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.

Change Of System In Pakistan

It really has come to this. Newspaper columnists are crying for political change. Television commentators are demanding change. And Pakistan's younger generation, more than half of the nation's population, is emerging as the real guardian of Pakistani interest and represents a new political thought. It is demanding a complete change in Pakistan's failed political system. In fact, as this video by a Pakistani rock band Entity Paradigm show, young Pakistnis want a revolution. They are sick of an inept political elite that has been imposed on Pakistan through American and British machinations. Take a glimpse into tomorrow's Pakistan here.

How Military Nurseries Produced Pakistan’s ‘Democratic Warriors’

Military-led governments in Pakistan have failed in creating long term stability and fostering national identity, like the ruling party did in China. This failure is well known. But Pakistan’s destructive politics can’t end without understanding another major failure: How Pakistan’s democratic elite is really not democratic at all.

Forget about building a great country and a healthy and prosperous people, Pakistan’s political elite divides Pakistanis by language, sect and violent politics because it has nothing else to offer in exchange for getting elected. And with the new amendments to the Pakistani constitution, which strengthen family-run dictatorships within parties, there is hardly any chance that the able and the willing among 170 million Pakistanis will ever get a chance to lead their homeland.

In 2008, these politicians got themselves elected in the name of democracy. But even that credential is questionable.

Retired Lieutenant General Faiz Ali Chishti, who played a major role during the military-led government of former President Gen. Zia-ul-Haq between 1977 and 1988, gave an interesting insight earlier this week in Lahore into the relationship between failed politicians and military coups.

His remarks are important because he said several things that are new and must be noted.

FAKE DEMOCRATIC WARRIORS

Mr. Chishti said that “Several (democratic) champions became leaders while sitting in the laps of army generals.” He listed them as follows:

1. Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, former Prime Minister of Pakistan [Benefactor: Field Marshal Ayub Khan].

2. Nawaz Sharif, former Prime Minister of Pakistan [Benefactor: Gen. Zia-ul-Haq]

3. Altaf Hussain, the exiled British-Pakistani leader of MQM [Benefactors: Gen. Zia-ul-Haq and Gen. Pervez Musharraf]

4. Jamaat Islami [Benefactors: Gen. Zia-ul-Haq and Gen. Pervez Musharraf]

The irony is that all of them claim that Pakistan’s military should not be involved in major internal decisions when necessary but they never explained why they accepted military help in ascending to power in the first place. Interestingly, despite being discredited as failed and inept, these politicians keep getting second and third chances thanks to the military’s failure to introduce real reforms after every coup. [Also thanks to frequent US and British meddling in our politics for their own objectives. Unfortunately, the Pakistani military has so far been unable to prevent it and, under Musharraf, even took it to new heights!]

Moreover, Pakistani military has maintained an unwritten alliance with this failed political elite, always handing power back to it after every intervention without any attempt to open doors to middle and lower-class Pakistanis to participate in running their country, especially when they have proven to be more creative in taking Pakistan forward in many areas.

One example is Gen. Musharraf, who came to power with a promise to inject new faces into a stagnant system. Eight years later, he not only failed to do that but ended up restoring some of the worst failed politicians back to power as his replacement. The only credible new political face from the late Musharraf period is Member of National Assembly Marvi Memon. To be fair to her, she was a late entrant who proved her mettle on her own in the two and half years since Musharraf’s departure. With her patriotic and inclusive views, a large segment of Pakistan’s younger generation identify with her. But she stands no chance of moving up in a system designed to keep people like her from exercising real power.

THE LOOPHOLE

Mr. Chishti pointed out another irony that exposes the duplicity of the present political elite in Pakistan. An independent Election Commission is what stops military interventionists from legitimizing their rule. So if someone wants to stop future military interventions being endorsed by the country’s courts and parliaments, creating such an independent election commission is the first step. But strangely, despite all the noise over the recent constitutional amendments, called the 18th Amendment, none of the political parties pushed for an independent election commission. The reason is that an independent election commission would also enforce democracy within the parties, challenging lifetime party presidents and ‘chairpersons’.

COUP DECISION INSTITUTIONAL

He said the decision to impose military rule, or Martial Law, is never a personal decision of one man but a collective one of the Army High Command and is a result of full spectrum assessment of the state of the nation.

WHY MILITARY INTERVENES

Since a military coup is not a one-man-show and hence there is no question of personal ambition, then the right question to ask, says Mr. Chishti, is ‘Why the military intervenes?’ He suggests that tackling the reasons would reduce the possibility of such interventions.

Wise words. But they are falling on deaf ears. The mother of all ironies is that when Pakistan Army has a chief who has gone out of his way to support democracy, and even rescued it on a couple of recent occasions, Pakistan’s democratic warriors are leading the country to a grand national failure of epic proportions with their failure to perform.

ANP Shouldn't Be Allowed To Revive Its Old Pashtunistan Agenda

A billboard in 2008 on Pakistani soil showing the map of independent Pashtunistan. ANP denied any involvement. [Picture courtesy of Online News Agency-Nov. 2008]

ANP, a party whose founders opposed the independence of Pakistan, is once again pushing its shady agenda through a manufactured crisis over the renaming Pakistan's NWFP province.  By doing this, the party is trying to sow seeds of doubt in the minds of Pakistani Pashtuns, who are an integral part of the Pakistani state and one of its main pillars.

One of the heroes of the Pakistan Independence Movement had actually proposed the name Afghania for the province. So respect for the Pashtun identity, which makes the larger Pakistani identity, has always been there. But the manner in which ANP is whipping up linguistic sentiments, coupled with a daring attempt within the Parliament to change the constitution to give provinces unprecedented freedoms, indicates something bigger is happening than just renaming a province and revising the constitution.

