An English Racist In Pakistan

Imagine a Pakistani young man migrating to Britain, making it big on British television, getting the British passport out of turn as a goodwill gesture by the government, and then using his newfound fame and money to bash the English: accuse them of massacres against the Scotts and the Irish, and calling them names such as 'degenerates'.

That's exactly what George Fulton did in Pakistan. He landed here sometime around 2002. He's married to a Pakistani girl who I suppose is British-Pakistani. George, who is tall, fat and goofy, is not exactly TV material but his story impressed a young TV producer.
Geo was a rising new TV network in Pakistan at the time [it tops the charts these days]. Some creative producer there spotted the tall, fat and goofy George and hired him for a new show, George Ka Pakistan, or George's Pakistan, the story of a young Englishman who wants to make Pakistan his new permanent home.

You have to understand how big a deal this show was at the time. Until 2002, Pakistanis had only seen one television channel their whole lives: the state-run PTV.  Geo was new and stunning. And then this show where an Englishman travels across the country getting to know Pakistanis and talking to them about moving to their country.

Of course, Pakistanis liked the fact that this 'bloke' was not only moving to their country but was also married to a Pakistani girl.

Flush with fame and money, he and his wife were hired by another television network to host its morning show. The two were highly paid and were invited to parties and mingled with the high and mighty of Pakistan. So much so that Mr. Shaukat Aziz, the prime minister during President Musharraf's government, granted George Pakistani citizenship, ignoring procedure.

Until last year, Mr. and Mrs. Fulton were basking in the glory.  But ever since Mr. Fulton lost his daytime job at the morning show, he's become bitter. With no high-paying job offers coming his way, he turned against the country.

There's nothing wrong in criticism, but outright racism? Please.

Mr. Fulton believes Pakistanis are responsible for the massacres that accompanied Pakistan's War for Independence in 1947. What he's saying is that Pakistanis killed Indians by the thousands in that war, which is a historical fallacy believed only by a few Indianized Englishmen.

Not just that, Mr. Fulton has taken it upon himself to ask Pakistanis to revolt against the Pakistani military and the country's spy services because, in his view, they are no good.

Good God.

We in Pakistan face daily dosages of CIA-produced propaganda material duly published by the likes of New York Times, Wall Street Journal and Der Spiegel. It's a concerted campaign that's been going on for the past five years or more. And here comes Mr. Fulton to offer his two cents, or pennies.

This is why I just couldn't stop laughing as I read Mr. Ghalib Sultan's excellent op-ed on Mr. Fulton [Click here to read it, or follow this link http://www.paknationalists.com/2011/03/03/an-englishman%e2%80%99s-anti-pakistan-rant/ ].

Why Hosni Mubarak Is Still Better Than Pakistani Rulers

Hosni Mubarak in his speech a few minutes ago has proven he and his regime, including his new Vice President, do not understand and respect their people.

But there is one thing he said that resonated with me because I've seen it in his government for the past three decades.

I'd like to point out this one thing because it is very relevant to Pakistan's political and military leaderships.

Mubarak said at one point in his speech, 'I will not allow myself to be subject to foreign interference'.  At another place, he added, 'I will live and die in Egypt.'

Great words and they certainly don't justify his three-decade long tight grip on power, the corruption and now the refusal of the regime to understand its people.

But I watched President Mubarak say these words and thought about Pakistani leaders who, since the 1990s and until now in 2011, have become shameful instruments of foreign meddling in Pakistan. Mubarak is supposed to be a bigger foreign stooge and yet he never allowed foreign meddling in his country, and he won't now even in his defeat.

Even in his defeat Mubarak declared he will not subject himself to foreign diktat. And that he will die and be buried in Egypt and won't escape for safety and in some haven in Jeddah, Dubai, London and New York.

For Pakistan's ruling elite, these cities have become alternate capitals of Pakistan.

Mubarak refused to entertain offers to move to Germany or Saudi Arabia or Dubai. Sure, things can change in the future, but I read in the Arabic-language media that if worse came to worse, Mubarak thinks he could hand over power and move to his house in the resort city of Sharm el Sheikh, but never leave and die outside Egypt.

This is significant and let me explain why.

Even when Egypt under Mubarak was very pro-American and pro-Israel, it kept its national pride. Egypt was taking American aid but refused to accept American meddling. Mubarak knew Washington needed his country in order to protect Israel. So he delivered on that count but never permitted the Americans to meddle in Egyptian politics. When President George W. Bush rolled out his democracy agenda in the Middle East after 9/11, Mubarak was instrumental in failing it [along with the Saudis]. He just won't have it. Mubarak refused to allow the Americans to establish direct contact with Egyptian politicians or engineer any kind of internal change.

Egypt made peace with Israel but only because Egyptian nationalists were disappointed at what they saw as stabs in the back by Arabs and Muslims [For example, rich Arabs refused to bail oput Egyptian economy enough despite Egypt fighting Israel in four wars on behalf of all Arabs. Egypt was also shocked to see Pakistan in 1956 supporting the British-French-Israeli invasion of Egypt, and other Muslim nations like Turkey and Iran not supporting Egypt in wars with Israel.]  All of this shaped the psyche of the Egyptian ruling elite and intelligentsia and helped push Egypt toward peace with Israel under American guarantees.

But Mubarak didn't allow his people to become American or Israeli puppets, and limited all forms of political interference.

I can recount many occasions when there were frictions between Cairo and Washington over one thing or the other and the mainstream US media was unleashed - as usual - to ridicule, harass or intimidate Mubarak and Egypt. But Mubarak won't have any of it. The Egyptians have always been very protective of their national pride.

Compare that to Pakistan. Every regime, from Benazir Bhutto to Nawaz Sharif to Pervez Musharraf to Asif Zardari, has handed over Pakistani citizens to foreign governments without an iota of national pride.

Some of them moved to Jeddah, Dubai, London and New York. Most of them have their wealth and properties abroad. Mr. Musharraf added something new to this shameful history when he launched Pakistan's first political party on foreign soil, in London and Dubai. And now most Pakistani politicians consider it kosher to conduct important political meetings outside Pakistan. Mr. Zardari has introduced another first: high-level meetings with foreign governments that relevant Pakistani government departments, like the Foreign Office, know nothing about. We have ambassadors and national security advisers who are appointed to protect the interests of foreign governments.

The regime's corruption and ruthlessness are the reasons why Egyptians want change. But Egypt progressed a lot under Mubarak's regime, unlike the Syrians or the Iraqis. 

For all of his ties to the Americans and Israelis, Egypt under Mubarak remained staunchly proud. As a Pakistani, I certainly don't want to see a Mubarak in Pakistan. However, we do need a Pakistani ruling class with the same sense of pride and history, one that won't turn its country into an experimentation zone for foreign powers. 

Hosni Mubarak and the Egyptian regime made peace with Israel but never allowed any foreign power to come and abuse Egyptians or bomb them through CIA drones. This honor exclusively belongs to Pakistan's ruling elite.

America's Aid To Pakistan Is Not 'Massive' Nor 'Lavish'

You have to love the language the US media uses when discussing American aid to Pakistan.

There is no new aid. But the latest coverage pertains to a report released by the American inspector general's office on the Kerry-Lugar-Berman aid bill.

The inspector general has released a report criticizing US aid's limited impact on improving civilian services in Pakistan.

This civilian aid was approved in 2009, $7.5 billion over five years, beginning in early 2010.

The new report questions the aid's impact, which is negligible. That's not news to us.

But there are bigger myths that surround this aid package to Pakistan in the US media. It's a classic case of US government spinning to itself and its people and then believing its own spin.

