Need for a breather
Benazir Bhutto's will is genuine
Arif Nizami, The Nation, 17 January 2008
LAHORE - Predictably media reports about formation of a national government comprising all major political parties have proved to be wrong. It all started from a meeting between PML(N) supremo Mian Shahbaz Sharif and the President's confidant Brig (retd) Niaz Ahmed. Sharif was quick to deny these reports claiming that such a proposal was not even discussed. However, those who midwifed this 'scoop', still insist on standing by their story without going into the possible implications of such a move.
For starters neither the PPP nor the PML(N) have categorically declined even to discuss such a dispensation under Musharraf. In order to such a proposal to fly, they would demand a government to be headed by a neutral president for starters, formation of an independent election commission and suspension of the nazims.
The Sharifs would certainly call for the restoration of the judiciary to the pre-November 3 status, while Asif Zardari would ask for a UN probe into his wife's assassination. President Musharraf has predictably denied formation of such a government that would practically mean hanging up his gloves.
He is not quite ready to do that as yet. If it were so, the present political impasse will resolve itself, since it largely emanates from the President's insistence on staying the course and keeping on calling the shots, come what may. Even Benazir Bhutto's tragic assassination has not changed his mindset about seeing his favourite party and its stalwarts in Parliament, through the general elections by fair means or foul.
What the country needs is a breather rather than politics of hate, but his repeated 'she-asked-for-it' remarks about Ms Bhutto's daylight murder not only border on insensitivity but also betray a callous disregard of our culture. Neither have Ch Pervez Elahi's vitriolic remarks about Mr Zardari and the Sharifs helped matters.
The other day when I went to Naudero, heading a CPNE delegation to condole with Mr Zardari, reacting to reports about Mr Musharraf's reported intention to visit him to condole his wife's death, he was candid enough to say that Mr Musharraf was not welcome. This was indeed sad that the grieving family was not in a position to receive the President owing to flared-up tempers and hurt feelings in Sindh.
It would have been a good opportunity for the President to end politics of hatred by offering an olive branch not only to the PPP but also to all political forces of the country. Instead he has chosen to continue on the disastrous path of confrontation. As a result the country is in an acute state of turmoil with various theories about who killed Benazir abound. In the wake of various versions floating around, there are hardly any takers for the often contradictory official versions of the tragedy.
Even detractors of Ms Bhutto, of which there are many, now concede that powers that be cannot tolerate populist political forces or even a semblance of civil or civilised society in Pakistan. Their tall claims about tolerance and enlightenment ring hollow in the face of their consistent crushing of dissent of those who stand for the rule of law in the country.
This is despite the fact that Pakistan is a powder keg waiting to explode. A spate of suicide bombings in recent weeks in major cities of the country and the situation in Balochistan, the tribal areas and the settled areas of the NWFP, including Swat, have reduced the writ of the state to virtually nil. Perhaps fair and free elections under a genuinely neutral caretaker set-up could be a way out of the present political crisis. But right now the nation is being denied this option for the simple reason that such elections despite claims to the contrary will annihilate the political pygmies and their mentors from the scene.
The President in his recent interviews has claimed that if as a result of the elections a government hostile to him tries to impeach him he will call it quits. He has also said in a subsequent interview that the next government will have to follow his policies. How is that possible under a parliamentary form of government only he can explain. However, his remarks do betray the desire to cling to power come what may and that too on his terms.
He is not willing to concede that ground realities have drastically changed in recent months. Starting from his doffing the uniform, the return of the Sharifs and the assassination of Ms Bhutto the fortunes of the erstwhile ruling alliance have plummeted. Despite Islamabad's role in the War On Terror, the West is becoming increasingly wary of Musharraf's policies, the manifestation of which are daily seen in the critical western media.
The best way forward for Pakistan would be to return to a parliamentary, federal and democratic system in its true spirit. For that to happen the army has to be seen taking a back seat. Thankfully the newly inducted Chief of the Army Staff Gen Ahsfaq Kiyani is making the right noises. The former army chief and now President will also have to play his role to set things right even if it means a smooth transition sans him, with a truly national government in place.
The President's thinly disguised disdain for Shaheed Ms Bhutto apart, her legacy in the form of her party is still intact and Mr. Zardari and son Bilawal are her true legatees. Notwithstanding valid arguments against dynastic politics, it is a reality that our feudal, tribal milieu and popularly elected governments despite their warts are still preferable to a military or quasi -military dispensations.
So far as the mini-controversy about the authenticity of Ms Bhutto's will is concerned, it is genuine, since I have seen and read the one-page document in her handwriting and duly signed by her on October 16 2007, two days prior to her fateful departure for her homeland.
Friday, January 18, 2008
12 die in suicide attack on Peshawar Imambargah
12 die in suicide attack on Peshawar Imam-bargah
20 injured in blast; police claim only eight deaths
By Javed Aziz Khan; The News, January 18, 2008
PESHAWAR: The seventh of Muharram once again proved fatal for Peshawar as 12 people were killed and 20 others wounded in a suicide blast inside the Imambargah Mirza Qasim Baig in Mohallah Jhangi, a few minutes after a mourning procession ended there on Thursday evening.
Large police contingents had just returned to their stations after peaceful dispersal of the Muharram procession when a huge blast rocked the city at 6:45 pm. Eyewitnesses told The News that security volunteers at the entrance of the Imambargah Mirza Qasim became suspicious of a youth who was wearing black clothes. When they tried to stop him, he ran away towards the hall where a large number of people were still present.
“A few persons shouted to alert the others about the suicide bomber, but the terrorist blew himself up, giving no time to the people,” they added. “I shouted to alert the people about the presence of the suicide bomber when I became suspicious of an 18-year-old clean shaven boy, who had moustaches. My shouts could not be heard. Suddenly, the bomber raised his arms and explosives around his body went off with a deafening sound,” a woman mourner, Nusrat, told newspersons.
There were unconfirmed reports that the bomber had fired a shot from his pistol at a security man before detonating his explosive vest. “Though it is not confirmed, there are some reports that he had fired a shot at a security man after which people started shouting and he immediately blew himself up,” Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) Operations, Syed Imtiaz Shah, told The News. The officer confirmed the death of only eight people.
“Twelve people, including the suicide bomber, have been killed while around 20 others were wounded, four of them critically,” sources at the Emergency Department of the Lady Reading Hospital told The News. Ambulances of Edhi Foundation rushed to the spot soon after the blast to carry the injured to hospital. Soon after the blast, rain started, hampering the rescue operation.
Those killed included Mirza Waqar, Lala Nazar, Mohammad Sardar, Alamdar Hussain and a minor Bilal. Alamdar was a member of the police musical band and was not on duty at the time of the incident. The rest of the bodies were disfigured beyond recognition.
Among the injured are two lady constables, Rozina and Zainab, while others are Shahadat Ali, Suleman, Durre Bahadur, Shahnawaz, Waqar Hussain, Ali Haider, Asif and Abdul Karim. A number of women clashed with the policemen when they arrived at the scene of the blast for not providing security to them. A DSP and his men were also thrashed.
A bomb hoax created panic among the people outside the emergency block of the Lady Reading Hospital, who were there to inquire about their loved ones or to donate blood. A suicide bomber had killed 16 persons including two senior police officers in a suicide attack on the seventh of Muharram around the same time last year. The spot that time, however, was Dhaki Dalgaran, hardly a few hundred meters away from Thursday’s scene.
While keeping in view last year’s incident, the police had sealed off Qissa Khwani, Jehangirpura, Kohati, Kochi Bazaar, Dhaki Dalgaran, Mohallah Jhangi and some other parts of the city and there was a curfew-like situation ahead of the procession. Shops were forcibly closed and the public was not allowed to roam around. All the streets linking the routes of the procession were blocked and cops deployed at their entrances did not allow any movement.
“The police contingents had just left after the procession ended peacefully,” SSP Operations said when asked as to how a bomber managed to deceive thousands of cops deployed for security around the Imambargah. Replying to another question, the official said that there were no threats for the specific day.
Rejecting rumours of deployment of Army at Imambargahs, Syed Imtiaz Shah stressed the police would itself take all the security measures for the coming three days of Muharram. It has been learnt that the entire interior city is likely to be sealed from today (Friday) to avoid terrorist attacks till the 10th of Muharram. Even after extraordinary security arrangements, Peshawar still remains in the grip of fear and terror.
Also See:12 Killed in Suicide Bombing at Shiite Mosque in Pakistan - New York Times
‘Misguided lunatics’ will not succeed: Musharraf - Dawn
Picture at the top from Daily Times, Jan 18, 2008
Thursday, January 17, 2008
Polls boycott in Balochistan By Senator Sanaullah Baloch
Polls boycott in Balochistan
By Sanaullah Baloch, Dawn, January 17, 2008
FOLLOWING the All Parties Democratic Movement’s (APDM) decision, Baloch and Pushtoon nationalist parties are boycotting the upcoming elections in Balochistan. No doubt, the majority of the moderate, literate and student groups in Balochistan are affiliated with the boycotting parties.