A few months after ANP came to power in 2008, billboards showing the map of 'Greater Pashtunistan' mysteriously appeared in some parts of Pakistan's northwestern province. 'Greater Pashtunistan' is supposed to replace a disintegrated Pakistan, according to the proponents of this theory.

The ANP denied any link to the billboards at the time.

But whoever was behind that billboard knew there was a lot of talk going on in official and informal circles in the United States about the concept of Pashtunistan.  This was probably part of a larger psy-ops program that aimed at pressuring Pakistan to align itself more with the US agenda.

Starting sometime in 2007, the US media and think-tanks launched a campaign for independent Pashtunistan and independent Balochistan. This campaigned has slowed but has not completely ended.  Washington DC was the venue for several seminars attended by advocates of this theory. The origin of these theories is India, where analysts with links to the Indian security establishment have been advocating the breakup of Pakistan on linguistic basis, feeding on real grievances created by a failed bureaucratic and political ruling system. Indian officials have always bragged privately to their foreign guests about how they successfully used this method to cut Pakistan to size in 1971. [Click here to read how Indian analysts introduced the idea of breaking up Pakistan along linguistic lines to Washington after 9/11].

Blatant anti-Pakistanism in the US media has gradually decreased during the past year, mostly because US officials are now showing respect to Pakistan to gain its support to avert a defeat in Afghanistan.  Much credit for this change also goes to the Pakistani military establishment and to the army chief. 

But it is not completely over. While Pakistan has friends in Washington and others agree they need Pakistan, the anti-Pakistan elements in the US establishment took their latest 'seminar' on Pakistani Balochistan to Bangkok, apparently because such an event on Thai soil won't draw attention to its US backers. 

There is a lot of circumstantial evidence that lends credibility to the theory that ANP's rise to power was part of the secret understandings that former President Musharraf agreed to with the Bush administration in 2006 and 2007 on the shape of future government in Pakistan.

Now three pro-US parties [ANP, PPPP, MQM] are running the show in Pakistan. PPPP has been busy enacting the American agenda of containing Pakistan's military and intelligence from within. This has failed. MQM is campaigning for a bill on provincial autonomy that will effectively end Pakistan as a strong country and turn its provinces into semi-independent states that can secede anytime they choose. This will bring Pakistan one step closer to the fate of Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union. 

As for ANP, instead of improving services and governance, the party is creating language-based hatred and divisions in Pakistan under the guise of renaming NWFP, which is a nonissue. Pakistanis are suffering a massive energy shortage and a general decline in the quality of life across the nation while these failed politicians are wasting time on creating ethnic- and linguistic-based divisions among Pakistanis.

The above is probably the most accurate context for understanding the latest political crisis in Pakistan over renaming a province and over passing a radical plan for changes in the constitution that would weaken the Pakistani state.

Pakistan will continue to suffer this type of instability as long as some of its political parties continue to work on foreign agendas, and as long as Pakistan's people and the armed forces tolerate foreign governments creating and maintaining proxies at the highest levels in Islamabad.

Lahore Bombings: Indians Are Suspects, So Are Americans

US Ambassador complains to Pakistani Government that media reports have exposed the location of American residences inside Lahore’s military zone, but fails to mention why US personnel with diplomatic cover have been found at wrong places, sometimes carrying weapons that diplomats are not supposed to

Lahore’s military zone is not only exposed to covert Indian operatives but also to undercover US agents with their suspicious heavy-duty equipment placed in several houses inside a gated community right in the heart of the city’s military area. This has been going on since 2007. 

    

CLICK TO ENLARGE

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan—The eastern city of Lahore is exposed not only to the Indians who have been sending terrorists to plant bombs in public places for the past quarter of a century, but also to the Americans who expanded their covert presence inside Pakistan in the last three years of President Musharraf’s rule.  After the return to democracy in 2008, the US presence [beyond diplomatic requirements or disguised under diplomatic cover] is reported to have increased manifold.

Last year, Pakistanis were stunned to watch several incidents where US citizens were caught by the Military Police at checkpoints leading up to the city’s military zone known as Cantt.  Most of the time, these US individuals refused to say what business took them to the military area. The US Consulate in Lahore is located far away from this zone, which compounded the mystery. These US nationals also refused to allow the police to check their vehicles, which is a standard procedure that all Pakistanis undergo considering the terrorist attacks. On a couple of occasions, US vehicles whose drivers refused to cooperate with MP caused long queues at checkpoints. Military Police officers impounded these vehicles. This led to US officials complaining to their media that Pakistan was ‘harassing’ US diplomats.

But the truth is that the Americans have covertly maintained an outpost of several houses in a gated community right in the heart of the city’s military zone. This zone is so sensitive that a half-constructed Sheraton Hotel lies abandoned on one of Cantt’s main streets because the Pakistani military complained that the new hotel’s upper floors provided an easy view of the residence of the commander of the Pakistan Army Corp that guards Pakistan’s northeastern border with India. 

This makes the covert US presence in this area intriguing to say the least. The exact location of these houses, in the elite Sarwar Colony, is shown in the pictures that accompany this report. Most of the residents of this colony are senior retired Pakistani military officers. A handful of them have apparently leased out their homes to the Americans at exorbitant rates that far exceed the normal level of leased property rates in the Colony, according to a fascinating expose published by TheNation and is reproduced below in full.

Why are we talking about a few houses rented out by Americans linked to US government in a sensitive part of the eastern city?

