tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-59926568602733599592024-03-13T14:35:28.322+05:00The Citizen's TrustThe Awakening of Pakistan.
Jaag utha hai Saraa Watan!SOAP BOXhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04514006243211979566noreply@blogger.comBlogger245125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5992656860273359959.post-2385919260191261042013-09-05T12:54:00.001+05:002013-09-05T12:54:51.331+05:00Most wanted terrorist captured from hotel in Pakistan<p> </p> <p><a href="http://dawn.com/authors/774/nadeem-f-paracha"><em>NADEEM F. PARACHA</em></a></p> <p><b>Updated </b>2013-09-04 13:49:40</p> <p><a href="http://lh6.ggpht.com/-fkx5b__-QqQ/Uig4cFfFlrI/AAAAAAAANm0/VJGISBiyRn8/s1600-h/clip_image002%25255B3%25255D.jpg"><img title="clip_image002" style="border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom-width: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px; border-top-width: 0px" border="0" alt="clip_image002" src="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-XcGhirPAC8Y/Uig4dfYXPbI/AAAAAAAANm8/Y2DJdthJxC4/clip_image002_thumb.jpg?imgmax=800" width="205" height="244" /></a></p> <p><b><font size="3">ISLAMABAD: In a daring raid, Saudi Special Forces arrested one of the most wanted extremist leaders, Abu Jarara Al-Yemeni, from a hotel located in one of Pakistan’s most popular vacation spots in Murree.</font></b></p> <p><font size="3">The news spread like wildfire and people were seen cursing the Pakistani government for allowing the Americans to undermine Pakistan’s sovereignty, again.</font></p> <p><font size="3">However, when it became clear that the raid was not conducted by the Americans but by the Saudis, the frowns turned into smiles and many were heard saying, ‘<i>Jazzakallah</i>!’</font></p> <p><font size="3">Only minutes after the raid, Pakistan’s Prime Minister appeared on state-owned television and congratulated the nation and thanked the Saudi regime for helping Pakistan in its war against terror.</font></p> <p><font size="3">Interestingly, religious parties like Jamaat-i-Islami, (JI) Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam (JUI) and some banned sectarian organisations, that had originally called a joint press conference to condemn the raid, changed their stance half-way through the conference when told that the raid was by Saudi forces and not the Americans.</font></p> <p><font size="3">JI chief was first heard lambasting Pakistan’s civilian government for letting the country’s sovereignty be violated by the Americans, but after a reporter confirmed that the raid was executed by Saudi forces, the JI chief turned towards the JUI chief and embraced him.</font></p> <p><font size="3">‘<i>Mahshallah</i>!’ he exclaimed. “Today is a glorious day for our Islamic republic!”</font></p> <p><font size="3">JI and JUI chiefs had earlier questioned the real identity of the man arrested from the hotel, saying that even if it was Jarara, we should be ashamed because he was a freedom fighter, conducting a liberation war against the Americans.</font></p> <p><font size="3">However, after it became clear that the arrest was made by Saudi forces, both the men then claimed that Jarara was no friend of Pakistan and that he was not even a Muslim.</font></p> <p><font size="3">In a joint statement, JI, JUI and the sectarian organisations congratulated the nation and said that they had been saying all along that the extremists were Pakistan’s greatest enemies and should be exterminated.</font></p> <p><font size="3">The statement also said that the JI and JUI (along with PTI) will continue to hold sit-ins against American drones, which were parachuting evil men like Jarara into Pakistan and violating the sovereignty of the country. For this, the statement suggested, that Ahmad Shah Abdali should be invited to invade Pakistan and defeat the Americans.</font></p> <p><font size="3">When told that Abdali died almost two hundred years ago, the religious leaders termed this to be nothing more than western propaganda.</font></p> <p><font size="3">PTI members at the conference added that Pakistan’s most prominent revolutionary and youngest nuclear physicists, Zohair Toru, was building anti-drone missiles.</font></p> <p><font size="3">Toru, who was also present at the conference, confirmed this while licking a lemon-flavored Popsicle. He said it was a very hot day and popsicles helped him concentrate.</font></p> <p><a href="http://lh6.ggpht.com/-_7uow6dP0zc/Uig4eu1nG3I/AAAAAAAANnE/-dXGKN12wao/s1600-h/clip_image004%25255B3%25255D.jpg"><font size="3"><img title="clip_image004" style="border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom-width: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px; border-top-width: 0px" border="0" alt="clip_image004" src="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-J1-pCy584-8/Uig4fxBcFFI/AAAAAAAANnM/957bnbkL67A/clip_image004_thumb.jpg?imgmax=800" width="244" height="214" /></font></a></p> <p><font size="3">Zohair Toru at the press conference.</font></p> <p><font size="3">However, soon things took another twist when sources suggested that the Saudis captured Jarara and handed him over to the Americans.