The core issue is not the election boycott, but the serious detachment of the nationalist parties from mainstream politics and the poll process. This is alarming.
The main reason for their boycott of the poll is the military operations unleashed by the federal government which led to killings, arrests and brutalities in Balochistan. Their boycott will certainly give the government an opportunity to re-install a pro-military religious government in the province to continue its unpopular policies.
The four major nationalist parties that are boycotting the polls are the Balochistan National Party (BNP), Pushtoonkhwa Milli Awami Party, National Party (NP) and Jamhoori Watan Party (JWP). These parties believe that the ‘boycott weapon’ might prove to be effective against dictatorship and autocracy.
They believe that the on-going military operation had worsened the situation in Balochistan which had taken a critical turn after the assassination of Baloch nationalist leaders Akbar Khan Bugti and Balach Marri. Also disturbing is the arrest of thousands of Baloch political activists, including Sardar Akhter Mengal, who are being tortured while others have disappeared.
This is not the first time that people in Balochistan are boycotting elections. In 1977 the political parties in the province had boycotted the polls under the umbrella of the PNA because of the military operation and the detention of a majority of Baloch leaders.
In the 1970 elections, when intelligence agencies were not involved in ‘election management’, the moderate Baloch nationalists won three out of four National Assembly seats and eight out of twenty in the provincial assembly. Although five members were elected as independent candidates the majority was supported by the nationalists. JUI was able to win only two seats in the 1970 elections in Balochistan. The Pakistan People’s Party did well in Punjab and Sindh but failed to win a single national and provincial seat in Balochistan.
In 1988, Baloch nationalists won the majority seats in Baloch populated constituencies. JUI and other parties managed to win seats from Pushtoon dominated areas of the province. Nawab Akbar Bugti was appointed chief minister. His unpleasant relations with Benazir Bhutto-led central government made it difficult to initiate a mega economic activity in the province to uplift the socio-economic condition of impoverished masses.
In 1990, once again Nawab Bugti’s JWP and other Baloch nationalists won a majority in the province but were prevented by the intelligence agencies from forming a government. In 1993, Baloch nationalists suffered heavy election losses due to election manipulations by the agencies and some internal fractions.
In 1997, BNP formed by veteran Baloch nationalist Sardar Attaullah Mengal secured quite a reasonable number of seats in the Balochistan Assembly and formed a coalition government in the province. But soon after the May 1998 nuclear tests and the BNP’s opposition to them led to the dismissal of Akhter Mengal’s government.
In the 2002 elections, General Musharraf successfully sidelined the Baloch nationalists and paved the way for pro-Taliban MMA elements. The systematic exclusion of Baloch moderate parties resulted in political violence and the intensification of the tensions between Islamabad and Balochistan. The 2008 elections will further alienate the moderate Baloch and Pakhtoon political forces from the centre.
With Nawab Akbar Khan Bugti eliminated and the BNP president Sardar Akhter Mengal incarcerated, any political engagement with the Baloch is difficult. Selfish religious elements will dominate Balochistan’s election scene and can be expected to form the future government in the province.
In its report of July 2007, Elections, Democracy and Stability in Pakistan, the International Crisis Group expressed concern about Islamabad’s support towards religious groups in Balochistan. It argued, “Now, as before, Musharraf has little choice but to support the Islamist parties to counter his moderate opposition. The pro-Taliban JUI’s help is essential to him, particularly in Balochistan, where the staunchly anti-military Baloch nationalist parties would likely win a free and fair poll. In the national parliament too, Musharraf would need the Islamists’ support to get renewed approval of his dual hats.
“If the Islamist parties gain five more years of power in Balochistan and NWFP, their militant allies – Pakistani, Afghan and transnational – will benefit, and the moderate parties, which still retain the support of the vast majority of the population, will lose.”
Baloch parties have also raised their concerns about the central and provincial caretaker governments and described them as biased and alleged that a ‘master plan’ had been prepared to rig the elections. It seems that the ‘brothers and sisters’ of caretaker ministers in the province will ‘win’ the elections. They claim that free and fair general elections are not possible when 23 out of 28 district nazims belong to the PML-Q, JUI-F and the pro-government BNP. There is visible evidence that close relatives of provincial caretaker cabinet members are contesting the polls from several constituencies and are likely to get elected thanks to the profound influence exercised by the provincial administration.
The APDM leaders are holding rallies to convince the masses as to how could free, fair and transparent elections take place in a country where political parties are prohibited from campaigning freely in an atmosphere of intimidation induced by the military and where top Baloch representatives have been persecuted on ethnic basis. They have been jailed for years without any transparent judicial trials. Political activists have been detained for months under the pretext of maintenance of public order.
Although, the government seems determined to hold elections in the province, the turn-out in the province will be low and the legitimacy of the polls will remain questionable. In future, any provincial government in this volatile province would not be in a position to function and deliver, as it will lack a mandate from the people. The nationalist parties enjoy very strong mass support and they can paralyse the provincial government when they want.
The writer is a member of the Senate. balochbnp@gmail.com
Deteriorating Situation in South Waziristan
Militants overrun paramilitary fort: Militia suffers heavy casualty; 40 militants killed, claims ISPR
By Our Correspondent: Dawn, January 17, 2008
WANA, Jan 16: Hundreds of militants captured a paramilitary fort in South Waziristan on Tuesday night after killing 22 militiamen and taking several others hostage, credible sources told Dawn.
The sources said that 600 to 700 militants attacked the fort in Sararogha, manned by the South Waziristan Scouts, at around 9pm on Tuesday, firing rockets and mortars.
Thirty-eight paramilitary soldiers and six civilians, including cooks, barbers and orderlies, were in the fort when it came under the assault.
“Soldiers put up a good fight, but couldn’t hold out for long in the face of an overwhelming militant force,” a source said.
The last distress radio message, according to him, was made at around 3am to the Ludda Fort, asking for artillery fire at the militants who had broken through the defences and begun pouring into the base.
The sources said that 15 militiamen died in the battle, which lasted for nearly six hours.
Initial reports said that 22 soldiers had gone missing. According to another report, at least seven of them were beheaded by the militants.
The remaining soldiers were believed to have been taken hostage by the militants.
The sources said that seven paramilitary soldiers who had managed to escape to Ludda told their bosses that six Taliban had been killed in the attack.
One of them was said to be from the Kurram tribal region, another a local Mehsud tribesman and the remaining four were believed to be Uzbeks.
The Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) on Wednesday said that seven of the Frontier Corps militiamen had been killed in the onslaught by approximately 200 militants.
It claimed that 40 militants had fallen in the gun battle. Fifteen soldiers escaped and reached Jandola Fort. The fate of the rest was not known, the ISPR said.
A spokesman for the Tehrik-i-Taliban claimed killing 16 scouts and capturing 24.
Militant groups had coalesced into a single force last month.
Taliban spokesman Maulvi Umar told Dawn that militant commander Baitullah Mahsud had led the charge on the British-era fort. He claimed the Taliban had lost only two of their men in the fighting.
Sources told Dawn that the militants had abandoned the fort after seizing arms and ammunition left behind by the paramilitary unit.
According to eyewitnesses, the militants captured several soldiers and slaughtered many of them.
The locals said that after capturing the compound the militants took away weapons, communication tools and blew up the building with explosives.
The also cut off water supply to some of the paramilitary forts. Officials acknowledged that they had been anticipating attacks for quite some time.
“The forts were well-stocked and soldiers had been told to fight to the last man, the last bullet. The soldiers did put up a good fight in a seemingly hopeless situation,” one official said.
It was not clear why the government did not make any effort to either come to the rescue of the besieged soldiers or send in attack helicopters.
The security forces fired mortar shells and heavy machine guns to repulse the attackers. Residential areas also came under attack in which two tribesmen were killed.
South Waziristan tribal region administrator Fazl Rabi convened a jirga of elders of the Mahsud tribe to get back bodies and get kidnapped soldiers freed.
The sources said the elders had refused to approach the Taliban unless the security forces held their fire.
Also see: Army claims success in Swat operation: Militancy almost wiped out
By Our Correspondent: Dawn, January 17, 2008
WANA, Jan 16: Hundreds of militants captured a paramilitary fort in South Waziristan on Tuesday night after killing 22 militiamen and taking several others hostage, credible sources told Dawn.
The sources said that 600 to 700 militants attacked the fort in Sararogha, manned by the South Waziristan Scouts, at around 9pm on Tuesday, firing rockets and mortars.