I was reading a Fox News report on this aid that described it as 'massive' and quoted unnamed commentators who opposed 'lavishing' US aid on Pakistan.

Massive and lavish? Hardly.

This aid package is not massive and not lavish. Pakistan has been undersold to US interests by two US puppets, Pervez Musharraf and Asif Zardari. If Pakistani nationalists were in power, US officials and media would have heard more frequently about more than US$ 64 billion that Pakistan has lost directly and indirectly because of America's war in Afghanistan.

Washington has knowingly hurt Pakistan's geo-strategic environment and interests in ways far worse than how it abandoned Pakistan after the Soviet defeat in 1991, leaving Pakistan to deal with thousands of militants that CIA gathered to fight the Soviets.

US officials are still hung on 1991 when analyzing Pakistani estrangement but are unaware of the new estrangement that has emerged because of the American mess since 2002.

Compared to a loss of $64 billion in eight years, the Kerry-Lugar-Berman aid package is peanuts. It is not massive nor lavish. It is nothing compared to what US is spending in Afghanistan, Iraq, Egypt and Israel. All of them prove that Washington has been paying lip service to its Pakistani ally while doing things that harm the interests of this supposed ally.

The list of things America has done to harm Pakistani interests is long. Many US officials know about this list but pretend it doesn't exist because the pro-US government in Islamabad never raises it, leaving the Pakistani public opinion to worry about it.

The result is that the US discourse on aid to Pakistan is couched in myths and will not help further US interests on the long run.

And despite all the noise to the contrary, US doesn't appear much worried about this. The Obama administration has resorted to gimmicks in how it uses the 2009 aid package. The flow of funds from the package is slow. Each cash installement released is geared toward creating positive headlines than having any real positive impact on the ground. Since 2009 Washington has been making aid announcements to meet various Pakistani needs as if these announcements indicated new aid. But in all of these announcements US officials forgot to mention this was not new aid but a reallocation of Kerry-Lugar-Berman funds.

In short, the US government has been recycling old aid pledges repeatedly to make them look new, and then embellish the story to make aid to Pakistan appear 'massive' and 'lavish'.

This is what the Obama administration did during last year's epic floods in Pakistan. The much touted US helicopters arrived only when pro-US politicians begged Mr. Holbrooke and Mrs. Clinton to cover up for their incompetence in view of the excellent performance of Pakistani NGOs and the Pakistani military.

This shows the level of US disinterest in genuinely helping its Pakistani ally. No wonder this is a troubled relationship. A pro-US government in Islamabad worsens this relationship by not addressing these issues because it needs US help to counter the Pakistani military and can't afford to talk tough to its protectors in DC.

So my advice to US commentators, especially those who toe the official line: Please spare us the spin.

Why Conquer India, Again?

Some young Pakistanis marking the International Kashmir Solidarity Day today got carried away. I noticed some of them circulated emails and wrote posts saying they don't want to stop at Kashmir but want to seize the rest of what is known today as India, was known during Muslim rule as Hindustan, and as Bharat when the Indians ruled themselves.

I didn't want to spoil the joy of anyone, especially this year when all signs indicate that Pakistan and Pakistanis are marking the Kashmir Solidarity Day with a vigor not seen in at least a decade. [You must read the analysis in that link. It's a must read for those following relations between Pakistan and India.]

So when a very good friend posted a remark about conquering India on my Facebook page, this is how I answered, hoping to make some of the young Turks understand that what Pakistani medieval warriors like Shahab al-Din Ghauri and Qutb al-Din Aybak did was great, but that seizing India nowadays may not be such a great idea. Here is how I said it:

"Of all the lands conquered by Muslims, the Indian conquest was the most useless. Everywhere else, the new land and people added to the richness of the Muslim empire and civilization. Except Bharat. That was a black hole where Muslims went in ... and never came out. Muslim rule in Bharat was detached from the rest of the Islamic world. No interaction, no contacts, no nothing. Muslim Bharat was another world, never reacting to critical points in history in Palestine, Arabia, Turkey and Andalusia. The only thing we benefited from havng our ancesotrs conquer Bharat is to learn the ritualistic Mehndi wedding functions, invent Qawwali, the art of practicing religion by singing, and create two religious schools called Barelvi and Deobandi that no one else in the entire Islamic world knows about, understands or has any interest in.

Defeat Bharat. Fine. Delhi is a city created and established by Muslims before the Brits occupied it and handed it over to native Indians, so take that too. Fine. But the rest of India? I think I will pass."

Interesting, isn't it? Light, but full of real history.

Tough Times For America's Friends In Pakistan

Interior Minister Rehman Malik tried to brazenly mislead members of the Senate of Pakistan on the American hired-gun Raymond Davis. Addressing the senators on Wednesday, 2 Feb., Mr. Malik told the house that the murderer working for the US Embassy in Islamabad 'holds a diplomatic passport.'

Mr.Malik tried to confuse 'diplomatic immunity' with 'diplomatic passport'. While the accused American was issued a diplomatic passport by the US government, the Pakistani government refused to recgonize him as such and only granted him a business visa.

Now the Zardari government and its key figures are trying to hoodwink the Pakistani nation by confusing diplomatic immunity, which the murderer doesn't have, with a diplomatic passport that he carries without a Pakistani diplomatic visa.

The most ridiculous statement that Mr. Malik made in the Senate was this: "We have to live in this world and we have certain treaties with other countries.'

Basically the Zardari government is in big trouble. Mr. Malik is on record telling former US ambassador Anne Patterson that his government looks to Washington for support and protection. Mr. Zardari has told US officials he doesn't mind if CIA increases drone attacks and kills innocent Pakistani civilians in the process because 'collateral damage worries you Americans, not me.'

So this Pakistani government considers serving US interests its highest aim in life and the reason for its existence. Pakistani citizens shot in their backs by a military-trained officer who claims to be a diplomat and who concocted a story about armed robbery, all of this doesn't matter to Mr. Malik and his government.  What is more important in his view is for him to serve a foreign government with loyalty.

But the bad news for Mr. Malik is that this time Pakistanis have had it with US meddling in Pakistan and have had it with a rented Pakistani ruling elite serving foreign interests.

Independent Pakistani political activists and civil society members intend to keep the pressure on this government. The families and loved ones of the three murdered Pakistanis have also resisted all pressures by Mr. Malik's men to bribe them with offers of a US Green Card and stacks of hundred-dollar US bills in exchange for pardoning the murderer.

But the real issue here is to stop the practice of allowing US covert agents into Pakistan that Mr. Malik's government is deeply involved in at the expense of Pakistani interests.

Who Are Pakistan's Westernized Extremists?

I may not have liked his politics but I know that Governor Salman Taseer was not a blasphemer and that clergymen misled our religious-minded people into believing Mr. Taseer was a blasphemer which probably resulted in a 26-year-old man committing a heinous crime that even Muslim law does not condone.

I accused two vocal minorities in Pakistan of killing Taseer. One is the fringe religious extremists. And the other fringe, the westernized extremists.

People are free to be westernized or religious. I have no problem with either. My problem is with extremists from both groups. The westernized extremists venture out to ridicule religion, and the religious extremists take an easy and tolerant religion like Islam and deform it into something unheard of in Muslim history.

I discussed this in detail in my column, Taseer's Real Killers: Two Extremist Pakistani Minorities, which was published by The News International.

In that column, I compared the passionate debate in Pakistan over the anti-blasphemy law to the American national debate between liberals and religious conservatives on abortion a few years ago. And I condemned how some American and British commentators and government officials tried to link an internal Pakistani debate to the war in Afghanistan, two completely different things. [Some American and British commentators tried to justify the failed war in Afghanistan by suggesting that that war is about Muslim-secular divide.]