The reason is a wave of terror targeting Lahore over the past two years. This is not to suggest that the US government has something to do with this.  The suspicion centers on local terrorists indirectly or directly aided by intelligence operatives from multiple countries based in Afghanistan.  The point here is that the city of Lahore is exposed not only to local terrorists working with foreign handlers, but also to Indians and possibly to private American security contractors. These contractors expanded their presence in Pakistan in the past two years, mostly using diplomatic cover. The US Embassy in Islamabad under the incumbent Ambassador has been instrumental in pushing for an expanded role for private US defense contractors in Pakistan over the past two years.

Many Pakistanis feel that such penetration of Pakistan by foreign countries is detrimental to our national security and has unnecessarily exposed us to outsiders pursuing interests that may not overlap with our own.

Today, the US Embassy in Islamabad leaked key points of a letter that US Ambassador Anne W. Patterson has sent to Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi. In the letter, Ambassador Patterson complained about TheNation report on the American presence in Cantt, Lahore. More interestingly, she made a veiled threat that Pak-US relations would suffer if those Americans became targets for a terror attack. The letter was leaked to the Dawn newspaper.

The most interesting part of her letter was an acknowledgement on her part that the security of US diplomats in Pakistan is the responsibility of the Government of Pakistan. This is important because it was Ms Patterson who only a year ago was lobbying the Pakistani government to allow US private defense contractors into Pakistan and was running from one government office to another to ensure that these private US contractors are allowed to carry banned weapons anywhere in the country.

When Ms. Patterson was asked why she needed these private security contractors, she said it was to protect US diplomats. Critics said that was the responsibility of the Government of Pakistan and that the Ambassador should not cross a line. Her acknowledgement of this indicates a shift. Probably it has to do with recent understandings between Army Chief Gen. Kayani and US military officials where the army chief reportedly asked US to stop indirect methods of coercion, including media leaks, the role of private contractors in Pakistan and Afghanistan and the role of CIA in the region.

So how did the Pakistani military allow such a breach to occur in a sensitive area of Lahore?

One explanation is that the Americans moved with their gadgetry and equipment to this place sometime in late 2006 and early 2007. This means that the arrangement had the blessings of former President Musharraf.  This is significant because it means the US presence in this sensitive location is part of the sovereign understandings that Pakistan entered with the United States during that time. And no matter how damaging this is for Pakistani security interests, Islamabad and the Pakistani military are forced to put up with this foreign presence for as long as those understandings are effective.

Another explanation is that Mr. Musharraf’s regime allowed the Americans to setup shop here without the full knowledge of all the relevant branches of the Pakistani military and intelligence agencies.  If this is the case, then it is alarming indeed.

This story becomes relevant in the aftermath of a series of attacks in Lahore over the past two years, including one that targeted a visiting Sri Lankan cricket team. The strange part is that all of these attacks either target Pakistan’s allies [Sri Lankans, Chinese] or attack ordinary Pakistanis to kill the largest numbers of them.  Americans or American and British interests have never been attacked in this manner throughout this so-called war on terror that Pakistan has been executing on America’s behalf. If anything, much of this terror is linked to a proxy militia in South Waziristan that claims to be a Pakistani Taliban but receives all its arms and funding from US-controlled Afghanistan where the Indians also maintain a vast intelligence network aimed at Pakistan.

For a list of recorded incidents in Pakistan where private US mercenaries or defense contractors were caught at places where they should not be, see this story, What Robert Gates Didn’t Say - And US Media Hides - About Blackwater In Pakistan.

The question is: What are the Americans doing in Cantt’s Sarwar Colony?

The easiest answer is taking up residence. But there is something more to this than homemaking. The location indicates that the Americans want to keep an eye on movements and chatter in Cantt, which could indicate where Pakistan’s relations with India are headed. Washington is keen to convince Pakistan that India is trustworthy enough for Pakistan to move its army units away from India’s border and get busy in fighting America’s war in Afghanistan.

The Americans could also be interested in keeping an eye on some of the nearby military installations, including one of the largest Pakistan Air Force bases, and also a couple of nuclear installations. There are indications that the US is also interested in seeing the war on terror extended to the heartland of Punjab province in the mistaken belief that this would hurt the base of Pakistani military [Indian intelligence analysts have convinced their American counterparts that Pakistan’s military is all about Punjab province and hitting this province can help subdue Pakistan’s military and ensure its full alignment with US objectives.]

Here is the report published by TheNation on Feb. 21 on the covert US presence in Sarwar Colony in Cantt, Lahore, since 2007 and how scores of Pakistani families have become unwilling neighbors of foreigners they don’t want to see around:

“The mystery of why US personnel were being constantly caught entering into the sensitive area of Lahore Cantonment and thereby getting caught by the Military Police, has finally been resolved. However, in the process some serious questions have arisen.

In 2007, under the Musharraf regime, Americans moved into Sarwar Colony, located behind CSD Cantt just off Aziz Bhatti Shaheed Road. This gated colony contains around 200-250 houses and they are owned by retired or serving generals of Pakistan Army. The Americans have been comfortable ensconced here in a few rented houses since 2007 in what is a highly sensitive location. So question number one: Why were the Americans given permission to locate themselves in this area and who gave the permission?

Their activities really caught on only recently when they acquired Houses 87 and 88 (see pictures), ostensibly for the US embassy staff relocated from Peshawar to Lahore! The rents paid for these houses are also far higher than the average for the Colony which is around Rs 150,000 maximum. The Americans are paying around Rs 320,000 for each house per month.

Towards the end of the last year and the start of this year, the Americans intercepted at the Cantt bridge several times were all those coming to this location. However, these Americans refused to tell Military Police officials what their destination was inside Lahore Cantt. So question number two is: Why, if the Americans had rented these houses genuinely for residential accommodation? Linked to this is question three: How come the Military Police were not in on this vital piece of information? Why were they being kept in the dark?

