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.
        

What Kayani Can Learn From Putin

By allowing foreign militaries a free reign in our tribal belt to kill hundreds of innocent Pakistanis, Pakistan is committing the same mistake as Putin’s, who initially did well a decade ago by crushing the rebellion in Chechnya but now is creating more rebels because of highhandedness. Also, Pakistan has no business eliminating the Afghan Taliban, who survived the 2001 war thanks to US mismanagement. The problem should be solved inside Afghanistan, not Waziristan.

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan—It was brave on the part of Pakistan army chief to publicly apologize for mistakenly bombing and killing tens of innocent Pakistanis in a Khyber Agency village. In a similar incident in 2006 during the reign of his predecessor, where a US missile killed up to 80 children in a school, the action was not only defended but the Pakistani military was forced to own it, giving the first signal to everyone that innocent Pakistanis can be killed with impunity as part of the war on terror. Since then, more than a thousand innocent Pakistanis have lost their lives as collateral damage in these ‘successful’ drone attacks. This would remain one of the darkest spots in our history where our rulers shirked their responsibility for the protection of every Pakistani citizen on our soil.

But the army chief’s apology is also an opportunity to review whether it is acceptable to have allowed ourselves and our American allies to import their methods of dealing with occupied populations in Iraq and Afghanistan to be used with our own people inside our own homeland.

This review is important because these imported methods of dealing with occupied populations are not only unsuitable here but are radicalizing our own citizens instead of pacifying them, producing more disgruntled citizens for our enemies to recruit, brainwash and use to kill more Pakistanis and spread mayhem.

In using these imported methods we are committing the same mistake that President Putin, now a prime minister, has been committing in Chechnya for the past decade. He successfully curbed the insurgency and ended the ability of the US and other countries to use Chechnya to bleed Russia by covertly supplying weapons and intelligence to the insurgents. But instead of building on that success, Mr. Putin continues to use aggressive tactics in Chechnya, breeding more insurgents and more opportunities for outsiders to meddle. [The latest suicide attacks in Moscow involved a young woman who blew herself up because Russian military killed her husband].

The same is happening in our tribal belt. Just when we have stamped out insurgents and criminals in some pockets [thanks to Gen. Kayani and his team], here comes the collateral damage – both from CIA drones and our own occasional mishaps – to create additional pools of disgruntled citizens ready to be picked up by anyone who has resources to use them against the Pakistani state.

It’s a vicious cycle that destroys the massive nation-building work that our military is conducting in places such as Swat, with the military’s own money and often without any support from incompetent civilian governments in Islamabad and Peshawar. For example, few people know that our soldiers donated two days’ pay to collect US$1.2 million to renovate more than half of the 400 schools in Swat destroyed by terrorist groups. The army is building roads and restoring water supply lines in Swat, even organizing cultural and musical events to provide much need entertainment to a disturbed population and restore normalcy. Not to mention achieving the impossible by restoring two million refugees back to their homes in less than a year.

But all of this good work is eaten away by the kind of massive bloodshed that occurred on April 10 at remote Tirah Valley of Khyber Agency. Despite the brave apology, the accident will create new rebels and revenge seekers. It also brings into focus an old complaint about the veracity of intelligence that the Americans have and share with our military. Once again, the insurgency within our tribal belt is directly linked with the American mismanagement in Afghanistan. Allowing the Americans or anyone else to set up spy networks inside our territory and unleash private defense contractors in beards and local dresses is like allowing our own people and territory to be treated in the same manner as Iraq and Afghanistan, which are foreign occupied zones. This foreign element, including collateral damage and the faulty intelligence that causes it, is also sending a wrong message to ambitious criminal and tribal leaders and politicians, and that message is: the Pakistani state and its military are too weak to check foreign meddling and thus taking matters into their own hands is a legitimate option.

Another mistake that is bound to breed more enemies for the state is our faulty policy of not clearly asserting that the Afghan Taliban along with any other Afghan parties are legitimate Afghan political players. Fighting them is not and should never be Pakistan’s responsibility. The presence of some Afghan Taliban on Pakistani soil is expected to due to close ties between Pakistani and Afghan Pashtuns, but the solution is not for Pakistan to help US eliminate them but to resolve the deadlock inside Afghanistan that has resulted in the Afghan Taliban escaping their country to take refuge here.