Some Pakistani liberals emailed me protesting the use of the term westernized extremists. They said westernized Pakistanis are not violent as some religious extremists are like the man who assassinated Mr. Taseer.

My answer is: liberals and religious Pakistanis are not violent. Only the extremists among them are. It is true that a westernized extremist may not carry a weapon, but when he tries to eliminate a substantial and legitimate segment of religious Pakistanis, he or she is setting off a chain reaction that is bound to turn violent at some stage because religion is involved. Respect must be shown in this debate.

The following is how I briefly profiled a westernized Pakistani extremist:

We know who religious extremists are, those who go to extremes not sanctioned by our Prophet PBUH.

Now we should also know the westernized extremists, these are people who ridicule their compatriots who are religious, make fun of religion, don’t understand that to be liberal doesn’t mean that you oppose religion or oppose the right of another Pakistani to be religious. A westernized extremist is someone who can’t differentiate between opposing extremism and opposing religion, who thinks to be a liberal is to go to war with anyone who has a religious mind and heart. A westernized extremist is someone like Sherry who is right in wanting to amend or repeal the blasphemy law but she is NOT RIGHT in saying death should not be a legal pubishment for blasphemy. She not right because this penalty is part of the Islamic legal jurisprudence and part of Pakistani laws even without the blasphemy law, and so she doesn’t have the right to single-handedly decide if it’s right or wrong.

It ok if you want to be westernized or religious, just don’t go to extremes and divide Pakistanis along religious vs. secular, etc. We have more urgent problems in this country than these ‘imported debates’. They are imported because some western writers start this debate and some of our own buy it and think that’s all what we should be debating.

Did Nawaz Snub US Envoy Over Murder Case?

US ambassador Cameron Munter telephoned former premier Nawaz Sharif last night to discuss the case of a US citizen with apparent military training whose actions resulted in the murder of three Pakistani civilians in Lahore.

Mr. Munter asked for the man, who most probably is a covert US intelligence or special-ops officer, to be released from Pakistani police custody and be handed over to the embassy in Islamabad. Mr. Sharif, however, said the American, who is not a diplomat despite US embassy claims, will be tried according to Pakistani laws.

Mr. Sharif's terse half-line response to the US envoy is the only quote of Mr. Sharif that the media reported. We don't know what else Mr. Sharif discussed with the foreign envoy, if at all. The statement shows the former premier has made up his mind on the case.

But it's not that easy for Mr. Sharif. He is also very concerned about this case. One sign of this is the urgent meeting he called of his party seniors at his residence yesterday evening to discuss the American murderer's case.

In the closed-door meeting, Mr. Sharif heard many of his lieutenants warn against pardoning the killer in contravention of Pakistani laws. When a former premier, opposition leader and the leader of the provincial government calls for an urgent meeting to discuss a murder a case, it means the PMLN is in trouble.

Mr. Sharif is in a fix. He knows Pakistanis are closely watching this case and won't let him off the hook if he decides to issue a pardon. At the same time, he is also indebted to the Americans who saved his life in 2000 after a military coup.

Federal interior minister Rehman Malik has denied he is exerting pressure om police authorities in Punjab to release the American. Mr. Sharif's provincial law minister Rana Sanaullah told reporters yesterday no pressure from the federal Pakistani government and the US government would be heeded. But he didn't say if he was indeed facing pressures.

This is a test for Mr. Nawaz Sharif. The entire Pakistani political and military elite is guilty of selling Pakistani citizens for cheap. Mr. Sharif handed over Pakistani citizens to the US during his previous stints in power. So did late premier Benazir Bhutto. So did former army chief Pervez Musharraf.

Even today we hardly see any one of them, in the ruling parties, say a word about hundreds of Pakistani civilians killed by CIA drones in border areas.
Let's hope our ruling elite will let the law take its course in this case, though many Pakistanis remain skeptical.

A US Magazine Reports On Shutting Down A Pakistani Website For Criticizing CIA

A screen shot of the Google cache of a Pakistanian website, which has since been taken down

WHIR Web Hosting Industry News reports on how publishing a critical story on CIA led to shutting down PakNationalists.com during the first week of the new year. The story confirms how CIA and some government-types are disturbed at how we have been reporting illegal CIA activities in Pakistan over the last three years. The site was restored after the disputed article was removed. As a proof of discrimination, major US-based websites continue to display the same information while PakNationalists was singled out for retribution. Legal action is underway in the US jurisdiction where this discriminatory action occured.

Tunisia & Pakistan: Ben-Ali, Zardari & Kayani

I remember the time when President Zain Al Abidine Ben Ali seized power in Tunisia in 1987. I was 15, a young political junkie attending an Arabic school. A Lebanese friend came to me and said his countrymen and women in the south, where Lebanese Shia villages abound, flocked to the Tunisian embassy in Beirut because they were impressed by the name of the new Tunisian president which resembles the name of one of the key historical Shia Muslim figures.

Of course, religious myths had not place in the mind of the new Tunisian strongman. Tunisia is a Muslim country but staunchly non-religious at government level, with an educated population, and known more for its artists and musicians, books and world-class touristic resorts than anything else.

Since its independence in 1956, it was ruled by El Habib Bou Rgeiba, a Tunisian nationalist who turned his country into one of the most modernist Arab nations. In his early years, Iraq's Saddam Hussain was impressed by Bou Rgeiba's reforms and implemented some of them, turning Iraq into a powerhouse for education and learning before the war with Iran destroyed everything.

President Ben-Ali took charge from an ailing Bou Rgeiba in 1987 and ruled ever since.

While culture, theaters, education, sports and arts were encouraged, political dissent was not tolerated.  China, for example, has allowed the young Chinese many avenues to release their energy through the Internet and social networking, online and offline, with supervision when necessary. No such room in Tunisia. The ability to adapt to change while protecting national interest is essential.  President Ben-Ali was protecting Tunisian stability but failed to adapt to a new economy and society. People can live with a strong government as long as they are busy in making and spending money, which is the core of a healthy economy. Overlooking this dynamic was a mistake that President Ben Ali has paid for yesterday, when he had to escape the country after weeks of demonstrations against corruption and inflation.

An army officer and a former head of Tunisian military intelligence and later in charge of external intelligence, President Ben-Ali was forced out by his own military because of the way he handled protesters, killing around 90 protesters and injuring close to one thousand. The protesters were only against the rise in essential food items and general corruption of the ruling elite.

The military sealed Tunisia's airspace and effectively secured all borders. Some relatives of Sarah Trabolsi, the second wife of the president, were arrested by the military as they tried to board a plane out of the country.

The military did not approve of President Ben-Ali's high-handedness and eased the president out. The people have welcomed the military intervention, and emergency rule is in effect now in the country. The new temporary president Mohamad El Ghanouchi has called on "all sons and daughters of Tunis ... to show national spirit and unity and help our nation pass this difficult stage."

LESSONS FOR PAKISTAN

It is just a guess but two people must be watching the Tunisian news closely: President Asif Ali Zardari and Army chief Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani.

President Ben-Ali's departure is bad news for our president. It shows that such departures are possible after all and no amount of 'revenge democracy' ['democracy is the best revenge' is one of Mr. Zardari's best catchphrases] can prevent such an ending. 

The Pakistani ruling elite is not just incompetent. It is ineffective, conducts uncivilized politics, and has almost no vision for the country's past, present or future. What is worse is that the Pakistani ruling elite will not allow any mechanism for new Pakistani faces or talents to emerge. This stagnation is what led to President Ben-Ali's escape.

You can add one more charge in the Pakistani case that does not exist in the Tunisian example: Pakistani politics have splintered along linguistic lines, dividing Pakistanis and enticing them to internal warfare. The country's constitution does not allow our parties to do this but there is no one to stop them.