</font></p> <p><font size="3">The Americans – who had accused Jarara for committing crimes against humanity – actually plan to use him to lead a revolt against the Syrian government that the Americans accuse of committing crimes against humanity.</font></p> <p><font size="3">After this, the chiefs of JUI, JI and the sectarian parties again changed their stance. In another joint statement, they said Jarara indeed was a great Muslim warrior. They then embraced each other and distributed Saudi dates among the gathered media personnel and asked them to pray for Jarar’s success against the evil Syrian government.</font></p> <p><font size="3">But when asked what they thought about Jarar working with the Americans and vice versa, they said they cannot answer this question because it was time for the afternoon prayers.</font></p> <p><font size="3">When asked whether they will answer the question after the prayers they said by then it will be time for the evening prayers.</font></p> <p><font size="3">When asked if they would be willing to give an answer after the evening prayers, they said by then all of them would be on their way to Saudi Arabia to perform Hajj.</font></p> <p><a href="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-9KXig3pKID4/Uig4hOGU8jI/AAAAAAAANnU/49ZdLsoeRUw/s1600-h/clip_image006%25255B3%25255D.jpg"><font size="3"><img title="clip_image006" style="border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom-width: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px; border-top-width: 0px" border="0" alt="clip_image006" src="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-0LumW0bsMpU/Uig4iNO0SwI/AAAAAAAANnc/djyTZIV2_fw/clip_image006_thumb.jpg?imgmax=800" width="158" height="244" /></font></a></p> <p><font size="3">Members of religious parties after being told the raid was conducted by the Americans.</font></p> <p><a href="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-dID39cR1fJ4/Uig4jWf1wDI/AAAAAAAANnk/96agBGv117I/s1600-h/clip_image008%25255B3%25255D.jpg"><font size="3"><img title="clip_image008" style="border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom-width: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px; border-top-width: 0px" border="0" alt="clip_image008" src="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-KunBSHhUgx4/Uig4kV6CFFI/AAAAAAAANns/c8Rb5_SUsc0/clip_image008_thumb.jpg?imgmax=800" width="158" height="244" /></font></a></p> <p><font size="3">Religious party leaders after being told Jarar will be used by Saudi Arabia and US in war against Syria.</font></p> <p><font size="3">Religious party leaders after being told Jarar will be used by Saudi Arabia and US in the war against Syria.</font></p> <p><b><font size="3">The raid</font></b></p> <p><b><font size="3">A military spokesman also held a press conference to give the media a briefing on the details of the raid.</font></b></p> <p><b><font size="3">He said the raid was executed by Saudi Special Forces who came on four helicopters from Saudi military bases in Raiwind.</font></b></p> <p><b><font size="3">The helicopters then landed on the Margala Hills in Islamabad. On the lush hills, Saudi soldiers disembarked from the copters, got on camels and rode all the way to Murree in broad daylight.</font></b></p> <p><b><font size="3">They were twice stopped at checkpoints by the Pakistani police but were allowed to cross when some Saudi soldiers promised the cops jobs in Saudi Arabia and year’s supply of Zamzam water.</font></b></p> <p><font size="3">An eyewitness claims the cops smiled and waved to the departing camels, cheering ‘<i>marhaba, marhaba</i>.’</font></p> <p><a href="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-8DhMbsLx5io/Uig4l7UsGVI/AAAAAAAANn0/dZqU_7YAAE4/s1600-h/clip_image010%25255B3%25255D.jpg"><font size="3"><img title="clip_image010" style="border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom-width: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px; border-top-width: 0px" border="0" alt="clip_image010" src="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-IDFxF05n6BA/Uig4m73A8HI/AAAAAAAANn8/ZwSxaPG-O8Q/clip_image010_thumb.jpg?imgmax=800" width="244" height="231" /></font></a></p> <p><font size="3">A passerby captured this photo of the Saudi Special Forces on their way to Murree.</font></p> <p><font size="3">The camel army reached the in Murree at 11:00 am and right away rode their way into the sprawling premises.</font></p> <p><font size="3">The camels were also carrying rocket launchers, sub-machine guns, pistols, grenades and popcorn, all concealed in large ‘Dubai Duty Free’ shopping bags.</font></p> <p><a href="http://lh6.ggpht.com/-y4cVm3_uyrM/Uig4oCwFUzI/AAAAAAAANoE/VAX__LLtA1M/s1600-h/clip_image012%25255B3%25255D.jpg"><font size="3"><img title="clip_image012" style="border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom-width: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px; border-top-width: 0px" border="0" alt="clip_image012" src="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-BW0e79ZuqQY/Uig4pIEXV0I/AAAAAAAANoM/ywn-csQk19Y/clip_image012_thumb.jpg?imgmax=800" width="172" height="244" /></font></a></p> <p><font size="3">One of the items left behind by the Saudi raiding party.