Thirty-eight paramilitary soldiers and six civilians, including cooks, barbers and orderlies, were in the fort when it came under the assault.
“Soldiers put up a good fight, but couldn’t hold out for long in the face of an overwhelming militant force,” a source said.
The last distress radio message, according to him, was made at around 3am to the Ludda Fort, asking for artillery fire at the militants who had broken through the defences and begun pouring into the base.
The sources said that 15 militiamen died in the battle, which lasted for nearly six hours.
Initial reports said that 22 soldiers had gone missing. According to another report, at least seven of them were beheaded by the militants.
The remaining soldiers were believed to have been taken hostage by the militants.
The sources said that seven paramilitary soldiers who had managed to escape to Ludda told their bosses that six Taliban had been killed in the attack.
One of them was said to be from the Kurram tribal region, another a local Mehsud tribesman and the remaining four were believed to be Uzbeks.
The Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) on Wednesday said that seven of the Frontier Corps militiamen had been killed in the onslaught by approximately 200 militants.
It claimed that 40 militants had fallen in the gun battle. Fifteen soldiers escaped and reached Jandola Fort. The fate of the rest was not known, the ISPR said.
A spokesman for the Tehrik-i-Taliban claimed killing 16 scouts and capturing 24.
Militant groups had coalesced into a single force last month.
Taliban spokesman Maulvi Umar told Dawn that militant commander Baitullah Mahsud had led the charge on the British-era fort. He claimed the Taliban had lost only two of their men in the fighting.
Sources told Dawn that the militants had abandoned the fort after seizing arms and ammunition left behind by the paramilitary unit.
According to eyewitnesses, the militants captured several soldiers and slaughtered many of them.
The locals said that after capturing the compound the militants took away weapons, communication tools and blew up the building with explosives.
The also cut off water supply to some of the paramilitary forts. Officials acknowledged that they had been anticipating attacks for quite some time.
“The forts were well-stocked and soldiers had been told to fight to the last man, the last bullet. The soldiers did put up a good fight in a seemingly hopeless situation,” one official said.
It was not clear why the government did not make any effort to either come to the rescue of the besieged soldiers or send in attack helicopters.
The security forces fired mortar shells and heavy machine guns to repulse the attackers. Residential areas also came under attack in which two tribesmen were killed.
South Waziristan tribal region administrator Fazl Rabi convened a jirga of elders of the Mahsud tribe to get back bodies and get kidnapped soldiers freed.
The sources said the elders had refused to approach the Taliban unless the security forces held their fire.
Also see: Army claims success in Swat operation: Militancy almost wiped out
Wednesday, January 16, 2008
In the name of God, let's throw the rascals out!
Picture title: In the name of God, let's throw the rascals out
Islam and democracy The practice—and the theory
Jan 10th 2008 | BOSTON AND ISTANBUL; Economist
Can rule by the people be reconciled with the sovereignty of Allah?
“TURKEY sets a fantastic example for nations around the world to see where it's possible to have a democracy coexist with a great religion like Islam.” Those were George Bush's words of welcome, this week, to Turkey's President Abdullah Gul.
In decades past, a Turkish leader might have been received at the White House with cordial remarks about his country's growing prosperity or its contribution to NATO. But it would have been strange, perhaps, not to mention religion when hosting a head of state who had just set a precedent that was watched with fascination by politically active Muslims in many parts of the world. When he became president, Mr Gul proved that it was possible for a pious Muslim with a headscarved wife to be made head of state, by a perfectly democratic procedure, in a country where the army is an ever-vigilant guardian against theocracy. For those who insist (whether their arguments are theological, or empirical, or both) that Islam and liberal democracy are quite compatible, Mr Gul's election (and Mr Bush's exuberant reaction to it) was a badly needed nugget of hope in a year when that cause has seen quite a lot of setbacks.
Among American officialdom, confidence in the prospects for democracy in Muslim (and in particular, Arab) lands has fluctuated under the Bush administration. It reached a high point, arguably, in mid-2005, when Condoleezza Rice, the secretary of state, declared in Cairo that the bad old days of favouring stability over democracy were over—and then it plunged again the following January when the Islamist Hamas movement swept to victory in Palestine.
For political scientists, especially those who have studied the phenomenon of “Muslim Democracy” in the belief that the Turkish case could be a precedent for others, the recent turmoil in Pakistan and the assassination of Benazir Bhutto have been a great tragedy in a pivotal country that had the potential to develop a new concordat between Islam and open politics.
Vali Nasr, a professor at America's Tufts University, terms “Muslim Democracy” a newish and potentially decisive force in the non-Arab parts of the Muslim world. In his view, the recent experience of Turkey, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Malaysia and Indonesia all points to a single truth: wherever they are given the chance, Muslim Democratic parties (which are responsive to public opinion and thrive in an open political contest) can prevail over harder-line and more violent varieties of political Islam.
Among the parties Mr Nasr identifies as Muslim Democratic are the faction of the Pakistani Muslim League that held sway until the military takeover in 1999; the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (in power till last year's coup); Malaysia's ruling UMNO party; and a cluster of mildly Islamic parties that share power in Indonesia (see article). Exhibit A for Muslim Democracy is Turkey's Justice and Development (AK) party, which won its democratic spurs after several decades of sparring between generals and pious politicians. As with several other Muslim Democratic parties, the AK's rise reflected economic growth and the advent of a devout but non-fanatical middle class which resents the older elites of bureaucrats and generals.
But what if any is the intellectual ground for Muslim Democracy? Roman Catholic thinking had to tread a long path before it reconciled its belief in human sinfulness with popular sovereignty; Christian Democracy, an important force in post-1945 Europe, was the result.
Abdal-Hakim Murad, a British Muslim scholar, argues that Muslim Democrats have an easier road to travel because Islam's view of human nature is a less pessimistic one. But several factors have helped to make the Muslim debate about democracy difficult and inconclusive. Most of the schools of Muslim thought that have emerged over the past century have been intensely interested in political theory, and also intensely concerned with precedents set at the dawn of the Muslim era. But the precedents are not clear: some caliphs took power by inheritance, others through consensus, others by force.
Khaled Abou El Fadl, an Egyptian-born law professor, has pointed to a passage from the Koran which seems to endow human beings with a special mandate to look after their own affairs.
When your Lord said to the angels: “I have to place a vice-regent on earth,” they said: “Will you place one there who will create disorder and shed blood, while we intone Your litanies and sanctify Your name?” And God said: “I know what you do not know.”
That verse, Mr Fadl has argued, seems to imply that far from sitting back and letting God do everything, human beings must organise their own society.
Another relevant text is the story of Ali, the fourth Muslim caliph, whose leadership was challenged by a rival. To the fury of his zealous supporters, Ali agreed that conflicting claims should be submitted to arbitration. Posterity found Ali right and his critics wrong: human institutions do have a place in settling issues of state.
From Cairo to California
For anyone who looks to Islam's foundational texts as the ultimate arbiter of truth, these are resonant allusions. But arguments in favour of Islam's compatibility with democracy are in perpetual danger of being drowned out by a mixture of depressing news from Muslim lands and zealous ideologues on both sides of a looming civilisational divide.
Whether or not they condone violence, many of the most strident advocates of “political Islam” still take their cue from Sayyid Qutb, an Egyptian thinker, executed in 1966, who regarded secular democracy (and all other secular forms of government, including socialism) as blasphemy pure and simple. In places ranging from British campuses to the jails and torture chambers of Uzbekistan, there are zealous ideologues who follow the Qutbist line that all human agencies of power are a violation of the sovereignty of God. Neatly converging with the anti-democratic zeal of these malcontents is an increasingly respectable argument, among sceptical Western observers of Islam, which holds that the Muslim faith, by its very nature, cannot be other than theocratic. If that is true, then encouraging moderate—in the sense of apolitical—versions of Islam can only be a waste of time.
In the United States, in particular, an“essentialist” mistrust of Islam in all its forms has been gaining ground. One recent sign of this mood: when Keith Ellison from Minnesota became the first Muslim congressman, he was challenged, during his first television interview, to prove that he was not “working for our enemies”.
But in America's free-ranging debates, where the spectrum of views on Islam is probably wider than in any Muslim land or even in Europe, there are also many voices on the other side. Mr Fadl makes his case for the compatibility of democracy and Islam from the University of California at Los Angeles, probably a more secure setting than his native Cairo.
Meanwhile Firas Ahmad, a columnist who co-edits a glossy Muslim monthly from his home in Boston, maintains that a lot of Islamic history—as well as the dilemmas of modern times—should be reconsidered in the light of the robust separation between religion and state which (on his reading, at least), Muslims have quite frequently, and cheerfully, maintained. In modern America, Muslims can make a big contribution to debates about greed and social justice, while fully respecting the country's secular constitution. And his favourite passages in history are the bits where believers (often courageous Sufi mystics) spoke truth to power, not the instances when pliant greybeards did favours to the sultan.