As for Gen. Kayani, his and his colleagues' worry is simple. They do not want to find themselves in a situation where the military intervenes again in a traditional way and clean the mess, like the Tunisians have done. Pakistan needs to create viable state institutions to run the country. The military realizes the importance of this to avoid a meltdown.  But such a meltdown is almost knocking at Pakistan's door. In the face of massive failures of the Pakistani political elite, the military knows it will have to step in eventually.

It is not hard to figure this out. But the million-dollar question is: What to do after an intervention. Traditional-style coups, where the army chief steps in and takes charge, like Pervez Musharraf had done, can no longer work. Whoever is in charge after a meltdown, tough decisions will have to be made to restyle the political system by removing crippling bottlenecks in the constitution and laws and in a manner that would stop political parties from becoming personal and family fiefdoms and allow for a healthy and civilize political growth and practice.

Like Tunisia, Pakistan will have to find indigenous solutions. Lectures and recipes from Washington and London won't help. The Tunisians have clear red lines in this regard. But not in Pakistan, which is a contributing factor to constant instability.

PakNationalists Site Restored After CIA-Related Glitch

SPECIAL REPORT | Wednesday | 12 January 2010

WWW.PAKNATIONALISTS.COM

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan—An American hosting company has restored PakNationalists.com after a temporary settlement over a story critical of illegal CIA operations in Pakistan.

This is probably the first case where a Pakistani website hosted in the US was pulled down because of criticizing CIA. It confirms frequent reporting by the Pakistani website on CIA’s interference in the mainstream media for propaganda purposes.  

The US-based hosting company demanded the said article be removed from the website based on a complaint by an unidentified party.

The story in question discussed the escape of CIA Islamabad station chief Jonathan Banks from Pakistan last month to avoid a murder trial.

In a formal complaint today to the American company, PakNationalists.com has raised the specter of a lawsuit in a US court accusing the American hosting company of discrimination. The same story continues to appear on US-hosted websites. Moreover, Terms of Agreement do not preclude posts critical of CIA-related policy matters.

The discrimination shows deliberate targeting of PakNationalists.com, a Pakistani news website critical of US government and CIA policies in Pakistan and the region. The site is run by volunteers in Islamabad but uses the services of a US hosting company.

"Please note that the very same material," says the letter by PakNationalists.com to the American firm, 'is hosted in the United States by Google's blogger.com, where this post is published, titled: The Great Escape Of Jonathan Banks. No one has asked to remove this content [...] Also, Wikipedia has a full dedicated page titled, Jonathan Banks (CIA officer). This page is hosted by a US hosting company. No one has asked to remove it."

A spokesman for PakNationalists.com issued the following statement: "By this measure, we should ask Pakistani authorities to ban every website or newspaper that reproduces CIA 'findings' that usually mix facts with policy propaganda. Maybe we should suggest that other countries do the same whenever western media sources disseminate material released by CIA or the US intelligence community.”

“They’ve been vilifying Pakistan for the past three years but can’t tolerate criticism against themselves. So much for US VP Joseph Biden’s lecture this evening in Islamabad,” the spokesman added, referring to the visit of the US vice president to the country.

Since 2007, Pakistan has been the target of a mass demonization campaign, largely limited to the mainstream American and British media. The minutes of this campaign overlap with the usual US policy sound-bites on Pakistan.

How To Save America From The Abyss

After the near-assassination of US politician Gabrielle Giffords, I made an important discovery. I discovered that she was almost killed, and possibly crippled for life, in the same state - Arizona - that produced the American terrorist Timothy McVeigh. It also produced a hate preacher called John Hagee, the one who made the famous statement, 'All Muslims are programmed to kill.'  As a child, Hagee was probably addicted to the science fiction movie E.T.

Arizona is also the same state that produced an American president that wasn't: John McCain. Senator McCain almost made it in the 2008 presidential elections. But see what kind of people Arizona has been producing: Mr. McCain is a warmonger. As President Obama visited India in November, Mr. McCain issued a series of statements welcoming the prospects of United States ganging up with India against China, and also against Pakistan.

Just imagine this: a politician who thinks he is presidential material is rooting for a future massive war in Asia because that suits his ego.

I have always maintained that ordinary Americans are some of the nicest people you'd find anywhere. But it is the American political elite that wants to mislead these good people into a war with the rest of the planet.

This is the theme of my analytical piece that I wrote for Project For Pakistan In 21st Century, an independent think-tank based in Islamabad. The paper is titled, How To Save America From The Abyss. I hope it makes a good read.

CIA Complaint Results In Shutting Down A Pakistani Website

PakNationalists.com says it has been formally warned to remove an article on CIA’s secret war inside Pakistan from its website that mentions the name of CIA’s former top spy in Islamabad. The American Internet company that hosts the website on its servers in the United States has complied and told the Pakistani website that the decision is ‘not up for debate.” The irony is that CIA leaves out American and British newspapers and websites that ran the story and targets a Pakistani site critical of US policies.

SPECIAL REPORT | Monday | 10 January 2011

WWW.PAKNATIONALISTS.COM

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan—One of Pakistan’s premier online news websites, PakNationalists.com was pulled off the Internet in the first week of 2011 after the US-based hosting company said the site must remove an article mentioning the name of Mr. Jonathan Banks, CIA’s former Islamabad station chief who escaped from Pakistan last month to avoid a murder trial linked to CIA’s secret war inside the country.

The US-based hosting company, GoDaddy.com, said in a written statement sent to the management of PakNationalists.com in Islamabad that the Pakistani website must remove an article titled, ‘CIA Station Chief In Islamabad Sued For Murder And Terrorism.’ [Click here to see an old snapshot of the article from Google cache.  Or click here to read the article on another website]

In its strongly worded statement, the American company warned, “We ask that you either remove the content […] or move your” website to another Internet hosting provider.

On 3 January, the American company gave the Pakistani website 48 hours to comply, and pulled the site down on 5 January.

“Please be aware that this decision [to remove the content] is final, and is not up for debate,” said an email by the Abuse Department at GoDaddy.com

WHY ONLY TARGET A PAKISTANI SITE?

The strange aspect of the story is that hundreds of newspapers and websites covered this story worldwide, including in the United States. But only a Pakistani website, PakNationalists/AhmedQuraishi.com, is being targeted.

UK’s the Guardian newspaper, whose online version is accessible in the United States, published the story on Dec. 17 along with the full name and designation of Mr. Banks.

Wikipedia, the free online encyclopedia, runs a dedicated page titled Jonathan Banks (CIA officer) but no one has shut down Wikipedia.

UK’s Channel 4 reported CIA station chief’s name but its broadcast and website are accessible from the US.

Another US-based website, running an editorial titled, The Great Escape Of Jonathan Banks, has not been asked to shut down or remove the top spy’s name.

It is obvious that PakNationalists.com is the target.

WHY US?

“We inquired as to who could have made this complaint,” said Gulpari Nazish Mehsud, a young Pakistani who sees herself as a ‘Pakistani nationalist’ and helps manage the website as a volunteer. “The US company won’t give us a name, but it doesn’t take a genius to guess who is making the complaint.”

CIA and the US government have requested the mainstream US media not to print Mr. Banks’ name, although it is all over the world media.

Pakistani nationalism has been on the rise in Pakistan since 2007, when Pakistanis complained that the US and its British ally and their media indulged in the worst demonization campaign against Pakistan as a pressure tactic to squeeze strategic concessions out of the nuclear-armed nation. 