</font></p> <p><font size="3">The military spokesman added that although the Pakistan Army had no clue about the raid, there were a dozen or so Pakistani security personnel present at the hotel.</font></p> <p><font size="3">When asked whether these men questioned the camel riders, the spokesman said that they did see them enter the hotel but were at the time busy interrogating a 77-year-old Caucasian male whom they had arrested for smoking in a non-smoking area.</font></p> <p><font size="3">“After the Abbottabad incident, we are keeping a firm eye on Europeans and Americans,” the spokesman said.</font></p> <p><font size="3">Even though the white man turned out to be an old Polish tourist, the spokesman praised the security men’s vigilance. “Our country’s sovereignty is sacred,” he added. “And, of course, smoking is bad for health.”</font></p> <p><font size="3">According to the Pakistan’s security agencies, the Saudis then rode their camels into one of the hotel’s kitchens and fired teargas shells.</font></p> <p><font size="3">This way they smoked out the chefs, cooks and other kitchen staff out into the open. From these, a Saudi commander got hold of a fat, hairy chef with an untidy beard.</font></p> <p><font size="3">The Saudi commander looked at the chef and compared his face with a photograph he was carrying. He asked: ‘Al-Jarara?’ To which the chef was reported to have said: “No, al-chicken jalfrezi. Also make very tasty mutton kebabs.”</font></p> <p><font size="3">The commander then asked, ‘Al-Yemeni?’, to which the chef said, ‘Yes make Yamani tikka too. You want?’</font></p> <p><a href="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-ZPPtx9Qx75Q/Uig4qIQADaI/AAAAAAAANoU/7Z4ThhKfCQk/s1600-h/clip_image014%25255B3%25255D.jpg"><font size="3"><img title="clip_image014" style="border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom-width: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px; border-top-width: 0px" border="0" alt="clip_image014" src="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-dQB2CY3Y4e8/Uig4rPUfpqI/AAAAAAAANoc/o3e9em3Q0rE/clip_image014_thumb.jpg?imgmax=800" width="196" height="244" /></font></a></p> <p><font size="3">A photo of one of the raiders who entered the hotel disguised as a friendly camel.</font></p> <p><font size="3">A reporter asked the military spokesman whether the Pakistani security men present at the hotel witnessed the operation. The spokesman answered in the affirmative but said they didn’t take any action after confirming that Pakistan’s sovereignty was not being violated.</font></p> <p><font size="3">The reporter then asked how the security men determined that Pakistan’s sovereignty was not being violated. Answering this, the spokesman said that since the camel riders were speaking Arabic there was thus no reason for the security men to charge them for violating Pakistan’s sovereignty.</font></p> <p><font size="3">This statement made the media personnel at the press conference very happy and they began applauding and raising emotional slogans praising Pakistan, Ziaul Haq and palm trees.</font></p> <p><font size="3">Soon after the announcement that Al-Jarara was arrested by Saudi forces, the country’s private TV channels became animated. One famous TV talk-show host actually decided to host his show in a Bedouin tent. And instead of a chair, he sat on a camel.</font></p> <p><a href="http://lh6.ggpht.com/-cRcPAac4XUk/Uig4sUB8GFI/AAAAAAAANok/dbkUSn6SW_E/s1600-h/clip_image016%25255B3%25255D.jpg"><font size="3"><img title="clip_image016" style="border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom-width: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px; border-top-width: 0px" border="0" alt="clip_image016" src="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-cIufINvhXZo/Uig4tqcuGKI/AAAAAAAANos/p_y6Yymi_BI/clip_image016_thumb.jpg?imgmax=800" width="244" height="184" /></font></a></p> <p><font size="3">Set of a TV talk show held on a local channel to discuss the Saudi raid.</font></p> <p><font size="3">Though most of his guests — that included prominent ex-generals, clergymen and strategic analysts — praised the operation and heaped scorn and then praise at Al-Jarara, there was one guest, a small-time journalist who disagreed with the panelists.</font></p> <p><font size="3">He asked how a wanted man like Jarara was able to live in Pakistan undetected and that too while working as a chef in a hotel. He also said that Jarara had also been appearing on various cooking shows as a chef on TV food channels.</font></p> <p><a href="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-sRmfap3dl2E/Uig4u8DQhjI/AAAAAAAANo0/RA-meFYfHg8/s1600-h/clip_image018%25255B3%25255D.jpg"><font size="3"><img title="clip_image018" style="border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom-width: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px; border-top-width: 0px" border="0" alt="clip_image018" src="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-qj4i7nDlxk8/Uig4v_KZwII/AAAAAAAANo8/7paRYHam_OA/clip_image018_thumb.jpg?imgmax=800" width="244" height="164" /></font></a></p> <p><font size="3">An alleged shot of Al-Jarara on a Pakistani food channel. Apparently, in this particular episode, he taught viewers how to cook biryani.