu and Rashid Rida — like Maududi — had tried a selective application of takfir against the relatively newer sects in Islam. They feared that indiscriminate use of the label would lead to endless strife (fitna) within the larger Muslim community and advised their followers that wrongly accusing another Muslim of being an infidel is a major sin in Islam.

However, even this self-serving and rather meek condemnation of takfir is not acceptable to the ardent takfiris who are quick to condemn even Maududi as a kafir. The jihadists and their apologists remain blind to the fact that these attacks, ostensibly against foreign occupiers, have killed more Muslims than any other group, have divided the country deeply and have reinforced the belief that the jihadists consider common Muslims as expendable. Moreover, suicide attacks — though not as common — did take place in Egypt, Algeria and Afghanistan even when there was no foreign occupier.

This suggests that, while challenging the appeal of the takfiri ideology is a crucial component of the counter-terrorism strategy, a scholarly discourse by itself is an insufficient antidote. What is needed is a holistic, multi-pronged approach to stymie the takfiri groups. Civilian law-enforcement officers have made great strides in understanding takfiri terrorism in Pakistan and have apprehended many of its leaders. However, no high profile leader has ever been put on trial or any madrassah shut down — let alone levelled — limiting the deterrence value of counter-terrorism operations.

The trial of the far-right extremist, anti-Islam Dutch parliamentarian, Geert Wilders, resumed yesterday in Amsterdam. He is facing charges of inciting hatred against Muslims. This has some of his friends on the US side of the pond, up in arms. Ayaan Hirsi Ali went on bewailing in a Wall Street Journal op-ed that the Netherlands, a 21st century democracy, has put free speech on trial. What has actually been put on trial, however, is hate speech.

The Dutch law may not make Geert Wilders love Muslims, but chances are that it will prevent him from inciting hate and potential hate crimes. One may woefully concede that for something like this to happen in Pakistan, many Dr Farooq Khans may be lynched first.

Smokescreen of sovereignty

Daily Times	Thursday, October 07, 2010

COMMENT: Smokescreen of sovereignty —Dr Mohammad Taqi

The world's patience with Pakistan is running thin and the establishment's gimmicks will come under increasing scrutiny, followed potentially by retribution. The ISAF action in the Kurram Agency then was not a surprise

“Son, do you not know who I am?” said in Urdu the man with a henna-dyed beard and the Holy Quran on his lap. Reading the perplexed expression on the young man’s face, he then answered his own question, “I am Jalaluddin Haqqani — Commander Haqqani.”

It was 1994 and this young sub-inspector of the Punjab Police had stopped a convoy of double-cabin vehicles on Peshawar Road, just outside Rawalpindi. With tens of armed jihadists seated in the trucks, the officer who led a small posse faced the dilemma of whether to insist on the checking that he had originally planned or not. After a short standoff, his problem was solved by a wireless message from ‘higher authorities’ to clear the cavalcade without inspection! The officer later confided that he still did not know who Haqqani was.

Mr Haqqani has since retired from active jihad on account of health reasons and his son Sirajuddin Haqqani has been carrying the mantle from their state-provided sanctuary in North Waziristan. It was multiple conversations of an ISI colonel with Sirajuddin that were tapped by the US in 2008 and led to a surge in the drone attacks ordered by George Bush.

In South Waziristan, the Uzbek terrorist ‘Sheikh’ Tohir Yuldeshev — abbreviated STY in Pakistani intelligence circles — operated with impunity for years before being taken out in a drone attack last year. Scores of Uzbek terrorists led by their Sheikh had remained functioning across FATA and as far as Buner last year.

Hardly forgotten is the 55th Arab Brigade comprising Arab-Afghans and operating from its bases straddling the Durand Line, which fought alongside the Taliban years after the last Soviet had left Afghanistan and six years before any Americans had appeared there. The Afghan-Arab ringleaders like Ayman al-Zawahiri still remain in FATA.