When these houses were rented, in the first three months high security measures were taken for them -grilling, the glass was all changed probably to bullet proof, and infrared security devices were installed with a lighting system. Then, four months ago, big container trailers entered the colony (which is restricted) about seven or eight in number, and they were off loaded into the houses in the predawn hours. After the offloading, the security of the premises was given to Elite Force Punjab and Wackenhut private security guards. The covert usage of these buildings became apparent because anyone seen coming too close to the properties was mistreated and threatened.

Children playing in the park right in front of these two houses often threw balls inside the porches of these two houses. Usually Americans come out swearing. Once, children reported that a growling and angry American came out and flattened the ball before returning it to them.

Some of the Pakistani guards outside the two houses told residents in the neighbourhood that the Americans were transporting and installing hi-tech equipment in the houses. At least one resident in the neighbourhood reports that some of the guards took photographs of some of this equipment and showed them to the residents. One of the residents who saw the pictures reports that a US citizen was watching the guard from inside the house and came out, snatched the mobile phone and threatened the resident not to contact the guards again or come near the house.

But the real issue and core question is: Why the Americans are being allowed to use houses in this sensitive area of Lahore cantonment when there now exists a decision of the Government that foreigners cannot even enter the cantonment areas without prior permission?

To find out how the local residents are taking to their American neighbours, TheNation sent its reporter to the Colony and discovered a terrorised Pakistani community right in the heart of their own country. His account speaks for itself since of some unidentified private American security guards equipped with M4s. The offloaded stuff was professionally packed in layers of plastic and wood.”

A Pakistani Minister Steals US$ 20 Million From A Pakistani Ambassador

Story Broken on Facebook

A young democracy reverts back to corruption as a battle ensues between two Pakistan Government titans over a commission worth US$ 20 million

Published by Tania Khan on Facebook and reproduced here verbatim

PakNationalists.com

Pakistan hit a new high in corruption when ‘state actors’ joined a resourceful cartel to create a fake nationwide shortage in a major commodity – sugar – and made millions.

Now some very powerful people in Islamabad are on their way to hitting another jackpot: a commission between US$ 15 to 20 million on a sugar consignment meant to plug the hole created by the fake shortage.

Two senior figures in the government, a federal minister and an ambassador to a Gulf state, have locked horns to grab the millions of dollars in commission. But only one of them will win and bag the bounty.

This is also a classic case of how corruption by junior government officials is hijacked by big fish when the commission is high.

Responding to a tender floated by the federal government for the import of 600,000 tons of sugar, Al Khaleej Sugar Trading (Pvt.) Ltd. submitted a bid of US$ 740 (London sugar price) plus US$ 80 as freight and premium charges on a per ton basis.

The initial negotiations for this bid were handled by Pakistan’s Ambassador to the United Arab Emirates Mr. Khursheed Ahmed Junejo.  Apparently the final deal that Amb. Junejo reached with Mr. Jamal al-Ghurair, the CEO of Al-Khaleej Sugar Trading, involved a hefty kickback of somewhere around US$ 15 to US$ 2o million.  In return, Mr. Junejo committed himself to pulling all the necessary strings to ensure Mr. al-Ghurair’s bid is not only accepted but that the bid is exempted from federal government’s ceiling of US$ 50 on freight and premium charges.

What Ambassador Junejo did not anticipate is that the sweet deal might go sour on him and the rewards – the commission – would be bagged by people more powerful than him in the present government in Islamabad.

At some point, federal Interior Minister Rehman Malik jumped into the fray, backed apparently by no less than the President of Pakistan. Now, according to sources in the federal government, Mr. Malik is poised to win the race for the millions in commission in the Al-Khaleej Sugar Trading deal. According to sources, Mr. Malik will grab this deal instead of Mr. Junejo thanks to backing from no less than the President. No brownie points for where the commission is bound for.  Suffice to say that it will be far from the pockets of the man who was supposed to have pocketed it in the first place.

In an agricultural country where sugar cane is a major crop, the sugar shortage crisis is highly suspicious in the first place. It has become a case of state actors backing a resourceful mafia for the exploitation of national resources.

And once again, Pakistan’s democracy is under the threat of reverting back to the well known corruption stories that resulted in the failure of the entire political system in the past.

PakNationalists.com has reproduced this report verbatim from the post of Tania Khan on Facebook where it first appeared.

Waiting For a Pakistani Mao

Just two years after the the return of Pakistan's shady democrats to power, even moderate commentators are calling for change. And in the case of commentator Ms. Anjum Niaz, they talk about revolution.

Pakistan is a country where even democracy will fail without some iron-handed intervention to set things right. Sometimes reform can't be put to vote, as I argue in my column, A Smart Coup: Why One Last Military Intervention In Pakistan Remains A Possibility. Here is an excerpt from Ms. Niaz's column today in The News International that sums up the stagnant governing culture in Pakistan these days, one that has been created by both political and military rulers, and one that needs to be changed to make Pakistan viable in the 21st century:

"Last Sunday on a PIA flight from Karachi to Islamabad, we had a VIP travel in the first-class cabin. When the flight landed in Islamabad, we were made to wait until the VIP was safely seated in his waiting Mercedes flying two flags – the Pakistan and perhaps the PPP flags. The wait for us was not long, but what was shocking was to see the car drive up to the apron, as close as it could get to the aircraft. Was the VIP a foreign guest warranting maximum security? No. He was in fact Raza Rabbani! To make sure I was not hallucinating, I double-checked with a member of the crew as we alighted. The airhostess confirmed it was the senator. Rabbani is currently chairperson of the Parliamentary Committee on National Security and also heads the Parliamentary Committee on Constitutional Reform. Do his handlers think that ordinary passengers like us are a threat to his life and therefore he must be whisked away the minute he sets foot on the ground?