</font></p> <p><font size="3">To this, the host snubbed the journalist telling him that he was asking irrelevant questions.</font></p> <p><font size="3">‘But before this raid, everyone was accusing the USA!’ the journalist protested.</font></p> <p><font size="3">This made the host angry and he slapped the journalist. He threatened the journalist by saying that he would lodge a case against him in accordance with the Islamic hudood ordinance.</font></p> <p><font size="3">The journalist responded by saying that the Saudis had violated Pakistan’s sovereignty. Hearing this, the host slapped the journalist again, saying he will get him booked for blasphemy.</font></p> <p><font size="3">At the end of the show, the host and the panelists set fire to a Guatemalan flag and sang the Pakistani national anthem in Arabic. Then, after handing over the treacherous journalist to the authorities, they proceeded to Saudi Arabia to perform Hajj.</font></p> <p><font size="3">However, they were soon deported by the Saudi regime for violating Saudi sovereignty.</font></p> <p><a href="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-UCjlu6yH7g8/Uig4xJzAorI/AAAAAAAANpE/AhQwLItLv2s/s1600-h/clip_image020%25255B3%25255D.jpg"><font size="3"><img title="clip_image020" style="border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom-width: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 0px 10px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px; border-top-width: 0px" border="0" alt="clip_image020" src="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-G5eBVeTfkrs/Uig4yFQTyMI/AAAAAAAANpM/EtUL8bnJjoM/clip_image020_thumb.jpg?imgmax=800" width="244" height="160" /></font></a></p> <p><font size="3">American and Israeli officials welcoming the induction of Al-Jarara into the fold of the Syrian rebels.</font></p> <div class="blogger-post-footer">http://thecitizenstrust.blogspot.com is a blog run by the admin of the facebook group 'The Citizen's Trust for Victims of Terror' it is a voluntary group with no formal associations with any political party or group.</div>SOAP BOXhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04514006243211979566noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5992656860273359959.post-60845360661825189532013-06-13T12:33:00.001+05:002013-06-13T12:33:39.597+05:00Only a Mega Dam….<p><strong><em>by Khurshid Anwer</em></strong> </p> <p><strong>Benazir Bhutto must be gloating in her grave to see her arch rival squirming in the hot seat. A hot seat that is of her making. She wielded a double edged sword to decapitate Pakistan. Inducted the IPPs to run on oil at 10 dollars per barrel, not knowing that the 10 dollars would become 100 dollars and the cost per unit would become 18 rupees. When she could have had the same unit for 1 rupee. </strong></p> <p><strong></strong></p> <p><strong>But God forbid that she would build a dam in Punjab. The ignoramus thought that Sindh would become a desert. Did she really think so or was she being too clever for her own good as usual. Nothing can save Sindh from becoming a desert now. More and more irrigated acres are becoming barren by the year, and of the 30 million acres lying fallow, 80% are in Sindh with no water for them. </strong></p> <p><strong></strong></p> <p><strong>The two blunders put together have brought the country to a standstill. No electricity to run the fan or light the bulb and no water to drink. The only thing that is more prolonged than the load shedding is the excruciating misery of the men, women and children, forced to come out on the streets, and this is just the beginning with no end in sight. </strong></p> <p><strong>The wheels of industry have ground down to a halt, the workers too are out on the streets with no hope for work even in the distant future. Agriculture is thirsting for water and food shedding is round the corner. Power riots now and food riots to follow. The damage done to the country appears to be irreparable. Only a mega dam in the next few years can save the situation, but God forbid - - - - - . </strong></p> <p><strong></strong></p> <p><strong>How could one person have done so much harm to so many.   </strong></p> <p><strong></strong></p> <p><strong><em>Khurshid Anwer</em></strong></p> <div class="blogger-post-footer">http://thecitizenstrust.blogspot.com is a blog run by the admin of the facebook group 'The Citizen's Trust for Victims of Terror' it is a voluntary group with no formal associations with any political party or group.