Karbala: ultimate surrender
By Nasim Zehra: January 30, 2007
Throughout time the power of narrative has remained a potent force for constructing common zones of collective existence, ones that often travel through multiple generations. This power is like the miracle that overwhelms the human consciousness with its pathos, its sensitivities and its emotional appeal. Few narratives in history have so captured the human consciousness as has Karbala. Of the multiple messages it has left behind, four are particularly significant.
One, Karbala represents indivisibility of being, of values, of sensitivities, of thoughts and of action. So in the heat of the struggle, at the height of what one believes is the virtuous act, the correctness of human behaviour must not be compromised. Pursuit of the virtuous and the moral provide no license for the immoral. In collective zones these are easy licenses to give to oneself, as in Guantanamo Bay, in Iraq, in Afghanistan. No less is this license at work when suicide bombers target the innocent. Karbala is the story of combining the struggle with the best of human values. It is about no licences at the height of the struggle. At Karbala we see the followers of Islam, the practitioners of the Quranic teachings and followers of the Holy Prophet's (PBUH) and his family's spiritual track. In the tradition of his grandfather, the Prophet, Imam Husain demonstrated at Karbala demonstrated that the efficacy of the message of the struggle is entirely linked to the character of the messenger.
Two, in journeying through life, opt for the correct, effective path. The one through which you can actually impact upon your context. The effective path is not always the confrontational one. Space to spread one's message and ideology is what is most important. If possible, do not give bayat, allegiance, to the corrupt and malevolent Yazid. If all the space is squeezed, like it was for Imam Hussain, then battle becomes imperative. Don't be forced, but when space is all squeezed then don't be forced to change you ideals and your Qibla.
To be the force of change it is essential to embrace both inflexibility and flexibility. Your own character has to be inflexible; for example, steadfast and inflexible in sacrifice and incorruptible in position of power. Yet flexibility is the hallmark of engagement with people and with power.
Three, Karbala's most compelling message remains, never let the spirit die, never give up your ideals. They must remain your guiding principles to enrich your soul and spirit.
Four, Karbala effected a revolutionary recasting of power, both in content and in practice. The strength of the martyred Imam's message confronted the oppressive power of its times. It confronted tyranny and injustice through the centuries. Imam Hussain's own conduct at Karbala in executing his responsibilities, in conducting his relationships, in engaging with the enemy, presented power in a changed context; it was power away from brute force to the gentle spirit of humanity. Karbala not only threatened tyrannical power, it also humanised power. Karbala tutored subsequent generations also in the values of justice, fair play, respect, dignity, patience, tolerance.
Karbala's values have connected generations. Ultimately it is around the swivel of values that the human civilisation connects. Take a look around to know that the contemporary calculus of power that informs most politics is a doomed calculus.
The world has been hit by unprecedented calamity; the mountains, the seabed, the land and the atmosphere rattled by earthquakes, tsunamis, cyclones, snowstorms and floods. All this has so emphatically demonstrating the utter fragility of being. And against the utter fragility of being this is not such a hard message to comprehend. When the being is so fragile only the intangible spirit remains the abiding reality. The spirit represents the core of our being. Yet, in witnessing the power-propelled and the force-enforced frameworks of management, it is difficult to forget that the human spirit that naturally gravitates towards good is being stifled in the process. Hence the mayhem. Undoubtedly for the spirit the message of Karbala offers the most abiding lesson.
The writer is an Islamabad-based security analyst. Email: nasimzehra@hotmail.com
Tuesday, January 30, 2007
Sunday, January 28, 2007
Taliban Recruitment Area
Pride, grief and anger at a Taliban recruiting area in Pakistan
Riaz Khan And Matthew Pennington
Canadian Press: January 28, 2007
SHABQADAR, Pakistan (AP) - Near Pakistan's border with Afghanistan, pride mixes with grief and anger over dozens of young men lost to a stepped-up recruiting drive for the Taliban.
Like the anti-Soviet rebels of the 1980s and the pre-9/11 Taliban, the recruiters of today have turned to this cluster of about 25 ethnic Pashtun villages in search of volunteers.
The father of one dead enlistee says he feels honoured, but with many of Shabqadar's young men dead or feared missing on the battlefield, mujaheddin recruiters are no longer welcome here.
A shopkeeper says 100 or more young men have gone missing, including his cousin, a 10th grade student, who mysteriously left home during the summer vacation and is believed to have gone to fight.
People here are religious, and recruiters play on that sentiment, "recruiting the youth with raw minds," he said.
The shopkeeper, like many others interviewed, requested anonymity for his own safety.
Pressure from residents and the shooting and wounding of a local newspaperman who reported about the "martyrs" of Shabqadar compelled authorities in November to shut a local office of Harkat-ul-Mujahedeen, an outlawed Pakistani militant group. It had circulated jihadist literature and CDs and recruited mostly jobless young men to go to Afghanistan - like their fathers who fought the Soviet occupation of that country two decades ago.
Following the closure, recruiting has dried up, according to one former recruiter. But Samina Ahmed, an expert with the International Crisis Group think tank, warns that the upsurge in Taliban attacks on NATO forces is boosting the morale of sympathizers in Pakistani border areas and attracting recruits who are susceptible to militant propaganda and believe the Taliban can regain power.
About 4,000 people, mostly militants, have died in insurgency-related violence in Afghanistan over the past year, according to figures compiled by The Associated Press from Afghan, NATO and U.S. officials. Even worse violence is expected this spring and Pakistan, a key U.S. anti-terror ally, is under international pressure to crack down on militants' sanctuaries here.
While most Taliban fighters are thought to be Pashtuns living in Afghanistan, the flow of volunteers from just one corner of Pakistan's own sprawling Pashtun heartland - much of it ungoverned and under the sway of pro-Taliban tribesmen - lends weight to the Afghan government's claim that many militants hail from across the border.
For Complete Story, click here
Riaz Khan And Matthew Pennington
Canadian Press: January 28, 2007
SHABQADAR, Pakistan (AP) - Near Pakistan's border with Afghanistan, pride mixes with grief and anger over dozens of young men lost to a stepped-up recruiting drive for the Taliban.
Like the anti-Soviet rebels of the 1980s and the pre-9/11 Taliban, the recruiters of today have turned to this cluster of about 25 ethnic Pashtun villages in search of volunteers.
The father of one dead enlistee says he feels honoured, but with many of Shabqadar's young men dead or feared missing on the battlefield, mujaheddin recruiters are no longer welcome here.
A shopkeeper says 100 or more young men have gone missing, including his cousin, a 10th grade student, who mysteriously left home during the summer vacation and is believed to have gone to fight.
People here are religious, and recruiters play on that sentiment, "recruiting the youth with raw minds," he said.
The shopkeeper, like many others interviewed, requested anonymity for his own safety.
Pressure from residents and the shooting and wounding of a local newspaperman who reported about the "martyrs" of Shabqadar compelled authorities in November to shut a local office of Harkat-ul-Mujahedeen, an outlawed Pakistani militant group. It had circulated jihadist literature and CDs and recruited mostly jobless young men to go to Afghanistan - like their fathers who fought the Soviet occupation of that country two decades ago.
Following the closure, recruiting has dried up, according to one former recruiter. But Samina Ahmed, an expert with the International Crisis Group think tank, warns that the upsurge in Taliban attacks on NATO forces is boosting the morale of sympathizers in Pakistani border areas and attracting recruits who are susceptible to militant propaganda and believe the Taliban can regain power.
About 4,000 people, mostly militants, have died in insurgency-related violence in Afghanistan over the past year, according to figures compiled by The Associated Press from Afghan, NATO and U.S. officials. Even worse violence is expected this spring and Pakistan, a key U.S. anti-terror ally, is under international pressure to crack down on militants' sanctuaries here.
While most Taliban fighters are thought to be Pashtuns living in Afghanistan, the flow of volunteers from just one corner of Pakistan's own sprawling Pashtun heartland - much of it ungoverned and under the sway of pro-Taliban tribesmen - lends weight to the Afghan government's claim that many militants hail from across the border.
For Complete Story, click here
Facing a wave of sectarianism in globalising ‘Islam’
EDITORIAL: Facing a wave of sectarianism in globalising ‘Islam’
Daily Times, January 29, 2007
We predicted two days ago in this column that the NWFP would be targeted this Muharram and urged the NWFP government to be prepared to forestall the menace. Unfortunately, judging from the top police officers killed in the latest suicide bombing in Peshawar, the police was the first target of the Sunni extremists. A Muharram procession near Qasim Ali Khan Mosque in Qissa Khawani Bazaar was targeted, killing 15 people and injuring around 60. The bomber took the life of the city’s senior police officers: Peshawar police chief Malik Saad, DSP Khan Raziq and Kabuli SHO Nawaz Khan. Also killed were the leaders of the city government: Union Council nazims Mohammad Ali Safi and Mian Iftikhar.
Most of the killed were police officials because they were there to stop suicide-bombers from joining the Shia procession observing the rituals of Muharram. But the NWFP law minister put a convenient gloss on the incident: since the Sunnis were killed, he thought it was not a sectarian incident but an act of terrorism. This is wrong. Once we dub an incident as a ‘terrorist’ one, then we open the doors of speculation and are free to blame the ‘enemies of Pakistan’ — which are many — and see the ‘foreign hand’ all over the place, which mostly means India or Kabul. Twist the argument a little more and we have it running like this: the Indians took advantage of Muharram and the sectarian scene in Pakistan and did the dastardly deed to make ‘Muslim fight Muslim’. But this is ridiculous.
We should take stock of the new situation developing out of a worldwide standoff between the two sects of Islam symbolised by the sectarianisation of Al Qaeda in Iraq. For far too long we have accused India of exploiting the schism in Pakistan without producing much evidence to prove the charge. It is also self-damaging to lean on the “no-Muslim-could-do-this” rhetoric because that prevents us from taking any effective remedial action. We are in fact much past the stage when Urdu columnists could get away by praising the Shia leaders (including Grand Ayatollah Sistani of Iraq) for declaring that the Shias killed in Pakistan and Iraq on Ashura in 2003 and 2004 were killed actually by the Americans. In a shoddy follow-up, an ex-chief of the ISI blamed the 2005 suicide bombing of Barri Imam shrine near Islamabad on the Americans and the Jews!
Nor is the NWFP exempt from the curse of sectarianism. The district of Kohat has always been a hotbed of violence between the two communities aroused by unconscionable clerics. Sub-district Hangu was recently the arena of sectarian killings. There are local leaders who openly declare that they are at war with the Shia community and are being lionised in a section of the national press for fighting legal ‘human rights’ battles in Peshawar to free the Al Qaeda men caught in the province. The contagion trickles down from the Kurram Agency where the first carnage occurred in 1986 on the watch of General Ziaul Haq. Later rulers have paid no attention to the war spreading downwards to Aurakzai Agency and from there to the settled district of Kohat. In Aurakzai last year the two communities fought a pitched battle over a common shrine and accounted for scores of dead.
There is little defence against a man who wants to kill himself with explosives strapped around his body. In 2006, the Nishtar Park massacre was accomplished against the Barelvi leadership of Karachi when the ground was under the surveillance of the police. The Mutahidda Majlis-e-Amal (MMA) that rules the NWFP had both the Barelvis and the Shia parties in its alliance but could do nothing to stop their big leaders being killed most probably by boys from the very seminaries which the MMA leaders guard as their own. The disease lies in the discourse of the Pakistani clergy. The language in which they speak to the people is so self-righteously violent that it can only seduce people into killing each other.
It may be recalled that our intelligence establishment and politico-religious leaders continued to support the Taliban in Kabul even after the Taliban could not prevent their soldiers from killing the Shia of Central Afghanistan. Indeed, the idolisation of the Taliban was so great among such forces that even their worst atrocities and glaring weaknesses were not admitted. Thus when Al Qaeda gave refuge to Lashkar-e Jhangvi killers in its training camps outside Kabul no cleric in Pakistan rose to protest. Even today, the Sunni clerics are willing to change course. Therefore our fear is that when the 10th of Muharram comes up, Karachi may see another massacre. *
Daily Times, January 29, 2007
We predicted two days ago in this column that the NWFP would be targeted this Muharram and urged the NWFP government to be prepared to forestall the menace. Unfortunately, judging from the top police officers killed in the latest suicide bombing in Peshawar, the police was the first target of the Sunni extremists. A Muharram procession near Qasim Ali Khan Mosque in Qissa Khawani Bazaar was targeted, killing 15 people and injuring around 60. The bomber took the life of the city’s senior police officers: Peshawar police chief Malik Saad, DSP Khan Raziq and Kabuli SHO Nawaz Khan. Also killed were the leaders of the city government: Union Council nazims Mohammad Ali Safi and Mian Iftikhar.
Most of the killed were police officials because they were there to stop suicide-bombers from joining the Shia procession observing the rituals of Muharram. But the NWFP law minister put a convenient gloss on the incident: since the Sunnis were killed, he thought it was not a sectarian incident but an act of terrorism. This is wrong. Once we dub an incident as a ‘terrorist’ one, then we open the doors of speculation and are free to blame the ‘enemies of Pakistan’ — which are many — and see the ‘foreign hand’ all over the place, which mostly means India or Kabul. Twist the argument a little more and we have it running like this: the Indians took advantage of Muharram and the sectarian scene in Pakistan and did the dastardly deed to make ‘Muslim fight Muslim’. But this is ridiculous.
We should take stock of the new situation developing out of a worldwide standoff between the two sects of Islam symbolised by the sectarianisation of Al Qaeda in Iraq. For far too long we have accused India of exploiting the schism in Pakistan without producing much evidence to prove the charge. It is also self-damaging to lean on the “no-Muslim-could-do-this” rhetoric because that prevents us from taking any effective remedial action. We are in fact much past the stage when Urdu columnists could get away by praising the Shia leaders (including Grand Ayatollah Sistani of Iraq) for declaring that the Shias killed in Pakistan and Iraq on Ashura in 2003 and 2004 were killed actually by the Americans. In a shoddy follow-up, an ex-chief of the ISI blamed the 2005 suicide bombing of Barri Imam shrine near Islamabad on the Americans and the Jews!
Nor is the NWFP exempt from the curse of sectarianism. The district of Kohat has always been a hotbed of violence between the two communities aroused by unconscionable clerics. Sub-district Hangu was recently the arena of sectarian killings. There are local leaders who openly declare that they are at war with the Shia community and are being lionised in a section of the national press for fighting legal ‘human rights’ battles in Peshawar to free the Al Qaeda men caught in the province. The contagion trickles down from the Kurram Agency where the first carnage occurred in 1986 on the watch of General Ziaul Haq. Later rulers have paid no attention to the war spreading downwards to Aurakzai Agency and from there to the settled district of Kohat. In Aurakzai last year the two communities fought a pitched battle over a common shrine and accounted for scores of dead.
There is little defence against a man who wants to kill himself with explosives strapped around his body. In 2006, the Nishtar Park massacre was accomplished against the Barelvi leadership of Karachi when the ground was under the surveillance of the police. The Mutahidda Majlis-e-Amal (MMA) that rules the NWFP had both the Barelvis and the Shia parties in its alliance but could do nothing to stop their big leaders being killed most probably by boys from the very seminaries which the MMA leaders guard as their own. The disease lies in the discourse of the Pakistani clergy. The language in which they speak to the people is so self-righteously violent that it can only seduce people into killing each other.
It may be recalled that our intelligence establishment and politico-religious leaders continued to support the Taliban in Kabul even after the Taliban could not prevent their soldiers from killing the Shia of Central Afghanistan. Indeed, the idolisation of the Taliban was so great among such forces that even their worst atrocities and glaring weaknesses were not admitted. Thus when Al Qaeda gave refuge to Lashkar-e Jhangvi killers in its training camps outside Kabul no cleric in Pakistan rose to protest. Even today, the Sunni clerics are willing to change course. Therefore our fear is that when the 10th of Muharram comes up, Karachi may see another massacre. *
Saturday, January 27, 2007
Islamabad mullahs threaten suicide attacks
Reconstruct mosques or Else: Islamabad mullahs threaten suicide attacks
* Cleric says 10,000 students to be taught significance of jihad
By Mohammad Kamran and Mohammad Imran
Daily Times, January 27, 2007
ISLAMABAD: The administration of Lal Masjid on Friday threatened the government of suicide attacks if it continues to demolish mosques and madrassas. The clerics also acquired a commitment to this effect from thousands of worshippers at the Friday congregation.
Addressing the Friday sermon, Maulana Abdul Aziz, key prayer leader of Lal Masjid, asked the government to reconstruct the demolished mosques and urged President Musharraf to “seek Allah’s forgiveness” for demolishing “seven mosques in the country”. “We are ready to carry out suicide attacks if the government does not meet our demands,” he said, adding that the clerics would accept General Musharraf president for life if he accepts all their demands in letter and spirit.
Maulana Aziz, who is also the principal of Jamia Hafsa and Jamia Fareedia madrassas, issued a decree after citing verses from the Quran that jihad had become obligatory on all men and women against the backdrop of “prevailing evil in the country”. He demanded the government enforce a system based on the Quran and Sunnah in the country and stop dubbing jihad as terrorism.
He praised the girl students of Jamia Hafsa for besieging the children library, saying, “It was the last resort because all our demonstrations, negotiations and protests fell on deaf ears. This is a practice of the mujahideen all over the world.”
Maulana Aziz said that millions of madrassa students had decided to sacrifice their lives in the name of Allah and the government must realise the gravity of the situation. He said that 10,000 students of Jamia Fareedia would sit in aitekaaf for 40 days to seek “divine help” and they would also be taught about the significance of jihad. “We do not want an armed conflict with the government, but we should not be pushed to the wall,” he added.
* Cleric says 10,000 students to be taught significance of jihad
By Mohammad Kamran and Mohammad Imran
Daily Times, January 27, 2007
ISLAMABAD: The administration of Lal Masjid on Friday threatened the government of suicide attacks if it continues to demolish mosques and madrassas. The clerics also acquired a commitment to this effect from thousands of worshippers at the Friday congregation.
Addressing the Friday sermon, Maulana Abdul Aziz, key prayer leader of Lal Masjid, asked the government to reconstruct the demolished mosques and urged President Musharraf to “seek Allah’s forgiveness” for demolishing “seven mosques in the country”. “We are ready to carry out suicide attacks if the government does not meet our demands,” he said, adding that the clerics would accept General Musharraf president for life if he accepts all their demands in letter and spirit.
Maulana Aziz, who is also the principal of Jamia Hafsa and Jamia Fareedia madrassas, issued a decree after citing verses from the Quran that jihad had become obligatory on all men and women against the backdrop of “prevailing evil in the country”. He demanded the government enforce a system based on the Quran and Sunnah in the country and stop dubbing jihad as terrorism.
He praised the girl students of Jamia Hafsa for besieging the children library, saying, “It was the last resort because all our demonstrations, negotiations and protests fell on deaf ears. This is a practice of the mujahideen all over the world.”
Maulana Aziz said that millions of madrassa students had decided to sacrifice their lives in the name of Allah and the government must realise the gravity of the situation. He said that 10,000 students of Jamia Fareedia would sit in aitekaaf for 40 days to seek “divine help” and they would also be taught about the significance of jihad. “We do not want an armed conflict with the government, but we should not be pushed to the wall,” he added.