The PakNationalists group began in 2007 with four persons. Today, it boasts close to 5,000 members from different parts of Pakistan. “Mostly young and educated Pakistanis, and intensely nationalistic,” said Mehsud.  

PakNationalists.com is probably one of the earliest online news sites that monitored in detail the many aspects of the US double game against Pakistan in Afghanistan.

“We’ve been under pressure before,” said Ahmed Quraishi, one of the founders of PakNationalists.com as an online forum for Pakistani nationalists. “In 2007, a US diplomat in Islamabad fed a senior Washington Post columnist this information that we’re somehow ISI,” he said, adding “Anyone in Pakistan who defends this country’s legitimate rights is somehow ISI. Maybe that’s why they are harassing us now.”

PakNationalists.com is down until further notice.

Processions, Religious And Political, To Be Shifted To City Outskirts

Ban gatherings and processions within cities and designate special areas for them outside major population areas.

I wrote this comment in reply to a discussion started on Internet group PressPakistan.

This is a healthy and overdue debate. And it is not limited to Muharram processions but includes other religious events, including Eid Milad al Nabi and other events.

Remember: this is not a religious issue but an issue of public order. Some of our fellow citizens and brothers and sisters will try to give this a religious color. This must not be permitted. Apart from Pakistan, no other Arab or Muslim country allows the kind of public order disturbances in the name of political and religious processions and rallies the way we do in Pakistan.

Laws need to be amended to prohibit any political or religious activity in public places where it could create inconvenience to the larger population.

Special areas should be designated on the outskirts of major cities and towns where political parties and religious groups can hold their events round the year without causing a public order problem for the government and the rest of the citizens.

These special-designated areas can be secured, organized and equipped to handle large crowds in an orderly way. Special facilities can be provided to help local and international media cover events right from the location.

Exceptions to the rule should be limited to events inside cities that are conducted inside halls and buildings with proper and ample parking arrangements. And with guarantees the gathering will not spill to the streets.

Most of our political and religious groups won't accept this. But a strong federal government can and should enforce this measure for larger public good.

This measure can help eliminate some of the factors that destabilize the domestic environment in the country.

A group of eminent, non-partisan Pakistanis have authored a detailed report in this regard which will be presented to the incumbent government sometime in early 2011. It is part of a larger effort to propose changes to our laws to strengthen the State and make it more effective.

Ignore Guardian's Claim Of 'Fake' India WikiLeaks

The Guardian newspaper is claiming this report is 'fake'. Here is why you should disregard Guardian's claim for being biased:

WikiLeaks is not saying this. UK's Guardian newspaper is. It's one of 4 or 5 newspapers that have been selectively releasing the Wiki cables. About 1,200 have been released so far out of 251,000 or so. Guardian and others have manipulated the leaks to release material that supports US policy on Pakistan, specifically on Pakistani nukes and Pakistani policy on Afghanistan, India and Kashmir.

This selective approach was not limited to Pakistan. It extended to countries such as Russia and China, in addition to Pakistan, countries with whom US foreign policy is at odds.

WikiLeaks handed over the entire stash of cables to these 4 or 5 newspapers. What these papers did is to hold off everything and target these few countries in a surprising overlap with US objectives.

So the good work of WikiLeaks has been hijacked by these newspapers, including the Guardian.

Now there is this story in the Pakistani media and The Guardian is horrified that there is someone else practicing manipulation besides them.

Substantial parts of the story in Pakistani media is correct. It's only that The Guardian and the other newspapers are misleading the world public opinion by a selective focus on the things they want from WikiLeaks cables.

WikiLeaks did a good job of exposing US bully diplomacy, and here comes NYT, Guardian and 2 or 3 other 'partner' newspapers of WikiLeaks to selectively release the material to suit US policy objectives.

Sindh Is Not A Card, Mr. Zardari

A large Sindhi cap is permanently displayed at Ayub Park, Rawalpindi.

There is a clear stench of deceit in Sindh Culture Day, being celebrated across Pakistan's Sindh province tomorrow. It has nothing to do with Sindh or with culture. In all likelihood, it's President Asif Ali Zardari's latest trick to blackmail his political opponents.

After all, what's the point in political groups taking out rallies waving the Sindhi cap and dress?

Sindh's culture and language are thriving like never before. They are not under threat of any kind. Sindhi language, one of Pakistan's oldest, is growing with Internet websites, newspapers, books, and television stations. All Pakistanis identify with the culture and language of Sindh. It's our culture and language. And we all own it and swoon to the great Sufi tunes of legendaries such as Abida Parveen and Allan Faqir, and the great words of Abdulatif Bhitai and Lal Shahbaz Qalandar, the great poet and Sufi saint of Sindh.

Pakistan's modern art, music, television and theater are greatly indebted to and enriched by the contributions of Pakistani Sindhis.



A young girl in a camp for flood victims near Hyderabad

 Instead of galvanizing the people on language, Mr. Zardari could have issued a call to the people in Sindh and across Pakistan to rise again for the victims of floods who are still homeless, and a large number of them are in Sindh. In fact, it is Mr. Zardari's government that turned these poor flood victims, especially in Sindh, into beggars, queuing by the thousands at government-run camps and offices for help and often getting beaten up by police for protesting government's corruption and ineptitude.

Mr. Zardari, who owns lavish real estate in the United States, France, UAE and the UK, is not concerned about them. He is worried about his seat of power and is looking for ways to survive.

What Mr. Zardari is trying to do is to create conditions to use the Sindh Card. Which means: if my government is toppled in any way, I will whip up Pakistan's Sindhis into demanding separation from Pakistan.

This threat is not new. A Zardari aide and interior minister in Sindh's provincial government, Zulfiqar Mirza, bluntly admitted he and his boss were contemplating this after the assassination of former Pakistani prime minister Benazir Bhutto. Interestingly, late Mrs. Bhutto never thought of this even after the execution of late Prime Minister Z. A. Bhutto. Also, I am not sure who gave Mr. Zardari or the PPPP the right to represent Pakistani citizens who are Sindhis [or who gave the same rights to MQM, ANP, etc. to represent other languages?].

Mr. Zardari has spent three years in power and has done nothing for his hometown, Nawabshah, or his wife's hometown, Larkana, or for Sindh. When he's out of power, he and his supporters will conveniently blame Islamabad, the federation, the so-called Establishment, or the alleged Punjabi-dominated bureaucracy of neglecting his home province.

People of Sindh are patriotic Pakistanis. They are also not fools.

Not only did Mr. Zardari not do anything for his home province, he didn't even do anything for Taslim Solangi. A pregnant 17-year-old Taslim was thrown to hungry dogs by corrupt landlords in rural Sindh in 2008. Before she was ripped apart by dogs, she was forced to prematurely deliver her 8-month-old baby who was immediately thrown into a river. Her family begged for justice and never received it.

Taslim Solangi, thrown to hungry dogs

President Zardari won't help the victims of  floods, won't give justice to Taslim Solangi, but is ready to use Sindh to save his presidency.

Sindh is not a card, Mr. President. Sindh is Pakistan. Please don't poison the culture of Sindh by linking it to your politics.

Unfortunately, none of the many intellectuals in Sindh stepped forward and protested President Zardari's desperate attempts to politicize our Sindhi culture. That's because they know they will be harassed by Mr. Zardari's party that currently rules the country.

It is time that we stopped anyone in the future using language for politics and to divide Pakistanis in the name of democracy.

The federal Pakistani government should seize our languages from these political parties and own them by itself. It should not let two-bit politicians use language for politics and divide Pakistanis along linguistic lines. Parties such as PPPP, ANP, MQM, PMLN and others have no right to self-appoint themselves as representatives and owners of entire groups of Pakistanis. The federal government should pass legislation to stop political parties from becoming linguistic parties. Democracy and political parties should not become tools for linguistic divisions. And this was certainly not the intent of the writers of our constitution.