</div>SOAP BOXhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04514006243211979566noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5992656860273359959.post-32486783458168028862013-06-05T12:04:00.001+05:002013-06-05T12:04:40.362+05:00What Punjab can do and what it has never done<p><strong><em>Ayaz Amir, </em></strong><strong><em>Friday, May 31, 2013 <br />From Print Edition</em></strong> </p> <p><b></b></p> <p><b>Islamabad diary</b> </p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">Mystics and divines, poets and singers, men of enterprise and of daring, of quality and base instinct, the best dancing girls in the entire sub-continent, Punjab has given birth to them all. What, through some quirk of geography or history, it has never been able to produce is the able ruler.</font> </p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">Except of course for a single exception: for over 2000 years, from Alexander’s invasion to the Partition of British India in 1947, only one ruler of ability and distinction in its turbulent history, the great Maharajah Ranjit Singh. Apart from him, governors and vassals in plenty but no independent ruler, principally because Punjab was never an independent kingdom except when Ranjit Singh raised it to that status.</font> </p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">Afghan kings, kings of Turkish origin, Mughal emperors but only one Punjabi king. So while Punjab had other strong traditions, in agriculture, music, poetry, dancing, and, I daresay, the sycophantic arts which come so readily to subjugated people, the one tradition its superior classes lacked was that of leadership.</font> </p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">They knew best how to scrape and bow before authority. They were good at carrying out orders. But in 1947 history placed upon their shoulders the task of creating a nation and giving that nation a sense of direction. And they were not up to it, because nothing in their past had prepared them for this. True, Punjab’s elite classes, in alliance with the Urdu-speaking elites who had crossed over from India, managed to create order out of the chaos of Partition, a remarkable feat in itself. A country was thus born but something else as important proved elusive: the quest for nationhood.</font> </p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">Small wonder, misgiving arose from the very start, not everyone feeling that they were equal citizens of the new state, certainly not the people of East Pakistan who despite being in a majority felt excluded from decision-making. Baloch nationalists were unhappy, Pakhtun nationalists aggrieved, they who had been in the forefront of the struggle against the British. And winds of religiosity beat down upon the land, making what were still called minorities uneasy.</font> </p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">Jinnah had said that religion had no place in politics, the gist of his famous address to the Constituent Assembly just a few days before independence. But here something else was happening, religious rhetoric becoming more powerful even as political and economic performance lagged far behind.</font> </p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">Paranoia as regards India, an insecurity which sought relief in military alliances with the United States, an obsession with religious chest-thumping, truly bizarre in a Muslim majority country where Islam should have been the last thing in danger, or the least in need of artificial props – of such humours was concocted the doctrine that came to be hailed, and indeed flaunted, as the ideology of Pakistan.</font> </p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">The Baloch had no fear of India. For them Kashmir was a distant proposition. In Sindh where there was a large Hindu population, the people had no problem with India or Hinduism. Neither did the Pakhtuns have any mental problems with India, despite being very religious in their everyday outlook. In the tribal areas and in places like Swat there were Sikh and Hindu communities which felt safe and co-existed happily with their Muslim neighbours.</font> </p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">But it was altogether different with the official Punjabi mind and that of the Urdu-speaking elites where flourished the demons of fear and insecurity, more as a political tactic than a psychological necessity because it was a good way to keep the rest of the population in line. And because these classes dominated the upper echelons of the armed forces, the ethos of the services came also to be imbued by the same fears and compulsions.</font> </p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">Paradoxically, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto who should have been the most enlightened man of his generation fanned the flames of this anti-Indianism more than anyone else, perhaps calculating (although there can be other theories on this score) that beating the anti-India drum would best appeal to the Punjab masses. But when the wheel came full circle the movement against him in 1977 received its most powerful impetus in Punjab, and it was the Punjab bazaar and trading classes which bayed the loudest for his blood.