Make no mistake about it: rebels who terrorize and kill Pakistanis must be eliminated by force and without mercy. But allowing outsiders to kill our people directly or through faulty intelligence means we will see suicide attackers for a long time to come.

This op-ed was originally published by The News International in Pakistan under the title, Waziristan And Chechnya.



This work by PakNationalists is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Works 3.0 Unported License.

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.

Raise Your Price, Pakistan

Raise Your Price, Pakistan

How about exchanging Taliban Number Two Abdul Ghani Baradar for terror master Brahamdagh Bugti and the dismantling of the terror network targeting Pakistan’s Balochistan?

By Ahmed Quraishi

Tuesday, 2 March 2010.

WWW.PAKNATIONALISTS.COM

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan—Pakistan has agreed to hand over Afghan Taliban’s number 2, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, to Afghanistan. How about asking for Mr. Brahamdagh Bugti in exchange? Or for the dismantling of the Afghan-based terror infrastructure targeting Pakistani Balochistan?

There are signs that Afghanistan’s role as a base for anti-Pakistan operations over the past seven years is gradually shrinking. But it is not completely over yet. The rollback in that role is directly linked to what the United States wants. And Washington’s recent change of heart regarding Pakistan’s role and legitimate regional security interests are the result of the Pakistani military standing its ground, not any genuine change of heart in US policymaking circles. This is why you did not see any US official jumping in excitement at the idea of Pakistani military training the Afghan National Army, which is what our army chief has proposed.

So the change in the US position may be tactical, forced by Pakistani straight talk. Examples abound, including how CIA dragged its feet before it finally began targeting anti-Pakistan terror groups and leaders in the border area.  There might have also been some visible decrease in the level of logistical support that the so-called Pakistani Taliban received from the Afghan soil [and not all of it from the proceeds of Afghan Taliban’s drug trade, as Afghan and American officials have been trying to convince their Pakistani counterparts].  Pakistani officials are yet to certify this decrease publicly. Granted that Admiral Mike Mullen is someone who genuinely tries to understand Pakistani concerns. And he has been doing his bit with apparent sincerity in the past few months. But there are still some tensions below the surface. A Time magazine story over the weekend tried to delink US connection to the Jundullah terrorist group and throw the entire responsibility at Pakistan, targeting Iranian paranoia by suggesting a Pakistani intelligence support for Jundullah ‘as a tool for strategic depth.’  This type of media leaks and background intelligence briefings have to stop. Enough of the demonization of Pakistan that the US media unfortunately spearheaded over the past three years, apparently through some kind of semi-official patronage. If US officials can bluntly accuse their Pakistani counterparts of sponsoring ‘anti-American articles’ in newspapers, whatever that means [What is ‘anti-American articles’ anyway?], surely Islamabad can pose the same question, especially when Pakistan’s case is stronger.

The same goes for the admirable US nudge to India to resume peace talks with Pakistan. Had things not gone wrong in Afghanistan for the grand US project, Washington was all set to introduce India as the new regional policeman in Afghanistan following the eventual pullback of NATO and US militaries from that country. Pakistan was being pushed to accept this as fait accompli and Mr. Zardari’s pro-US government was more than willing to play along. Again, a Pakistani public opinion that is not ready for such a major one-sided Pakistani concession probably threw a spanner in the works.

Foreign Secretary Salman Bashir must be commended along with his team for stating the Pakistani bottom line. Forget the US statements on the need for peace between Pakistan and India. The fact is that the US played the two countries against one another in Afghanistan in the past eight years. If Pakistan accepts, a photo-op would work just fine for Washington as it does for New Delhi. We’d be asking too much if we think anyone in New Delhi or Washington is really itching to help Pakistan resolve its grievances with India. It’s just that the regional dynamic is helping us at this point in time. So let’s make the most out of it while we retain the initiative. Instead of the theatrics, we must ask for something substantial this time. No more prolonged people-to-people exchanges. There is no problem between our peoples. And please, no more equating Pakistan’s responsibility for peace with India’s responsibility. The onus is on India. It is the bigger country. It can change the entire mood in the region by taking small steps to alleviate Pakistani insecurities. It can do so by taking steps in the water dispute, in improving how it treats Pakistani visitors, and by reducing tensions with the Kashmiri people on the ground.