We should have Sindh culture day and other culture days every year. But they should be organized by the federal government and celebrated nationally. Why should Sindh culture day be celebrated in Sindh only?

We need a federal government that can correct these abnormalities in Pakistani democracy.

Before You Download From Wikileaks Site

From a reader, Mr. Usman Yousaf:

I would like to suggest to people who belong to Pakistani govt & security departments. that please do not download any data from wikileaks website on computers where privacy and security is critical. I have doubts they must have done something with those docs. My suggestion is to print them and then scan them. All the best for Pakistan.
Pakistan Zindabad.
Usman Yousaf.

Kayani's Briefing: Dawn's Shoddy Journalism

A Dawn newspaper columnist Cyril Almeida has just given a new twist to the term fifth-columnist.

Today he has published a lousy piece of journalism that should be manadatory reading in schools across the country for pitfalls to avoid in a media career.

Far from journalistic curiosity, the only purpose of the piece appears to be to embarrass Pakistan Army Chief of Staff in his relations with key officials in US government. Columnist Almeida extensively quoted from a background briefing and turned inaccuracies into policy statements. Thankfully, he didn't forget to add, "All comments were made strictly on the condition of anonymity being maintained."  Oh really?

Mr. Almeida apparently was one of four-dozen editors, talk-show hosts and columnists invited by Pakistan Army Chief Gen. Ashfaque Kayani to his office on Sunday for an informal and off-the-record chat on the country's strategic situation. From the accounts of most of those who attended the dinner, Gen. Kayani spent a lot of time explaining the defense and army budgets and then delved into regional military issues when some of his guests went that way during Q&A.

All discussion was strictly a 'backgrounder', meant to help journalists get a better context for regional developments. Organizers of the event stressed several times to all participants not to report on the event and not to quote.

One can debate how much a journalist should or shouldn't stick to such official restrictions on information. What is beyond debate is the fact that Pakistan faces a very difficult and deteriorating strategic situation thanks to the blunders of our own and of some of our allies. If a senior official is candidly sharing information and context with Mr. Cyril Ameida and others, then Mr. Almeida, both as a journalist and as a citizen of the country, has the responsibility to reciprocate trust by controlling his urge to leak, especially when the information he just received deals with diplomacy and war and is not as urgent as exposing corruption and underhand deals.

Surprisingly for a professional journalist like Almeida, he tried to hide Gen. Kayani's indentity by identifying him only as a 'senior military official. Then he wrote, "The comments were part of a wide-ranging briefing given to editors, anchors and columnists on Sunday." 

So much for being discreet.

There was advance knowledge the army chief was arranging such a meeting. Several national dailies whose editors were invited ran brief stories on the meeting before it occured. So Mr. Almeida's 'source' was easily exposed.

Like the rest of us, a reporter at the Indian television news channel NDTV had little trouble figuring out the indentity of Almeida's 'senior military official'. The Indian channel reported, "[Dawn] did not name the military official but other media reports said army chief Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani had briefed a select group of journalists."

The most damaging aspect of this kind of a leak is accuracy, or the lack of.  Mr. Almeida inaccurately reported on several points. For example, he said Mr. Kayani "claimed the country has transited from the ‘most sanctioned ally’ to the ‘most bullied ally’” of the US. While absolutely true, many of the participants are not sure they heard the Pakistani military commander make such a direct statement. Disappointingly for many, Gen. Kayani was very mellow and diplomatic, to quote one participant, presenting facts and policy statements and leaving interpretation to the listeners. Several journalists tried to drag him into spilling the beans, provoking him by questioning the timing of the meeting and try to link it to he Wikileaks story, or the start of Gen. Kayani's second three-year tenure, or the intricacies of Pakistani domestic politics. The general wound't have any of it.

Regular backgrounders by the country's leadership for the dynamic Pakistani media is a welcome step. The media has shown maturity and restraint in dealing with the issues covered in the latest briefing. State media managers in Islamabad and Rawalpindi need to improve the methods of delivery of background information, possibly streamline it in accordance with the latest best practices in public diplomacy methods. Often Pakistani media trails behind its peers in other nations like China, Iran, US, Russia and others in terms of the quality of current background information available to media professionals. Pakistan is a late entrant into this field and it would take stakeholders time to get a handle on it.

This is why Mr. Almeida's hiccup is an indiscretion that encourages forward momentum with improvements in the delivery of information to the Pakistani media in the future.
        

Asia Bibi Is Our Sister

... and we Pakistanis need to stand by her. I endorse capital punishment for those who bash Islam and its sacred symbols. And no one bashes Islam in Pakistan. Certainly not our Pakistani Christian brothers and sisters whose forefathers played a great role in Pakistan Independence Movement.

We own and defend our great religion and our great Prophet. But harassing a poor Pakistani Christian woman in the name of blasphemy is not justice. The great, fair-minded leaders of Islam, like Omar and Ali, would never endorse this. Shame on these half-educated mullahs who can't offer a word of support to a weak and poor woman being wrongly accused of blasphemy.

Would anyone dare utter a word against our great religion in our country, let alone a poor and weak woman who earns a living as a domestic helper?

We need Omar R.A.'s and Ali R.A.'s justice in this case. And we Pakistani Muslims must force half-educated clergy in groups such as Sunni Tehreek [I have more respect for Jamaat Islami and Tanzeem Islami] to stop making uneducated comments in this case. We are no good if we can't protect the weak and the wrongly accused among us. Unfortunately, because of the inflammatory statements by the uneducated, a minority of westernized and secular-minded NGOs, funded by foreign money, are seizing this opportunity to bash Pakistan and Islam. PPPP Senator Sherry Rehman wants to abolish the blasphemy law. That's fine. But she never uttered a word against the injustice done to Dr. Aafia Siddiqui? No comparison between her case and that of Asia's. The point is that the few westernized and secularist Pakistanis will try to seize this case to bash Pakistan and our great religion.  Asia needs our help against a stupid law and a fake case. But the champions of her case must be Muslim scholars first and foremost, and if not then all the rest of Pakistanis who know how great and tolerant and open-minded Islam is even if these half-educated mullahs know nothing about it.

Blasphemy law was originally enacted against a sect, Qadiyanis, who claimed Mohammad, peace be upon him, is not the last Prophet. Ordinary good-hearted Pakistanis are misled by the mullahs into believing this law is somehow a hedge against Islam-bashers in the West, such as the people behind the infamous Danish cartoons. That's not true. Our laws can't be implemented on those outside Pakistan. And no one inside Pakistan can dare insult Islam. Case closed.

We will never be secular. We are modern, and we are Muslim and Islam has always been a big-hearted religion. This is our opportunity to prove otherwise to others in the world who heard the ignorant statements of a few mullahs in this case. These mullahs need to be told to shut up. We defend our religion. And we do this by not tolerating a word against our religion and by defending the innocent and the wrongly accused.

P.S. I tell the few mullahs who exploit this case: Honor Pakistani Christians. Remember that they sided with Pakistan when even some Muslim leaders were sitting in the laps of the Brits and Indians. Also remember that one of the wives of our Prophet, the Umm al-Momineen, Maria, was Christian. She became Muslim after marrying our Prophet. Her name was Christian but out of respect for her, our Prophet didn't let her change her name and insisted she keep her original Christian name.  Also remember when the Great Omar R.A. conquered Jerusalem, Al-Quds, he refused to pray in a church because he was afraid Muslims might seize it later and convert it into a church. Thanks to him, that church stands today side by side with a mosque that was built on a ground near the church where Omar prayed in the open. Asia is our sister. If Omar R.A. was here today, he would have given her justice no matter what some half-educated mullahs of 'sunni tehreek' or whatever this group is named might have said.