There are, in short, many interesting things to say about Islam and democracy. The pity is that they are mostly being said in the West, not in Islam's heartland.
Benazir Bhutto's Legacy
Advancing the Bhutto legacy
By Husain Haqqani | Boston Globe; January 16, 2008
TOO MUCH commentary on Pakistan has focused on the flaws and feudal nature of its politics. Given the choice between flawed politicians and a military-intelligence establishment that has fostered terrorism for years, the international community - including the United States - must side with Pakistan's politicians. Politics can change. Continued rule by a nontransparent secret service with ties to militant jihadis (which is what General Pervez Musharraf represents) will always create a security dilemma.
The Pakistan People's Party's decision to elect Benazir Bhutto's 19-year-old son, Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, and her husband, Asif Ali Zardari, as co-chairmen of the party is being criticized as representing dynastic politics that does not promote democracy. A distinction must be made between dynastic politics and the politics of family legacy.
It is difficult for Westerners to understand a situation in which a well-organized political party unites around the charisma of a single family while retaining a vast pool of talented leaders. Family legacies have worked to build democracies in countries as far apart as Greece and India. The Papandreou and Karamanlis families have provided leaders for rival parties in Greece for years, and the Nehru-Gandhi family has been the focal point for the Indian National Congress. The Pakistan People's Party, like other parties with family-based leadership in Greece, India, Sri Lanka, and Bangladesh, has a lot of talent in its ranks. That talent remains available to the party regardless of who leads it.
There is a fundamental divide in Pakistan. On the one hand stands a civil-military oligarchy that thinks it has a God-given right to rule Pakistan without bothering to consider the will of the people but with the help of international (especially US) aid. The oligarchy rules with the covert machinations of a powerful intelligence service, which fixes elections, divides parties, and buys off politicians.
On the other side are politicians who question the military-intelligence oligarchy's right to rule, and pay the price by being jailed and frequently vilified. The focus on the politicians' real or perceived flaws takes attention away from the evils of the ruling oligarchy.
If, in the aftermath of the tragic assassination of Bhutto, the Pakistan People's Party had taken out time to go through the process of a party primary or intra-party election, the intelligence apparatus would have actively worked to divide Pakistan's largest opposition party with the huge resources of state at its disposal. By rallying the party base around Bhutto's son and her husband, the party has saved itself from the intrigues of Musharraf's secret services.
Some view the Bhutto legacy as a thorn in Pakistan's history. But to the family's supporters, the Bhutto name represents a wealthy family that spoke up for redistribution of wealth in an elitist state during the late 1960s, when much of Pakistan's economic growth went to just 22 major families.
The Bhuttos have not been perfect, as critics remind us often, and their stints in power did not always fulfill expectations. But the removal of each Bhutto government by military or palace coup has only added to the aura of their struggle and sacrifice.
The Bhutto legacy is comparable, say, to the legacy of Mayor James Curley of Boston or Richard Daley of Chicago. Despite their imperfections, these graft-tainted political figures were able to ensure the inclusion of otherwise disenfranchised communities, such as Irish immigrants of Boston in Curley's case, into the struggle for political power.
The PPP already has more support in Pakistan than any other faction. Bhutto's assassination has enhanced the aura of martyrdom that initially came with the execution of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, at the hands of Islamist military dictator General Zia ul Haq. For the Party to continue its push for the inclusion of the people of Pakistan in the governing process, it is imperative that it win a majority of the votes in the upcoming election.
Given the party's legacy, party unity can best be maintained and votes garnered under the leadership of the Bhutto/Zardari family. Any other leader could have been a brilliant administrator or articulate politician, but none commands the same popularity and recognition as the family members of a martyr.
By Husain Haqqani | Boston Globe; January 16, 2008
TOO MUCH commentary on Pakistan has focused on the flaws and feudal nature of its politics. Given the choice between flawed politicians and a military-intelligence establishment that has fostered terrorism for years, the international community - including the United States - must side with Pakistan's politicians. Politics can change. Continued rule by a nontransparent secret service with ties to militant jihadis (which is what General Pervez Musharraf represents) will always create a security dilemma.
The Pakistan People's Party's decision to elect Benazir Bhutto's 19-year-old son, Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, and her husband, Asif Ali Zardari, as co-chairmen of the party is being criticized as representing dynastic politics that does not promote democracy. A distinction must be made between dynastic politics and the politics of family legacy.
It is difficult for Westerners to understand a situation in which a well-organized political party unites around the charisma of a single family while retaining a vast pool of talented leaders. Family legacies have worked to build democracies in countries as far apart as Greece and India. The Papandreou and Karamanlis families have provided leaders for rival parties in Greece for years, and the Nehru-Gandhi family has been the focal point for the Indian National Congress. The Pakistan People's Party, like other parties with family-based leadership in Greece, India, Sri Lanka, and Bangladesh, has a lot of talent in its ranks. That talent remains available to the party regardless of who leads it.
There is a fundamental divide in Pakistan. On the one hand stands a civil-military oligarchy that thinks it has a God-given right to rule Pakistan without bothering to consider the will of the people but with the help of international (especially US) aid. The oligarchy rules with the covert machinations of a powerful intelligence service, which fixes elections, divides parties, and buys off politicians.
On the other side are politicians who question the military-intelligence oligarchy's right to rule, and pay the price by being jailed and frequently vilified. The focus on the politicians' real or perceived flaws takes attention away from the evils of the ruling oligarchy.
If, in the aftermath of the tragic assassination of Bhutto, the Pakistan People's Party had taken out time to go through the process of a party primary or intra-party election, the intelligence apparatus would have actively worked to divide Pakistan's largest opposition party with the huge resources of state at its disposal. By rallying the party base around Bhutto's son and her husband, the party has saved itself from the intrigues of Musharraf's secret services.
Some view the Bhutto legacy as a thorn in Pakistan's history. But to the family's supporters, the Bhutto name represents a wealthy family that spoke up for redistribution of wealth in an elitist state during the late 1960s, when much of Pakistan's economic growth went to just 22 major families.
The Bhuttos have not been perfect, as critics remind us often, and their stints in power did not always fulfill expectations. But the removal of each Bhutto government by military or palace coup has only added to the aura of their struggle and sacrifice.
The Bhutto legacy is comparable, say, to the legacy of Mayor James Curley of Boston or Richard Daley of Chicago. Despite their imperfections, these graft-tainted political figures were able to ensure the inclusion of otherwise disenfranchised communities, such as Irish immigrants of Boston in Curley's case, into the struggle for political power.
The PPP already has more support in Pakistan than any other faction. Bhutto's assassination has enhanced the aura of martyrdom that initially came with the execution of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, at the hands of Islamist military dictator General Zia ul Haq. For the Party to continue its push for the inclusion of the people of Pakistan in the governing process, it is imperative that it win a majority of the votes in the upcoming election.
Given the party's legacy, party unity can best be maintained and votes garnered under the leadership of the Bhutto/Zardari family. Any other leader could have been a brilliant administrator or articulate politician, but none commands the same popularity and recognition as the family members of a martyr.
An Indian Perspective on What Went Wrong with Pakistan
Thanks to an Anonymous commentator's recommendation
Two Nations, Two Choices
Vir Sanghvi in the Hindustan Times, Januaru 5, 2008
There’s been a lot about Pakistan in the Indian media over the last 10 days: obituaries of Benazir Bhutto; predictions about the forthcoming election; attacks on General Musharraf; and conspiracy theories about the assassination.
I have no problems with much of the coverage, but I am disappointed by the unwillingness of most commentators to go further back in history. After all, Pakistan was once a part of India. Both countries secured independence within a day of each other in 1947. And both made many important choices in the decades that followed: choices that explain why Pakistan and India have developed so differently.
And yet, there was a complete absence of historical perspective in much of the analysis. Even a decade ago, I suspect that we would have covered Pakistan’s tragic slide into anarchy very differently.
It’s still fashionable for a certain kind of north Indian to say about Pakistan and Pakistanis, “we are the same country divided by politicians. And we are the same people.” But as the years go by and new generations take over, this sentiment is fading. Punjabis may feel a kinship with Pakistan — many belong to families divided by Partition — but the rest of India seems much less empathetic.
I’ve been in Bombay and Bangalore since Benazir’s assassination and it was interesting to note how little people cared about events in Pakistan and how quickly even that interest has begun to fade.
And if you follow the international press, you’ll note that the old equivalence, where India and Pakistan were always talked about in the same breath, has now vanished. If Pakistan is compared to any country, it is to Afghanistan. India, on the other hand, tends increasingly to be compared to China. Few foreign journos even bother with the clichés they once used when they referred to Pakistan — such as, for instance: “compared to its democratic neighbour India”. And rarely does the prospect of another India-Pakistan war (a traditional obsession with Western journalists) intrude into their analysis of events in that troubled country.