Friday, January 26, 2007
Pakistan-Afghanistan Border Crisis: CFR
Pakistan’s Broken Border
January 25, 2007: Prepared by: Carin Zissis
Council On Foreign Relations
The frontier between Pakistan and Afghanistan serves as the flash point for tensions between the two countries as Kabul grows increasingly critical of Islamabad's seeming inability to control cross-border raids by Islamic militants. The solution proposed by Pakistan last month to mine and fence the roughly 1,500-mile Durand line (VOA) did little to reassure Afghans, who have long disputed the boundary. Afghan President Hamid Karzai, whose criticism was echoed by Washington and the United Nations, said Islamabad should instead eliminate terrorist sanctuaries (BBC) within Pakistan rather than separate families who live in the border region. Pashtun tribal leaders on both sides of the boundary warn if Pakistan carries out the plan they will remove any barriers or mines (Pajhwok Afghan News).
Pakistan, under U.S. pressure to stop Taliban incursions into Afghanistan, has sought to place blame across the border. In a Washington Post interview, a Pakistani military spokesman said his country has made genuine attempts to control the border and that Afghanistan also plays a role in cross-border raids by insurgents: "If 25 percent of the problem lies on our side of the border, 75 percent of it lies on the Afghan side."
But even if its intentions are sincere, Pakistan's ability to contain militancy appears increasingly in question. The government of President Pervez Musharraf has proven unable to halt terrorist activities in the semi-autonomous tribal areas near the border. Critics view the government's treaty with the North Waziristan tribal region as a concession to the Taliban and other militants active there rather than a victory for Islamabad. A briefing by the United States Institute of Peace looks at the gap between Pakistan's will and its ability to carry out anti-terrorist activities, saying Pakistan cannot meet the demands of Kabul and the international community because Musharraf lacks credibility.
The likely complicity of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) in sheltering militants—and Musharraf's incapacity to stop the agency from doing so—serves as another obstacle to securing the border. Carlotta Gall, a New York Times journalist who was assaulted by ISI agents while covering the agency's support of an Islamic insurgency, offers this report on ISI's backing of Taliban incursions into Afghanistan. Her article appeared days after Taliban spokesman Mohammad Hanif, captured by Afghani agents near the border, said Taliban supreme leader Mullah Mohammed Omar is hiding out (Guardian) in the Pakistani city of Quetta under the ISI's protection. Omar has remained elusive since fleeing the U.S.-led Afghanistan campaign in 2001. Islamabad denies harboring the Taliban or Omar, and claims the cleric is in Afghanistan heading the insurgency (Hindustan Times) against NATO-led forces.
Pakistan also has repeatedly rejected U.S. claims that it shelters al-Qaeda operatives. Islamabad's foreign ministry spokeswoman recently said, "In breaking the back of al-Qaeda, Pakistan has done more than any other country in the world." As if to punctuate the point, the Pakistani army claimed responsibility for a strike on a suspected al-Qaeda hideout near the Afghan border on January 16. The bombing, which killed eight alleged militants, coincided with U.S. Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates' recent visit to Kabul, where he expressed concern over the rise in the number of cross-border attacks (Bloomberg).
January 25, 2007: Prepared by: Carin Zissis
Council On Foreign Relations
The frontier between Pakistan and Afghanistan serves as the flash point for tensions between the two countries as Kabul grows increasingly critical of Islamabad's seeming inability to control cross-border raids by Islamic militants. The solution proposed by Pakistan last month to mine and fence the roughly 1,500-mile Durand line (VOA) did little to reassure Afghans, who have long disputed the boundary. Afghan President Hamid Karzai, whose criticism was echoed by Washington and the United Nations, said Islamabad should instead eliminate terrorist sanctuaries (BBC) within Pakistan rather than separate families who live in the border region. Pashtun tribal leaders on both sides of the boundary warn if Pakistan carries out the plan they will remove any barriers or mines (Pajhwok Afghan News).
Pakistan, under U.S. pressure to stop Taliban incursions into Afghanistan, has sought to place blame across the border. In a Washington Post interview, a Pakistani military spokesman said his country has made genuine attempts to control the border and that Afghanistan also plays a role in cross-border raids by insurgents: "If 25 percent of the problem lies on our side of the border, 75 percent of it lies on the Afghan side."
But even if its intentions are sincere, Pakistan's ability to contain militancy appears increasingly in question. The government of President Pervez Musharraf has proven unable to halt terrorist activities in the semi-autonomous tribal areas near the border. Critics view the government's treaty with the North Waziristan tribal region as a concession to the Taliban and other militants active there rather than a victory for Islamabad. A briefing by the United States Institute of Peace looks at the gap between Pakistan's will and its ability to carry out anti-terrorist activities, saying Pakistan cannot meet the demands of Kabul and the international community because Musharraf lacks credibility.
The likely complicity of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) in sheltering militants—and Musharraf's incapacity to stop the agency from doing so—serves as another obstacle to securing the border. Carlotta Gall, a New York Times journalist who was assaulted by ISI agents while covering the agency's support of an Islamic insurgency, offers this report on ISI's backing of Taliban incursions into Afghanistan. Her article appeared days after Taliban spokesman Mohammad Hanif, captured by Afghani agents near the border, said Taliban supreme leader Mullah Mohammed Omar is hiding out (Guardian) in the Pakistani city of Quetta under the ISI's protection. Omar has remained elusive since fleeing the U.S.-led Afghanistan campaign in 2001. Islamabad denies harboring the Taliban or Omar, and claims the cleric is in Afghanistan heading the insurgency (Hindustan Times) against NATO-led forces.
Pakistan also has repeatedly rejected U.S. claims that it shelters al-Qaeda operatives. Islamabad's foreign ministry spokeswoman recently said, "In breaking the back of al-Qaeda, Pakistan has done more than any other country in the world." As if to punctuate the point, the Pakistani army claimed responsibility for a strike on a suspected al-Qaeda hideout near the Afghan border on January 16. The bombing, which killed eight alleged militants, coincided with U.S. Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates' recent visit to Kabul, where he expressed concern over the rise in the number of cross-border attacks (Bloomberg).
President Ayub Khan's Legacy
Ayub 40 Years Later
Khalid Hasan
The Friday Times, January 26-February 1, 2007 - Vol. XVIII, No. 49
The fate of books written by holders of power while in office has generally not been a happy one. Seldom does their work outlast them and this is especially true of those who are not born writers, like Vaclav Havel of Czechoslovakia. This is something General Musharraf will do well to remember, regardless of what his sycophants and his inept ghost writer(s) might tell him. As long as he is in office – and from all accounts he plans to stay there till the cows come home, and then some more – he can live in the pink haze in which live all rulers, especially those whose mode of transportation to the presidential palace has been a tank. Seldom has a book by a head of state been pilloried as has been In the Line of Fire. It reminds me of the time when I cycled past a section of the Danube river in Vienna where nature lovers were hanging out to sun themselves. “Most human beings should never be seen undressed,” I said to myself. In the same way, not everyone should write a book.
In the Line of Fire also reminded me of another book – Friends not Masters – which, when it was first published in 1967, many of us refused to read, so tired by then were we of Ayub Khan’s praetorian rule. The way that book was hawked by the official media and the henchmen of the state and the manner in which it was forced down people’s throats had put us off. We condemned the book without reading it. But that was thirty-nine years ago and so one day a month or so ago, I thought I should read Friends not Masters . A friend who was visiting Pakistan brought it back. The original publishers were Oxford University Press, but the copyright it seems is now held by Mr Books, Islamabad, who have done a poor job of the reprint, while claiming that “the moral rights of the author have been asserted.” What that means I do not know. I am going to ask my friend Naeem Bokhari, my legal eagle, to work that one out for me.
Oscar Wilde said he never read a book before reviewing it because “it so prejudices the mind,” which is exactly what those who castigated Friends not Masters were guilty of. But our reasons were political and sprang from our ennui with a ruler who it was said at the time is like the “Ghainta Ghar of Lyallpur,” visible from every direction. I have now read the book and come to the conclusion that it is essential to read it in order to understand how military rule took root in Pakistan and what the early years of independence were like. Compared to Fire, Friends is well-written and thoughtful. Not once does Ayub abuse anyone or use derogatory language, nor does he recount slapping bald-headed people sunning themselves in a public park. It is a book with a great deal of dignity and class, unlike the other work. Another dissimilarity between the two is that Friends is Ayub’s work, not Qudratullah Shahab’s or Altaf Gauhar’s, as popularly believed, though they helped in framing questions that Ayub addressed. His opening line is: “This is essentially a spoken book.” He recorded his answers to the questions framed on tape and by 1965 he had a 900-page transcript, which he revised several times. Ayub was a bright, clear-headed man with a progressive outlook on Islam and social issues.
His book, though written in office, is an exception to such works since it remains readable four decades later and unlike its present-day counterpart, it provides a great deal of truthful and important information. The book begins with his birth in the lovely Hazara village of Haryana on 14 May 1907 and ends with the 1965 presidential election. It is a pity that it does not cover the event that was to lead to the separation of East Pakistan, the war of 1965. As a child Ayub used to ride a mule to school which was four miles away and run by Sikhs, whom Ayub describes as a “large-hearted people” whose rituals and Punjabi songs fascinated him. One line that he recalled from his childhood was: Sau rung tamashay takday, akhiyaan nahin rajyaan (One is never done living even after a lifetime of watching the world go by). His father wanted him to go to Aligarh and that was where he went. While there, he joined the army and sailed for England in 1926 on a ship by the name of SS Rawalpindi . Ayub wrote in his foreword, “I have woken up from sleep to see whether the sound on the window panes is the long-awaited rain. I feel parched inside when I see a drought-stricken field. The soil of Pakistan fascinates me, for it is my soil, I belong to it.”
The shenanigans of those under whose control the ship of state fell, after the murder of Liaquat Ali Khan, led Pakistan into the quagmire of military rule from which it has never escaped. The lack of principle that characterised the actions of those men, their refusal to deal with East Pakistan in a fair way and the ascendancy of the civil service bureaucracy to key positions made the business of government a farce. Sadly, it was the politicians and the jacked-up civil servants who thrust power into Ayub’s hands, who made him a member of the cabinet while he was still in the service of the state. The two men whose lust for power at all costs brought in martial rule were Ghulam Muhammad and Iskander Mirza, though the villain of the piece must remain Mirza. Ayub wrote that he only moved against Mirza because “we received information that his wife was quarrelling with him all the time: she kept telling him that he had made a great mistake, but now that it was done, he should finish off Ayub Khan.” Nahid Mirza, who wore a diamond necklace gifted to her by the notorious smuggler Qasim Bhatti, was the Lady Macbeth of Pakistan.
Ayub did both good and harm to Pakistan and in the end, when he could have had a chance to redeem himself by handing over the reins of government to the Speaker of the National Assembly, he let himself be overpowered by Yahya Khan, who had been planning to overthrow him after his stroke. Had Ayub only told the nation that the Army was trying to overthrow him, Yahya’s intrigue and conspiracy would have failed. But he did not do that, although his young law minister SM Zafar advised that course of action. I know because when the Ayub regime was tottering, Zafar came to Lahore and told some of us, including his great friend Sardar Muhammad Sadiq, of his advice to Ayub.
Ayub died feeling disillusioned with the people of Pakistan who he believed, had been ill-served by their politicians, and for whom he had done more than anyone had done for them before. It is ironic that there is not even a two-brick structure to remember the man in the city of Islamabad, which he brought to birth. The home where he lived and died was sold by his sons although they were in no great need of money. Compared to what we have had since, Ayub stands quite tall. The long-distance truck drivers who have painted his picture under the caption ‘ Teri yaad aayee teray jaanay ke baad’ may after all have a point.
Thursday, January 25, 2007
Islamic Society of Boston has some questions
Islamic Society's turn to get answers
Boston Globe: By Jessica Masse | January 24, 2007
IT SEEMS that the normal rules of civility and legal tradition no longer apply to Muslims living in America. The mere mention of the words "Muslim" and "Saudi Arabia" in the same breath elicits accusations of "ties to terror" and charges of extremism in a complete reversal of innocent until proven guilty.
For example, in 2005, the Islamic Society of Boston was approved for a $1 million loan from the Islamic Development Bank, with headquarters in Saudi Arabia, to partially fund its ISB Cultural Center in Roxbury. According to the new logic of guilty-by-association, because the ISB is a Muslim organization and the Islamic Development Bank is in the Middle East, the public should be scared.
Yes, the ISB borrowed money from the Islamic Development Bank, which has ties to Islamic countries of all types. But the institution's members are Islamic countries that practice all sects and strains of Islam -- Sunni, Shia, Sufi, Wahhabii, Salafi. The bank finances projects jointly with the United Nations and the US government. The assertion that this enormous, multilateral bank with 20-year ties to the UN promotes a Wahhabi strain of Islam by means of its lending practices is absurd. This paranoid logic argues that if you are Muslim and have any contact with Saudi Arabia you must be a terrorist.
This game of guilt by association is a threat not only to Muslims, but to anyone who is unfortunate enough to be politically unpopular in this atmosphere of fear and insecurity. Such use of fear-mongering tactics against Muslims is the same mean-spiritedness that led to the internment of Japanese citizens during World War II.
Fifty years from now, people will look back on the stereotyping of Muslims with equal shame. As David Cole, law professor at Georgetown University, recently noted in the Washington Post, the administration launched a post- 9/11 campaign of profiling Muslims and those from Arab countries, "calling in 8,000 young men for FBI interviews and 80,000 more for registration, fingerprinting, and photographing by immigration authorities. Not one of those 88,000 has been convicted of terrorism."
The public has every right to ask why the Islamic Society of Boston turned to the Middle East for assistance in funding its $14 million mosque. This requires some knowledge about Islam. For Muslims, obtaining interest-free (sharia-compliant) funding is a religious mandate. Therefore, traditional funding has not been an option. With donations trickling to a halt because of unscrupulous charges of ties to radicalism by groups in opposition to the mosque, the society was compelled to seek assistance funding the partially built structure.
Yes, Muslims sought a loan to pay for part of the expense of building a beautiful mosque and cultural center in the heart of Boston. This is not unlawful. It is not un American. To challenge the Islamic Society of Boston's right to obtain legitimate, ethically appropriate financing on the basis of the location of the bank is denying the society and its religious community the right to do as all other religious communities in America have done -- to raise money to build a place of worship.
The public has questions for Muslims in America and we have responded. We have opened our mosque to the public, taken part in outreach efforts, and worked extensively to foster understanding of Islam and Muslims. We have been answering questions for years and we will continue to do so. However, asking questions and providing answers is a two-way street.
Here are a few questions of our own: What are the true reasons a political advocacy group decided to organize a media campaign and initiate a lawsuit against us? Why are Muslims in Boston, who are without a single structure designed and built as a mosque, sued and defamed when they purchase a vacant parcel of land from the city as part of an urban renewal program, even though 17 other such transactions were made with churches and synagogues? And why, when we have offered to sit down with those people asking questions over the past two years, have they refused to talk to us, preferring to hurl accusations without listening to our answers?
We have been and remain ready to join in the discussion.
Jessica Masse is the interfaith coordinator of the Islamic Society of Boston.
Boston Globe: By Jessica Masse | January 24, 2007
IT SEEMS that the normal rules of civility and legal tradition no longer apply to Muslims living in America. The mere mention of the words "Muslim" and "Saudi Arabia" in the same breath elicits accusations of "ties to terror" and charges of extremism in a complete reversal of innocent until proven guilty.
For example, in 2005, the Islamic Society of Boston was approved for a $1 million loan from the Islamic Development Bank, with headquarters in Saudi Arabia, to partially fund its ISB Cultural Center in Roxbury. According to the new logic of guilty-by-association, because the ISB is a Muslim organization and the Islamic Development Bank is in the Middle East, the public should be scared.
Yes, the ISB borrowed money from the Islamic Development Bank, which has ties to Islamic countries of all types. But the institution's members are Islamic countries that practice all sects and strains of Islam -- Sunni, Shia, Sufi, Wahhabii, Salafi. The bank finances projects jointly with the United Nations and the US government. The assertion that this enormous, multilateral bank with 20-year ties to the UN promotes a Wahhabi strain of Islam by means of its lending practices is absurd. This paranoid logic argues that if you are Muslim and have any contact with Saudi Arabia you must be a terrorist.
This game of guilt by association is a threat not only to Muslims, but to anyone who is unfortunate enough to be politically unpopular in this atmosphere of fear and insecurity. Such use of fear-mongering tactics against Muslims is the same mean-spiritedness that led to the internment of Japanese citizens during World War II.
Fifty years from now, people will look back on the stereotyping of Muslims with equal shame. As David Cole, law professor at Georgetown University, recently noted in the Washington Post, the administration launched a post- 9/11 campaign of profiling Muslims and those from Arab countries, "calling in 8,000 young men for FBI interviews and 80,000 more for registration, fingerprinting, and photographing by immigration authorities. Not one of those 88,000 has been convicted of terrorism."
The public has every right to ask why the Islamic Society of Boston turned to the Middle East for assistance in funding its $14 million mosque. This requires some knowledge about Islam. For Muslims, obtaining interest-free (sharia-compliant) funding is a religious mandate. Therefore, traditional funding has not been an option. With donations trickling to a halt because of unscrupulous charges of ties to radicalism by groups in opposition to the mosque, the society was compelled to seek assistance funding the partially built structure.
Yes, Muslims sought a loan to pay for part of the expense of building a beautiful mosque and cultural center in the heart of Boston. This is not unlawful. It is not un American. To challenge the Islamic Society of Boston's right to obtain legitimate, ethically appropriate financing on the basis of the location of the bank is denying the society and its religious community the right to do as all other religious communities in America have done -- to raise money to build a place of worship.
The public has questions for Muslims in America and we have responded. We have opened our mosque to the public, taken part in outreach efforts, and worked extensively to foster understanding of Islam and Muslims. We have been answering questions for years and we will continue to do so. However, asking questions and providing answers is a two-way street.
Here are a few questions of our own: What are the true reasons a political advocacy group decided to organize a media campaign and initiate a lawsuit against us? Why are Muslims in Boston, who are without a single structure designed and built as a mosque, sued and defamed when they purchase a vacant parcel of land from the city as part of an urban renewal program, even though 17 other such transactions were made with churches and synagogues? And why, when we have offered to sit down with those people asking questions over the past two years, have they refused to talk to us, preferring to hurl accusations without listening to our answers?
We have been and remain ready to join in the discussion.
Jessica Masse is the interfaith coordinator of the Islamic Society of Boston.
Wednesday, January 24, 2007
Credibility of Intelligence Reports?
Role of agencies in appointment, promotion assailed
By Amir Wasim
Dawn, January 24, 2007
ISLAMABAD, Jan 23: Acting Senate Chairman Jan Mohammad Jamali on Tuesday criticised the role of intelligence agencies in the promotion and appointment of officers in the civil services and called for a system based on merit.
He made these remarks when senators from the treasury and opposition jointly voiced their concern over the government policy of ignoring officers from Balochistan for appointments and promotions.
Pointing out the faulty method of preparing “I-reports”, Mr Jamali said he did not even smoke but one such report declared that he was a drunkard.
“The country cannot run on these lines. Justice needs to be done to run the country,” he added.