</font> </p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">When Gen Zia went looking for allies against Bhutto he found the fiercest in Punjab. When President Ghulam Ishaq Khan and the ISI sought to contain Benazir Bhutto in her first prime ministership they groomed a champion in the form of one Mian Nawaz Sharif, a scion of Punjab. The fateful enterprises promoted in the name of ‘jihad’ found some of their first votaries and loudest advocates in Punjab.</font> </p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">Land of the five rivers – what hast thou not wrought? From thy bosom arising Guru Nanak and Bulleh Shah, Shah Hussain and Waris Shah, Iqbal and Faiz and Munir Niazi, Bade Ghulam Ali Khan and Kundan Lal Saigal, Rafi and Noor Jahan, not to forget the great Sir Ganga Ram who had no equal when it came to giving, and Shaheed Bhagat Singh and his companions who had no equals when it came to laying down their lives in the cause of freedom. At the same time, land of our fathers, home to so much nonsense at the altar of faith and righteousness.</font> </p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">Pakistan today is largely what Punjab, for good or ill, has made it. Indian Punjab is a small part of India. Pakistani Punjab encompasses the best and worst of Pakistan. The social conservatism on display in our midst, the mental backwardness, the narrowness of outlook, the triumph of hypocrisy, the destruction of national education, the muddling up of national priorities, the temples erected to the false gods of national security – so much of this, alas, can be traced to the incapacities of Punjab.</font> </p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">Perhaps Ranjit Singh was an aberration, a historic anomaly – out of the mould and thus one of a kind.</font> </p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">Our Punjab certainly has nothing in common with his kingdom. In his army found service men of all races and religions. There were Mussalman battalions in his army and his head of artillery was Mian Ghausa, just as his principal wazir was from the Faqirkhana family of Lahore. And his favourite wife was a Muslim, Bibi Gulbahar Begam.</font> </p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">The PML-N has been in power in Islamabad twice before but in different circumstances, Nawaz Sharif not quite his own man in his first incarnation and, despite his huge majority, an unsure man in his second. He now comes as someone who has seen and experienced a great deal. So can he make a difference? Disavowing his past, does he have it in him to write a fresh history of Punjab?</font> </p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">Another thing to remember about the Lion of Punjab (the only lion, others all fake and imitations) is that he knew how to handle his Afghan problem. He defeated the Afghans and took Peshawar from them. Peshawar was part of the Sikh dominions annexed by the British. So if Peshawar and its environs are a part of Pakistan today it is because of that earlier Sikh conquest, half-forgotten in the mists of time. As Nawaz Sharif and Imran Khan go prattling about talking to the Taliban they could do worse than study the Maharajah’s approach to the Afghans.</font> </p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">So can we get our historical compasses right? For over 2000 years on the soil of what is Pakistan today no independent realm or kingdom existed except two: the kingdom of Lahore and the state of Pakistan. The first was a success, a well-run entity, at least as long as the Maharajah was alive; the second is the shambles that we have made over the last 65 years.</font> </p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">Now there comes an opportunity to redeem our past. Question is, can the new rulers of Pakistan be half as good as their most illustrious predecessor, the one and only King of Punjab?</font> </p> <p>Email: <a href="mailto:winlust@yahoo.com">winlust@yahoo.com</a></p> <div class="blogger-post-footer">http://thecitizenstrust.blogspot.com is a blog run by the admin of the facebook group 'The Citizen's Trust for Victims of Terror' it is a voluntary group with no formal associations with any political party or group.</div>SOAP BOXhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04514006243211979566noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5992656860273359959.post-59196493800986495292013-06-01T14:06:00.001+05:002013-06-01T14:06:36.246+05:00Sethi’s gestures for the good of Punjabi<p><b><i>By Mushtaq Soofi | 5/31/2013 </i></b><b>DAWN</b> </p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"></font> </p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">Najam Sethi, after taking over as the care taker chief minister of Punjab, took some measure galvanizing the cultural scene that would have attracted little attention in the normal circumstances but as we all know, we do not live under normal circumstances in the cultural sense.