A Note-Taker In Pakistan, US Meetings

I like defense analyst Dr. Shireen M. Mazari for her blunt and direct style. But mostly I like her for her ability to offer Pakistani decision makers practical ideas to improve policy.

Take for example her advice to our politicians currently debating new terms of engagement with the United States. She suggests they add one more clause to their 30+ recommendations. This suggestion is simple: Ensure that a Pakistani note-taker is present in every meeting between Pakistani and American officials without exception.

This is a brilliant idea. Pakistan has suffered $70 billion dollars in losses, thousands killed and injured, and an unstable neighborhood thanks to helping an ungrateful Washington invade and occupy Afghanistan.

We got nothing in exchange for this help except headache. This happened because one general and several politicians failed to protect Pakistani interests while negotiating arrangements with the Americans. Former president and army chief Gen. Musharraf struck several verbal understandings with the Americans, and recently President Asif Zardari has been secretly meeting American emissaries at neutral locations like Dubai without informing the Pakistani government.

If a law is passed stipulating the presence of a note taker in all Pak-US interactions, this would help prevent the repeat of the disasters under presidents Musharraf and Zardari. This idea is standard practice in government-to-government relations. Unfortunately, it assumes an added importance in the context of our bad experience with untrustworthy allies like the Americans.

This idea is one of many that Dr. Mazari shares in her opinion piece on the story.

Shireen Mazari Blasts America's Haqqani: Victory Of The Sleaze

Known Pakistani military expert Dr. Shireen Mazari has some harsh words today for our tainted ex-ambassador to Washington, his backers in Washington and its puppet Zardari government in Islamabad. And also the Pakistani military.

Her brief analysis, which she wrote today for PakNationalists.net, makes for an excellent read.

Let me quote:

The military leadership especially has once again come out looking bad with promotions and other such interests leading to what is a major national compromise of the most despicable kind given how it were Pakistan’s security interests that were being bargained with in the notorious Memo. Husain Haqqani himself has a record of selling out Pakistan’s national interests to the US in the past. For instance, when he was Pakistan’s High Commissioner in Sri Lanka, he revealed a highly sensitive piece of information to then US Ambassador to Sri Lanka Teresita Schaeffer regarding one of our covert operations. This almost destroyed Pakistan-Sri Lankan relations. 

Click here to read her column.

Weekend Story That Scuttled Pak-Indian Photo-Op

This drama quietly unfolded over the weekend.

Early Sunday, a Pakistani newspaper editor receives a text message from a source in New York warning that Zardari govt. is pushing Pak foreign minister to stand for a photo-op with his Indian counterpart in NYC on the sidelines of a UN meeting. Indians were desperate for the photo to demoralize Kashmiris & show them that Pakistan is on board.

The editor called a Pakistani TV news channel and offered to break the story. By midday the story was on the air. By Monday, the Indians , the Americans and their Pakistani stooges waited with baited breath for a meeting that never happened. By evening, Pak foreign minister gave a shocking statement: He won't meet Indians for a photo-op unless they discuss their occupation of Kashmir.

A warm thank you to the timely alert from the New York source.

Click here to read the full story.

An Abduction Blamed On Pakistani Spooks

Some government-linked politicians have been whispering to the media that ISI and MI did it because they were enraged at Mr. Cheema's coverage of the 'missing persons' issue. That might be, but what about the government avenging Mr. Cheema's groundbreaking story on how President Zardari and his aides hired Turkish female 'escorts' and failed to pay them their dues resulting in a court case in Turkey?

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