Earlier, during the question hour opposition senators staged a token walkout to protest against the alleged discriminatory attitude towards the people of Balochistan.
The issue came under discussion when in response to a question of the MMA Senator Ismail Buledi, the Federal Minister for Parliamentary Affairs Sher Afgan Khan Niazi told the Senate that out of 262 officers promoted from BS-19 to BS-20 during the last five years, only 14 belonged to Balochistan.
Similarly, there were only three officers from Balochistan among 154 officers who got promotions from BS-20 to BS-21 during the last five years.
The minister in response to another query told the house that there was only one BS-21 officer of the District Management Group having Balochistan domicile, presently posted as acting secretary in the parliamentary affairs division of his ministry.
These replies created uproar in the Senate when several opposition and treasury members, mostly from Balochistan, took the floor and started criticizing the minister when he claimed that promotions were being made on merit and in accordance with the rules.
The opposition members regretted that out of a total 52 federal secretaries, there was only one man from Balochistan province and he too has been working as an acting secretary. How you can say Balochistan is part of Pakistan, said Buledi.
Raza Mohammad Raza of the Pakhtoonkhwa Milli Awami Party (PkMAP) said the data provided by the minister was a proof that injustice is being committed with the people of Balochistan.
Another PkMAP Senator Abdul Rahim Mandokhel demanded that provinces’ share in the federal income should be distributed on the basis of poverty and not population.
Dr Abdul Malik criticized the promotion of 10 army majors to secretary level who, he alleged, have not even cleared the Federal Public Service Commission (FPSC) exams.
The MMA Senator Kamran Murtaza said that retired generals and their relatives have been occupying all key posts in the country at the cost of merit and provincial quota.
Joining the opposition members, ruling party senators Pari Gul Agha, Wali Muhammad Badini, Rehana Yahya Baloch and Nisar Memon also drew the attention of acting chairman towards this injustice with the people of Balochistan.
By Amir Wasim
Dawn, January 24, 2007
ISLAMABAD, Jan 23: Acting Senate Chairman Jan Mohammad Jamali on Tuesday criticised the role of intelligence agencies in the promotion and appointment of officers in the civil services and called for a system based on merit.
He made these remarks when senators from the treasury and opposition jointly voiced their concern over the government policy of ignoring officers from Balochistan for appointments and promotions.
Pointing out the faulty method of preparing “I-reports”, Mr Jamali said he did not even smoke but one such report declared that he was a drunkard.
“The country cannot run on these lines. Justice needs to be done to run the country,” he added.
Earlier, during the question hour opposition senators staged a token walkout to protest against the alleged discriminatory attitude towards the people of Balochistan.
The issue came under discussion when in response to a question of the MMA Senator Ismail Buledi, the Federal Minister for Parliamentary Affairs Sher Afgan Khan Niazi told the Senate that out of 262 officers promoted from BS-19 to BS-20 during the last five years, only 14 belonged to Balochistan.
Similarly, there were only three officers from Balochistan among 154 officers who got promotions from BS-20 to BS-21 during the last five years.
The minister in response to another query told the house that there was only one BS-21 officer of the District Management Group having Balochistan domicile, presently posted as acting secretary in the parliamentary affairs division of his ministry.
These replies created uproar in the Senate when several opposition and treasury members, mostly from Balochistan, took the floor and started criticizing the minister when he claimed that promotions were being made on merit and in accordance with the rules.
The opposition members regretted that out of a total 52 federal secretaries, there was only one man from Balochistan province and he too has been working as an acting secretary. How you can say Balochistan is part of Pakistan, said Buledi.
Raza Mohammad Raza of the Pakhtoonkhwa Milli Awami Party (PkMAP) said the data provided by the minister was a proof that injustice is being committed with the people of Balochistan.
Another PkMAP Senator Abdul Rahim Mandokhel demanded that provinces’ share in the federal income should be distributed on the basis of poverty and not population.
Dr Abdul Malik criticized the promotion of 10 army majors to secretary level who, he alleged, have not even cleared the Federal Public Service Commission (FPSC) exams.
The MMA Senator Kamran Murtaza said that retired generals and their relatives have been occupying all key posts in the country at the cost of merit and provincial quota.
Joining the opposition members, ruling party senators Pari Gul Agha, Wali Muhammad Badini, Rehana Yahya Baloch and Nisar Memon also drew the attention of acting chairman towards this injustice with the people of Balochistan.
Waziristan Crisis Expanding
EDITORIAL: Weakness in Waziristan can no longer be concealed
Daily Times, January 24, 2007
A suicide car bomber killed four soldiers of the Pakistan army when it hit an army convoy on its way from Bannu to Miranshah in North Waziristan on Monday. This killing was supposed to be in retaliation against the Pakistan army’s attack a week ago in a suspected militant hideout of warlord Baitullah Mehsud in Zamazola in South Waziristan. He has now hit back and killed our soldiers. And the style adopted was purely Arab, meaning that our warlords are indoctrinated and trained by the Arabs of Al Qaeda.
The military spokesman says the attack was carried out by those who don’t like the peace deals made by the government with local ‘pro-Taliban’ leaders of the region. The place where the attack was mounted is near the border with North Waziristan, the area from which the army had removed all its checkposts following the deal.
While this tragic incident took place in the tribal agency, NATO soldiers fired on the Pakistani border check-post from Paktika and killed a Pakistani soldier, saying they had received fire from him. This is symptomatic of the distrust that NATO forces on the other side of the border have been expressing about Pakistan’s claim that it is not sheltering the Taliban invaders and not hiding the Al Qaeda leadership. As if on cue, Al Qaeda’s number two, Aiman Al Zawahiri, has now let out a tirade against the United States on one of his websites, saying that if Mr Bush killed him the American people will continue to die in the future.
Whenever the Pakistan army has carried out an operation in the tribal areas against suspected terrorists taking shelter there, someone has struck back to punish the Pakistani soldiers for it. This was just another act of revenge to establish the credibility of the militants that Pakistan is trying to fight. If you attack us, expect to die, seems to be the message. As it is, more and more people are sceptical about there being any truth in the government’s claim about the presence of ‘foreigners’ in Waziristan. As the political objection to carrying out operations in the tribal areas mounts, it is risky to deploy the army there. But the army can refuse to fight if it thinks that it is confronted by Pakistani citizens angry at their presence.
This would happen to any army operation if it got bogged down. And that is what has happened. When the troops went into Waziristan four years ago Islamabad said there were foreigners there. But, because of the political landscape in Pakistan, the opposition led by the clerical alliance MMA kept swearing that there were no foreigners there. Some Al Qaeda-linked local leaders like Nek Muhammad were killed but the disturbance became more intensified, especially when a Guantanamo Bay returnee, Abdullah Mehsud, began his spree of terrorist attacks. He was joined by Baitullah Mehsud who became big after signing a ‘pact’ in Peshawar for a lot of money.
Now Islamabad is in a strange predicament. It began by claiming that there were foreigners in the area, but when Afghanistan and NATO began complaining of the same thing it immediately went into denial. However, when it used to say that there were foreigners in Waziristan, the opposition politicians shouted in unison that the government was lying. Now that the government has joined everyone else saying there are no foreigners there, the world outside refuses to believe it. Pakistan now fears ‘pre-emptive attacks’ and has protested sovereignty to warn that any such attempt would be opposed tooth and nail because ‘it has full control over its territory’.
To all appearances, Pakistan lacks full control of a large chunk of its territory on the basis of its own constitutional arrangement called Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA). This area was used for long years of jihad which Pakistan fought against the Soviet Union and then in pursuit of what it called the ‘strategic depth’ against India. (Ironically, jack-in-the-box India is now sitting inside Afghanistan!) The economy of the people living in these territories became integrated with Afghanistan and its system of contraband trade, losing all interest in becoming a part of the Pakistan economy which requires registration and accountability of wealth.
Now that money is available for quick development in FATA to make up for lost years, it is lack of security that hampers investment. Like Iraq, FATA cannot be made economically viable as an integral part of Pakistan because no contractor can go there for development works. The Chinese who were abducted by Abdullah Mehsud have refused to return to the area.
The ‘foreigners’ have killed so many of the senior citizens familiar with Pakistani governance that no one is left who will support Pakistan. Therefore one is forced to think that Al Qaeda cannot find a better hiding place than this territory. It has suffered recent reversals in Somalia and Sinkiang while its success is only in Iraq because there it is mostly killing the Shia. Therefore it is time to admit the reality and defuse the impression that Pakistan is actually playing a double game. *
Daily Times, January 24, 2007
A suicide car bomber killed four soldiers of the Pakistan army when it hit an army convoy on its way from Bannu to Miranshah in North Waziristan on Monday. This killing was supposed to be in retaliation against the Pakistan army’s attack a week ago in a suspected militant hideout of warlord Baitullah Mehsud in Zamazola in South Waziristan. He has now hit back and killed our soldiers. And the style adopted was purely Arab, meaning that our warlords are indoctrinated and trained by the Arabs of Al Qaeda.
The military spokesman says the attack was carried out by those who don’t like the peace deals made by the government with local ‘pro-Taliban’ leaders of the region. The place where the attack was mounted is near the border with North Waziristan, the area from which the army had removed all its checkposts following the deal.
While this tragic incident took place in the tribal agency, NATO soldiers fired on the Pakistani border check-post from Paktika and killed a Pakistani soldier, saying they had received fire from him. This is symptomatic of the distrust that NATO forces on the other side of the border have been expressing about Pakistan’s claim that it is not sheltering the Taliban invaders and not hiding the Al Qaeda leadership. As if on cue, Al Qaeda’s number two, Aiman Al Zawahiri, has now let out a tirade against the United States on one of his websites, saying that if Mr Bush killed him the American people will continue to die in the future.
Whenever the Pakistan army has carried out an operation in the tribal areas against suspected terrorists taking shelter there, someone has struck back to punish the Pakistani soldiers for it. This was just another act of revenge to establish the credibility of the militants that Pakistan is trying to fight. If you attack us, expect to die, seems to be the message. As it is, more and more people are sceptical about there being any truth in the government’s claim about the presence of ‘foreigners’ in Waziristan. As the political objection to carrying out operations in the tribal areas mounts, it is risky to deploy the army there. But the army can refuse to fight if it thinks that it is confronted by Pakistani citizens angry at their presence.
This would happen to any army operation if it got bogged down. And that is what has happened. When the troops went into Waziristan four years ago Islamabad said there were foreigners there. But, because of the political landscape in Pakistan, the opposition led by the clerical alliance MMA kept swearing that there were no foreigners there. Some Al Qaeda-linked local leaders like Nek Muhammad were killed but the disturbance became more intensified, especially when a Guantanamo Bay returnee, Abdullah Mehsud, began his spree of terrorist attacks. He was joined by Baitullah Mehsud who became big after signing a ‘pact’ in Peshawar for a lot of money.
Now Islamabad is in a strange predicament. It began by claiming that there were foreigners in the area, but when Afghanistan and NATO began complaining of the same thing it immediately went into denial. However, when it used to say that there were foreigners in Waziristan, the opposition politicians shouted in unison that the government was lying. Now that the government has joined everyone else saying there are no foreigners there, the world outside refuses to believe it. Pakistan now fears ‘pre-emptive attacks’ and has protested sovereignty to warn that any such attempt would be opposed tooth and nail because ‘it has full control over its territory’.
To all appearances, Pakistan lacks full control of a large chunk of its territory on the basis of its own constitutional arrangement called Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA). This area was used for long years of jihad which Pakistan fought against the Soviet Union and then in pursuit of what it called the ‘strategic depth’ against India. (Ironically, jack-in-the-box India is now sitting inside Afghanistan!) The economy of the people living in these territories became integrated with Afghanistan and its system of contraband trade, losing all interest in becoming a part of the Pakistan economy which requires registration and accountability of wealth.
Now that money is available for quick development in FATA to make up for lost years, it is lack of security that hampers investment. Like Iraq, FATA cannot be made economically viable as an integral part of Pakistan because no contractor can go there for development works. The Chinese who were abducted by Abdullah Mehsud have refused to return to the area.
The ‘foreigners’ have killed so many of the senior citizens familiar with Pakistani governance that no one is left who will support Pakistan. Therefore one is forced to think that Al Qaeda cannot find a better hiding place than this territory. It has suffered recent reversals in Somalia and Sinkiang while its success is only in Iraq because there it is mostly killing the Shia. Therefore it is time to admit the reality and defuse the impression that Pakistan is actually playing a double game. *
Tuesday, January 23, 2007
Muslims in Canada: Concerns and Perspectives
Canadian Muslim right attacks Muslim MP over Israel trip
By Khalid Hasan
Daily Times, January 23, 2007
WASHINGTON: Wajid Khan, a former Pakistan Air Force (PAF) fighter pilot who was shot down over India during the 1971 conflict and now a member of the Canadian Parliament, has come under attack from his own Muslim and Arab ‘brothers” for having visited Israel.
But Khan, who remained a Prisoner of War (PoW) in India for over a year, has refused to express regret over his mission, which his supporters have stressed was undertaken in the interest of peace and resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
According to a column appearing Monday’s edition of the Canada-based Globe and Mail, Khan ruled out resigning from his parliamentary post, as some of his co-religionists have demanded. The paper quoted Khan as telling Muslim community leader Tarek Fatah: “Listen to me very carefully, my community is the Canadian community; I am not the ambassador of some country to Canada; I am an MP representing Canadians and my primary interest is Canada’s welfare. I am not in politics to represent some overseas group or government. Yes, I am a Muslim, but I cannot be held hostage by self-appointed community leaders who have their own hidden agendas.”
Khan’s assertion was in response to a joint statement by Canadian Arab Federation President Khaled Mouammar and Canadian Islamic Congress President Mohamed Elmasry, in which they demanded that he publish his Middle East report to the prime minister, while attacking his credibility and mocking his competence.
In their joint statement, Mouammar and Elmasry claimed there was nothing in Khan’s “past or present activities and experience that would qualify him as suitable for such a sensitive mission”. They also alleged that “most of the countries he as visited know nothing about him as a representative of Canada”.
Elmasry went on to say: “Wajid Khan is not a professor of political science . . . and his knowledge of the Middle East is very limited. He’s a Member of Parliament and he so happens to be a Muslim, and he does not represent the Muslim viewpoint.”
The paper quoted community leader Fatah, when asked to comment on the joint statement, as saying: “The words were clumsy, yet the underlying message was clear: Wajid Khan’s ancestry is Pakistani, not Arab. He is not a good Muslim, and he does not qualify to speak for the Arab community.”
Offering his own perspective of the joint statement against Khan, Fatah went on to say: “Ethnic politics has sunk to a new low. Once more, religion has been inserted to deride one’s political opponent.”
He also said that while valid, the demand that Khan’s report be published remained “suspicious”, pointing out that neither the Canadian Arab Federation nor the Canadian Islamic Congress could explain why they never made similar demands of Sarkis Assadourian – the Syrian-born Canadian MP who acted as globetrotting special adviser to a former prime minister.
He also said that reports on Khan’s fact-finding trip indicated that he supported a much more pro-Palestinian position than that pursued by the Conservative government prior to his mission. Thus, Fatah argued, for Canadian Arab and Islamic leaders to slam an MP who clearly supported their cause indicated, at best, poor leadership, if not outright “misguided jealousy”.
Salma Siddiqui, a vice-president of the secular Muslim Canadian Congress, appeared to agree with Fatah’s perspective. Although keen to distance herself form Khan’s politics, Siddiqui – an Ottawa businesswoman and long-time Liberal – issued a statement in defence of the former Liberal MP.
“Attacks on Wajid Khan have very little to do with the merits of his Middle East trip. It is more to do with a sense of misguided jealousy many Islamists feel when seeing a secular Muslim MP being chosen to advise the prime minister.”
The Globe and Mail also noted that Khan’s refusal to meet Hamas and Hezbollah representatives during his trip might also have riled his critics. So too could his denunciation of Canada-based Islamist extremists at the time of the alleged Toronto terror plot, which resulted in one imam threatening him with political oblivion in the next election.
By Khalid Hasan
Daily Times, January 23, 2007
WASHINGTON: Wajid Khan, a former Pakistan Air Force (PAF) fighter pilot who was shot down over India during the 1971 conflict and now a member of the Canadian Parliament, has come under attack from his own Muslim and Arab ‘brothers” for having visited Israel.
But Khan, who remained a Prisoner of War (PoW) in India for over a year, has refused to express regret over his mission, which his supporters have stressed was undertaken in the interest of peace and resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
According to a column appearing Monday’s edition of the Canada-based Globe and Mail, Khan ruled out resigning from his parliamentary post, as some of his co-religionists have demanded. The paper quoted Khan as telling Muslim community leader Tarek Fatah: “Listen to me very carefully, my community is the Canadian community; I am not the ambassador of some country to Canada; I am an MP representing Canadians and my primary interest is Canada’s welfare. I am not in politics to represent some overseas group or government. Yes, I am a Muslim, but I cannot be held hostage by self-appointed community leaders who have their own hidden agendas.”
Khan’s assertion was in response to a joint statement by Canadian Arab Federation President Khaled Mouammar and Canadian Islamic Congress President Mohamed Elmasry, in which they demanded that he publish his Middle East report to the prime minister, while attacking his credibility and mocking his competence.
In their joint statement, Mouammar and Elmasry claimed there was nothing in Khan’s “past or present activities and experience that would qualify him as suitable for such a sensitive mission”. They also alleged that “most of the countries he as visited know nothing about him as a representative of Canada”.
Elmasry went on to say: “Wajid Khan is not a professor of political science . . . and his knowledge of the Middle East is very limited. He’s a Member of Parliament and he so happens to be a Muslim, and he does not represent the Muslim viewpoint.”
The paper quoted community leader Fatah, when asked to comment on the joint statement, as saying: “The words were clumsy, yet the underlying message was clear: Wajid Khan’s ancestry is Pakistani, not Arab. He is not a good Muslim, and he does not qualify to speak for the Arab community.”
Offering his own perspective of the joint statement against Khan, Fatah went on to say: “Ethnic politics has sunk to a new low. Once more, religion has been inserted to deride one’s political opponent.”
He also said that while valid, the demand that Khan’s report be published remained “suspicious”, pointing out that neither the Canadian Arab Federation nor the Canadian Islamic Congress could explain why they never made similar demands of Sarkis Assadourian – the Syrian-born Canadian MP who acted as globetrotting special adviser to a former prime minister.
He also said that reports on Khan’s fact-finding trip indicated that he supported a much more pro-Palestinian position than that pursued by the Conservative government prior to his mission. Thus, Fatah argued, for Canadian Arab and Islamic leaders to slam an MP who clearly supported their cause indicated, at best, poor leadership, if not outright “misguided jealousy”.
Salma Siddiqui, a vice-president of the secular Muslim Canadian Congress, appeared to agree with Fatah’s perspective. Although keen to distance herself form Khan’s politics, Siddiqui – an Ottawa businesswoman and long-time Liberal – issued a statement in defence of the former Liberal MP.
“Attacks on Wajid Khan have very little to do with the merits of his Middle East trip. It is more to do with a sense of misguided jealousy many Islamists feel when seeing a secular Muslim MP being chosen to advise the prime minister.”
The Globe and Mail also noted that Khan’s refusal to meet Hamas and Hezbollah representatives during his trip might also have riled his critics. So too could his denunciation of Canada-based Islamist extremists at the time of the alleged Toronto terror plot, which resulted in one imam threatening him with political oblivion in the next election.