</font></p> <p> <br /><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">Thus his action is being perceived as very significant in view of the self-induced cultural amnesia the Punjab suffers from. In order to appreciate the implications of his cultural activism we need a perspective. The Punjab these days seems to be a cultural wasteland despite having more than 5,000 years glorious history. In view of our intellectual inertia, it will seem hard to believe that it was Punjab that created what we call civilization of the subcontinent as a result of confrontation and interaction between the Dravidians and Arya. It was Punjab where the Rig-Veda was composed or revealed to the `Rishis`, the sages. It was the universally celebrated Taxila University in the Punjab where great Panini wrote his Ashtadhyayi, the first book on linguistics and Chanakya Kautilya his famous Arthshastra, analyzing the dirty but real secrets of stat-craft for the first time in the recorded human history.</font></p> <p> <br /><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">Ghandhara in Punjab produced some of the finest pieces of sculpture. And again it was Punjab that laid the foundations of synthetic Hindu Muslim culture after the arrival of Arabs from the south and that of Turks from the north, leaving indelible imprint on our collective life.</font></p> <p> <br /><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">The visible sign of our cultural deterioration and decline is the disowning or rejection of our language by our elite, wallowing in its self created arrogant ignorance. If you lose language, the most vital element of culture, you are destined to lose your culture as it is language that enduringly preserves and transmits collective memory from generation to generation. Not just that! Language is a mode of thinking and each language has a mode of thinking specific to it. So by losing your lan-guage you lose your intellectual and spiritual evolution as well as your specific way of thinking.</font></p> <p> <br /><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">The rot, as far as our language is concerned, started after the annexation of the Punjab by the British in mid nineteenth century. The British colonial administration deliberately demolished the vast network of indigenous system of education. The use of the Punjabi, the Persian and the Sanskrit was almost banned in the new European type schools set up by the colonialists where English was adopted as medium of instruction for upper class and Urdu for middle and lower classes. <br />Soon after the demolition of old educational infra structure, Punjabis were declared illiterate and ill cultured as Dr GW Leitner, one of the most celebrated linguists and educationists, pointed out in his famous survey known as `A report on education in the Punjab`.</font></p> <p> <br /><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><strong>According to Leitner`s findings Punjab was not only most literate in the entire subcontinent but also had the highest female literacy rate. The colonial officials were so hostile to the indigenous education imparted in the independent Punjab that after the occupation, an incentive oriented public order was issued which declared that a person who returned his sword would get prize of one `Anna` and the one who re-turned `Punjabi Qaida`(primer) would be rewarded with six `Annas` After the emergence of Pakistan, muddled vision of culture and language further confounded the issue. Linguistic and cultural diversity of the country was perceived to be a threat to the ill conceived notion of national unity.</strong></font></p> <p> <br /><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><strong>The Bengalis, who spearheaded the Pakistan movement, were the first to debunk the newly invented myth of monolithic uniformity that denied the rich diversity of the federating units of the country. They rose in protest and got their language recognized as one of the national languages.</strong> <br /> <br /><strong>Sindh declared Sindhi its official language. Punjab, Balochistanand Khyber Pakhtunkhwa pretended as if no such issue ever existed in their territories. It is only recently that the government of KPK introduced the teaching of various languages spoken by the people in its area.</strong></font></p> <font size="3" face="Times New Roman"> <p> <br />As a result of the struggle waged by Punjab`s writers and intellectuals against all odds the department of Punjabi language and literature was established in mid 1970s at the Punjab University. With the passage of time subject of Punjabi literature was offered at BA and FA level that attracted a huge number of students though a few teachers were appointed to meet the requirement. The teachers of other subjects voluntarily offered their services to teach the language and literature to the great delight of the students who opted for the subject. </p> <p>Sadly top to down approach was adopted which was lopsided to say the least. It should have been other way round. Pakistan Punjabi Adbi Board, a representative cultural body of all the Punjab, brought the situation to the notice of Mr Sethi requesting him to take remedial steps. And steps he took indeed and took very promptly. With no ifs and buts like a culturally conscious intellectual that he is, he approved generous grant for some of the institutions and ordered the immediate release of official ads for the regional newspapers and magazines.