"Raza Rabbani is one of the very few politicians who have been able to attain and sustain a high level of credibility in the eyes of public as well as among all the political parties," says a Google search I did on him today. "He is one politician who does not have any scandals associated with him; financial, moral, or political. He does not come from a feudal background, but earned his credibility as a competent lawyer and then as a principled political leader."

Why then does Rabbani fall for the VIP trappings? Surely, his life is not threatened the way Rehman Malik contends that his is? Malik has excused himself from appearing in person at courts because our security czar claims that there are people out to kill him.

I wrote on the chief secretary Punjab last week. He's on leave these days because the car that he was sitting in killed a man. The chief secretary's chauffeur is perhaps behind bars. But here is what he said against his boss according to a Lahore-based English newspaper report appearing on January 28. Permit me to reproduce it verbatim: "Ghulam Murtaza, the Punjab chief secretary's (CS) driver who was arrested on Tuesday for running over a retired colonel, has alleged that the CS had slapped him for not driving fast, shortly before the car hit and caused the death of Col (r) Muhammad Ikram, sources privy to the investigation told the daily. 'Most of the drivers left due to Javed Mahmood's unruly behaviour... the CS is known to use rough language and has sometimes even slapped drivers, telling them to drive faster,' sources in the Punjab Civil Secretariat said. They also claimed that in the past week, the CS had manhandled and humiliated Murtaza in front of the camp office staff over a minor oversight. On the day of the accident, the driver himself was under great psychological pressure, sources said. A number of drivers, who had worked for the CS, told the daily that Javed Mahmood had a habit of humiliating his drivers during out-of-station trips. Interestingly, Javed Mahmood has replaced around 15 staff drivers since his posting as the head of the province's civil administration in March 2008. According to the sources, Ghulam Murtaza has claimed that soon after the incident the CS got out of the car and walked away, directing him later on the phone not to disclose to anyone that he (Javed Mahmood) was in the car at the time of the accident."

If the damning testimony by the driver as reproduced above is baloney, the ex-chief secretary must set the record straight. It's most damaging. But more often than not, it's a reflection of how our bureaucrats treat their inferiors, especially servants, who dare not protest. The issue here is the cold hauteur of civil servants, trained to be rude, rough, boorish and harsh towards their servants and lower staff. Their wives and children too treat those who serve them with arrogance. It becomes a part of their DNA.

Pakistan is cursed with a VIP culture that will just not go away. There is no cure. From Zardari down to the thanedar or the patwari, we the ordinary citizens must accept these holy cows and be meek, submissive and servile before them. God forbid, should one come in their path, one is pushed aside like a speck of dust and told to remove himself/herself, even reprimanded and warned for polluting the stratified air the VIP breathes. 'Get lost' is the message!

Some even get killed! Like the colonel and the unlucky motorcyclist who happened to be on the same road as the senior adviser to the Punjab chief minister, Sardar Zulfiqar Khosa, driving from Derawar Fort after the conclusion of the Cholistan Jeep Rally. He was squished like a fly by the fleeting police escort 'guarding' Khosa. Two other riders survived the swat but are probably maimed for life.

Nothing short of a revolution will scorch this bumper crop of VIPs from our land."

A Smart Coup: Why One Last Military Intervention In Pakistan Remains A Possibility

 

 

… But we are nowhere near that right now. Gen. Kayani certainly has no such thing in mind according to people who have met him.

 

 

 

By AHMED QURAISHI

Monday, 15 February 2010.

WWW.PAKNATIONALISTS.COM

 

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan—"This was my first interaction with the soldier who commands the seventh largest military force on the face of the planet.”

 

With this catchy line, Dr. Farrukh Saleem began his brief and fascinating account of a meeting with General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani.

 

On Feb. 10, 2010, Gen. Kayani met a group of Pakistani commentators and security analysts. The briefing was the third since the military began asserting Pakistan's legitimate security and strategic interests in Afghanistan and the region.

 

On January 28 and 29, Gen. Kayani told NATO commanders in Brussels that Pakistan’s legitimate security interests will have to be respected.

 

Earlier, he told Adm. Mike Mullen, Gen. David Petraeus, and Gen. Stanley McChrystal that instead of worrying about appeasing India, Washington better start paying attention to Pakistan.

 

This is a major development in the eight-year US-led war in Afghanistan.

 

At one point, Mr. Saleem makes an interesting observation about Gen. Kayani’s cool demeanor.

 

“Yes, he has the capacity for abstract thought, cold rationality and coarse creativity - all in one,” he says. “And yet he inhales reconstituted tobacco. Yes, he uses a filter and a cigarette holder. Yes, he never takes deep puffs and, yes, he only consumes half a cigarette at a time.”

 

At another point, Mr. Saleem makes an interesting use of pun. Talking about the general’s smoking habits, he says the following: ‘He knows that some of the things that he is doing are wrong, but still won't give them up.’

 

Probably it’s a polite reference to the conspiracy theories that fill the US and British media, or the Am-Brit media, about Pakistan, its military and its intelligence agencies. So some skepticism is natural.

 

But the best part of his column in The News International was this concluding paragraph:

 

“I can tell you that I came back both proud but with a painful realisation; proud knowing that our legions are being led by strategic minds and sad to have discovered the much too visible an intellectual gap between our top political brains in Islamabad and our strategic minds at work in Rawalpindi. And what does he think about our politicians? When it's breezy, hit it easy.

Could it be that the army rules not through the barrel of a gun but because of their intellectual superiority? Could it be that the army rules because our politicians have failed to institutionalize politics? Could it be that the army rules because our political parties do not transcend individual human intentions? Could it be that the army rules because it has structures, mechanisms of social order along with strategic thinking?”