Sunday, January 21, 2007
Understanding Rise of the New "Jihadis" in Pakistan
VIEW: Explaining social schizophrenia
Dr Ayesha Siddiqa
Daily Times, January 22, 2007
In trying to explain my opinion on the social schizophrenia of the Bahawalpuri society, Ejaz Haider has mentioned the increase in the Deobandi influence in the Southern district. He is right. The area has traditionally been a Barelvi stronghold. But the rise of the Deobandi school has resulted in no small measure to the rise of the jihadi who is also, for the most part, sectarian.
I do not have the expertise to comment on the differences and nuances of the two creeds but, given the feedback on the earlier article, I find it important to explain what seems to have happened to Bahawalpur, once known for its Sufi tradition, its poets and its writers.
Much before the age of ‘enlightened moderation’, Bahawalpur glowed due to its tradition of tolerance and its rich cultural heritage. A certain level of conservatism notwithstanding the society offered generous space to great men and women of letters. The great Sufi poet Bulleh Shah hailed from Uch Gilaniyan in Bahawalpur from where his family later shifted to Multan and then to a place near Kasur. Bahawalpur being the seat of power of the princely state also contributed to Persian literature. After 1947, the focus shifted to Urdu literature and the district can boast great names such as Khalid Akhter, Zahoor Azar and Jamila Hashmi.
The district has also produced great names in the performing arts (Uzma Gillani and forgotten names such as Tahira Khan who had, during the 1960s earned the title of ‘Dukhter-e-Bahawalpur’ (daughter of Bahawalpur) and was rated by the connoisseurs of theatre and film as an actress comparable with Elizabeth Taylor).
The Sufi culture gave to Bahawalpuri society a certain tolerance and equanimity. We were not known for passionate reaction or outrage. Resultantly, crimes such as murder or honour killing were largely unheard of. A Bahawalpuri finds it difficult to equate that culture with the trend in the past decade-and-half of Southern Punjab producing extremists.
While Riaz Basra and Masood Azhar are better known, the list is long. Bahawalpur also became known for sectarian tension, a development unheard of even during the 1960s and the 1970s. Today, there are about 15,000 trained jihadis in the Bahawalpur division which comprises the three districts of Bahawalpur, Bahawalnagar and Rahim Yar Khan. It is not clear as to how many of these are still active, particularly after 2003-2004. This is the dateline for some apparent shift in Islamabad’s policy towards the militancy after which quite a few militants got absorbed in other professions and settled back in their villages.
Surely, this is no different from other parts of Punjab. But it becomes more surprising in the context of the area’s cultural history; plus, Southern Punjab is culturally different from Northern and Central Punjab.
The involvement of Bahawalpur in the business of Jihad is linked to the overall transformation of state policy during the 1980s when General Zia-ul Haq’s regime encouraged militancy and a puritanical form of religion in support of its larger military plan to fight a war in Afghanistan and on other fronts, mostly domestic. This period also saw the rise in the number of seminaries in Bahawalpur. In fact, a district government study, kept confidential, conceded the increase in the number of madrassahs and linked them with rise in sectarianism and violence in the district. The report clearly points to the sources of funding for each madrassah and its ideological orientation. The pattern for the report was later copied to study the issue all over the Punjab province.
The issue was not the presence of madrassahs but the deliberate proliferation of these schools and their dominance by puritanical ideologues. Traditionally, religious seminaries were part of the Sufi shrines where the students were not only instructed in religious norms and law but also Persian. Therefore, the older and more traditional madrassahs were also the repositories of precious manuscripts in Arabic and Persian.
Incidentally, Islamabad manipulated the existing madrassah tradition in Bahawalpur to plant and encourage a more puritanical brand of religion. Such deliberate grafting significantly contributed to changing the overall social environment resulting in not only greater Puritanism but also ideological fragmentation.
The proliferation of different sects and religious schools of thought, which are amply represented through their independent mosques and madrassah, denotes the growing social divide. It is almost comical to see the different mosques observing their independent times for azaan (prayer call) based on their interpretation of religion. Incidentally, the religious divide is one of the many divisions. Other fault-lines, however, do not form part of the current discussion.
The state’s encouragement of puritanical religion is what I call the exogenous factor. The implicit and explicit support to outfits such as Jaish or the entire jihad industry created a peculiar relationship between the jihadis and the larger society based on the rising power of the latter. A lot of people drifted towards the puritanical agenda to benefit from the windfall of the power and influence of the militants who had greater access to financial and other material resources. These organisations’ comfortable access to weapons also attracted young men who wanted to renegotiate their individual position within the larger society.
Therefore, the exogenous factor dovetailed into the endogenous factor or the social impetus to adopt puritanical religious ideology. I relate the endogenous factor to the feudal nature of the socio-political system which is inherently incapable of allowing a renegotiation of power relationships within the society.
It is interesting to watch the movement of capital in Southern Punjab. While the power of the traditional feudal, especially the large landowners, has increased due to their adoption of other means of capital generation and power accumulation, the financial capacity of mid-ranking landowners seems to have changed. The large landowners have gone into industrialisation or joined the bureaucracy to enhance their power. The financial prowess of the mid-ranking landowners (landholding of 50-500 acres) is now challenged due to the emergence of the rural indigenous bourgeoisie or capitalist class who can claim greater financial worth but minimal political power. These belong mostly to the trader-merchant class which has also built land assets to match the traditional landed-feudal. However, the accumulation of land did not change the power-political relationship. Power continues to remain in the hands of the traditional landed-feudal class.
In this social background, the puritanical ideology represented a tool for renegotiating power relationship, especially where the centre of power could not be moved away from families who were the pirs of the area. Considering the public’s association with or reverence for the pirs and their families, it was almost impossible for the new capital to grab power unless they could create the capacity to dismantle or challenge the traditional notions of faith and religion.
The new capital or the trader-merchant class in Bahawalpur is involved in funding Deobandi and Wahhabi madrassahs. In fact, even in smaller villages mosques are no longer community affairs but have the patronage of a group or family of trader-merchants. The mosque imam is paid and appointed by the financiers of the mosque and encouraged to propagate a particular brand of Islam which often brings them in direct confrontation with other mosques.
The impact of such a development has multi-layered consequences but the three most significant are: (a) the rift among different religious schools of thought, (b) a shift away from the Sufi tradition to Wahhabism, and (c) a silent confrontation between the old and the new powerhouses represented by the multiple religious ideologies and their related mosques.
Presently, the new capital and their religious partners have not mustered sufficient critical mass to challenge the traditional centres of power which might happen at some future time and date. Meanwhile, the internal tension to shift the centre of power would result in greater friction and fragmentation. That could change the entire character of the Bahawalpuri society.
The writer is an Islamabad-based independent defence analyst and author of the forthcoming book, Military Inc, Inside Pakistan’s Military Economy
Dr Ayesha Siddiqa
Daily Times, January 22, 2007
In trying to explain my opinion on the social schizophrenia of the Bahawalpuri society, Ejaz Haider has mentioned the increase in the Deobandi influence in the Southern district. He is right. The area has traditionally been a Barelvi stronghold. But the rise of the Deobandi school has resulted in no small measure to the rise of the jihadi who is also, for the most part, sectarian.
I do not have the expertise to comment on the differences and nuances of the two creeds but, given the feedback on the earlier article, I find it important to explain what seems to have happened to Bahawalpur, once known for its Sufi tradition, its poets and its writers.
Much before the age of ‘enlightened moderation’, Bahawalpur glowed due to its tradition of tolerance and its rich cultural heritage. A certain level of conservatism notwithstanding the society offered generous space to great men and women of letters. The great Sufi poet Bulleh Shah hailed from Uch Gilaniyan in Bahawalpur from where his family later shifted to Multan and then to a place near Kasur. Bahawalpur being the seat of power of the princely state also contributed to Persian literature. After 1947, the focus shifted to Urdu literature and the district can boast great names such as Khalid Akhter, Zahoor Azar and Jamila Hashmi.
The district has also produced great names in the performing arts (Uzma Gillani and forgotten names such as Tahira Khan who had, during the 1960s earned the title of ‘Dukhter-e-Bahawalpur’ (daughter of Bahawalpur) and was rated by the connoisseurs of theatre and film as an actress comparable with Elizabeth Taylor).
The Sufi culture gave to Bahawalpuri society a certain tolerance and equanimity. We were not known for passionate reaction or outrage. Resultantly, crimes such as murder or honour killing were largely unheard of. A Bahawalpuri finds it difficult to equate that culture with the trend in the past decade-and-half of Southern Punjab producing extremists.
While Riaz Basra and Masood Azhar are better known, the list is long. Bahawalpur also became known for sectarian tension, a development unheard of even during the 1960s and the 1970s. Today, there are about 15,000 trained jihadis in the Bahawalpur division which comprises the three districts of Bahawalpur, Bahawalnagar and Rahim Yar Khan. It is not clear as to how many of these are still active, particularly after 2003-2004. This is the dateline for some apparent shift in Islamabad’s policy towards the militancy after which quite a few militants got absorbed in other professions and settled back in their villages.
Surely, this is no different from other parts of Punjab. But it becomes more surprising in the context of the area’s cultural history; plus, Southern Punjab is culturally different from Northern and Central Punjab.
The involvement of Bahawalpur in the business of Jihad is linked to the overall transformation of state policy during the 1980s when General Zia-ul Haq’s regime encouraged militancy and a puritanical form of religion in support of its larger military plan to fight a war in Afghanistan and on other fronts, mostly domestic. This period also saw the rise in the number of seminaries in Bahawalpur. In fact, a district government study, kept confidential, conceded the increase in the number of madrassahs and linked them with rise in sectarianism and violence in the district. The report clearly points to the sources of funding for each madrassah and its ideological orientation. The pattern for the report was later copied to study the issue all over the Punjab province.
The issue was not the presence of madrassahs but the deliberate proliferation of these schools and their dominance by puritanical ideologues. Traditionally, religious seminaries were part of the Sufi shrines where the students were not only instructed in religious norms and law but also Persian. Therefore, the older and more traditional madrassahs were also the repositories of precious manuscripts in Arabic and Persian.
Incidentally, Islamabad manipulated the existing madrassah tradition in Bahawalpur to plant and encourage a more puritanical brand of religion. Such deliberate grafting significantly contributed to changing the overall social environment resulting in not only greater Puritanism but also ideological fragmentation.
The proliferation of different sects and religious schools of thought, which are amply represented through their independent mosques and madrassah, denotes the growing social divide. It is almost comical to see the different mosques observing their independent times for azaan (prayer call) based on their interpretation of religion. Incidentally, the religious divide is one of the many divisions. Other fault-lines, however, do not form part of the current discussion.
The state’s encouragement of puritanical religion is what I call the exogenous factor. The implicit and explicit support to outfits such as Jaish or the entire jihad industry created a peculiar relationship between the jihadis and the larger society based on the rising power of the latter. A lot of people drifted towards the puritanical agenda to benefit from the windfall of the power and influence of the militants who had greater access to financial and other material resources. These organisations’ comfortable access to weapons also attracted young men who wanted to renegotiate their individual position within the larger society.
Therefore, the exogenous factor dovetailed into the endogenous factor or the social impetus to adopt puritanical religious ideology. I relate the endogenous factor to the feudal nature of the socio-political system which is inherently incapable of allowing a renegotiation of power relationships within the society.
It is interesting to watch the movement of capital in Southern Punjab. While the power of the traditional feudal, especially the large landowners, has increased due to their adoption of other means of capital generation and power accumulation, the financial capacity of mid-ranking landowners seems to have changed. The large landowners have gone into industrialisation or joined the bureaucracy to enhance their power. The financial prowess of the mid-ranking landowners (landholding of 50-500 acres) is now challenged due to the emergence of the rural indigenous bourgeoisie or capitalist class who can claim greater financial worth but minimal political power. These belong mostly to the trader-merchant class which has also built land assets to match the traditional landed-feudal. However, the accumulation of land did not change the power-political relationship. Power continues to remain in the hands of the traditional landed-feudal class.
In this social background, the puritanical ideology represented a tool for renegotiating power relationship, especially where the centre of power could not be moved away from families who were the pirs of the area. Considering the public’s association with or reverence for the pirs and their families, it was almost impossible for the new capital to grab power unless they could create the capacity to dismantle or challenge the traditional notions of faith and religion.
The new capital or the trader-merchant class in Bahawalpur is involved in funding Deobandi and Wahhabi madrassahs. In fact, even in smaller villages mosques are no longer community affairs but have the patronage of a group or family of trader-merchants. The mosque imam is paid and appointed by the financiers of the mosque and encouraged to propagate a particular brand of Islam which often brings them in direct confrontation with other mosques.
The impact of such a development has multi-layered consequences but the three most significant are: (a) the rift among different religious schools of thought, (b) a shift away from the Sufi tradition to Wahhabism, and (c) a silent confrontation between the old and the new powerhouses represented by the multiple religious ideologies and their related mosques.
Presently, the new capital and their religious partners have not mustered sufficient critical mass to challenge the traditional centres of power which might happen at some future time and date. Meanwhile, the internal tension to shift the centre of power would result in greater friction and fragmentation. That could change the entire character of the Bahawalpuri society.
The writer is an Islamabad-based independent defence analyst and author of the forthcoming book, Military Inc, Inside Pakistan’s Military Economy
"Anti-American Rhetoric Vs. Reality"
Third World leaders faulted for keeping families in United States
By Khalid Hasan
Daily Times, January 22, 2007
WASHINGTON: A university professor, known to be President George Bush’s favourite historian, has attacked countries that are hostile to America or its policies and yet see no contradiction in the family members of their leaders living in the United States.
Victor Davis Hanson of Stanford University’s Hoover Institution, writing in the Washington Times at the weekend, cites Pakistan as one of his examples. He writes, “Bilal Musharraf, son of Pakistan strongman Gen Musharraf, has been a Boston-based consultant and a Stanford business and education student. Meanwhile, his father’s government is either unwilling or unable to arrest on his soil the remnants of Al Qaeda, among them, most likely, Osama Bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahri.”
Another example he quotes is that of Nabih Berri, the Lebanese Amal militia chief who is now allied with both the anti-American Hezbollah and Syria, much of whose family is residing in Dearborn, Michigan. Prince Bandar bin Sultan, former Saudi ambassador to the United States and high cabinet official in a monarchy that “funds much of the world’s radical madrassas,” is selling his 56,000-square-foot mansion in Aspen, Colorado, the asking price being $135 million, which makes it the most expensive home ever put up for sale in the US.
Describing the phenomenon as incongruous and betraying “obvious hypocrisy,” Hanson concludes that allaying with “radical Shiites in Lebanon, anti-American Syrians or Islamists in Pakistan and Saudi Arabia does not seem to disqualify Middle Eastern politicos from appreciating the freedom, security and opportunity of the United States. For all the talk of America’s faults, no Middle Easterner worries about vengeful Americans kidnapping or car-bombing his relatives. And few seem to consider that if the worldview of a present-day Lebanese militia or Saudi Arabia ever sweeps the globe, there would be no Dearborn or Aspen for their kin to find sanctuary.”
The families of leaders of autocratic nations often hostile to the United States are kept safe and sound in the US precisely because of American openness and respect for guests and foreigners. “Unlike most of the Middle East, where it is nearly impossible for Christians, single women or homosexuals to live openly and freely, Americans are a tolerant people who are not captive to tribal, religious or sectarian vengeance.”
Hanson writes, “The US probably will not - and probably should not - deny entry to the families of Lebanese militia leaders, Pakistani dictators, Saudi sheiks or Syrian high officials. But we should at least point out to them ... that there is certainly a reason why Prince Bandar and Messrs Berri, Musharraf and Salem want their children over here - and apparently as far away as possible from the countries where they themselves are in charge.”
By Khalid Hasan
Daily Times, January 22, 2007
WASHINGTON: A university professor, known to be President George Bush’s favourite historian, has attacked countries that are hostile to America or its policies and yet see no contradiction in the family members of their leaders living in the United States.
Victor Davis Hanson of Stanford University’s Hoover Institution, writing in the Washington Times at the weekend, cites Pakistan as one of his examples. He writes, “Bilal Musharraf, son of Pakistan strongman Gen Musharraf, has been a Boston-based consultant and a Stanford business and education student. Meanwhile, his father’s government is either unwilling or unable to arrest on his soil the remnants of Al Qaeda, among them, most likely, Osama Bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahri.”
Another example he quotes is that of Nabih Berri, the Lebanese Amal militia chief who is now allied with both the anti-American Hezbollah and Syria, much of whose family is residing in Dearborn, Michigan. Prince Bandar bin Sultan, former Saudi ambassador to the United States and high cabinet official in a monarchy that “funds much of the world’s radical madrassas,” is selling his 56,000-square-foot mansion in Aspen, Colorado, the asking price being $135 million, which makes it the most expensive home ever put up for sale in the US.
Describing the phenomenon as incongruous and betraying “obvious hypocrisy,” Hanson concludes that allaying with “radical Shiites in Lebanon, anti-American Syrians or Islamists in Pakistan and Saudi Arabia does not seem to disqualify Middle Eastern politicos from appreciating the freedom, security and opportunity of the United States. For all the talk of America’s faults, no Middle Easterner worries about vengeful Americans kidnapping or car-bombing his relatives. And few seem to consider that if the worldview of a present-day Lebanese militia or Saudi Arabia ever sweeps the globe, there would be no Dearborn or Aspen for their kin to find sanctuary.”
The families of leaders of autocratic nations often hostile to the United States are kept safe and sound in the US precisely because of American openness and respect for guests and foreigners. “Unlike most of the Middle East, where it is nearly impossible for Christians, single women or homosexuals to live openly and freely, Americans are a tolerant people who are not captive to tribal, religious or sectarian vengeance.”
Hanson writes, “The US probably will not - and probably should not - deny entry to the families of Lebanese militia leaders, Pakistani dictators, Saudi sheiks or Syrian high officials. But we should at least point out to them ... that there is certainly a reason why Prince Bandar and Messrs Berri, Musharraf and Salem want their children over here - and apparently as far away as possible from the countries where they themselves are in charge.”
Saturday, January 20, 2007
Quotable Quotes: Ayaz Amir
From
The Joke Now Official
Dawn, January 19, 2007
The military-facilitation club, by now Pakistan’s premier institution, has a distinguished membership. The Gauhars may write the memoirs of military saviours, Mr Pirzada fixes the constitutional ropes for them.
In his book ‘In The Line of Fire’ — hugely acclaimed when it came out but now, alas, making its way to the sidewalks where second-hand books are sold, a boon for those who can’t afford the high price of new books in Pakistan — the president says he acquired his gift for public speaking when he was at the Command and Staff College, Quetta. The Staff College, I suppose, has something to answer for.
There is plenty of dissatisfaction across the country with the present scheme of things but none of the bitter polarisation as existed between Bhutto and anti-Bhutto forces in 1977. After seven years and a virtual cult of verbosity, Musharraf inspires boredom (and plenty of it). He still does not inspire hatred — the visceral hatred which brings people to the streets and drives them to pull everything down. Apart from the army’s divisions, this may be his biggest strength.