I remind you of all this to make two separate points. One: we must not let the largely Delhi- and north Indian-dominated ‘national’ media blind us to the increasing irrelevance of Pakistan as a factor in determining India’s future. Punjabi journos may be fascinated by Pakistan; the rest of us are merely curious.
But it is the second point that I regard as more significant. In the 1950s and in the 1960s, when India was ruled by a Nehruvian consensus, there were many critics — usually on the political right — who thought we had got it badly wrong. How did it benefit India, they asked, to follow some crackpot policy of non-alignment which involved a surreptitious tilt to the Soviet Bloc when we could so easily be friends with the US, the world’s most powerful democracy?
There were only two major Asian countries that rejected the US prescription for development and foreign policy: India and China. And look where they are today.Look at Pakistan, they said. Its rulers recognised that there was much to be gained from linking up with Washington and enjoying the benefits of American patronage. A steady stream of American aid dollars flowed into Pakistan. The armed forces had access to the latest weaponry.
The streets of Karachi and Lahore were full of imported cars — not a Landmaster or an Ambassador in sight. Nor did Pakistanis have to put up with all this socialist nonsense. They valued free enterprise and were proud to say so.
The America-Pakistan equation frequently annoyed Indians. It sent us into paroxysms of rage when Richard Nixon and Harry Kissinger backed Pakistan’s whisky-sodden General Yahya Khan while his troops were committing genocide in Bangladesh. And anti-Americanism reached a peak when Nixon sent the Seventh Fleet to the Bay of Bengal during the 1971 India-Pakistan war. (He wanted to warn us off invading West Pakistan). During the Zia-ul-Haq era, when Pakistan’s economy seemed robust and billions of dollars were pumped into the state treasury while we struggled to make ends meet, many educated Indians sincerely wondered whether we were paying the price for Pandit Nehru’s mistaken choices. Hadn’t Mohammed Ali Jinnah’s heirs got it right while we floundered? Wouldn’t India have been better off on America’s side?
There was a corollary to all this. In the 1960s, the Jan Sangh and Swatantra parties, which wanted us to renounce Nehruvian non-alignment and rush into Washington’s embrace, also made the point that there was no harm in declaring that Hinduism was India’s state religion. If Pakistan could flourish as a Muslim country, then why should India be shy of owning up to its Hindu heritage?
With the benefit of hindsight, we can today safely say that every single one of those propositions was flawed.
The case of Pakistan is especially instructive. Because it believed all the American dogma about free trade, it never built for itself the kind of industrial base that India constructed at such huge sacrifice in the name of self-reliance. Because it tied itself so closely to US foreign policy, its diplomats did whatever America wanted, even helping pimp the first assignation between Kissinger and the Chinese in 1971.
There’s no denying that Pakistan got many Sabre jets and Patton tanks (remember the 1965 War?) along with billions of dollars in aid. It also got away with genocide in 1971. And the US turned a blind eye while its scientists ran a nuclear black market.
Treat those benefits as rent paid by America. Because Washington turned Pakistan into its largest military base, an entire country at the service of Uncle Sam. In the 1960s, it was used to keep a watch on Russia (the U2 spy planes took off from there); in the 1970s, it served as a back channel for China-US diplomacy; in the 1980s, it was used for the Afghan ‘jehad’; and now, it is a launch pad for a crucial part of the ‘War on Terror’.
The Americans had no interest in developing Pakistan’s economy or in promoting the institutions of democracy. They preferred to deal with a succession of military dictators (Ayub Khan, Yahya, Zia and now Musharraf) because it was both easier and quicker.
And they actively exploited Pakistan’s lack of secularism — its very raison d’être was its status as an Islamic nation — to launch the world’s first high-tech jehad, thereby unleashing the fundamentalist and terrorist forces that are tearing Pakistan apart today.
Looking back, it is hard to see how any country could have got it more wrong than Pakistan did. Every single choice it made — foreign policy, economic, religious, political etc — seems, in retrospect, to have been a disastrous mistake.
In contrast, Nehru created the modern Indian republic, one of 21st century’s potential superpowers. The same Americans who once dismissed India as a Russian lackey now throng our airports looking for investment opportunities. When their President comes to India, he talks to our Prime Minister on equal terms and discusses foreign policy. When he goes to Pakistan on the other hand, he merely instructs their President on which terrorists to hand over to US authorities.
Of course, Nehru made mistakes. But can anybody really deny that the principal reason why India and Pakistan, once part of the same country, have followed such divergent paths is because of the choices both countries made in the years following independence?
At first, India’s priorities may have seemed (from a middle-class perspective) wrong-headed and muddled. Pakistan’s may have seemed glamorous and instantly gratifying. But, in the long run, we ended up as the superpower. And Pakistan as the failed state.
The divergent paths we have taken and the different destinations we have reached explain why, outside of the north, Pakistan seems like no more than a curiosity to most Indians. There is a historical legacy, but our presents are very different, and our futures have nothing in common.
I respect Punjabi sentimentality about Lahore with its filmi notion of brothers separated by circumstances. But if our history was really a Hindi film and if we were brothers, then at this point in the plot, Pakistan is the brother who has gone astray, the mawaali for whom there is no hope. India is the good brother, working hard, respecting the law, and finding success.
But, Punjabi sentimentality and Bollywood aside, how can one not feel sorry for the people of Pakistan, betrayed by a succession of incompetent leaders, seduced by a superpower concerned only with its own interests, and bewildered by the tricks that fate has played on their beleaguered country?
History is full of ifs and buts. So who knows how things would have turned out? But just suppose there had been no Partition. Would these same people have lived a very different life? Would they have been part of the Indian success story?
That’s a question for the ghost of Mohammed Ali Jinnah to answer.
Two Nations, Two Choices
Vir Sanghvi in the Hindustan Times, Januaru 5, 2008
There’s been a lot about Pakistan in the Indian media over the last 10 days: obituaries of Benazir Bhutto; predictions about the forthcoming election; attacks on General Musharraf; and conspiracy theories about the assassination.
I have no problems with much of the coverage, but I am disappointed by the unwillingness of most commentators to go further back in history. After all, Pakistan was once a part of India. Both countries secured independence within a day of each other in 1947. And both made many important choices in the decades that followed: choices that explain why Pakistan and India have developed so differently.
And yet, there was a complete absence of historical perspective in much of the analysis. Even a decade ago, I suspect that we would have covered Pakistan’s tragic slide into anarchy very differently.
It’s still fashionable for a certain kind of north Indian to say about Pakistan and Pakistanis, “we are the same country divided by politicians. And we are the same people.” But as the years go by and new generations take over, this sentiment is fading. Punjabis may feel a kinship with Pakistan — many belong to families divided by Partition — but the rest of India seems much less empathetic.
I’ve been in Bombay and Bangalore since Benazir’s assassination and it was interesting to note how little people cared about events in Pakistan and how quickly even that interest has begun to fade.
And if you follow the international press, you’ll note that the old equivalence, where India and Pakistan were always talked about in the same breath, has now vanished. If Pakistan is compared to any country, it is to Afghanistan. India, on the other hand, tends increasingly to be compared to China. Few foreign journos even bother with the clichés they once used when they referred to Pakistan — such as, for instance: “compared to its democratic neighbour India”. And rarely does the prospect of another India-Pakistan war (a traditional obsession with Western journalists) intrude into their analysis of events in that troubled country.
I remind you of all this to make two separate points. One: we must not let the largely Delhi- and north Indian-dominated ‘national’ media blind us to the increasing irrelevance of Pakistan as a factor in determining India’s future. Punjabi journos may be fascinated by Pakistan; the rest of us are merely curious.
But it is the second point that I regard as more significant. In the 1950s and in the 1960s, when India was ruled by a Nehruvian consensus, there were many critics — usually on the political right — who thought we had got it badly wrong. How did it benefit India, they asked, to follow some crackpot policy of non-alignment which involved a surreptitious tilt to the Soviet Bloc when we could so easily be friends with the US, the world’s most powerful democracy?
There were only two major Asian countries that rejected the US prescription for development and foreign policy: India and China. And look where they are today.Look at Pakistan, they said. Its rulers recognised that there was much to be gained from linking up with Washington and enjoying the benefits of American patronage. A steady stream of American aid dollars flowed into Pakistan. The armed forces had access to the latest weaponry.
The streets of Karachi and Lahore were full of imported cars — not a Landmaster or an Ambassador in sight. Nor did Pakistanis have to put up with all this socialist nonsense. They valued free enterprise and were proud to say so.