Indians Welcome In Pakistan, Pakistanis Beaten And Killed In India

Not a single Indian visitor to Pakistan, whether a private citizen, government officer or an Indian artist, was ever harassed by Pakistanis in any way in the entire history of Pak-Indian relations. The legendary Pakistani hospitality always embraced and touched visiting Indians as is the case with other foreigners visiting Pakistan.

In comparison, Pakistanis are regularly harassed and intimidated and in some cases even physically attacked while visiting India.

The biggest example is how 60 Pakistanis were burned alive aboard the so-called Samjhota (Friendship) Express train when they believed calls for peace and headed to India in February 2007. Today, the Indian government has admitted Hindu terrorists, including two serving Indian military officers, were behind the gruesome murder. The Indian government, backed by American and British media, insisted immediately after the attacks that they were the work of Pakistan's ISI and Kashmiri freedom groups.

There are more recent examples. Here are two of them to prove this point:

- Bigg Boss planning to send back Pakistani Artists : Pakistani participants in an Indian TV show face life threats by Hindu terrorists. The Indian government and people are unable to protect them.

- Pakistani artist beaten up in Mumbai: A well known Pakistani comedian Shakeel Siddiqui has been tortured by some extremists in Mumbai and ordered to urgently depart from India.

There is a mindset in India, in powerful circles in government, the military and the Hindu terror groups, that can't live with a smaller western neighbor that poses no existential threat to India.

This record of anti-Pakistanism in India contradicts the ridiculous statements of US officials and think-tank types who lecture Pakistan that India is not a threat.

Relax Gen. Singh, You're No Mike Mullen

India Army Chief has confirmed that Pakistan's nuclear arsenal is safe, lucky for all Pakistanis. We were worried he'd make a negative assessment but thank God -- or Krishna, in this case -- that India rushed to stand by Pakistan and debunk the motivated American claims on the subject.

Last week Gen. V. P. Singh said Pakistan posed a threat to India. After all, it was Pakistan that invaded India without provocation in 1971 and conspired to break away half of its territory. And it is Pakistan that is the larger country, casting a shadow over India and threatening it of another unprovoked invasion any day. And it is Pakistan that is spending $30 billion in just two years to buy latest weapons, most of them aimed at Pakistan. India is totally justified in being worried about Pakistani threat. Indeed.

After this statement, the GHQ, the General Headquarters of Pakistan's armed forces, and the Pakistani strategic community, were deeply worried about Gen. Singh's next statement. We all knew it would make or break Pakistan's international reputation. And then comes this friendly statement to put all Pakistanis at ease.

Gen. Singh and his immediate predecessor, Gen. Kapoor, started something new in India. Indian army chiefs never made public statements about foreign policy issues. The US military chief, Adm. Mike Mullen, makes such statements too. But he does so because his military has bases and soldiers all over the world. India doesn't.  And yet Gen. Singh and the previous noise-maker Gen. Kapoor began this trend in India. Why? Because they were told to do so. It is part of Indian government's plans of projecting India as the next superpower, like they did with the other pooper, the Commonwealth Games Delhi 2010. New Delhi wants to put everyone on notice that Indian military chiefs make statements about any country, openly, just like the US CENTCOM chief does. Get it?

Except that, I would just humbly submit to the exalted office of the Indian Army Chief that: Let it rest, Gen. Singh. You're no Mike Mullen.

Sorry, India, You Can't Be A Superpower With A Brain Of A Mouse

India is a big country with the brain of a mouse. Take this headline from India’s largest newspaper, Times of India: Obama Mission: Billions To Pakistan, Billions To India.

I love the headline. It’s not wrong but a little exaggerated. US President Obama is offering $2 billion’s worth of military hardware purchases to Pakistan, subsidized by US government.

For Pakistan, it’s a cautious welcome. Nothing will come to us immediately. The purchases are divided over the next five years. It will be a slow process, involving government red tape, politics and the usual arm-twisting that Washington is so good at. It’s also a lollypop that the US government has dangled before the Pakistani military to calm some of the anger over a US helicopter killing three Pakistani soldiers three weeks ago.

The Indian government knows all this. It also knows that recent US sale of F-16s to Pakistan came with a harsh condition: the planes will be accompanied by US ‘minders’ as part of support staff who will live on the base and ensure Pakistan does not ‘misuse’ the planes, as in against India.

Still, two weeks before Obama lands in India on an official visit, Indian media managers leaked this fabulously-titled but well-researched report, grumbling that billions of Indian dollars will be going to US pockets while Pakistan will be getting billions’ worth of weapons for free. Of course, even if Pakistan buys up all the $2 billion’s worth of US weapons immediately and not over five years, it will still not match India’s massive weapons shopping spree worth $30 billion, to be spent by 2012, meaning within the next two years.

This tells you one thing: the Indian government is really not worried about the puny $2 billion offer to Pakistan tipping the scales. We can’t match India’s $30 billion.

If that is clear, then what is it that India is worried about? Why whine about two billions to Pakistan over five years when India is spending fifteen times that figure in less than two years?

It’s just India’s small-minded pursuit of anything that would undermine Pakistan. There is no way Pakistan would ever invade or destroy India, nor are most Pakistanis interested in this proposition. It’s always the bigger countries that destroy smaller ones. Yet India doesn’t really miss a second seizing any opportunity to hurt Pakistan. Remember 1971 when peaceful Pakistanis were busy in post-elections noise? India launched an unprovoked invasion of Pakistan and, as the invasion unfolded, we discovered the Indians had actually planned it for two years and created and recruited a proxy army inside our country to help them once the invasion started.

The mindset behind the Times of India story is the same mindset that invaded us in 1971, the same mindset that refuses to resolve Kashmir and pave the way for peace, the same mindset that exploits Afghan mess to set up training camps to export terrorists to Pakistan, the same mindset that plants terrorism in Balochistan, and the same mindset that bans Pakistani TV channels across India.

And to confirm the height of this Indian small-mindedness, it is the same mindset that bans Pakistani visitors from posting comments on Indian news websites, no matter how respectful that comment is, if the comment questions official Indian positions on any question. [Let me also add that Pakistani guest columnists are banned in mainstream Indian newspapers for the same reason. Compare that to Pakistani generosity as our newspapers permit guest Indian columnists to write freely even if they criticize official Pakistani policies, and no Pakistani news website bans Indians surfers from posting comments.]

Our American friends can’t see this Indian small-mindedness, of course. That’s why we hear US officials insisting India is not a threat to Pakistan, the latest such gratuitous advice came just this week during the Pak-US strategic dialogue currently underway in Washington.

For Pakistan and India to live in peace, even resolving Kashmir won’t help if India doesn’t get itself a new mindset, big and confident, in contrast to the existing insecure, small-minded way of looking at its smaller neighbors.

NOTE: Not a single Indian visitor to Pakistan, whether a private citizen, government officer or an Indian artist, was ever harassed by Pakistanis in any way in the entire history of Pak-Indian relations. The legendary Pakistani hospitality always embraced and touched visiting Indians as is the case with other foreigners visiting Pakistan.

In comparison, Pakistanis are regularly harassed and intimidated and in some cases even physically attacked while visiting India.

The biggest example is how 60 Pakistanis were burned alive aboard the so-called Samjhota (Friendship) Express train when they believed calls for peace and headed to India in February 2007. Today, the Indian government has admitted Hindu terrorists, including two serving Indian military officers, were behind the gruesome murder. The Indian government, backed by American and British media, insisted immediately after the attacks that they were the work of Pakistan's ISI and Kashmiri freedom groups.