The Joke Now Official
Dawn, January 19, 2007
The military-facilitation club, by now Pakistan’s premier institution, has a distinguished membership. The Gauhars may write the memoirs of military saviours, Mr Pirzada fixes the constitutional ropes for them.
In his book ‘In The Line of Fire’ — hugely acclaimed when it came out but now, alas, making its way to the sidewalks where second-hand books are sold, a boon for those who can’t afford the high price of new books in Pakistan — the president says he acquired his gift for public speaking when he was at the Command and Staff College, Quetta. The Staff College, I suppose, has something to answer for.
There is plenty of dissatisfaction across the country with the present scheme of things but none of the bitter polarisation as existed between Bhutto and anti-Bhutto forces in 1977. After seven years and a virtual cult of verbosity, Musharraf inspires boredom (and plenty of it). He still does not inspire hatred — the visceral hatred which brings people to the streets and drives them to pull everything down. Apart from the army’s divisions, this may be his biggest strength.
Resolving Kashmir Conflict: Time to give up Arms
Time to give up arms: Mirwaiz
Arun Joshi , January 20, 2007
Hindustan Times
All Parties Hurriyat Conference Chairman Mirwaiz Umar Farooq has declared on Pakistani soil that time has come to say farewell to arms to seek solution of Kashmir crisis, in the boldest ever statement of his nearly 17-year-long political career. He has sought the help of both India and Pakistan in bringing about Kashmir solution through peaceful dialogue process.
Viewed as a dove and a man who could not gather guts to condemn the killers of his father Moulvi Mohammad Farooq, the Mirwaiz stunned his audience at a dinner hosted in his honour by Pakistan occupied Kashmir Prime Minister Attique Khan in Islamabad on Friday evening. He said that Kashmiris cannot afford to “lose more loved ones”.
At the same time, he said that there is a need to "end military hostilities from all sides. These hostilities have caused only problems and kept the solutions in abeyance,” Mirwaiz Umar Farooq told HT over phone from Pakistan.
"We can be successful in this only when the military hostilities are brought to an end by all sides - by the Indian troops as well as by the militants,” he said.
In this regard, he said, "The Hurriyat Conference has started an initiative to talk to the militant leaders in Pakistan and convince them that military option has yielded nothing but death and destruction. "This is equally true of the Indian troops on Kashmir.”
"We are trying to bring them (militant leadership) on board and are hopeful that we will succeed in our efforts. There is a definitive need to this effect but to make it meaningful and purpose-oriented, it is equally imperative that India and Pakistan too should continue in a positive fashion.”
His strong words against those backing the guns and instigating guns came within hours after he was assured full support by Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf at a luncheon meeting on Friday afternoon.
President Musharraf had said, "The elements hostile to the peace process, which has raised hopes for an acceptable solution, must be discouraged and their attempts to create misunderstanding about Pakistan's position especially in the minds of the Kashmiri people should be strongly countered and rejected.” Pakistan’s official news agency APP had quoted Musharraf having told APHC leadership during the meeting.
Having received a green signal from Pakistan president, the APHC leader said that the path to Kashmir solution is in talks and not in guns.
The Dawn newspaper quoted Mirwaiz having said that the “military” struggle had failed to deliver anything and the only way out was through dialogue”.
These words were a clear rebuff to Syed Ali Shah Geelani, who had sponsored a general strike against his visit to Pakistan in Kashmir on Wednesday. The strike was preceded by a rifle grenade attack at Nageen residence of Mirwaiz in summer capital of Srinagar on Monday, which, Mirwaiz said was an act by "frustrated elements”.
He had described that as a "typical repeat of the scare strategy that was used to coerce the people to observe shutdowns.”
Geelani, on the other hand, had accused the moderate Hurriyat Conference leaders of visiting Pakistan for "holidaying". "I can tell you that they would return empty-handed from Pakistan. Their visit is just to holiday and meet people to raise their profile, for Kashmiris, they would bring nothing,” Geelani had told media.
Geelani had also launched a scathing attack on President Musharraf for having kept the Pakistan’s Kashmir cause hostage to "whims and fancies of the United States of America.”
But Mirwaiz has retaliated with equal verbal ferocity on the likes of Geelani.
"We have already seen the results of our fight on the political, diplomatic and military fronts which have not achieved anything other than creating more graveyards and we are not prepared to sacrifice any more of our loved ones, the Pakistani newspaper quoted Mirwaiz having stated at the dinner meeting.
Earlier a three-member delegation of the All Parties Hurriyat Conference met president Musharraf in Pakistan on Friday for more than 150 minutes and sought a middle-path as a solution of Kashmir crisis - different from the stated positions of both, India and Pakistan.
The APHC delegation that began its weeklong tour of Pakistan on Thursday evening, were invited for a luncheon meeting with president Musharraf on Friday afternoon.
“The meeting lasted for two-and-half hours and all issues concerning Kashmir, with a special reference to president Mushraff’s four-point formula were discussed,” Shahid-ul-Islam, spokesman for the Hurriyat Conference, told Hindustan Times.
Shahid-ul-Islam is in const ant touch with APHC leadership, currently on a visit to Pakistan.
According to him, the meeting was "fruitful” and Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, who is leading the delegation has impressed upon Pakistani leadership to devise a way, or help Kashmiri leadership in doing so, to bring about an acceptable solution of Kashmir crisis.
“This should be a stand that is different from the stated positions of India and Pakistan on Kashmir issue,” Shahid-ul-Islam quoted the Mirwaiz having told Pakistani leadership.
Besides Mirwaiz, the delegation consists of Bilal Gani Lone and Abdul Ghani Bhat.
Email Arun Joshi: a_joshi957@rediffmail.com
Arun Joshi , January 20, 2007
Hindustan Times
All Parties Hurriyat Conference Chairman Mirwaiz Umar Farooq has declared on Pakistani soil that time has come to say farewell to arms to seek solution of Kashmir crisis, in the boldest ever statement of his nearly 17-year-long political career. He has sought the help of both India and Pakistan in bringing about Kashmir solution through peaceful dialogue process.
Viewed as a dove and a man who could not gather guts to condemn the killers of his father Moulvi Mohammad Farooq, the Mirwaiz stunned his audience at a dinner hosted in his honour by Pakistan occupied Kashmir Prime Minister Attique Khan in Islamabad on Friday evening. He said that Kashmiris cannot afford to “lose more loved ones”.
At the same time, he said that there is a need to "end military hostilities from all sides. These hostilities have caused only problems and kept the solutions in abeyance,” Mirwaiz Umar Farooq told HT over phone from Pakistan.
"We can be successful in this only when the military hostilities are brought to an end by all sides - by the Indian troops as well as by the militants,” he said.
In this regard, he said, "The Hurriyat Conference has started an initiative to talk to the militant leaders in Pakistan and convince them that military option has yielded nothing but death and destruction. "This is equally true of the Indian troops on Kashmir.”
"We are trying to bring them (militant leadership) on board and are hopeful that we will succeed in our efforts. There is a definitive need to this effect but to make it meaningful and purpose-oriented, it is equally imperative that India and Pakistan too should continue in a positive fashion.”
His strong words against those backing the guns and instigating guns came within hours after he was assured full support by Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf at a luncheon meeting on Friday afternoon.
President Musharraf had said, "The elements hostile to the peace process, which has raised hopes for an acceptable solution, must be discouraged and their attempts to create misunderstanding about Pakistan's position especially in the minds of the Kashmiri people should be strongly countered and rejected.” Pakistan’s official news agency APP had quoted Musharraf having told APHC leadership during the meeting.
Having received a green signal from Pakistan president, the APHC leader said that the path to Kashmir solution is in talks and not in guns.
The Dawn newspaper quoted Mirwaiz having said that the “military” struggle had failed to deliver anything and the only way out was through dialogue”.
These words were a clear rebuff to Syed Ali Shah Geelani, who had sponsored a general strike against his visit to Pakistan in Kashmir on Wednesday. The strike was preceded by a rifle grenade attack at Nageen residence of Mirwaiz in summer capital of Srinagar on Monday, which, Mirwaiz said was an act by "frustrated elements”.
He had described that as a "typical repeat of the scare strategy that was used to coerce the people to observe shutdowns.”
Geelani, on the other hand, had accused the moderate Hurriyat Conference leaders of visiting Pakistan for "holidaying". "I can tell you that they would return empty-handed from Pakistan. Their visit is just to holiday and meet people to raise their profile, for Kashmiris, they would bring nothing,” Geelani had told media.
Geelani had also launched a scathing attack on President Musharraf for having kept the Pakistan’s Kashmir cause hostage to "whims and fancies of the United States of America.”
But Mirwaiz has retaliated with equal verbal ferocity on the likes of Geelani.
"We have already seen the results of our fight on the political, diplomatic and military fronts which have not achieved anything other than creating more graveyards and we are not prepared to sacrifice any more of our loved ones, the Pakistani newspaper quoted Mirwaiz having stated at the dinner meeting.
Earlier a three-member delegation of the All Parties Hurriyat Conference met president Musharraf in Pakistan on Friday for more than 150 minutes and sought a middle-path as a solution of Kashmir crisis - different from the stated positions of both, India and Pakistan.
The APHC delegation that began its weeklong tour of Pakistan on Thursday evening, were invited for a luncheon meeting with president Musharraf on Friday afternoon.
“The meeting lasted for two-and-half hours and all issues concerning Kashmir, with a special reference to president Mushraff’s four-point formula were discussed,” Shahid-ul-Islam, spokesman for the Hurriyat Conference, told Hindustan Times.
Shahid-ul-Islam is in const ant touch with APHC leadership, currently on a visit to Pakistan.
According to him, the meeting was "fruitful” and Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, who is leading the delegation has impressed upon Pakistani leadership to devise a way, or help Kashmiri leadership in doing so, to bring about an acceptable solution of Kashmir crisis.
“This should be a stand that is different from the stated positions of India and Pakistan on Kashmir issue,” Shahid-ul-Islam quoted the Mirwaiz having told Pakistani leadership.
Besides Mirwaiz, the delegation consists of Bilal Gani Lone and Abdul Ghani Bhat.
Email Arun Joshi: a_joshi957@rediffmail.com
"Contrast Between Two Political Cultures": Insightful Comparison between Saddam Hussein and Gerald Ford
Contrast Between Two Political Cultures
By Husain Haqqani
The Nation (Pakistan), The Star (Bangladesh), Indian Express, January 3, 2007
The day Saddam Hussein was executed, Americans paid tribute to their 38th president, Gerald R. Ford, who died at the age of 93 a few days earlier. The dissimilarity between the circumstances and aftermath of the deaths of Saddam Hussein and Gerald Ford highlights the contrast between two distinctive political cultures. Saddam Hussein represented the pursuit and reverence for absolute power that prevails in most of the Muslim world. Gerald Ford, on the other hand, was the product of a political system that emphasizes legitimacy rather than the notion of a powerful ruler.
The U.S. role overseas has often been mired in controversy. But even the critics of America’s power-based foreign policy acknowledge that at home, the United States is by and large a nation of laws that attempts to restrain the power of individuals and institutions. The U.S. domestic political system is based on the ideas of accountability and checks and balances. Officials wield power within limits prescribed by the U.S. constitution and America’s laws. Their tenures of office are well defined. Once out of office, leaders are judged on the basis of their legacy. There are many arguments about a politician’s legacy but there is no question of executing former rulers, celebrating their deaths or pretending they never existed.
Saddam Hussein was Iraq’s absolute ruler for over a quarter century whereas Ford governed for a little over two years. Saddam lost power only after the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003. Ford had not wielded political office since losing an election in 1976, some thirty years ago. Saddam’s life and death both polarized Iraq. Ford healed the wounds of Vietnam and Watergate while in office and was hailed for his contribution by members of all political parties when he died. Ford’s most controversial decision was to pardon disgraced former president Richard Nixon, whose resignation prompted by the Watergate scandal had brought Ford to office.
Saddam Hussein came to power through a series of coups d’etat and palace intrigue. Instead of being accountable under the law, he made the laws of Iraq while he wielded power. Having risen to power as a coup-maker and intriguer, he trusted no one. In Saddam Hussein’s mind, his “contribution” to Iraq’s security and economy conferred a special status on him. He considered himself as Iraq’s savior, the man who held the country together against external conspiracies and domestic rebels.
Saddam’s lack of remorse and his defiant attitude even during his last hours confirms that he did not feel he had done anything wrong. To him, human rights violations and brutality were merely a small price that had to be paid to rule Iraq with a firm hand. As he saw it, Saddam Hussein had a plan for Iraq’s greatness and he would be damned if he allowed niceties of law or morality come in the way. His supporters and apologists were either too timid to disagree with him or believed that a difficult country like Iraq needed a strong man whose excesses had to be overlooked in “the national interest.”
President Ford had no delusions of grandeur. The highest office he aspired to was Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives. He was nominated Vice President after Nixon’s Vice President, Spiro Agnew, resigned after pleading guilty to tax evasion charges. When Nixon was forced to resign, Ford was elevated to the presidency, the only U.S. president who not elected to either the presidency or vice-presidency. Nixon, Agnew and Ford were all Republicans. Ford had to lead his country and party at a time when both had fallen in their standing.
Ford was not a charismatic man. His modesty and humble ways were mocked by comedians and critics. His decision to pardon Nixon, primarily to save Americans from prolonged trauma of Watergate, cost him public support and possibly made it impossible for him to win the 1976 election against Jimmy Carter.
Ford restored the prestige of the presidency, which had been eroded by Nixon’s mistakes, by refusing to be confrontational towards an assertive Congress, controlled by the rival Democratic Party. He appeared in person before a Congressional panel to explain his decision to pardon Nixon. He abided by Congressional restrictions on supporting continued war in Vietnam, which led to the ultimate defeat of the U.S.-backed South Vietnamese regime and the fall of Saigon.
Thirty years after he left office, Ford is being praised after his death for saving America from greater polarization. Ford’s low-key, uncharismatic tenure in office had helped the United States heal at a time when healing was more important than anything else. Ford was a decent man who rose to power through legitimate means. He may have ruled only a little over two years but he received a state funeral which all American leaders are entitled to. The United States has a system in place that allows continuity in leadership and respect for departed leaders, which is not possible in countries where rulers rise to power through coups and conspiracies.
The contrast between the political cultures of absolute power and systemic legitimacy goes beyond the comparison between Saddam Hussein and Gerald Ford. When India’s former Prime Minister Narasimha Rao died last year, he received a ceremonial burial accorded to all deceased elected Indian prime ministers. It did not seem to make a difference that Mr. Rao had been indicted on corruption charges and convicted by a lower court, awaiting judgement by the superior judiciary at the time of his demise.
When Pakistan’s former president Ghulam Ishaq Khan died not long ago, his life of public service did not receive the tribute it deserved. Pakistanis found it difficult to rise above the circumstances of President Ishaq Khan’s departure from office. The polarization of his last years in office unfortunately continued to haunt him after his death.
The last time a civilian Pakistani head of government received a ceremonial state funeral was in 1951, following the assassination of Pakistan’s first prime minister Liaquat Ali Khan. Since then Pakistan’s leading politicians have been dismissed from office and jailed or, in the case of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, executed after a dubious trial.
The only Pakistani rulers to receive state funerals since 1951 have been army generals, men who derive their respect from their power and the power of their powerful institution. In fact, the army has been generous to accord full honors even to officers who did not acquit themselves honorably.
The different ways nations treat their past rulers is partly related to the manner in which the rulers behave while in office. The Muslim world needs to review its political culture of reverence for power. The Lebanese poet-Philosopher Kahlil Gibran observed, “Pity the nation that welcomes its new ruler with trumpetings, and farewells him with hootings, only to welcome another with trumpetings again.”
According respect too all on the basis of constitutional legitimacy would offer a chance for Muslim countries to build viable and successful systems of governance that have not evolved due to the current preoccupation with charismatic and all powerful rulers.
Husain Haqqani is Director of Boston University's Center for International Relations, and Co-Chair of the Islam and Democracy Project at Hudson Institute, Washington D.C. He is author of the book 'Pakistan between Mosque and Military'
By Husain Haqqani
The Nation (Pakistan), The Star (Bangladesh), Indian Express, January 3, 2007
The day Saddam Hussein was executed, Americans paid tribute to their 38th president, Gerald R. Ford, who died at the age of 93 a few days earlier. The dissimilarity between the circumstances and aftermath of the deaths of Saddam Hussein and Gerald Ford highlights the contrast between two distinctive political cultures. Saddam Hussein represented the pursuit and reverence for absolute power that prevails in most of the Muslim world. Gerald Ford, on the other hand, was the product of a political system that emphasizes legitimacy rather than the notion of a powerful ruler.
The U.S. role overseas has often been mired in controversy. But even the critics of America’s power-based foreign policy acknowledge that at home, the United States is by and large a nation of laws that attempts to restrain the power of individuals and institutions. The U.S. domestic political system is based on the ideas of accountability and checks and balances. Officials wield power within limits prescribed by the U.S. constitution and America’s laws. Their tenures of office are well defined. Once out of office, leaders are judged on the basis of their legacy. There are many arguments about a politician’s legacy but there is no question of executing former rulers, celebrating their deaths or pretending they never existed.
Saddam Hussein was Iraq’s absolute ruler for over a quarter century whereas Ford governed for a little over two years. Saddam lost power only after the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003. Ford had not wielded political office since losing an election in 1976, some thirty years ago. Saddam’s life and death both polarized Iraq. Ford healed the wounds of Vietnam and Watergate while in office and was hailed for his contribution by members of all political parties when he died. Ford’s most controversial decision was to pardon disgraced former president Richard Nixon, whose resignation prompted by the Watergate scandal had brought Ford to office.
Saddam Hussein came to power through a series of coups d’etat and palace intrigue. Instead of being accountable under the law, he made the laws of Iraq while he wielded power. Having risen to power as a coup-maker and intriguer, he trusted no one. In Saddam Hussein’s mind, his “contribution” to Iraq’s security and economy conferred a special status on him. He considered himself as Iraq’s savior, the man who held the country together against external conspiracies and domestic rebels.
Saddam’s lack of remorse and his defiant attitude even during his last hours confirms that he did not feel he had done anything wrong. To him, human rights violations and brutality were merely a small price that had to be paid to rule Iraq with a firm hand. As he saw it, Saddam Hussein had a plan for Iraq’s greatness and he would be damned if he allowed niceties of law or morality come in the way. His supporters and apologists were either too timid to disagree with him or believed that a difficult country like Iraq needed a strong man whose excesses had to be overlooked in “the national interest.”
President Ford had no delusions of grandeur. The highest office he aspired to was Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives. He was nominated Vice President after Nixon’s Vice President, Spiro Agnew, resigned after pleading guilty to tax evasion charges. When Nixon was forced to resign, Ford was elevated to the presidency, the only U.S. president who not elected to either the presidency or vice-presidency. Nixon, Agnew and Ford were all Republicans. Ford had to lead his country and party at a time when both had fallen in their standing.
Ford was not a charismatic man. His modesty and humble ways were mocked by comedians and critics. His decision to pardon Nixon, primarily to save Americans from prolonged trauma of Watergate, cost him public support and possibly made it impossible for him to win the 1976 election against Jimmy Carter.