The America-Pakistan equation frequently annoyed Indians. It sent us into paroxysms of rage when Richard Nixon and Harry Kissinger backed Pakistan’s whisky-sodden General Yahya Khan while his troops were committing genocide in Bangladesh. And anti-Americanism reached a peak when Nixon sent the Seventh Fleet to the Bay of Bengal during the 1971 India-Pakistan war. (He wanted to warn us off invading West Pakistan). During the Zia-ul-Haq era, when Pakistan’s economy seemed robust and billions of dollars were pumped into the state treasury while we struggled to make ends meet, many educated Indians sincerely wondered whether we were paying the price for Pandit Nehru’s mistaken choices. Hadn’t Mohammed Ali Jinnah’s heirs got it right while we floundered? Wouldn’t India have been better off on America’s side?
There was a corollary to all this. In the 1960s, the Jan Sangh and Swatantra parties, which wanted us to renounce Nehruvian non-alignment and rush into Washington’s embrace, also made the point that there was no harm in declaring that Hinduism was India’s state religion. If Pakistan could flourish as a Muslim country, then why should India be shy of owning up to its Hindu heritage?
With the benefit of hindsight, we can today safely say that every single one of those propositions was flawed.
The case of Pakistan is especially instructive. Because it believed all the American dogma about free trade, it never built for itself the kind of industrial base that India constructed at such huge sacrifice in the name of self-reliance. Because it tied itself so closely to US foreign policy, its diplomats did whatever America wanted, even helping pimp the first assignation between Kissinger and the Chinese in 1971.
There’s no denying that Pakistan got many Sabre jets and Patton tanks (remember the 1965 War?) along with billions of dollars in aid. It also got away with genocide in 1971. And the US turned a blind eye while its scientists ran a nuclear black market.
Treat those benefits as rent paid by America. Because Washington turned Pakistan into its largest military base, an entire country at the service of Uncle Sam. In the 1960s, it was used to keep a watch on Russia (the U2 spy planes took off from there); in the 1970s, it served as a back channel for China-US diplomacy; in the 1980s, it was used for the Afghan ‘jehad’; and now, it is a launch pad for a crucial part of the ‘War on Terror’.
The Americans had no interest in developing Pakistan’s economy or in promoting the institutions of democracy. They preferred to deal with a succession of military dictators (Ayub Khan, Yahya, Zia and now Musharraf) because it was both easier and quicker.
And they actively exploited Pakistan’s lack of secularism — its very raison d’être was its status as an Islamic nation — to launch the world’s first high-tech jehad, thereby unleashing the fundamentalist and terrorist forces that are tearing Pakistan apart today.
Looking back, it is hard to see how any country could have got it more wrong than Pakistan did. Every single choice it made — foreign policy, economic, religious, political etc — seems, in retrospect, to have been a disastrous mistake.
In contrast, Nehru created the modern Indian republic, one of 21st century’s potential superpowers. The same Americans who once dismissed India as a Russian lackey now throng our airports looking for investment opportunities. When their President comes to India, he talks to our Prime Minister on equal terms and discusses foreign policy. When he goes to Pakistan on the other hand, he merely instructs their President on which terrorists to hand over to US authorities.
Of course, Nehru made mistakes. But can anybody really deny that the principal reason why India and Pakistan, once part of the same country, have followed such divergent paths is because of the choices both countries made in the years following independence?
At first, India’s priorities may have seemed (from a middle-class perspective) wrong-headed and muddled. Pakistan’s may have seemed glamorous and instantly gratifying. But, in the long run, we ended up as the superpower. And Pakistan as the failed state.
The divergent paths we have taken and the different destinations we have reached explain why, outside of the north, Pakistan seems like no more than a curiosity to most Indians. There is a historical legacy, but our presents are very different, and our futures have nothing in common.
I respect Punjabi sentimentality about Lahore with its filmi notion of brothers separated by circumstances. But if our history was really a Hindi film and if we were brothers, then at this point in the plot, Pakistan is the brother who has gone astray, the mawaali for whom there is no hope. India is the good brother, working hard, respecting the law, and finding success.
But, Punjabi sentimentality and Bollywood aside, how can one not feel sorry for the people of Pakistan, betrayed by a succession of incompetent leaders, seduced by a superpower concerned only with its own interests, and bewildered by the tricks that fate has played on their beleaguered country?
History is full of ifs and buts. So who knows how things would have turned out? But just suppose there had been no Partition. Would these same people have lived a very different life? Would they have been part of the Indian success story?
That’s a question for the ghost of Mohammed Ali Jinnah to answer.
Myths and Realities about ISI
Militants Escape Control of Pakistan, Officials Say
By CARLOTTA GALL and DAVID ROHDE; New York Times, January 15, 2008
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Pakistan’s premier military intelligence agency has lost control of some of the networks of Pakistani militants it has nurtured since the 1980s, and is now suffering the violent blowback of that policy, two former senior intelligence officials and other officials close to the agency say.
As the military has moved against them, the militants have turned on their former handlers, the officials said. Joining with other extremist groups, they have battled Pakistani security forces and helped militants carry out a record number of suicide attacks last year, including some aimed directly at army and intelligence units as well as prominent political figures, possibly even Benazir Bhutto.
The growing strength of the militants, many of whom now express support for Al Qaeda’s global jihad, presents a grave threat to Pakistan’s security, as well as NATO efforts to push back the Taliban in Afghanistan. American officials have begun to weigh more robust covert operations to go after Al Qaeda in the lawless border areas because they are so concerned that the Pakistani government is unable to do so.
The unusual disclosures regarding Pakistan’s leading military intelligence agency — Inter-Services Intelligence, or the ISI — emerged in interviews last month with former senior Pakistani intelligence officials. The disclosures confirm some of the worst fears, and suspicions, of American and Western military officials and diplomats.
The interviews, a rare glimpse inside a notoriously secretive and opaque agency, offered a string of other troubling insights likely to refocus attention on the ISI’s role as Pakistan moves toward elections on Feb. 18 and a battle for control of the government looms:
¶One former senior Pakistani intelligence official, as well as other people close to the agency, acknowledged that the ISI led the effort to manipulate Pakistan’s last national election in 2002, and offered to drop corruption cases against candidates who would back President Pervez Musharraf.
A person close to the ISI said Mr. Musharraf had now ordered the agency to ensure that the coming elections were free and fair, and denied that the agency was working to rig the vote. But the acknowledgment of past rigging is certain to fuel opposition fears of new meddling.
¶The two former high-ranking intelligence officials acknowledged that after Sept. 11, 2001, when President Musharraf publicly allied Pakistan with the Bush administration, the ISI could not rein in the militants it had nurtured for decades as a proxy force to exert pressure on India and Afghanistan. After the agency unleashed hard-line Islamist beliefs, the officials said, it struggled to stop the ideology from spreading.
¶Another former senior intelligence official said dozens of ISI officers who trained militants had come to sympathize with their cause and had had to be expelled from the agency. He said three purges had taken place since the late 1980s and included the removal of three ISI directors suspected of being sympathetic to the militants.
For complete article, clcik here
Also See:Pakistan's Political theatre: By william Arkin; Washington Post
By CARLOTTA GALL and DAVID ROHDE; New York Times, January 15, 2008
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Pakistan’s premier military intelligence agency has lost control of some of the networks of Pakistani militants it has nurtured since the 1980s, and is now suffering the violent blowback of that policy, two former senior intelligence officials and other officials close to the agency say.
As the military has moved against them, the militants have turned on their former handlers, the officials said. Joining with other extremist groups, they have battled Pakistani security forces and helped militants carry out a record number of suicide attacks last year, including some aimed directly at army and intelligence units as well as prominent political figures, possibly even Benazir Bhutto.
The growing strength of the militants, many of whom now express support for Al Qaeda’s global jihad, presents a grave threat to Pakistan’s security, as well as NATO efforts to push back the Taliban in Afghanistan. American officials have begun to weigh more robust covert operations to go after Al Qaeda in the lawless border areas because they are so concerned that the Pakistani government is unable to do so.
The unusual disclosures regarding Pakistan’s leading military intelligence agency — Inter-Services Intelligence, or the ISI — emerged in interviews last month with former senior Pakistani intelligence officials. The disclosures confirm some of the worst fears, and suspicions, of American and Western military officials and diplomats.
The interviews, a rare glimpse inside a notoriously secretive and opaque agency, offered a string of other troubling insights likely to refocus attention on the ISI’s role as Pakistan moves toward elections on Feb. 18 and a battle for control of the government looms:
¶One former senior Pakistani intelligence official, as well as other people close to the agency, acknowledged that the ISI led the effort to manipulate Pakistan’s last national election in 2002, and offered to drop corruption cases against candidates who would back President Pervez Musharraf.