 

In essence, Mr. Saleem hit at the core reason why the Pakistani military intervenes every time politicians lead the nation to a dead end.

 

Most importantly, the above reasoning answers even a more important question: Why the military mounts successful interventions and why the politicians can’t muster the moral authority to resist them.

 

Pakistani politicians remain a chaotic, undisciplined and shortsighted bunch. Their parties are messy and loose groupings of special interests in their crudest form. Almost all of them have lifetime leaders who never give way to fresh blood. And they are not public institutions but private, family-owned affairs.

 

Since the return to democracy in Pakistan in February 2008, hardly any of the parties in government or opposition devoted any high-level party meetings to education, health, culture and sports. None of them has plans in place for running the country. Worse, none has any vision.

 

The best place in Islamabad these days to see this mess in action is the National Defense University. Since 2002, the NDU has been holding the annual National Security Workshop. This is a unique 6-week course. It brings together politicians, military officers, businessmen, lawyers, social activists and journalists. The group is taken through a virtual tour into the corridors of strategic decision making in Pakistan. The course ends with a weeklong exercise that sees the class divided into a Pakistani government and a shadow government, complete with their own secretariat and staff. On the last day, the two governments frame and deliver a policy plan to deal with a hypothetical strategic crisis confronting Pakistan. The plan has domestic, military and foreign policy components. Often, senior commanders from Pakistani military’s General Headquarters attend the last day’s presentations.

 

NDU officials, both civilian and military, have one observation that has been constant during the past eight years of national security workshops: Military officers, businessmen, social activists and journalists often show the best performance. Politicians come last. Most can’t even draft a single-page policy brief, or work with a PowerPoint presentation.

 

In essence, middle class Pakistanis – military officers, businessmen, social activists and journalists – fair better than the politicians, mostly a feudal landowning elite.

 

This gets blurry sometimes, but you get the general idea.

 

And middle class Pakistanis can’t make it to political parties, let alone to the federal and regional parliaments and governments.

 

Elections might change this, but certainly not in the foreseeable future. And Pakistan may not have the luxury of time.

 

If the national deadlock continues with mounting domestic instability due to massive corruption and mismanagement by our politicians, the military may have to contend with one last intervention. It would be the last because if the military failed this time to help set Pakistan on the right track, it could be a free fall after that because Pakistanis are getting increasingly restless with the existing decay. Social turmoil simmers just beneath the surface.

 

If it comes to a military-led intervention, both military officers and politicians will have to stay out of actual power. The army chief may not become a chief executive. The military might have to look into a new concept called the ‘Smart Coup’, where the military can bring capable Pakistanis to power with a firm executable plan of reform over five years, or more, fully backed by the military.  There may not be time to put the plan to vote. It will have to be implemented.

 

This would be the absolute last option. But we are nowhere near that right now. Gen. Kayani certainly has no such thing in mind according to people who have met him. He wants democracy to work for the time being and he has proven this by resisting several opportunities to intervene over the past two years.

 

Pakistan is full of resources and opportunities, but it lacks good leadership and clean management. Even the bare minimum of these two commodities is not available in today’s Pakistan.

 

Books on political science and theory in Washington and London can’t help with this. Pakistanis will have to do what’s best for their homeland.

Private Army of Ayaz Amir

For all the guns that this Pakistani politician owns, he should have been able to attend the funeral of a Pakisani soldier who belonged to his constituency.

Let me explain.

Mr. Ayaz Amir is a renowned Pakistani columnist. He is famous for criticizing the military and defending democracy.

He works for Mr. Nawaz Sharif’s party. He is a Member of National Assembly of Pakistan [MNA] from a rural area close to the federal capital. But despite close links to Mr. Sharif, or maybe because of them, he secured 29 special permits - or licenses - to carry banned weapons. These permits were granted to him by the government of President Asif Ali Zardari.

These permits can’t be obtained in normal circumstances.

The disturbing part of the story is this: the elected and democratic government of Pakistan has issued tens of thousands of licenses for banned weapons. These banned weapons include arms that only the country’s military and paramilitary agencies are allowed to own.

The result is that in today’s Pakistan, every small and big political party has a secret private army. These weapons are meant to reinforce the power of the families that run these parties and to intimidate opponents.

Pakistan has a violent, armed, family-owned democracy. That’s why it is a failure.

When I tried to do a TV show about it, most big-name politicians refused to participate.

While arming the Pakistani democracy, our ‘democratic warriors’ have also allowed the United States to create a covert private militia on Pakistani soil, manned by the highly trained former officers of the Pakistani military. Husain Haqqani in Washington granted them visas and Rehman Malik’s Interior Ministry let them establish outposts in and around the Pakistani capital. All of this was done in the past two years. Finally the Pakistani people and the military discovered what was happening and nabbed this scheme in the bud.

Why does someone like Ayaz Amir need 29 permits for sophisticated weapons?

US defense contractor DynCorp paid US$ 2,000 for each one of the 138 arm permits it received from the Interior Ministry before the whole operation was busted.

Was Mr. Ayaz Amir selling these permits in the open market? If not, has he created a small army for himself? Or is it part of a larger army maintained by his political party, the PMLN?

And then, all these weapons must have made you a secure man, Mr. Amir. But then, last year, he refused to attend the funeral of Lt. Faiz Sultan, who was an active member of PakNationalists, and an active duty soldier in the Pakistan Army. Faiz was a resident in the constituency of Mr. Amir. Faiz could also have been one of the youngest martyrs fighting the foreign-funded fake Taliban movement [a.k.a Pakistani Taliban].