There are more recent examples. Here are two of them to prove this point:

- Bigg Boss planning to send back Pakistani Artists : Pakistani participants in an Indian TV show face life threats by Hindu terrorists. The Indian government and people are unable to protect them.

- Pakistani artist beaten up in Mumbai: A well known Pakistani comedian Shakeel Siddiqui has been tortured by some extremists in Mumbai and ordered to urgently depart from India.

There is a mindset in India, in powerful circles in government, the military and the Hindu terror groups, that can't live with a smaller western neighbor that poses no existential threat to India.

This record of anti-Pakistanism in India contradicts the ridiculous statements of US officials and think-tank types who lecture Pakistan that India is not a threat.

Pro-US Cabal In Pakistan Is Angry At China Praise

The outgoing US ambassador to Pakistan needs to be congratulated for one thing: she did an excellent job of meddling in Pakistani media and politics. She is credited with organizing a pro-US cabal inside Pakistan that springs into action whenever the US is criticized in Pakistani media. Ironically, this cabal, which consists of Pakistanis, never shows equal passion when the US officials and media demonize Pakistan worldwide.

Ms. Patterson has not been working alone. She received full support from the ruling PPPP's media managers. That is why I am mentioning Pakistan's own wunderkid: Ambassador Husain Haqqani who is said by sources in his won party to be responsible for organizing PPPP's media plans while sitting in Washington DC.

Today the pro-US Zardari-Haqqani cabal in Pakistan [read: PPPP Media Cell] are seething with anger that I criticized Nobel's cheap shot against China. A version of my op-ed, titled, A 'Nobel' Mob Ambush, Chicago Style, was published by the blog section of the Pakistani affiliate of International Herald Tribune. The comments section makes for an interesting read.

They are livid that I linked Nobel's China swipe to the unusual wave of anti-China political ads during the current mid-term election campaign in the US. I explained how the Indian lobby in the US is contributing to the 'Blame China' campaign to divert attention from US public's anger at outsourcing jobs to India.

So guess what? The pro-US Zardari-Haqqani cabal teams up with Indian net surfers to bash China on this excellent Pakistani website.

But no one should worry: Their comments and arguments don't even begin to scratch the surface. The best answer to their ramblings cames from Mr. Ghias Ahmed whose half-line was both pithy and shrewd:

"‎2012 Nobel Prize will be paid in Chinese Yuan...".

Kashmir's Road To Freedom

There is a lesson for New Delhi in the lines from George Bernard Shaw's The Devil's Disciple, set in colonial America during the Revolutionary era:

"And now, General, times passes; and America is in a hurry. Have you realized that though you may occupy towns and win battles, you cannot conquer a nation?"

This encapsulates the spirit of the Kashmirir people and their demand for Azaadi [freedom].

[An excerpt from a paper writte by S. Iftikhar Murshed, an Ambassador of Pakistan and Islamabad's former pointman for Afghanistan in the 1990s. Read his insightful paper here.].

APML: Chances And Intrigues

The pro-US government of President Asif Ali Zardari suspects its enemies are pushing the disparate factions of Pakistan Muslim League, or PML, to unite in order to create a force that could challenge Mr. Zardari's PPPP, or Pakistan People's Party Parliamentarians.

Two recent moves have caught the media attention: The effort to create All Pakistan Muslim League [APML] by veteran politician Pir Pagara. And the effort to create APML by former president Pervez Musharraf in London.

The unification effort led by Pir Pagara is a 50-50 gamble at this stage. The personality clashes and conflicts of interest between the heads of various factions of PML are so deep and suspicions run so high that it can't work except in one condition: if the military approaches each one of them to unite them the way PMLQ was created under Mr. Musharraf eight years ago. Although there are signs the military is interested in seeing this government go, as most Pakistanis do, there is no chance that Gen. Kayani will participate in any effort to destabilize the government. So the PML uniters are pretty much on their own for the time being.

As for Mr. Musharraf's bid, he is benefiting from a sense of desperation and confusion that engulfs Pakistan because of the failures of politicians. His policy prescriptions are also outdated, and even have damaged vital Pakistani interests. He wants to take 'the war on terror to the end' when even the Zardari government and the Pakistani military are trying to tell the Americans to end military operations and come instead to the reconciliation table with the Afghan Taliban.

Mr. Musharraf's lines that he will crush any anti-Pakistan voices and keep Pakistan first are great, but there is ample evidence from his foreign policy that he kept his personal interests before the Pakistani interest on crucial occasions. The biggest exampe is the deal he entered with the United States to maneuver PPPP into power to serve US interests in exchange for helping him remain at the helm until 2013.

His backchannel diplomacy on Kashmir with India between 2004 and 2007 appeared to be driven more by his desire to emerge as an international man of peace and to appease Washington and New Delhi. During this period, he made unnecessary concessions to India without getting anything in return.

Getting some fans in Pakistan is not a big deal. Even Zardari has diehard fans. Mr. Msuharraf's latest political act has a nuisance value but is not expected to create any ripples in Pakistani politics.

One way Mr. Musharraf can have an impact is if the military supports his new bid for power. Interestingly, his policies on Kashmir, Afghanistan and US are highly unpopular within the military rank and file, despite the fact that his first three years 1999-2002 are remembered as ideal in terms of governance.

Mr. Musharraf does retain a nuisance value for the short term. But for the long term, there is no evidence he is the harbinger of major change.

Mr. Musharraf's Disappointing Debut

I was very disappointed to hear Mr. Pervez Musharraf's remarks at the launching of his new political party in London, the UK.

Mr. Musharraf wants the war on terror to continue 'until the end', even when Obama himself has changed its name and wants to end it one way or the other. No words to condemn the deliberate US/NATO murder of 3 Pakistani soldiers. His 7-point agenda in 1999 was more coherent than the 'party program' he announced today. When he was done, I said to myself, 'The paid-TV show is over. Now let's go back to the mess he created and ran away from.'

He probably tried to signal to his past allies in Washington and London that he's still good for the 'war on terror'. He repeated the line, 'Al-Qaeda is in Pakistan' without qualification or explaining who exactly is in Pakistan from that group. His implicit message was that he will stop the 'Taliban' from taking over our country.

The truth is that no one is 'taking over' Pakistan. Mr. Musharraf is still repeating the lines that Dick Cheney and Don Rumsfeld used to repeat in front of him.

Afghan Taliban are fighting in Afghanistan. The terrorists in our border area, who receive support from the Americans and Indians and their Afghan proxies, will be finished off the day CIA stops its dirty games in Afghanistan.

Yes, there is the issue of religious extremism among a segment of Pakistanis. But the solution to that is not to allow CIA to bomb them from the air. They are our people. It's our internal issue. We can solve it if foreign meddling in our region is ended for good.

A supporter of Mr. Musharraf's new party tried to counsel me to keep my opinions to myself and simply 'report' the event and let the people decide. His argument was that, while I was criticizing Mr. Musharraf, journalists were packing the hall in London where Mr. Musharraf held his event.

What a lot of people don't know is that Mr. Musharraf' party aides made generous offers to prominent journalists across Pakistan, offering 'all expenses paid' trips to come from Pakistan and cover the event in London. Which is exactly what Nawaz Sharif and Benazir Bhutto used to do. Nothing has changed.

Pakistan is in a deep mess today, and especially for the past five years, thanks to monumental blunders by Mr. Musharraf. One of his biggest mistakes sits right now in Aiwan-e-Sadr in Islamabad.

To say, 'Well, I made some mistakes, everybody does' is not a very persuasive line for someone who's trying to get a second shot at a job he failed in the first place.