Ford restored the prestige of the presidency, which had been eroded by Nixon’s mistakes, by refusing to be confrontational towards an assertive Congress, controlled by the rival Democratic Party. He appeared in person before a Congressional panel to explain his decision to pardon Nixon. He abided by Congressional restrictions on supporting continued war in Vietnam, which led to the ultimate defeat of the U.S.-backed South Vietnamese regime and the fall of Saigon.
Thirty years after he left office, Ford is being praised after his death for saving America from greater polarization. Ford’s low-key, uncharismatic tenure in office had helped the United States heal at a time when healing was more important than anything else. Ford was a decent man who rose to power through legitimate means. He may have ruled only a little over two years but he received a state funeral which all American leaders are entitled to. The United States has a system in place that allows continuity in leadership and respect for departed leaders, which is not possible in countries where rulers rise to power through coups and conspiracies.
The contrast between the political cultures of absolute power and systemic legitimacy goes beyond the comparison between Saddam Hussein and Gerald Ford. When India’s former Prime Minister Narasimha Rao died last year, he received a ceremonial burial accorded to all deceased elected Indian prime ministers. It did not seem to make a difference that Mr. Rao had been indicted on corruption charges and convicted by a lower court, awaiting judgement by the superior judiciary at the time of his demise.
When Pakistan’s former president Ghulam Ishaq Khan died not long ago, his life of public service did not receive the tribute it deserved. Pakistanis found it difficult to rise above the circumstances of President Ishaq Khan’s departure from office. The polarization of his last years in office unfortunately continued to haunt him after his death.
The last time a civilian Pakistani head of government received a ceremonial state funeral was in 1951, following the assassination of Pakistan’s first prime minister Liaquat Ali Khan. Since then Pakistan’s leading politicians have been dismissed from office and jailed or, in the case of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, executed after a dubious trial.
The only Pakistani rulers to receive state funerals since 1951 have been army generals, men who derive their respect from their power and the power of their powerful institution. In fact, the army has been generous to accord full honors even to officers who did not acquit themselves honorably.
The different ways nations treat their past rulers is partly related to the manner in which the rulers behave while in office. The Muslim world needs to review its political culture of reverence for power. The Lebanese poet-Philosopher Kahlil Gibran observed, “Pity the nation that welcomes its new ruler with trumpetings, and farewells him with hootings, only to welcome another with trumpetings again.”
According respect too all on the basis of constitutional legitimacy would offer a chance for Muslim countries to build viable and successful systems of governance that have not evolved due to the current preoccupation with charismatic and all powerful rulers.
Husain Haqqani is Director of Boston University's Center for International Relations, and Co-Chair of the Islam and Democracy Project at Hudson Institute, Washington D.C. He is author of the book 'Pakistan between Mosque and Military'
Signs of Pakistan's Role in Supporting Taliban: A view
At Border, Signs of Pakistani Role in Taliban Surge
New York Times, January 21, 2007
By CARLOTTA GALL
QUETTA, Pakistan — The most explosive question about the Taliban resurgence here along the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan is this: Have Pakistani intelligence agencies been promoting the Islamic insurgency?
The government of Pakistan vehemently rejects the allegation and insists that it is fully committed to help American and NATO forces prevail against the Taliban militants who were driven from power in Afghanistan in 2001.
Western diplomats in both countries and Pakistani opposition figures say that Pakistani intelligence agencies — in particular the powerful Inter-Services Intelligence and Military Intelligence — have been supporting a Taliban restoration, motivated not only by Islamic fervor but also by a longstanding view that the jihadist movement allows them to assert greater influence on Pakistan’s vulnerable western flank.
More than two weeks of reporting along this frontier, including dozens of interviews with residents on each side of the porous border, leaves little doubt that Quetta is an important base for the Taliban, and found many signs that Pakistani authorities are encouraging the insurgents, if not sponsoring them.
The evidence is provided in fearful whispers, and it is anecdotal.
For complete text, click here
Pakistan Denies It Harbors Taliban
Officials Answer New Allegations, Defend Efforts to Curb Attacks
By Pamela Constable
Washington Post, January 21, 2007
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, Jan. 20 -- Faced with new charges that Pakistan is harboring Islamic insurgents, including fugitive Taliban leader Mohammad Omar, Pakistani officials this weekend denied such allegations and defended their efforts to curb cross-border insurgent attacks in Afghanistan as sincere if not totally successful.
"We don't deny the Taliban come and go, but that is not the entire truth," Maj. Gen. Shaukat Sultan, Pakistan's military spokesman, said in an interview Saturday. "If 25 percent of the problem lies on our side of the border, 75 percent of it lies on the Afghan side." Of four known top Taliban commanders, he said, three are Afghan and one is Pakistani.
For Complete story, click here
New York Times, January 21, 2007
By CARLOTTA GALL
QUETTA, Pakistan — The most explosive question about the Taliban resurgence here along the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan is this: Have Pakistani intelligence agencies been promoting the Islamic insurgency?
The government of Pakistan vehemently rejects the allegation and insists that it is fully committed to help American and NATO forces prevail against the Taliban militants who were driven from power in Afghanistan in 2001.
Western diplomats in both countries and Pakistani opposition figures say that Pakistani intelligence agencies — in particular the powerful Inter-Services Intelligence and Military Intelligence — have been supporting a Taliban restoration, motivated not only by Islamic fervor but also by a longstanding view that the jihadist movement allows them to assert greater influence on Pakistan’s vulnerable western flank.
More than two weeks of reporting along this frontier, including dozens of interviews with residents on each side of the porous border, leaves little doubt that Quetta is an important base for the Taliban, and found many signs that Pakistani authorities are encouraging the insurgents, if not sponsoring them.
The evidence is provided in fearful whispers, and it is anecdotal.
For complete text, click here
Pakistan Denies It Harbors Taliban
Officials Answer New Allegations, Defend Efforts to Curb Attacks
By Pamela Constable
Washington Post, January 21, 2007
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, Jan. 20 -- Faced with new charges that Pakistan is harboring Islamic insurgents, including fugitive Taliban leader Mohammad Omar, Pakistani officials this weekend denied such allegations and defended their efforts to curb cross-border insurgent attacks in Afghanistan as sincere if not totally successful.
"We don't deny the Taliban come and go, but that is not the entire truth," Maj. Gen. Shaukat Sultan, Pakistan's military spokesman, said in an interview Saturday. "If 25 percent of the problem lies on our side of the border, 75 percent of it lies on the Afghan side." Of four known top Taliban commanders, he said, three are Afghan and one is Pakistani.
For Complete story, click here
Two options for Pak military: Najam Sethi
Two options for Pak military
Najam Sethi's E d i t o r i a l
The Friday Times, January 19-25, 2007 - Vol. XVIII, No. 48
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Until recently, US-Pak relations were hunky-dory. But a question mark has just cropped up. President Bush’s “democracy” project in Iraq has crashed. Worse, his “nation-building” project in Afghanistan has stalled at the hands of resurgent Taliban. Consequently, his ratings have plunged and he desperately wants to show some good results. So he is rushing 22000 additional troops to Iraq and considering the same option for Afghanistan. But there’s a difference. In Baghdad, he has only himself to blame for his woes while in Afghanistan he is inclined to blame Islamabad because the Taliban and Al Qaeda terrorists are operating from borderland sanctuaries in Pakistan.
The “Taliban problem” in Afghanistan has resurfaced in 2006 with a bang. In 2003-04, the Americans prodded General Pervez Musharraf to use the Pakistan army to crush them in Waziristan. But the army’s high losses, followed by a popular backlash, forced it to opt for dubious “peace deals” to maintain the status quo in 2006. But when the Taliban launched a wave of ferocious attacks on NATO forces in Afghanistan, Washington’s patience ran out. Shorn of additional NATO troops and expecting a renewed Taliban offensive later this year, President Bush wants General Musharraf to “do more” to clamp down while he sends more troops to defend Kabul. A “hearts and minds” project is also underway simultaneously – there is more US money for “rehabilitation and development schemes” in Waziristan and “reconstruction” in Afghanistan.
Until now the US has nudged the international media to accuse Pakistan of “hosting” the Taliban. It has also played “good cop” in Islamabad who praises General Musharraf and bad cop in Kabul who clucks sympathetically with President Hamid Karzai when he blasts Pakistan. But that “soft” approach may be changing. Recent statements by top US officials and generals claiming that Taliban and Al Qaeda leaders are holed out in sanctuaries inside Pakistan are meant to signal that if Pakistan doesn’t stop the Taliban then America will conduct pre-emptive strikes against them inside Pakistan.
Islamabad’s ambiguous response lacks credibility. It denies Taliban and Al-Qaeda sanctuaries in Pakistan but cracks down on foreign or Pakistani journalists who try to verify its claim. It has signed “peace deals” with Talibanised elements in the tribal areas but is not averse to occasionally rocketing them at American insistence. Last week, two such “strikes” were carried out. This approach is wearing thin. The Americans are not appeased while the local tribal backlash against the Americans, General Musharraf and the Pakistan Army is spilling over into the rest of the country. Why is General Musharraf clinging to this “failing strategy” which is alienating his international friends without diminishing the hatred of extremists for him?
The answer lies in a national security doctrine long nourished by the Pakistan’s military intelligence agencies. It says that (1) Afghanistan must not be allowed to fall into the hands of pro-India elements, like the Northern Alliance Uzbek-Tajik ethnic combine (2) It should therefore be dominated by pro-Pakistan Pakhtuns who have historically straddled both Pakistan and Afghanistan (3) These Pakhtuns should not be secular, or pro-Russia or pro-India like earlier Pakhtun regimes until 1990 and the current Karzai regime (4) The Islamic Pakhtun Taliban should be supported as the least objectionable option. It is this doctrine that has spawned sectarian violence and fundamentalism in Pakistan and enabled Al Qaeda to take root in Afghanistan. In short, it is the Pakistan military’s obsession with India on its eastern border that is at the root of its Afghanistan policies on its western border.
Until now, the price of this doctrine was paid by Pakistanis because the military is all powerful and unaccountable. But the Al-Qaeda-Taliban nexus has sucked the US into the region and pitted the Pakistani military’s regional interests against the American military-industrial complex’s global ambitions. The Pakistani military’s assessment is that the Americans have no long term staying power in the region, as demonstrated by their impending retreat from Iraq, and that Pakistan is sure to rebound as the key player in Afghanistan, hence the need to retain its Taliban assets.
This means that Mush-Bush interests may diverge in 2007-8. Mr Bush wants an outright “victory” over the Taliban while Mr Musharraf means to deny him exactly that. Meanwhile, anti-Americanism is growing in Pakistan and the political opposition is ready to exploit any opportunity to weaken the Musharraf regime. We should therefore expect a chorus of foreign and local calls for “democracy” and taming of the Pak army by Democrats and Republicans alike.
There are two options. The Pakistan military establishment can continue to play devious “power games” at home and abroad, deepen ethnic and religious fissures in the country, demean and weaken the democratic impulse of the people and lead Pakistan into isolation and despair. Or it can bury its obsession with India, allow Afghanistan to acquire an autonomous, moderate, pro-West centre of gravity, focus on rolling back the tide of religious extremism and build a stable and sustainable economy.
Najam Sethi's E d i t o r i a l
The Friday Times, January 19-25, 2007 - Vol. XVIII, No. 48
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Until recently, US-Pak relations were hunky-dory. But a question mark has just cropped up. President Bush’s “democracy” project in Iraq has crashed. Worse, his “nation-building” project in Afghanistan has stalled at the hands of resurgent Taliban. Consequently, his ratings have plunged and he desperately wants to show some good results. So he is rushing 22000 additional troops to Iraq and considering the same option for Afghanistan. But there’s a difference. In Baghdad, he has only himself to blame for his woes while in Afghanistan he is inclined to blame Islamabad because the Taliban and Al Qaeda terrorists are operating from borderland sanctuaries in Pakistan.
The “Taliban problem” in Afghanistan has resurfaced in 2006 with a bang. In 2003-04, the Americans prodded General Pervez Musharraf to use the Pakistan army to crush them in Waziristan. But the army’s high losses, followed by a popular backlash, forced it to opt for dubious “peace deals” to maintain the status quo in 2006. But when the Taliban launched a wave of ferocious attacks on NATO forces in Afghanistan, Washington’s patience ran out. Shorn of additional NATO troops and expecting a renewed Taliban offensive later this year, President Bush wants General Musharraf to “do more” to clamp down while he sends more troops to defend Kabul. A “hearts and minds” project is also underway simultaneously – there is more US money for “rehabilitation and development schemes” in Waziristan and “reconstruction” in Afghanistan.
Until now the US has nudged the international media to accuse Pakistan of “hosting” the Taliban. It has also played “good cop” in Islamabad who praises General Musharraf and bad cop in Kabul who clucks sympathetically with President Hamid Karzai when he blasts Pakistan. But that “soft” approach may be changing. Recent statements by top US officials and generals claiming that Taliban and Al Qaeda leaders are holed out in sanctuaries inside Pakistan are meant to signal that if Pakistan doesn’t stop the Taliban then America will conduct pre-emptive strikes against them inside Pakistan.
Islamabad’s ambiguous response lacks credibility. It denies Taliban and Al-Qaeda sanctuaries in Pakistan but cracks down on foreign or Pakistani journalists who try to verify its claim. It has signed “peace deals” with Talibanised elements in the tribal areas but is not averse to occasionally rocketing them at American insistence. Last week, two such “strikes” were carried out. This approach is wearing thin. The Americans are not appeased while the local tribal backlash against the Americans, General Musharraf and the Pakistan Army is spilling over into the rest of the country. Why is General Musharraf clinging to this “failing strategy” which is alienating his international friends without diminishing the hatred of extremists for him?
The answer lies in a national security doctrine long nourished by the Pakistan’s military intelligence agencies. It says that (1) Afghanistan must not be allowed to fall into the hands of pro-India elements, like the Northern Alliance Uzbek-Tajik ethnic combine (2) It should therefore be dominated by pro-Pakistan Pakhtuns who have historically straddled both Pakistan and Afghanistan (3) These Pakhtuns should not be secular, or pro-Russia or pro-India like earlier Pakhtun regimes until 1990 and the current Karzai regime (4) The Islamic Pakhtun Taliban should be supported as the least objectionable option. It is this doctrine that has spawned sectarian violence and fundamentalism in Pakistan and enabled Al Qaeda to take root in Afghanistan. In short, it is the Pakistan military’s obsession with India on its eastern border that is at the root of its Afghanistan policies on its western border.
Until now, the price of this doctrine was paid by Pakistanis because the military is all powerful and unaccountable. But the Al-Qaeda-Taliban nexus has sucked the US into the region and pitted the Pakistani military’s regional interests against the American military-industrial complex’s global ambitions. The Pakistani military’s assessment is that the Americans have no long term staying power in the region, as demonstrated by their impending retreat from Iraq, and that Pakistan is sure to rebound as the key player in Afghanistan, hence the need to retain its Taliban assets.
This means that Mush-Bush interests may diverge in 2007-8. Mr Bush wants an outright “victory” over the Taliban while Mr Musharraf means to deny him exactly that. Meanwhile, anti-Americanism is growing in Pakistan and the political opposition is ready to exploit any opportunity to weaken the Musharraf regime. We should therefore expect a chorus of foreign and local calls for “democracy” and taming of the Pak army by Democrats and Republicans alike.
There are two options. The Pakistan military establishment can continue to play devious “power games” at home and abroad, deepen ethnic and religious fissures in the country, demean and weaken the democratic impulse of the people and lead Pakistan into isolation and despair. Or it can bury its obsession with India, allow Afghanistan to acquire an autonomous, moderate, pro-West centre of gravity, focus on rolling back the tide of religious extremism and build a stable and sustainable economy.
"You Can't Bake an Islamic State"
THE OTHER MALAYSIA: You can’t bake an Islamic state —Farish A Noor
Daily Times, January 20, 2007
Living as we do in a world that is undergoing rapid structural-economic transformation, many a Muslim government has tried to solve the problem of nation-building by recourse to Islam, through using religion as a system of values that may glue a nation together.
In some cases this has led to the development of a statist discourse of Islam, in which Islam is used as a discourse of legitimation by the state. In some other cases Muslim states have opted for selective appropriation and implementation of Islamic laws and norms in an attempt to impose some degree of order on society as a whole.
Much of this has been motivated by the fact that many Muslim societies are experiencing the visible signs of pluralisation and difference as a result of social advancement, widening educational opportunities, urban migration and the politicisation of citizens’ interests.
Well, the technocrats of the Muslim world may be happy with such an approach, working, as they often do, according to the belief that religion can be a variable factor which can be injected into the political process in order to obtain the desired results. More often than not, however, the approach can be as simplistic as it is clumsy, based on the assumption that nation-building can be a controlled process, like a recipe for a cake.
The fact is that one cannot simply inject religion into politics like one mixes flour, sugar and eggs to make a pudding. One does not, and cannot, add 100 kilograms of Islam to 100 kilograms of constitutionalism and hope to bake an Islamic state.
Part of the problem lies in the confused attempt to mix two abstract variables: ‘Islam’ and ‘national unity’ together. For a start, when talking about ‘Islam’ with a capital ‘I’, it has to be noted that we are not talking about a simple concept with a verifiable referent. Islam is a complex system of ideas, beliefs, values, modes of social praxis and norms, a code of aesthetics and culture, as well as being primarily a belief system founded on a theology and cosmology. Over the past one-and-a-half millennia, Islam has evolved and adapted its normative praxis to suit the changing times and we all know by now that on the level of popular Islam there are really many ‘Islams’ and not one.
Likewise the ‘nation’ is not a simple idea that can be reduced essentially to a group of people occupying a specific geographical area. Nations are imagined communities (to borrow Benedict Anderson’s phrase) that are historically contingent, constructed collective fictions held together by the continuities of history as much as the conflicts within that history. There has never been a homogenous, simplified nation and can never be one.
To claim that the challenge of nation-building can be solved when a specific religion is foregrounded as the primary belief system of that nation, overlooks the fact that both the nation and the religion are complex entities. Here lies the danger in many a nation-building project: For if ‘national unity’ is meant to imply the creation of a singular, unified and unitary nation, then we are already walking on the path that leads us to totalitarianism and majoritarianism.
Surely we should realise by now that modern nations are complex, and increasingly so, and that the only way that any fictional notion of unity can be achieved is by the elimination of difference? That is why so many nation-building programmes have ended up as pogroms instead, with the persecution of minorities, the oppression of subaltern voices, the erasure of the language, culture and history of the marginalised being the norm. Nation-building, when determined with a unitary objective in mind, is more often than not a recipe for one form of fascism or another.
Thus, for modernising Muslim-majority countries like Malaysia, Pakistan and Indonesia, the challenges are obvious. Now more than ever we need to recognise that religion can be as much an obstacle to nation-building as it can facilitate it, particularly when the discourse of religion is monopolised by state elites who only see in it a tool of power and its perpetuation.
Can countries like Malaysia, Pakistan and Indonesia open up spaces for the debate and healthy evolution of popular Islam that reflect the diversity of their communities, and can these communities militate for a progressive Islam that speaks the language of the plural masses, of the subaltern and the marginalised? In other words can we see the development of what the Muslim intellectual Farid Esack calls the “Islam of the powerless”, a discourse of Islam that takes the side of the popular masses and that critiques the workings of power?