Just last month, the Afghan Taliban — entrenched with their Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) cohorts in the Kurram Agency for three years — were attacking the Shalozan Tangi tribes in the upper Kurram, northwest of Parachinar, at the foothills of Koh-e-Sufaid. The Khaiwas village fell to them days before Eid-ul-Fitr. When the Tangi tribesmen mounted a counter-offensive to retake Khaiwas after Eid, they were bombed by the Kurram militia and army helicopters. Eighty-six Tangi tribesmen died — eight were killed by army gunships.

The Pakistani establishment never bothered for a moment about ‘sovereignty’ when they were pawning away large swaths of FATA to these terror networks, which have harboured and unleashed terrorists that have killed thousands of innocent Pakistanis throughout the country.

I had noted last week that the world’s patience with Pakistan is running thin and the establishment’s gimmicks will come under increasing scrutiny, followed potentially by retribution. The ISAF action in the Kurram Agency then was not a surprise. Pakistan has abandoned its responsibility as a neutral state to prevent its territory from being used against other countries.

In Kurram’s case, the Taliban have been slaughtering Pakistani citizens for almost three years now but the state did not budge. It was the same group of Taliban that had engaged the ISAF forces last weekend. Given the strategic geography, ISAF could no longer ignore Pakistani inaction. NATO has apologised for the deaths of three Pakistani soldiers, and rightly so. It gains nothing tactically by killing foot soldiers. As General Musharraf’s confessions to Der Spiegel reiterate, it is the top brass that continues to nurture the terrorists and has failed to understand that using the jihadist proxies is no longer acceptable to the world at large.

It is only a matter of time before a large-scale terror attack on western and US targets succeeds. One lapse on the part of the counter-terrorism forces and we will have a repeat of 9/11, complete with its aftermath. And all indications are that such an attack would originate from the ‘sovereign’ Pakistani territory. As details about the German nationals killed in the drone attack in North Waziristan earlier this week emerge, the Pakistani state’s credibility as an entity willing or able to tackle the problem within its borders has hit rock bottom.

So what did — what my friend Kamran Shafi calls — the ‘deep state’ do? First, it has ratcheted up the brinkmanship by stopping the NATO supply line and then allowing orchestrated attacks on the idling trucks. This is reminiscent of the November 1979 burning down of the US embassy, while General Ziaul Haq went on with his gingerly bicycle ride in Rawalpindi. The mobs torched the embassy and killed diplomats in the heart of Islamabad, while the security agencies stood by. The idea was to teach the Yanks a lesson so they would do business with the general on his terms.

NATO’s immediate plans will not be affected by several days of supply stoppage and if the same were to continue, it would be forced to take up the expensive but available alternative routes. Any sane government, whose cash reserves are dangerously low and fuel reserves even lower, would not have embarked upon an adventure like this to become an international pariah.

But then again, thinking things through has not been the forte of those used to pushing Pakistan into geopolitical dead ends. And, as always, after painting itself into a corner, the establishment has now turned to the civilians to save its skin. Civilian leaders of all political hues are being coerced to join in the sovereignty chorus. Remember Mian Nawaz Sharif’s frantic dash to see Bill Clinton on July 4, 1999? Roping in the PPP or the ANP leaders like Asfandyar Khan to sing hymns of sovereignty is no different.

When Nadir Shah invaded India, he embarked upon an elephant ride. Seated on the elephant he told the mahout: “Anaanash ba dastam bideh” (hand over the reins to me). The mahout responded that it was he who drove the elephant. Nadir Shah declined the ride, one that he did not control himself.

Despite debacles at home, the international credibility of the Pakistani civilian leadership is still better than that of their khaki counterparts. There is no declared status of forces agreement between the US and Pakistan about the operations inside Pakistan. The civilian leaders would be ill advised to take ownership of an undocumented enterprise, over which they never had any control. They must refuse to be used as human shields. The world can see through the smokescreen of sovereignty; Pakistani politicians should too.

The writer can be reached at mazdaki@me.com