Mr. Amir did not attend Lt. Faiz’s burial because the honorable politician was afraid he might become a target for the terrorists. This is what one of Mr. Amir’s local representatives told the family of Lt. Faiz.

So much for our armed democracy.

Why A Marshall Plan, President Zardari?

President Zardari of Pakistan issued today one of his signature statements. "Time and again," he said to an audience of leading citizens of the eastern city of Lahore, "I have been asking the world for a Marshall Plan for Pakistan like the one they had for Europe."

Someone tell President Zardari that a Marshall Plan, where the world chips in, is basically for an occupied country. That's the precedent at least. Those who'll give aid will also meddle in internal affairs. Is he inviting US trusteeship over Pakistan? We know he owes his job to the United States and the United Kingdom. Should he flaunt it, along with his ignorance, like this?

He forgot to add that the world has ignored his ambitious demand 'time and again.'  Which is strange considering he is strongly backed by the governments of the US and UK.

But the question is: Why would the US go for such an expensive option when Mr. Zardari's government had almost surrendered the country to US private defense contractors and pushy US diplomats? They have in Islamabad the government that they lobbied for, without an occupation and a Marshall Plan.

Mr. Zardari's government was tailored by American and British diplomats in late 2006 and early 2007. Some of the shadiest characters Pakistan ever produced were made part of it. That was Washington and London's way of ensuring that Pakistan's charge is in the hands of people they could trust to checkmate the Pakistani military from within . Until a few weeks ago, Washington's envoy in Islamabad was secretly meeting politicians to ask them to support Mr. Zardari in the face of a hostile Pakistani public opinion, judiciary, media and the military.

In two years in power, this Am-Brit democratic dream team is yet to present a single policy proposal on any issue, be it education, culture, sports, economy, you name it.  It gets better with the opposition led by former premier Nawaz Sharif. He has been promised by Richard Holbrooke, and earlier by John Negroponte and Richard Boucher during Bush days, that he'll get his chance in power and that Washington won't oppose. If Mr. Sharif assumes power tomorrow morning, his party doesn't have a clue what it will do next except issue statements for public consumption. Which is what the incumbent Am-Brit dream team is doing.

During a television show over the weekend, I asked low-level party members of major Pakistani parties if they have attended any meeting chaired by their 'leaders' ever since the illustrious return to democracy in 2008 where education, health, culture, energy or any of the things that need planning and vision were discussed.  First they were stunned I asked this question. No one in Pakistan's newspapers, media and politics ever discusses this aspect of our Am-Brit democracy, or the multiple failures of political parties whose leaders have become little more than local representatives of foreign governments, especially US and UK.

It turned out I was right.

Here's an idea for Mr. Zardari and his dream team: Instead of begging the world for more money and a Marshall Plan, how about planning for your own country and people, plan for the economy, for education, health and transportation?

How about leveraging Pakistan's geostrategic position for more gain instead of selling Pakistan cheap, Mr. President?

[Just as a refresher on Mr. Zardari's foreign backers, here is the latest statement from former President Farooq Leghari explaining why President Zardari is a security risk.]

America's Intrusive Ambassador In Pakistan

While the Boston Globe advises President Obama to scale back meddling in Pakistani politics, US Ambassador to Pakistan Anne W. Patterson launches a covert campaign to convince politicians to support President Zardari.

The disconnect is breathtaking. Globe's position ("Show US neutrality in Pakistan") also serves to signify how much the US public opinion is unaware of the extent of the intrusive presence of the United States in Pakistan. Part of what US officials describe as rising anti-Americanism in the country is actually nothing more than Pakistani backlash for this meddling.

Mr. Zardari's team and his closest aides - especially Interior Minister Rehman Malik and Ambassador in Washington Husain Haqqani - have been on a collision course with the Pakistani military. They have permitted possibly tens of private US defense contractors - private militias, to be accurate - into Pakistan.  Moreover, Pakistanis have strong reasons to believe that Mr. Zardari and his team had consented to some conditions, or secret understandings, with Washington prior to taking charge in Pakistan last year. It is no secret that the incumbent pro-US Pakistani government is the result of a 'deal' brokered by the Bush administration in 2007. That deal imposed the current set of discredited politicians on Pakistan.  In some ways, this was the third US-led regime change, after Kabul and Baghdad. But unlike those two capitals, regime-change in Pakistan happened without the need for a full fledged military invasion. This was and continues to be an achievement for US diplomacy and military, and a moment of shame for most Pakistanis.

To be fair, Washington could not have done it without the help of Pakistani insiders. Former strongman Musharraf was under no compulsion to agree to this wild American idea. Yet for inexplicable reasons he chose to agree to a power-sharing agreement with late Benazir Bhutto, as part of the US-brokered deal.

It is encouraging to see some Americans - like the editorial writer at Boston Globe - cut through the fog of official US media manipulation and see developments in Pakistan through Pakistani perspective.  But most Americans don't know, for example, how their envoy here, Ms. Anne W. Patterson, is quietly meeting Pakistani politicians at private residences of trusted friends to strategize domestic politics. These meetings are not acknowledged by the US Embassy or by Pakistani politicians and hence do not make it to the front pages of Pakistani newspapers. 

More recently, a US defense contractor on whose behalf Ms. Patterson lobbied senior Pakistani officials for special weapon permits was found to have paid bribes to a Pakistani minister's aide to the tune of US $ 250,000. In short, the US ambassador's name came up several times during a case of bribery involving the national security of the host country.

Pakistani politicians in government are too timid to put the US government on notice about the extracurricular activities of its diplomats in Pakistan.