Or, as the discourse of Islam comes under the purview of the state and Islamo-technocrats, will we witness the increasing instrumentalisation of religion, and Islam in particular, for the sake of the reproduction and perpetuation of power? Will the discourse and values of Islam ultimately serve as the tools for regime maintenance in these Muslim countries?
These are the questions that strike deep into the heart of the Islamic state and national unity debates today. The solution to the questions lies not only in the corpus of Islamic norms and values, but also in the presence (or absence) of political will among Muslim leaders, intellectuals, clerics and lawyers the world over.
One thing, however, is certain: The pluralism and differences within the Muslim world today are clearer than ever. More and more Muslim constituencies are emerging, such as Muslim feminists, Muslim leftists, secular Muslims, etc. and their demands are being politicised. Dealing with such alterity and difference will require political maturity and a genuine appreciation of pluralism, and not empty slogans of unity and harmony.
Dr Farish A Noor is a Malaysian political scientist and historian; and one of the founders of the www.othermalaysia.org research website
Daily Times, January 20, 2007
Living as we do in a world that is undergoing rapid structural-economic transformation, many a Muslim government has tried to solve the problem of nation-building by recourse to Islam, through using religion as a system of values that may glue a nation together.
In some cases this has led to the development of a statist discourse of Islam, in which Islam is used as a discourse of legitimation by the state. In some other cases Muslim states have opted for selective appropriation and implementation of Islamic laws and norms in an attempt to impose some degree of order on society as a whole.
Much of this has been motivated by the fact that many Muslim societies are experiencing the visible signs of pluralisation and difference as a result of social advancement, widening educational opportunities, urban migration and the politicisation of citizens’ interests.
Well, the technocrats of the Muslim world may be happy with such an approach, working, as they often do, according to the belief that religion can be a variable factor which can be injected into the political process in order to obtain the desired results. More often than not, however, the approach can be as simplistic as it is clumsy, based on the assumption that nation-building can be a controlled process, like a recipe for a cake.
The fact is that one cannot simply inject religion into politics like one mixes flour, sugar and eggs to make a pudding. One does not, and cannot, add 100 kilograms of Islam to 100 kilograms of constitutionalism and hope to bake an Islamic state.
Part of the problem lies in the confused attempt to mix two abstract variables: ‘Islam’ and ‘national unity’ together. For a start, when talking about ‘Islam’ with a capital ‘I’, it has to be noted that we are not talking about a simple concept with a verifiable referent. Islam is a complex system of ideas, beliefs, values, modes of social praxis and norms, a code of aesthetics and culture, as well as being primarily a belief system founded on a theology and cosmology. Over the past one-and-a-half millennia, Islam has evolved and adapted its normative praxis to suit the changing times and we all know by now that on the level of popular Islam there are really many ‘Islams’ and not one.
Likewise the ‘nation’ is not a simple idea that can be reduced essentially to a group of people occupying a specific geographical area. Nations are imagined communities (to borrow Benedict Anderson’s phrase) that are historically contingent, constructed collective fictions held together by the continuities of history as much as the conflicts within that history. There has never been a homogenous, simplified nation and can never be one.
To claim that the challenge of nation-building can be solved when a specific religion is foregrounded as the primary belief system of that nation, overlooks the fact that both the nation and the religion are complex entities. Here lies the danger in many a nation-building project: For if ‘national unity’ is meant to imply the creation of a singular, unified and unitary nation, then we are already walking on the path that leads us to totalitarianism and majoritarianism.
Surely we should realise by now that modern nations are complex, and increasingly so, and that the only way that any fictional notion of unity can be achieved is by the elimination of difference? That is why so many nation-building programmes have ended up as pogroms instead, with the persecution of minorities, the oppression of subaltern voices, the erasure of the language, culture and history of the marginalised being the norm. Nation-building, when determined with a unitary objective in mind, is more often than not a recipe for one form of fascism or another.
Thus, for modernising Muslim-majority countries like Malaysia, Pakistan and Indonesia, the challenges are obvious. Now more than ever we need to recognise that religion can be as much an obstacle to nation-building as it can facilitate it, particularly when the discourse of religion is monopolised by state elites who only see in it a tool of power and its perpetuation.
Can countries like Malaysia, Pakistan and Indonesia open up spaces for the debate and healthy evolution of popular Islam that reflect the diversity of their communities, and can these communities militate for a progressive Islam that speaks the language of the plural masses, of the subaltern and the marginalised? In other words can we see the development of what the Muslim intellectual Farid Esack calls the “Islam of the powerless”, a discourse of Islam that takes the side of the popular masses and that critiques the workings of power?
Or, as the discourse of Islam comes under the purview of the state and Islamo-technocrats, will we witness the increasing instrumentalisation of religion, and Islam in particular, for the sake of the reproduction and perpetuation of power? Will the discourse and values of Islam ultimately serve as the tools for regime maintenance in these Muslim countries?
These are the questions that strike deep into the heart of the Islamic state and national unity debates today. The solution to the questions lies not only in the corpus of Islamic norms and values, but also in the presence (or absence) of political will among Muslim leaders, intellectuals, clerics and lawyers the world over.
One thing, however, is certain: The pluralism and differences within the Muslim world today are clearer than ever. More and more Muslim constituencies are emerging, such as Muslim feminists, Muslim leftists, secular Muslims, etc. and their demands are being politicised. Dealing with such alterity and difference will require political maturity and a genuine appreciation of pluralism, and not empty slogans of unity and harmony.
Dr Farish A Noor is a Malaysian political scientist and historian; and one of the founders of the www.othermalaysia.org research website
Thursday, January 18, 2007
Pakistan's Tribal Zone In Focus: Ground Realities
Putting out the fire in Waziristan
By Rahimullah Yusufzai
The News, January 19, 2007
First it was South Waziristan and then the violence shifted to neighbouring North Waziristan. Military operations during 2004-2006 were invariably followed by jirgas and peace agreements which somehow stabilised the two troubled tribal regions bordering Afghanistan. But the latest round of airstrikes in both North Waziristan and South Waziristan could lead to the collapse of the peace accords and plunge the tribal borderlands into another round of death and destruction.
The airstrikes, which the Pakistan Army is claiming to have unleashed against hideouts of suspected militants, have predictably triggered controversy. The government's credibility in view of its track record is so low that most people don't believe its claim that Pakistan Army's gunship helicopters were responsible for the airstrikes in Gurwek in North Waziristan and then on January 16 in Salamat village in Shak Toi area of South Waziristan. The common belief is that the US military using its pilotless, CIA-operated Predator planes fired the missiles that hit targets inside Pakistani territory. That impression was first created on January 13 when two Hellfire missiles fired by a US drone targeted Damadola village in Bajaur tribal agency and killed 13 civilians, including women and children, in their sleep in three mud-brick houses. This image is now etched in the memory of a large number of Pakistanis after being reinforced by another US missile strike at a madressah in Chingai village in Bajaur on October 30 last year. This attack was the most devastating since the launch of the misguided, imperialism-driven US ‘war on terror' in our part of the world as it killed 80 young and innocent students and some of their teachers.
As was the case in the past, we are once again hearing conflicting versions of the incident in the remote Shak Toi mountainous area in South Waziristan. There is such a wide discrepancy in the stories being put out by different stakeholders that it is almost impossible to find the truth. The absence of independent sources of information makes the task even more difficult to piece together a believable sequence of events. The difficulties facing the media to gain access to the targeted place due to its remoteness and on account of unannounced official curbs remain a hurdle in getting to know the real situation on the ground. Military spokesman Major General Shaukat Sultan was as usual sure that up to 30 ‘miscreants' including foreign militants had been killed by taking out three of their five compounds. The next day he came up with the statement that security forces were hunting a handful of ‘Al Qaeda fighters' who were wounded in the airstrikes and were reportedly shifted by their companions to some secret place. As happened in similar attacks in the past, the government was unable to put troops on the ground to secure the area after the bombings and obtain evidence to establish that it indeed had hit the right target. Rather, one may well ask as to why the military cannot drop troops as it has been doing in past military operations in Waziristan and lay siege to suspected hideouts of militants to nab them instead of carrying out airstrikes that are often inaccurate and kill innocent people.
Reports from Salamat village told a different story. Villagers said only eight people were killed and all were civilians. Among them were three Pakistani tribesmen, including a 10-year-old boy, and five Afghans, all powindahs or nomads who are a familiar sight in the NWFP and in Afghanistan as they walk with their caravans of camels to spend winters in the plains and summers in mountainous areas. The names of the dead men, their fathers and sub-tribe were provided to make the information authentic. It was explained that all the victims, including the 10 who were injured in the attack, were working in the nearby forest logging wood and making charcoal for sale in the markets down country. It was difficult not to believe them because they belong to the area and apparently were not involved in any kind of politics.
Protests invariably followed, starting with Tank which serves as the gateway to South Waziristan. It is home to a large number of Mahsud and Wazir tribal families who have migrated to Tank to do business or spend the winter in relatively warmer weather compared to their snow-bound villages in South Waziristan. Protests have broken out elsewhere also and statements condemning the government's action have been put forth by leaders of both the clergy-led MMA and others belonging to secular and nationalist parties. Political parties in such instances react along party lines and, therefore, it becomes impossible to get a more objective understanding and analysis of the situation.
Sections of the western media, including Sky News, have reported that the latest airstrikes in South Waziristan were launched by the US military with the help of its Predator plane. One report claimed that the US government allowed Pakistan to take credit for the airstrikes. If true, it is a continuation of last year's missile strikes in Bajaur that too were fired from US drones. There is no guarantee that such attacks will not be repeated in future even though President General Pervez Musharraf said last year that the US authorities had assured him after the Damadola airstrikes that it won't happen again. He was justifiably angry that he wasn't taken into confidence about the Damadola attack despite risking his life by taking on Al Qaeda and the Taliban and doing so much to make the US and its allied countries safer. The US has given itself the right to launch pre-emptive strikes anywhere in the world to protect its interests and it seems objections by Pakistan or other weaker nations to this policy don't count much in President Bush's scheme of things. It is another matter that such airstrikes cause so much ‘collateral damage' that America makes more enemies than it can kill after each such attack.
As far as Pakistan is concerned, it is time the Musharraf government defined the limits and parameters of its cooperation with the US in the so-called ‘war on terror.' Its policy of open-ended support to the US has polarised our society and alienated large sections of the population, particularly in the NWFP, Balochistan and the Federally Administered Tribal Areas. The strategy of making peace accords with the tribes and the militants was the right thing to do even if it is criticised by western governments, the media and think-tanks as a policy of appeasement. Such accords were signed as a necessity to reduce losses to the military and our people by employing traditional peacemaking methods such as jirgas. Pakistan has to look after its own interest first instead of bombing villages on the basis of incomplete and faulty intelligence supplied by the US and NATO.
However, the peace agreements need to be implemented in letter and spirit and regularly monitored and reviewed. The country cannot afford its territory to be used for launching attacks across the Durand Line border in Afghanistan. The peace accords specifically mentioned this point but there are credible reports that cross-border infiltration hasn't stopped. In fact, pro-Taliban commanders such as Baitullah Mahsud and Haji Omar, who concluded peace deals with the government in South Waziristan in 2005, have publicly stated that they will continue to wage their ‘jihad' against the US-led coalition in Afghanistan. This cannot be allowed at any cost because involvement of Pakistani fighters in the fighting between the Afghan government and Taliban is drawing Islamabad into the conflict and jeopardising the country's security. Any sanctuaries for Taliban on Pakistan's soil too must be removed. At the same time, the Afghan government and all those countries with soldiers in Afghanistan must also realise that military tactics alone will not end the insurgency. They will have to seek reconciliation with the Taliban and their allies and provide them incentives to stop fighting and join the political mainstream.
The writer is an executive editor of The News International based in Peshawar. Email: bbc@pes.comsats.net.pk
By Rahimullah Yusufzai
The News, January 19, 2007
First it was South Waziristan and then the violence shifted to neighbouring North Waziristan. Military operations during 2004-2006 were invariably followed by jirgas and peace agreements which somehow stabilised the two troubled tribal regions bordering Afghanistan. But the latest round of airstrikes in both North Waziristan and South Waziristan could lead to the collapse of the peace accords and plunge the tribal borderlands into another round of death and destruction.
The airstrikes, which the Pakistan Army is claiming to have unleashed against hideouts of suspected militants, have predictably triggered controversy. The government's credibility in view of its track record is so low that most people don't believe its claim that Pakistan Army's gunship helicopters were responsible for the airstrikes in Gurwek in North Waziristan and then on January 16 in Salamat village in Shak Toi area of South Waziristan. The common belief is that the US military using its pilotless, CIA-operated Predator planes fired the missiles that hit targets inside Pakistani territory. That impression was first created on January 13 when two Hellfire missiles fired by a US drone targeted Damadola village in Bajaur tribal agency and killed 13 civilians, including women and children, in their sleep in three mud-brick houses. This image is now etched in the memory of a large number of Pakistanis after being reinforced by another US missile strike at a madressah in Chingai village in Bajaur on October 30 last year. This attack was the most devastating since the launch of the misguided, imperialism-driven US ‘war on terror' in our part of the world as it killed 80 young and innocent students and some of their teachers.
As was the case in the past, we are once again hearing conflicting versions of the incident in the remote Shak Toi mountainous area in South Waziristan. There is such a wide discrepancy in the stories being put out by different stakeholders that it is almost impossible to find the truth. The absence of independent sources of information makes the task even more difficult to piece together a believable sequence of events. The difficulties facing the media to gain access to the targeted place due to its remoteness and on account of unannounced official curbs remain a hurdle in getting to know the real situation on the ground. Military spokesman Major General Shaukat Sultan was as usual sure that up to 30 ‘miscreants' including foreign militants had been killed by taking out three of their five compounds. The next day he came up with the statement that security forces were hunting a handful of ‘Al Qaeda fighters' who were wounded in the airstrikes and were reportedly shifted by their companions to some secret place. As happened in similar attacks in the past, the government was unable to put troops on the ground to secure the area after the bombings and obtain evidence to establish that it indeed had hit the right target. Rather, one may well ask as to why the military cannot drop troops as it has been doing in past military operations in Waziristan and lay siege to suspected hideouts of militants to nab them instead of carrying out airstrikes that are often inaccurate and kill innocent people.
Reports from Salamat village told a different story. Villagers said only eight people were killed and all were civilians. Among them were three Pakistani tribesmen, including a 10-year-old boy, and five Afghans, all powindahs or nomads who are a familiar sight in the NWFP and in Afghanistan as they walk with their caravans of camels to spend winters in the plains and summers in mountainous areas. The names of the dead men, their fathers and sub-tribe were provided to make the information authentic. It was explained that all the victims, including the 10 who were injured in the attack, were working in the nearby forest logging wood and making charcoal for sale in the markets down country. It was difficult not to believe them because they belong to the area and apparently were not involved in any kind of politics.
Protests invariably followed, starting with Tank which serves as the gateway to South Waziristan. It is home to a large number of Mahsud and Wazir tribal families who have migrated to Tank to do business or spend the winter in relatively warmer weather compared to their snow-bound villages in South Waziristan. Protests have broken out elsewhere also and statements condemning the government's action have been put forth by leaders of both the clergy-led MMA and others belonging to secular and nationalist parties. Political parties in such instances react along party lines and, therefore, it becomes impossible to get a more objective understanding and analysis of the situation.
Sections of the western media, including Sky News, have reported that the latest airstrikes in South Waziristan were launched by the US military with the help of its Predator plane. One report claimed that the US government allowed Pakistan to take credit for the airstrikes. If true, it is a continuation of last year's missile strikes in Bajaur that too were fired from US drones. There is no guarantee that such attacks will not be repeated in future even though President General Pervez Musharraf said last year that the US authorities had assured him after the Damadola airstrikes that it won't happen again. He was justifiably angry that he wasn't taken into confidence about the Damadola attack despite risking his life by taking on Al Qaeda and the Taliban and doing so much to make the US and its allied countries safer. The US has given itself the right to launch pre-emptive strikes anywhere in the world to protect its interests and it seems objections by Pakistan or other weaker nations to this policy don't count much in President Bush's scheme of things. It is another matter that such airstrikes cause so much ‘collateral damage' that America makes more enemies than it can kill after each such attack.
As far as Pakistan is concerned, it is time the Musharraf government defined the limits and parameters of its cooperation with the US in the so-called ‘war on terror.' Its policy of open-ended support to the US has polarised our society and alienated large sections of the population, particularly in the NWFP, Balochistan and the Federally Administered Tribal Areas. The strategy of making peace accords with the tribes and the militants was the right thing to do even if it is criticised by western governments, the media and think-tanks as a policy of appeasement. Such accords were signed as a necessity to reduce losses to the military and our people by employing traditional peacemaking methods such as jirgas. Pakistan has to look after its own interest first instead of bombing villages on the basis of incomplete and faulty intelligence supplied by the US and NATO.
However, the peace agreements need to be implemented in letter and spirit and regularly monitored and reviewed. The country cannot afford its territory to be used for launching attacks across the Durand Line border in Afghanistan. The peace accords specifically mentioned this point but there are credible reports that cross-border infiltration hasn't stopped. In fact, pro-Taliban commanders such as Baitullah Mahsud and Haji Omar, who concluded peace deals with the government in South Waziristan in 2005, have publicly stated that they will continue to wage their ‘jihad' against the US-led coalition in Afghanistan. This cannot be allowed at any cost because involvement of Pakistani fighters in the fighting between the Afghan government and Taliban is drawing Islamabad into the conflict and jeopardising the country's security. Any sanctuaries for Taliban on Pakistan's soil too must be removed. At the same time, the Afghan government and all those countries with soldiers in Afghanistan must also realise that military tactics alone will not end the insurgency. They will have to seek reconciliation with the Taliban and their allies and provide them incentives to stop fighting and join the political mainstream.
The writer is an executive editor of The News International based in Peshawar. Email: bbc@pes.comsats.net.pk
Musharraf's Threat to Mullahs....