Bottom line: Enough of selling ourselves cheap over the past eight years. Pakistan should secure its interests and accept nothing less.

An edited version of this op-ed was published by The News International.

© 2007-2009. All rights reserved. AhmedQuraishi.com & PakNationalists

Verbatim copying and distribution of this entire article is permitted in any medium

without royalty provided this notice is preserved.

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America's Jilted Lover In New Delhi

Pakistan army chief General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani has offered to train the Afghan army. This is part of a list of demands – not all of them made public – that seek to correct a basic American mistake: While courting Pakistan as an ally, Washington secretly empowered India.

Until last month, Washington was hoping that India’s relatively cheaper soldiers will come handy where the Europeans won’t, and that a bungled Afghan project could be continued on, well, a leaner budget.

Washington is now in the process of correcting this mistake. And not because of any real change in heart. It’s just that Islamabad is reasserting itself.

This has sent alarm bells ringing in New Delhi. And within the pro-Indian media in Washington.

Exhibit A: an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal, Let India Train the Afghan Army, written by Indian analyst Sumit Ganguly on Feb. 14. The op-ed could have been written in the national security adviser’s office in New Delhi. The talking points might as well have originated there.

Mr. Ganguly basically begs Washington to consider the Indian army for a role in Afghanistan. Not doing that, he warns, would amount to ‘a grave strategic error’. The op-ed actually ends with these three words.

The Indian analyst sounded almost desperate with his pushy sales pitch [Example: India’s army enjoys ‘an optimal "teeth to tail" ratio, specifically trained in counterinsurgency operations’].

But there are genuine reasons why Mr. Ganguly’s idea is a bad one.

India is one of the reasons for the US debacle in Afghanistan. Back in 2002, self-styled Indian experts on Pakistan and Afghanistan convinced Washington that India can provide better intelligence on extremist groups than the double-dealing Pakistanis. Washington listened. The Bush White House and Pentagon were more than happy to buy Indian theories on who to deal with inside Afghanistan and how to keep Pakistan at bay.

Partly due to this (ill) advice, discredited Afghan warlords were brought on board. Indian intelligence agents were given a lot of space in Afghanistan. New Delhi used this space against Pakistan. Not all of the terrorism inside Pakistan over the past five years is the result of Taliban and al-Qaeda.

Indians misled the Americans not just on the ground in Afghanistan but also in the corridors of Washington’s think tanks. Indian experts offered provocative ideas on how Pakistan is ripe for a redrawing of borders along alleged linguistic and ethnic fault lines, a la Iraq. Bush-era Washington listened eagerly as Indian experts promoted the idea of using these fault lines as a negotiating card with Pakistan to secure its cooperation. This is how a separatist insurgency in Pakistan’s Balochistan province was born in 2005.

Needless to say, Indian involvement backfired. Spices are not good in every dish.

As the Indian fingerprints became clearer, a feeling grew among Pakistanis that Washington took Pakistan for a ride since 2002. Never before in the half-century of US-Pakistani relations has anti-Americanism been this high in Pakistan. It’s totally unheard of.

Now Washington is realizing its mistake and adjusting its Afghan policy accordingly. The United States must not be distracted again.

No one in Washington is really enthusiastic about the Pakistani offer to train the Afghan army. You will not see Wall Street Journal publishing an op-ed advocating Pakistan’s viewpoint anytime soon. But this festering anti-Pakistanism in the US media should give way to a new way of looking at Pakistan, America’s demonized ally.

What Robert Gates Didn’t Say - And US Media Hides - About Blackwater In Pakistan

(Photo courtesy DoD)

This report explains the bogus American claims about anti-Americanism and conspiracy theories in Pakistan, and how Washington has used the issue of visa delays to hide serious violations of diplomatic norms and stories about pushy US diplomats in Pakistan.

This report should be an eye-opener for the good people of America.