A person close to the ISI said Mr. Musharraf had now ordered the agency to ensure that the coming elections were free and fair, and denied that the agency was working to rig the vote. But the acknowledgment of past rigging is certain to fuel opposition fears of new meddling.
¶The two former high-ranking intelligence officials acknowledged that after Sept. 11, 2001, when President Musharraf publicly allied Pakistan with the Bush administration, the ISI could not rein in the militants it had nurtured for decades as a proxy force to exert pressure on India and Afghanistan. After the agency unleashed hard-line Islamist beliefs, the officials said, it struggled to stop the ideology from spreading.
¶Another former senior intelligence official said dozens of ISI officers who trained militants had come to sympathize with their cause and had had to be expelled from the agency. He said three purges had taken place since the late 1980s and included the removal of three ISI directors suspected of being sympathetic to the militants.
For complete article, clcik here
Also See:Pakistan's Political theatre: By william Arkin; Washington Post
Tuesday, January 15, 2008
Will Iraq playbook work in Pakistan?
Will Iraq playbook work in Pakistan?
One tribal leader vows to raise a force of 600 to help fight an Al Qaeda-linked tribe in Waziristan.
By David Montero | The Christian Science Monitor; January 15, 2008
Islamabad, Pakistan
Pitting Sunni tribes against Al Qaeda-allied tribes has worked in Iraq. Will it work against the Taliban in Pakistan?
Pakistan's troubled tribal belt is emerging as the latest test bed of this counterterrorism strategy.
On Monday, fresh fighting broke out near the Afghan border town of Ghalanai. Pakistani security forces killed 23 Taliban fighters and lost seven of their own men, Reuters reported.
In September of 2006, Pakistan's government brokered a controversial truce deal in which it released Pakistani militants in return for pledges that they support the government in fighting against Al Qaeda and foreign militants, such as Uzbeks. The dividends of that deal have been slow to materialize.
But last week, Maulvi Nazir, a pro-government Taliban commander, vowed to raise a militia to fight Baitullah Mehsud, a wanted Taliban commander who the Pakistani government blames for the Dec. 27 assassination of Benazir Bhutto and for the bulk of suicide attacks that have left some 800 dead in the past year.
The two militia leaders, who operate near the city of Wana in South Wazirstan, are already enemies. The Pakistani government is relying on that enmity to accomplish what Pakistan's military has failed to do: rid the area of foreign militants linked to Al Qaeda and capture or kill Mr. Mehsud.
While the plan worked in Iraq, some Pakistani analysts warn that it could backfire in Pakistan. In the long run, militias raised to fight against Al Qaeda today could turn against the government tomorrow.
"I think it's a very misguided step. It might work for the time being in Iraq, but it won't work here. You can buy [the militants'] loyalty for some time. But it's not a long-term solution," says Rahimullah Yusufzai, a journalist and political analyst in Peshawar.
In March, Pakistan's military hailed Nazir's militia when it launched an attack against the Uzbek forces of Mehsud, killing as many as 100. Some analysts now expect the Pakistani military to provide cash and weapons to the Nazir's new militia, although the military has not announced any such plans.
The new plan comes as Washington is openly considering direct intervention in Pakistan's tribal belt, considered a staging ground that has allowed militants to launch their deadliest spate of attacks in Pakistan's history.
"[The Federally Administered Tribal Areas – FATA] continues to be of grave concern to us, both in the near term and in the long term," Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters at a Pentagon briefing last Friday. "It's having a significant impact, not just in Afghanistan.... There are concerns now about how much they've turned inwards, literally, inside Pakistan."
Some US officials say that the problem is bad enough that it could warrant inserting Special Forces on the ground in Pakistan's tribal belt. That move remains controversial for the operational risk it poses to American troops and because of the possible diplomatic fallout. President Pervez Musharraf has resisted even the suggestion of such a plan, saying the US military would "regret" any such insertion.
Other plans have called for more direct US support of tribal factions against Al Qaeda.
Even Nazir is an unlikely ally. Young and battle-hardened, he endorses the same radical Islamist ideology as the militants he's promised to fight, and has pledged his allegiance to Mullah Omar, the Taliban's founding spiritual leader.
But Nazir is also violently opposed to Mehsud, who hails from a rival clan, the Mehsuds. The two men parted ways last year when Nazir forcefully evicted hundreds of Uzbek militants under Mehsud's command. While Mehsud openly favors Uzbek militants, the Ahmadzai Wazir's – Nazir's tribe – have seen the foreign militants as a scourge that has brought unwanted bloodshed to Waziristan.
The new Nazir militia, promised to number 600, is expected to be more defensive than offensive, analysts say, protecting areas outside Wana from Mehsud's forces. Mr. Yusufzai says the new deal is a sign of how desperate the military has become: "[Nazir] wants Taliban-style rule. [Giving him money and arms] "will destabilize the whole area.."
Others counter that the security situation in FATA demands a new approach. "This is the situation, that we have to deal with the lesser of two evils," says Brig. (ret.) Mahmood Shad, the former secretary of security for FATA. "As compared to Baitullah Mehsud, [Nazir] can be considered [the] lesser evil."
One tribal leader vows to raise a force of 600 to help fight an Al Qaeda-linked tribe in Waziristan.
By David Montero | The Christian Science Monitor; January 15, 2008
Islamabad, Pakistan
Pitting Sunni tribes against Al Qaeda-allied tribes has worked in Iraq. Will it work against the Taliban in Pakistan?
Pakistan's troubled tribal belt is emerging as the latest test bed of this counterterrorism strategy.
On Monday, fresh fighting broke out near the Afghan border town of Ghalanai. Pakistani security forces killed 23 Taliban fighters and lost seven of their own men, Reuters reported.
In September of 2006, Pakistan's government brokered a controversial truce deal in which it released Pakistani militants in return for pledges that they support the government in fighting against Al Qaeda and foreign militants, such as Uzbeks. The dividends of that deal have been slow to materialize.
But last week, Maulvi Nazir, a pro-government Taliban commander, vowed to raise a militia to fight Baitullah Mehsud, a wanted Taliban commander who the Pakistani government blames for the Dec. 27 assassination of Benazir Bhutto and for the bulk of suicide attacks that have left some 800 dead in the past year.
The two militia leaders, who operate near the city of Wana in South Wazirstan, are already enemies. The Pakistani government is relying on that enmity to accomplish what Pakistan's military has failed to do: rid the area of foreign militants linked to Al Qaeda and capture or kill Mr. Mehsud.
While the plan worked in Iraq, some Pakistani analysts warn that it could backfire in Pakistan. In the long run, militias raised to fight against Al Qaeda today could turn against the government tomorrow.
"I think it's a very misguided step. It might work for the time being in Iraq, but it won't work here. You can buy [the militants'] loyalty for some time. But it's not a long-term solution," says Rahimullah Yusufzai, a journalist and political analyst in Peshawar.
In March, Pakistan's military hailed Nazir's militia when it launched an attack against the Uzbek forces of Mehsud, killing as many as 100. Some analysts now expect the Pakistani military to provide cash and weapons to the Nazir's new militia, although the military has not announced any such plans.
The new plan comes as Washington is openly considering direct intervention in Pakistan's tribal belt, considered a staging ground that has allowed militants to launch their deadliest spate of attacks in Pakistan's history.
"[The Federally Administered Tribal Areas – FATA] continues to be of grave concern to us, both in the near term and in the long term," Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters at a Pentagon briefing last Friday. "It's having a significant impact, not just in Afghanistan.... There are concerns now about how much they've turned inwards, literally, inside Pakistan."
Some US officials say that the problem is bad enough that it could warrant inserting Special Forces on the ground in Pakistan's tribal belt. That move remains controversial for the operational risk it poses to American troops and because of the possible diplomatic fallout. President Pervez Musharraf has resisted even the suggestion of such a plan, saying the US military would "regret" any such insertion.
Other plans have called for more direct US support of tribal factions against Al Qaeda.
Even Nazir is an unlikely ally. Young and battle-hardened, he endorses the same radical Islamist ideology as the militants he's promised to fight, and has pledged his allegiance to Mullah Omar, the Taliban's founding spiritual leader.
But Nazir is also violently opposed to Mehsud, who hails from a rival clan, the Mehsuds. The two men parted ways last year when Nazir forcefully evicted hundreds of Uzbek militants under Mehsud's command. While Mehsud openly favors Uzbek militants, the Ahmadzai Wazir's – Nazir's tribe – have seen the foreign militants as a scourge that has brought unwanted bloodshed to Waziristan.
The new Nazir militia, promised to number 600, is expected to be more defensive than offensive, analysts say, protecting areas outside Wana from Mehsud's forces. Mr. Yusufzai says the new deal is a sign of how desperate the military has become: "[Nazir] wants Taliban-style rule. [Giving him money and arms] "will destabilize the whole area.."