Stop criticising me or face jail: Musharraf to Mullahs
Daily Times, January 19, 2007
ISLAMABAD: Law-enforcement agencies have warned clerics heading seminaries and mosques that they will be put in jail if they take part in “anti-government activities” or speak against President Gen Pervez Musharraf, sources told Daily Times. The sources said that three meetings had recently been held between local clerics and security officials, including from the army. “The clerics were told to stop participating in protest gatherings and giving speeches against the president and government policies, at least till the next general elections,” the sources said. They were told that if they did not stop, cases would be registered against them and they would be put behind bars, said the sources. After warning Islamabad’s clerics, the government intends to spread the message to clerics all over the country. The security officials also told the clerics that they had recordings of their Friday sermons and anti-government speeches at protest gatherings. Besides, the clerics were told that mosques built on encroached land would be demolished, said the sources. The Capital Development Authority (CDA) has issued a notice to the management of Lal Mosque saying it should demolish the building of Jamia Hifsa, a seminary for female students, and Jamia Fareedia, within 15 days, or the CDA would demolish these seminaries itself, the sources said. The sources said that the CDA is also considering demolishing four mosques - Masjid-e-Shuhada, Aabpara, Zia Masjid on Kuri Road, and two near Rawal Dam square - built on encroached land. mohammad imran
Daily Times, January 19, 2007
ISLAMABAD: Law-enforcement agencies have warned clerics heading seminaries and mosques that they will be put in jail if they take part in “anti-government activities” or speak against President Gen Pervez Musharraf, sources told Daily Times. The sources said that three meetings had recently been held between local clerics and security officials, including from the army. “The clerics were told to stop participating in protest gatherings and giving speeches against the president and government policies, at least till the next general elections,” the sources said. They were told that if they did not stop, cases would be registered against them and they would be put behind bars, said the sources. After warning Islamabad’s clerics, the government intends to spread the message to clerics all over the country. The security officials also told the clerics that they had recordings of their Friday sermons and anti-government speeches at protest gatherings. Besides, the clerics were told that mosques built on encroached land would be demolished, said the sources. The Capital Development Authority (CDA) has issued a notice to the management of Lal Mosque saying it should demolish the building of Jamia Hifsa, a seminary for female students, and Jamia Fareedia, within 15 days, or the CDA would demolish these seminaries itself, the sources said. The sources said that the CDA is also considering demolishing four mosques - Masjid-e-Shuhada, Aabpara, Zia Masjid on Kuri Road, and two near Rawal Dam square - built on encroached land. mohammad imran
Wednesday, January 17, 2007
US - Pakistan relations under series strain
US presses Pakistan for Taliban crackdown
By Demetri Sevastopulo in Washington and Farhan Bokhari in Islamabad
Financial Times Jan 17, 2007
The US is stepping up pressure on Islamabad to clamp down on Taliban havens inside Pakistan as US and Nato forces prepare for a tough spring campaign in Afghanistan by the Islamic fundamentalists.
Robert Gates, the new US defence secretary, this week laid down clear markers that it wanted General Pervez Musharraf, president of Pakistan, to crack down on Taliban militants in Pakistan.
"There are more attacks coming across the border, there are al-Qaeda networks operating on the Pakistan side of the border, and these are issues that we clearly will have to pursue with the Pakistani government," Mr Gates said in Kabul.
Relations between Washington and Islamabad improved significantly in the wake of the 2001 al-Qaeda attacks on the US after Gen Musharraf pledged full co-operation in defeating extremism. Washington has since been careful to calibrate its public criticism of Islamabad because of the co-operation Pakistani forces have provided the US military and CIA in hunting down al-Qaeda operatives in the ungoverned border areas of Afghanistan and Pakistan.
But as the pace of Taliban attacks in Afghanistan picked up over the past year – and with a tough spring offensive expected – US commanders are frustrated that Pakistan is not doing more to help.
John Negroponte, the US intelligence chief, told Congress last week in harsher than normal language that while Pakistan was a partner in the "war on terror" it was also a "major source of Islamic extremism".
Talat Masood, a retired Pakistani general, says Washington wavers between complimenting the regime of Gen Musharraf and unleashing criticism. "Its a very difficult balancing act," he says. "
Pakistani analysts say that the US policy towards the country is inherently flawed, driven mainly by continuing support for a controversial military-led regime while failing to press harder for a return to full democracy, more than six years after a bloodless coup brought Gen Musharraf to power.
Lisa Curtis, a former CIA analyst now at the Heritage Foundation, says the increased rhetoric from Washington is partly aimed at eliminating doubts among some members of the Pakistani government and armed forces that the US is committed to the operations in Afghanistan.
"I think there is probably a serious debate within the Pakistani security establishment on this issue and that is why we need to be clear on what the US commitment and goals are in the region so that this debate can stop and Pakistanis can put their full force behind reining in the Taliban."
One senior American official said part of the problem was that Pakistan's co-operation has been "episodic". Pakistan has helped the US capture members of al-Qaeda, such as Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged mastermind of the 9/11 attacks. But the official says Islamabad's reluctance to crack down on the Taliban is partly responsible for the fact that the US has only killed or captured five or six Taliban operatives on its top 100 list.
Edward Luttwak of the Center for Strategic and International Studies says the US is particularly concerned that Islamabad has allowed the northern tribal area of Waziristan to become a de facto independent province where the Taliban can operate freely.
The senior US official said the US was frustrated with tribal deals struck under which Islamabad agreed to withdraw Pakistani troops from the ungoverned areas in return for tribal leaders agreeing to stop co-operating with al-Qaeda and Taliban operatives. But the official said the deal ended up helping the Taliban become more dominant in the tribal areas.
"Pakistanis had options but chose the easy way out," says Mr Luttwak. "They thought they would get away with it. They are not getting away with it because the Americans are reacting. I think they will bite the bullet."
Stephen Cohen, an expert on Pakistan at the Brookings Institution, says Mr Musharraf may have over-estimated the strength of the US-Pakistan relationship in deciding not to crack down on the Taliban.
"[The Pakistanis] are aware that the Pakistan-US relationship broke once before over the nuclear programme and perhaps it might break again over Pakistan's support for the Taliban," says Mr Cohen. "But their calculation is that they have support at the top of the US government so don't need to worry much about what the Afghans and Indians are saying."
While American officials are stepping up pressure on Islamabad, Democrats in Congress are likely to urge Mr Bush to tackle Pakistani support for the Taliban. One piece of legislation before Congress would tie US aid to Pakistan to a presidential certification that Pakistan was co-operating in dealing with the Taliban.
If passed, the legislation could have a sobering effort on Islamabad. Alan Kronstadt, a South Asia expert at the non-partisan Congressional Research Service, estimates that the Pentagon is providing Pakistan with about $80m (€62m, £41m) a month – 25 per cent of the Pakistani military expenditures – for counter-terrorism operations.
"The Americans think they have struck a great bargain with having Musharraf support," says Ghazi Salahuddin, a political columnist for The News, Pakistan's large circulation English newspaper. "The reality is, they have struck what appears to be a very poor bargain."
© The Financial Times Ltd 2007. "FT" and "Financial Times" are trademarks of the Financial Times.Copyright The Financial Times Ltd. All rights reserved
By Demetri Sevastopulo in Washington and Farhan Bokhari in Islamabad
Financial Times Jan 17, 2007
The US is stepping up pressure on Islamabad to clamp down on Taliban havens inside Pakistan as US and Nato forces prepare for a tough spring campaign in Afghanistan by the Islamic fundamentalists.
Robert Gates, the new US defence secretary, this week laid down clear markers that it wanted General Pervez Musharraf, president of Pakistan, to crack down on Taliban militants in Pakistan.
"There are more attacks coming across the border, there are al-Qaeda networks operating on the Pakistan side of the border, and these are issues that we clearly will have to pursue with the Pakistani government," Mr Gates said in Kabul.
Relations between Washington and Islamabad improved significantly in the wake of the 2001 al-Qaeda attacks on the US after Gen Musharraf pledged full co-operation in defeating extremism. Washington has since been careful to calibrate its public criticism of Islamabad because of the co-operation Pakistani forces have provided the US military and CIA in hunting down al-Qaeda operatives in the ungoverned border areas of Afghanistan and Pakistan.
But as the pace of Taliban attacks in Afghanistan picked up over the past year – and with a tough spring offensive expected – US commanders are frustrated that Pakistan is not doing more to help.
John Negroponte, the US intelligence chief, told Congress last week in harsher than normal language that while Pakistan was a partner in the "war on terror" it was also a "major source of Islamic extremism".
Talat Masood, a retired Pakistani general, says Washington wavers between complimenting the regime of Gen Musharraf and unleashing criticism. "Its a very difficult balancing act," he says. "
Pakistani analysts say that the US policy towards the country is inherently flawed, driven mainly by continuing support for a controversial military-led regime while failing to press harder for a return to full democracy, more than six years after a bloodless coup brought Gen Musharraf to power.
Lisa Curtis, a former CIA analyst now at the Heritage Foundation, says the increased rhetoric from Washington is partly aimed at eliminating doubts among some members of the Pakistani government and armed forces that the US is committed to the operations in Afghanistan.
"I think there is probably a serious debate within the Pakistani security establishment on this issue and that is why we need to be clear on what the US commitment and goals are in the region so that this debate can stop and Pakistanis can put their full force behind reining in the Taliban."
One senior American official said part of the problem was that Pakistan's co-operation has been "episodic". Pakistan has helped the US capture members of al-Qaeda, such as Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged mastermind of the 9/11 attacks. But the official says Islamabad's reluctance to crack down on the Taliban is partly responsible for the fact that the US has only killed or captured five or six Taliban operatives on its top 100 list.
Edward Luttwak of the Center for Strategic and International Studies says the US is particularly concerned that Islamabad has allowed the northern tribal area of Waziristan to become a de facto independent province where the Taliban can operate freely.
The senior US official said the US was frustrated with tribal deals struck under which Islamabad agreed to withdraw Pakistani troops from the ungoverned areas in return for tribal leaders agreeing to stop co-operating with al-Qaeda and Taliban operatives. But the official said the deal ended up helping the Taliban become more dominant in the tribal areas.
"Pakistanis had options but chose the easy way out," says Mr Luttwak. "They thought they would get away with it. They are not getting away with it because the Americans are reacting. I think they will bite the bullet."
Stephen Cohen, an expert on Pakistan at the Brookings Institution, says Mr Musharraf may have over-estimated the strength of the US-Pakistan relationship in deciding not to crack down on the Taliban.
"[The Pakistanis] are aware that the Pakistan-US relationship broke once before over the nuclear programme and perhaps it might break again over Pakistan's support for the Taliban," says Mr Cohen. "But their calculation is that they have support at the top of the US government so don't need to worry much about what the Afghans and Indians are saying."
While American officials are stepping up pressure on Islamabad, Democrats in Congress are likely to urge Mr Bush to tackle Pakistani support for the Taliban. One piece of legislation before Congress would tie US aid to Pakistan to a presidential certification that Pakistan was co-operating in dealing with the Taliban.
If passed, the legislation could have a sobering effort on Islamabad. Alan Kronstadt, a South Asia expert at the non-partisan Congressional Research Service, estimates that the Pentagon is providing Pakistan with about $80m (€62m, £41m) a month – 25 per cent of the Pakistani military expenditures – for counter-terrorism operations.
"The Americans think they have struck a great bargain with having Musharraf support," says Ghazi Salahuddin, a political columnist for The News, Pakistan's large circulation English newspaper. "The reality is, they have struck what appears to be a very poor bargain."
© The Financial Times Ltd 2007. "FT" and "Financial Times" are trademarks of the Financial Times.Copyright The Financial Times Ltd. All rights reserved
A Push for a Pakistan Plan
A Push for a Pakistan Plan
By Craig Cohen and Derek Chollet
Special to washingtonpost.com's Think Tank Town
Friday, January 12, 2007;
Now that Democrats in Congress are beginning to flex their muscles, everyone is guessing whether more intrusive oversight will influence the Bush administration's approach to foreign policy.
This week the House passed a bill to fully implement the 9/11 Commission recommendations. Included was a 180-day window for President Bush to come up with a long-term strategy for Pakistan. Since the 9/11 commissioners last year graded the administration's approach to Pakistan a lowly C+, this policy review is long overdue.
No doubt it comes at a difficult time for a weary administration. Given the range of crises confronting the United States today -- Iraq's implosion, North Korea and Iran's nuclear programs, Afghanistan's instability, and Darfur's genocide -- it is tempting to push aside seemingly less immediate problems.
But Pakistan remains one of Washington's biggest unspoken worries. It seems to be in perpetual crisis, just one event away from going over the edge. No one doubts that the costs of Pakistan's freefall would be tremendous. Yet the current options to prevent this from happening are few and far between.
In the past six months we've seen a number of sparks that could set Pakistan aflame. Last October a Pakistan military strike on a madrassah in Bajaur prompted the deadliest suicide attack against Pakistani soldiers on record, killing 42.
The government's extra-judicial killing of the influential rebel leader Nawab Bugti last August reaffirmed for many Pakistanis that they live in a lawless society.
And there is mounting evidence that the Taliban and al Qaeda continue to find refuge and training in Pakistan, increasing the possibility of future violations of Pakistani sovereignty by NATO or U.S. forces from Afghanistan.
It's clear that Pakistan's military President, General Pervez Musharraf, is caught between America's security demands and his own citizens' hostility toward U.S. interference. A governance crisis -- if Musharraf disappears or is overthrown -- could quickly make a nuclear Pakistan one of the top foreign policy issues the United States has to address.
Yet despite the stakes, America's Pakistan policy remains shockingly unimaginative and reactive. The hallmark is stability, which since 9/11 has boiled down to unflagging support for Musharraf, and hope for the best.
This policy obscures the key question of what America wants from Pakistan in the first place, and reaffirms U.S. dependence on a man who might be gone tomorrow. The default setting is "stay the course," at least until the next crisis erupts.
For all the talk of America's global dominance, we find ourselves with very little leverage to influence events in Pakistan. U.S. engagement demonstrates the limits of our hard power. We've spent billions to buy the cooperation of the Pakistani military since 9/11, and all we get in return may be just enough help to keep the money coming.
Our soft power in Pakistan -- the ability to influence by attraction and persuasion -- is far lower than it could be considering the historic, economic, and personal bonds that unite our two countries. Is it possible for the United States to convince Pakistanis that we're interested in a serious long-term partnership, rather than merely a short-term alliance of convenience?
Doing so will require a better understanding of Pakistan, as well as an assistance strategy more aligned with the needs of average Pakistanis.
First, how well do we know Pakistan? Limited by security restrictions and our over-reliance on elites, U.S. officials are unfamiliar with the likely drivers of future events, including lower ranks of the military, Pakistani intelligence and Islamist parties, as well as the Pakistani business community. Better engagement begins with better understanding.
Second, is there a real strategy guiding U.S. assistance efforts? U.S. assistance to Pakistan is highly personalized, militarized and centralized, with very little reaching the vast majority of Pakistanis. How can the U.S. expect to impact education in a country of 170 million -- 40% of whom are under 14 -- when we spend less on education there each year than Portland, Maine spends on its students?
Congress is right to push administration officials to articulate their plan for Pakistan. Is the priority to guide India and Pakistan away from the nuclear precipice, keep nukes out of the hands of terrorists, rebuild Afghanistan, hunt down al Qaeda, or help Pakistan to prosper?
A constant crisis mentality often precludes strategic thinking. When you're in a high-wire juggling act, it's not easy to look off to the horizon.
A closer look at the numbers for U.S. assistance to Pakistan since 9/11 may spark a broader discussion of long-term objectives. For instance, what effect have the billions spent on Coalition Support Funds had on Pakistan's capacity and willingness to confront the Taliban and al Qaeda? What effect has U.S. assistance had on the chances of civilian, democratic, moderate leadership emerging in Pakistan over the long-run?
Money isn't everything, but it often sends a clearer signal of our priorities than official statements.
Elections and transitions offer the opportunity to rethink America's interests and policy options. If we squander the chance and allow our approach to Pakistan to be governed by little more than blind faith, both Musharraf and U.S. policy are sure to remain in the line of fire for the foreseeable future.
Craig Cohen and Derek Chollet are fellows at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
By Craig Cohen and Derek Chollet
Special to washingtonpost.com's Think Tank Town
Friday, January 12, 2007;
Now that Democrats in Congress are beginning to flex their muscles, everyone is guessing whether more intrusive oversight will influence the Bush administration's approach to foreign policy.
This week the House passed a bill to fully implement the 9/11 Commission recommendations. Included was a 180-day window for President Bush to come up with a long-term strategy for Pakistan. Since the 9/11 commissioners last year graded the administration's approach to Pakistan a lowly C+, this policy review is long overdue.
No doubt it comes at a difficult time for a weary administration. Given the range of crises confronting the United States today -- Iraq's implosion, North Korea and Iran's nuclear programs, Afghanistan's instability, and Darfur's genocide -- it is tempting to push aside seemingly less immediate problems.
But Pakistan remains one of Washington's biggest unspoken worries. It seems to be in perpetual crisis, just one event away from going over the edge. No one doubts that the costs of Pakistan's freefall would be tremendous. Yet the current options to prevent this from happening are few and far between.
In the past six months we've seen a number of sparks that could set Pakistan aflame. Last October a Pakistan military strike on a madrassah in Bajaur prompted the deadliest suicide attack against Pakistani soldiers on record, killing 42.
The government's extra-judicial killing of the influential rebel leader Nawab Bugti last August reaffirmed for many Pakistanis that they live in a lawless society.
And there is mounting evidence that the Taliban and al Qaeda continue to find refuge and training in Pakistan, increasing the possibility of future violations of Pakistani sovereignty by NATO or U.S. forces from Afghanistan.
It's clear that Pakistan's military President, General Pervez Musharraf, is caught between America's security demands and his own citizens' hostility toward U.S. interference. A governance crisis -- if Musharraf disappears or is overthrown -- could quickly make a nuclear Pakistan one of the top foreign policy issues the United States has to address.
Yet despite the stakes, America's Pakistan policy remains shockingly unimaginative and reactive. The hallmark is stability, which since 9/11 has boiled down to unflagging support for Musharraf, and hope for the best.
This policy obscures the key question of what America wants from Pakistan in the first place, and reaffirms U.S. dependence on a man who might be gone tomorrow. The default setting is "stay the course," at least until the next crisis erupts.
For all the talk of America's global dominance, we find ourselves with very little leverage to influence events in Pakistan. U.S. engagement demonstrates the limits of our hard power. We've spent billions to buy the cooperation of the Pakistani military since 9/11, and all we get in return may be just enough help to keep the money coming.
Our soft power in Pakistan -- the ability to influence by attraction and persuasion -- is far lower than it could be considering the historic, economic, and personal bonds that unite our two countries. Is it possible for the United States to convince Pakistanis that we're interested in a serious long-term partnership, rather than merely a short-term alliance of convenience?
Doing so will require a better understanding of Pakistan, as well as an assistance strategy more aligned with the needs of average Pakistanis.
First, how well do we know Pakistan? Limited by security restrictions and our over-reliance on elites, U.S. officials are unfamiliar with the likely drivers of future events, including lower ranks of the military, Pakistani intelligence and Islamist parties, as well as the Pakistani business community. Better engagement begins with better understanding.
Second, is there a real strategy guiding U.S. assistance efforts? U.S. assistance to Pakistan is highly personalized, militarized and centralized, with very little reaching the vast majority of Pakistanis. How can the U.S. expect to impact education in a country of 170 million -- 40% of whom are under 14 -- when we spend less on education there each year than Portland, Maine spends on its students?
Congress is right to push administration officials to articulate their plan for Pakistan. Is the priority to guide India and Pakistan away from the nuclear precipice, keep nukes out of the hands of terrorists, rebuild Afghanistan, hunt down al Qaeda, or help Pakistan to prosper?
A constant crisis mentality often precludes strategic thinking. When you're in a high-wire juggling act, it's not easy to look off to the horizon.
A closer look at the numbers for U.S. assistance to Pakistan since 9/11 may spark a broader discussion of long-term objectives. For instance, what effect have the billions spent on Coalition Support Funds had on Pakistan's capacity and willingness to confront the Taliban and al Qaeda? What effect has U.S. assistance had on the chances of civilian, democratic, moderate leadership emerging in Pakistan over the long-run?
Money isn't everything, but it often sends a clearer signal of our priorities than official statements.
Elections and transitions offer the opportunity to rethink America's interests and policy options. If we squander the chance and allow our approach to Pakistan to be governed by little more than blind faith, both Musharraf and U.S. policy are sure to remain in the line of fire for the foreseeable future.
Craig Cohen and Derek Chollet are fellows at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
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