Two Pakistani employees of an American defense contractor engaged by the US Embassy in Islamabad have been linked to two attacks on Pakistani military and the assassination of a Brigadier. If this is not alarming, then consider that US Ambassador Anne Patterson’s name has come up in an investigation where thousands of dollars were paid in bribes to Interior Ministry to smuggle illegal weapons into Pakistan. Not to mention how Washington is empowering India in Afghanistan at Pakistan’s cost. When Pakistan takes countermeasures, US officials like Mr. Gates and Mr. Holbrooke accuse Pakistan of ‘anti-Americanism’ and harassing US diplomats. Time for some straight talk.

CLICK HERE TO READ FULL REPORT

American McShoe In Pakistan's Face

US senators Mitch McConnell and John McCain visited Pakistan at the same time. Both of them met Pakistani leaders. These two pictures, from the Associated Press of Pakistan, stand out from their list of meetings in Islamabad. At the top, Sen. John's McShoe is protruding into Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilnai's face. And in the second one, Sen. Mitch's McShoe is distracting Pakistan's army chief.

Is there something here or am I just reading too much into these pictures?
I'd love to see our Ambassador Husain Haqqani mustering his guts to put on display a similar spectacle with US President or his VP in Washington. Mr. Haqqani probably won't do this because it's simply in bad taste. 

A Pakistani living in the United States for a long time emailed me saying this happens all the time in the US and so it's no big deal.

That's not true.  In recent months, Pakistani officials have seen an increase in the number of incidents where US diplomats have resorted to bully tactics against the host country. This includes sending undercover operatives and private defense contractors to Pakistan with diplomatc passports and lying to the Pakistani government about it. When Pakistan tried to check this, CIA and other parts of the US government resorted to a cheap tactic. Reports suddenly flooded the US media talking about Pakistan 'harassing' US diplomats. Then there is the story of how several junior diplomats working under the US ambassador in Pakistan took turns every week or so in issuing public statements indirectly threatening war and invasion against Pakistan over the alleged presence of the Afghan Taliban leadership here. Our Foreign Office told them not to make such statements without evidence. And yet they were at it again.

In this backdrop, actions such as flaunting a shoe in the face of a guest during a formal government-to-government meeting is not okay.

If some of you think this is reading too much into things, see how Turkey extracted an apology from Israel over a sofa. See the two pictures below.

I know I would take offense to someone flaunting his shoe in my face during an official meeting.

Maybe Amb. Anne W. Patterson should sensitize the powerful guests from Washington to common manners instead of wasting her energies on hunting down who to expel next from which Pakistani newspaper for criticizing US policies. This week, the US Embassy in Islamabad had the audacity to issue a statement accusing an editorial writer in the Urdu-language newspaper Nawai Waqt for slandering Richard Holbrooke. Why? Because the paper dared question US policy intentions.

Pakistan should start taking offense at these indirect messages of insult in the same manner that Turkey did.  Unfortunately, under a US-installed government, Pakistan has lost tremendous credibility and respect in the eyes of both its own citizens and friends overseas.

A Bunker In The Heart Of Islamabad

I was passing by this bunker-type police checkpoint and took this snap using my cell phone. It saddened me no end to see this in the heart of Islamabad in November 2009. The reason for my sadness is that I wrote an analysis titled, Plan To Topple Pakistan Military, in Nov 2007. The paper was based on some evidence indicating Indian activity in Afghanistan centered on inserting agents into Pakistan’s tribal belt, these agents being a mix of Indians and others working for Karzai’s spymasters.

The findings of that analysis linked terrorism in our entire western belt to a CIA-India-Karzai nexus that exploited festering local Pakistani problems. No one at the time believed it. I brought the theory to the attention of the highest people's in the country at the time. Unfortunately, those in power used the insight for political reasons [sustain the government] and chose to trust the Americans, who at the time were planning to shift their Afghan mess to Pakistan. Since then, Chinese interests have been attacked on Pakistani soil for the first time, GHQ has been attacked for the first time, and ethnic terrorism is in action in Balochistan using a Pakistani ethnic rebel leader based in safe houses in Kabul.

I am one of countless Pakistanis now who are glad to read Gen. Kayani's statement on US policy in Afghanistan, and Gen. Tariq Majeed's tough retort to US propaganda on our nukes.

It is time for Pakistan to get out of America’s failed war in Afghanistan and take a stand on anti-Pakistan terrorism launched from that US-controlled country.