Others counter that the security situation in FATA demands a new approach. "This is the situation, that we have to deal with the lesser of two evils," says Brig. (ret.) Mahmood Shad, the former secretary of security for FATA. "As compared to Baitullah Mehsud, [Nazir] can be considered [the] lesser evil."
Musharraf on his way out?
Don't tempt the gods
Najam Sethi's Editorial; the Friday Times, January 11-17, 2008 - Vol. XIX, No. 48
The elections will be held on 8th January, come hell or high water", insisted President General Pervez Musharraf last November. But his pledge was broken. The election commission clutched at the sporadic destruction of some property in Sindh following the murder of Benazir Bhutto on December 27 to postpone the polls until February 18, despite the fact that the PPP, PMLN and JUI all wanted the polls on January 8 as scheduled. This has triggered a now universally held view that the ruling PMLQ is running away from the elections because it is afraid of being drowned in the tidal wave of sympathy for the PPP. But if the fortunes of the PMLQ don't improve significantly in the next month or so, what will be the fate of the elections? Will some other leaders be killed, will there be fresh disturbances, to compel a further postponement?
Originally, it was a matter of faith with the opposition parties that the January 8 polls would be rigged to ensure that the PPP and PMLN combined did not get a majority in parliament and create problems for President Musharraf. Indeed, this was Ms Bhutto's major fear and she never tired of stressing it. On the eve of her assassination, she was scheduled to release a detailed report on how this rigging was going to be done and had threatened a post election boycott and even civil war if the elections were rigged. Now President Musharraf has admitted that he tried to pressurize Ms Bhutto not to return to Pakistan in October and he was angry when she defied him with American backing. He had hoped to conduct the 2007 elections with the same degree of leverage as in 2002 when he kept both Ms Bhutto and Mr Nawaz Sharif out of the country and contrived "suitable results" with the help of the MMA.
Under the circumstances, everyone believes that the Musharraf regime will definitely rig the February 18 polls to thwart the rising might of the PPP and PMLN. From this it follows logically that the regime will start by trying to undermine the PPP and Asif Zardari. This campaign will be conducted along several fronts. Mr Zardari will be painted as the villain of the piece. The NRO will be challenged by high powered lawyers so that criminal and corruption cases against him can be trotted out and aired even if a conviction is impossible. The Swiss case will be dusted off the shelf. Stories of Mr Zardari's "infidelity" to the martyred Ms Bhutto or "moral turpitude" may even be concocted. His "political immaturity" will be drummed up. The ethnic Punjab vs Sindh card may be played to scare away PPP voters in the Punjab. Stories of "splits" in the PPP and "insults" to Makhdum Amin Fahim will doubtless be planted in the media. And, if all this fails to yield the desired results, the regime may sound out the Supreme Court on a further postponement of the polls.
That would be a blunder. Every attempt to rig a resolution to the crisis of President Musharraf's personal legitimacy and power will eventually pit the parties and the people they lead against the army that President Musharraf avowedly represents. This will hurt the national interest. But there is a more compelling practical reason to have a popular and legitimate civilian government in the country as soon as possible.
By all accounts, the Bush administration is soon going to turn on the heat in the war against Al-Qaeda and Taliban by a forceful and more direct intervention in Waziristan. This is necessitated by the compulsions of US domestic policies in the year of the presidential election. President Bush's attack on Afghanistan after 9/11 to root out Al-Qaeda was distracted by the war in Iraq. Now the situation is precipitous. Every US presidential candidate is trying to outdo the other in focusing on "Musharraf's Pakistan" as being part of the problem of Al-Qaeda-Taliban rather than the solution as preached by President Bush. In fact, Pakistan's growing instability under President Musharraf and his inability or unwillingness to uproot the extremists and terrorists has raked up the specter of "Pakistani nukes falling into the wrong hands". The climactic reaction has come from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) chief, Mohamed El Baradei, who recently said: "I fear that chaos... or an extremist regime could take root in that country which has 30 to 40 warheads". In order to keep the difficult relationship with the US on an even keel and without provoking a popular backlash, Pakistan needs a fairly elected and legitimate civilian government in Islamabad.
In an earlier editorial we had argued that President Musharraf had lived out seven of his nine lives. The assassination of Ms Bhutto and the mass finger pointing at Islamabad has now deprived him of his penultimate political life. If he still insists on rigging the elections or postponing them, he will surely go down by provoking a popular resistance and may take Pakistan with him by triggering a foreign intervention. Already the foreign media is writing of General Pervez Ashfaq Kayani as the "new hope for Pakistan rising in Musharraf's shadow". Musharraf should not tempt the gods.
Najam Sethi's Editorial; the Friday Times, January 11-17, 2008 - Vol. XIX, No. 48
The elections will be held on 8th January, come hell or high water", insisted President General Pervez Musharraf last November. But his pledge was broken. The election commission clutched at the sporadic destruction of some property in Sindh following the murder of Benazir Bhutto on December 27 to postpone the polls until February 18, despite the fact that the PPP, PMLN and JUI all wanted the polls on January 8 as scheduled. This has triggered a now universally held view that the ruling PMLQ is running away from the elections because it is afraid of being drowned in the tidal wave of sympathy for the PPP. But if the fortunes of the PMLQ don't improve significantly in the next month or so, what will be the fate of the elections? Will some other leaders be killed, will there be fresh disturbances, to compel a further postponement?
Originally, it was a matter of faith with the opposition parties that the January 8 polls would be rigged to ensure that the PPP and PMLN combined did not get a majority in parliament and create problems for President Musharraf. Indeed, this was Ms Bhutto's major fear and she never tired of stressing it. On the eve of her assassination, she was scheduled to release a detailed report on how this rigging was going to be done and had threatened a post election boycott and even civil war if the elections were rigged. Now President Musharraf has admitted that he tried to pressurize Ms Bhutto not to return to Pakistan in October and he was angry when she defied him with American backing. He had hoped to conduct the 2007 elections with the same degree of leverage as in 2002 when he kept both Ms Bhutto and Mr Nawaz Sharif out of the country and contrived "suitable results" with the help of the MMA.
Under the circumstances, everyone believes that the Musharraf regime will definitely rig the February 18 polls to thwart the rising might of the PPP and PMLN. From this it follows logically that the regime will start by trying to undermine the PPP and Asif Zardari. This campaign will be conducted along several fronts. Mr Zardari will be painted as the villain of the piece. The NRO will be challenged by high powered lawyers so that criminal and corruption cases against him can be trotted out and aired even if a conviction is impossible. The Swiss case will be dusted off the shelf. Stories of Mr Zardari's "infidelity" to the martyred Ms Bhutto or "moral turpitude" may even be concocted. His "political immaturity" will be drummed up. The ethnic Punjab vs Sindh card may be played to scare away PPP voters in the Punjab. Stories of "splits" in the PPP and "insults" to Makhdum Amin Fahim will doubtless be planted in the media. And, if all this fails to yield the desired results, the regime may sound out the Supreme Court on a further postponement of the polls.
That would be a blunder. Every attempt to rig a resolution to the crisis of President Musharraf's personal legitimacy and power will eventually pit the parties and the people they lead against the army that President Musharraf avowedly represents. This will hurt the national interest. But there is a more compelling practical reason to have a popular and legitimate civilian government in the country as soon as possible.
By all accounts, the Bush administration is soon going to turn on the heat in the war against Al-Qaeda and Taliban by a forceful and more direct intervention in Waziristan. This is necessitated by the compulsions of US domestic policies in the year of the presidential election. President Bush's attack on Afghanistan after 9/11 to root out Al-Qaeda was distracted by the war in Iraq. Now the situation is precipitous. Every US presidential candidate is trying to outdo the other in focusing on "Musharraf's Pakistan" as being part of the problem of Al-Qaeda-Taliban rather than the solution as preached by President Bush. In fact, Pakistan's growing instability under President Musharraf and his inability or unwillingness to uproot the extremists and terrorists has raked up the specter of "Pakistani nukes falling into the wrong hands". The climactic reaction has come from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) chief, Mohamed El Baradei, who recently said: "I fear that chaos... or an extremist regime could take root in that country which has 30 to 40 warheads". In order to keep the difficult relationship with the US on an even keel and without provoking a popular backlash, Pakistan needs a fairly elected and legitimate civilian government in Islamabad.
In an earlier editorial we had argued that President Musharraf had lived out seven of his nine lives. The assassination of Ms Bhutto and the mass finger pointing at Islamabad has now deprived him of his penultimate political life. If he still insists on rigging the elections or postponing them, he will surely go down by provoking a popular resistance and may take Pakistan with him by triggering a foreign intervention. Already the foreign media is writing of General Pervez Ashfaq Kayani as the "new hope for Pakistan rising in Musharraf's shadow". Musharraf should not tempt the gods.
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