[This is one blatant aspect of US meddling in Pakistan. Another is the flurry of media reports in the US complaining about Pakistani harassment of US diplomats. Those leaks were stunning by all accounts because they showed the US at the receiving end of Pakistani high handedness. The reality is totally different but who cares. US government spinners released the story first and that's what counts. Pakistanis are lousy at media projection anyway. More on this later.]

So, who will stop Ms. Patterson from trying to manipulate Pakistani politics? And why such a heavy US investment in the Zardari government? And why is the US orchestrating the encirclement of the Pakistani military, from the borders of Afghanistan to the civilian pro-US government in Islamabad?

And the most important question: Is Pakistan the enemy? Every US move in the region says it is. Even the financial aid is being used as an instrument of coercive policy rather than an instrument of development, which is what US officials never tire of telling us. Here again the US official language says one thing and does another.

Warning: Last Chance Before A Military Coup In Pakistan

Haqqani Should Buy Zardari A New Maximilian

The Zardari-Nawaz musical chairs stands exposed before the Pakistani people. Syed Faisal Saleh Hayat appears on Ahmed Quraishi's TSS [Sunday, Nov. 15, 08:00 pm-Aag TV] to issue this warning: this is the last chance for the politicians and the expanded ruling elite. Anjum Niaz puts that warning in perspective in this column in her unique style.

Click here to read the full column

US Hummers Enter Pakistan, Undercover American Soldiers In Islamabad

A large number of US armored carriers have arrived at Port Qasim. Here are the first exclusive pictures. This adds to increased activity of armed US 'diplomats' in the two cities of Islamabad and Peshawar and the construction of the world's largest US embassy in Islamabad close to sensitive federal government departments. The PPP government and other Pakistani politicians are silently encouraging this expanded American role to counterbalance a powerful Pakistani military.



ISLAMABAD, Pakistan—Undercover armed Americans are swarming the Pakistani capital in the latest sign that the elected government has allowed Washington to dispatch what is believed to be a large number of American special operations agents and contractual security guards, including the infamous Blackwater private militia.

This comes at a time when whistleblowers within the government and the military are reporting the arrival of a large number of US Marines in Pakistan. Some reports put the figure at 1,000 US soldiers, much of whom are thought to be arriving as part of the massive expansion of the US Embassy and four consulates across the country. While the US embassy continues to deny this, new buildings are under construction to house security teams. The expanded US embassy is supposed to become the largest US embassy in the world.

Above is an exclusive picture taken by a source at the entrance of Port Qasim near Karachi, showing US Hummers being transported out of the facility. According to the source, the shipment was not destined for Afghanistan. The picture was taken on Aug. 19, 2009 and being released here for the first time.

The latest evidence of the growing American military presence in the Pakistani capital is the arrest of four Americans carrying automatic weapons in a part of the Pakistani capital that foreigners seldom visit.

The four were arrested in Sector G-9 of Islamabad in the evening of Saturday, Aug. 29.

A police picket stopped two cars carrying the four Americans who refused to explain why they were carrying sophisticated automatic weapons in the capital city. Diplomats are not supposed to carry weapons because their security is the responsibility of the host government, and security guards are not supposed to be carrying weapons outside the embassy except during official assignments. The four were taken to a police station for interrogation but were released when two retired Pakistani army officers showed up and threatened police officers of dire consequences.

The police established that the four Americans carried diplomatic status and were part of the US embassy staff.

When I called today US embassy spokesperson Richard Snelsire about the incident, he refused to comment and referred me to the Pakistani Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Pakistani police.

"Do US diplomats normally carry weapons?" I asked.

Mr. Snelsire's reply was, "Only if they are permitted" to do so by the Pakistani government. But he avoided commenting on the incident or explaining whether the four were diplomats.

The spokesman's reaction confirms suspicions that private US security guards are active in Pakistan. For obvious reasons these guards do not come under the cover of US Department of State employees in Pakistan. This could be one reason why US embassy spokesperson declined comment on the story since the presence and the activities of the four armed men might be beyond the purview of the US embassy in Islamabad.

There is strong evidence that the private US mercenary army, Blackwater, has also established office in the Pakistani capital. Authorities have received several complaints of ill mannered military-type westerners misbehaving or recklessly driving by.

The Pakistani capital was the scene of at least two incidents recently where armed American diplomats verbally and physically assaulted Pakistani police officers. In one case, newspapers called for expelling an armed US diplomat who cursed and swore at the host country. The Pakistani government, which is known to be pro-American, refused to take action.

US HIRING PAK GOVT.
SERVANTS AS CONSULTANTS

The Americans appear to have recruited a large number of retired Pakistani army officers, in addition to quietly hiring Pakistani civil servants without making any of this public. A famous government university professor in Islamabad who is active in US media campaigns against Pakistan's nuclear program has also been hired as a consultant. Government employees cannot offer their services to foreign governments but this is happening now under an increasingly weak Pakistani state and government.

WHO IS INVITING US MILITARY
TO PAKISTAN

There are indications that the PPP government and some other politicians, like Nawaz Sharif, are encouraging the Americans to get involved in domestic issues especially as a hedge against a powerful Pakistani military. Politicians are aware they have led the country to a national failure on all fronts since the general elections in February 2008. The public mood is gradually turning against them. This has stoked the rumor mill about disgruntlement within the Pakistani military regarding the failures of the politicians.

Washington is spending nearly one billion dollars to expand its Islamabad embassy. On completion, the US embassy in Islamabad will become the largest in the world. Interestingly, both the government, led by President Zardari, and the opposition, led by Nawaz Sharif, refuse to question why Washington has been granted exceptional concessions to construct an imperial-size embassy and how at least 18 acres of the most expensive real state in the capital has been handed over to the Americans for this purpose at throwaway prices.