</p> <p> <br />He also discussed the issue of introducing the teaching of mother language at primary level with the officials concerned. He, to the delight of millions whose language is treated with contempt by the bankrupt elite of the Punjab, expressed himself in Punjabi in some of his public appearances.</p> <p>Thank you Mr Sethi, you have done Punjab proud. <br />Nothing less was expected from an intellectual of your caliber.</p> <p> <br />A verse of Shah Latif, the great poet of Sindh, comes to mind: `Not all humans carry mark of beauty nor all birds are swans / rare are the men who emit the fragrance of spring`. Let us hope, the incoming chief minister, Shahbaz Sharif, will build on what Mr Sethi has done in his short stint. Cultural infrastructure is as important as the material one if human development of holistic nature is the goal. </p> </font> <div class="blogger-post-footer">http://thecitizenstrust.blogspot.com is a blog run by the admin of the facebook group 'The Citizen's Trust for Victims of Terror' it is a voluntary group with no formal associations with any political party or group.</div>SOAP BOXhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04514006243211979566noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5992656860273359959.post-38162602389087377122013-05-13T11:10:00.001+05:002013-05-13T11:10:11.335+05:00Taunts<p>Just when the nation is licking its wounds after a most acrimonious election campaign, hounded by suicide bombings, an election rife with controversies thanks to the hapless election commission, all that was needed was for a national leader to come hoisting his petard: </p> <p>- he taunts Nawaz Sharif, congratulating him on being elected prime minister by the Punjabis. </p> <p>- he taunts Imran Khan, a man on his sick bed, where has your Tsunami disappeared in Punjab. </p> <p>- his message for the protesters at ‘Teen Talwar’, ‘If you don’t like our mandate let us go our separate ways. </p> <p>- ‘if you want we can put the three swords to the sword’. </p> <p>- Yes Sir, we believe you, is this not what you did on May 12 six years ago when 50 people were put to the sword on your orders, actually fifty families, comprising fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters and perhaps even wives and children of the dead ones, Karachi was shut down like it is often now whenever anything displeases you, which is often, the police was disarmed, the rangers were ordered to lock themselves up from the inside in their posts, so Asfandyar Wali khan told us, armed activists replaced the security police on the overhead bridges, so Sherry Rehman told us, I forget now what Talat Husain told us, containers were placed blocking the roads to the airport, to stop a visiting dignitary from entering Karachi, the whole city was made a no-go area, the killers were seen clearly on national television but  no one dare apprehend them, every time an attempt is made to investigate the heinous crime, you threaten to put the high court to the sword. </p> <p>Yes Sir, we are fully aware of your abilities in this field. But the best is when you come crying about target killing of your people, having invented the game.  </p> <p><strong><em>Khurshid Anwer</em></strong></p> <div class="blogger-post-footer">http://thecitizenstrust.blogspot.com is a blog run by the admin of the facebook group 'The Citizen's Trust for Victims of Terror' it is a voluntary group with no formal associations with any political party or group.</div>SOAP BOXhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04514006243211979566noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5992656860273359959.post-79511194992753679192013-04-17T10:26:00.001+05:002013-04-17T10:26:47.747+05:00""The Last Day Of PPP’s Government""<p><strong><em>Lifted as received</em></strong> </p> <p>KAL BHI BHUTTO ZINDA THA, AAJ BHI BHUTTO ZINDA HAI ! </p> <p>DAMN THE PARLIAMENTARY DEMOCRACY IN A BACKWARD, ILLITERATE, POOR, FEUDAL AND TRIBAL COUNTRY. </p> <p>  </p> <p><b>PPP’s last day in power epitomizes how it ruled the country for 5 years. The steps taken on the last day are the concentrated version of what the PPP has done ever since it took power i.e. looted the national exchequer, made wrongful appointments and thrashed anyone who stood in their way while they shamelessly pillaged.</b> </p> <p><b></b></p> <p>  </p> <p><b>""The Last Day Of PPP’s Government""</b> </p> <p><b></b><b>Pakistans-Prime-Minister-Raja-Pervez-Ashraf & Deputy PM Pervez Illahi</b> </p> <p><b>70 CNG licenses issued even though the ECC under which the CNG sector had been put at the last in the gas allocation priority list. The ECC had also approved that now more CNG stations would not be built keeping in view the non-availability of the required gas in the country. But on its last day in the power, the government obliged many political figures by extending the licenses allowing more CNG stations to operate[1].</b> </p> <p><b></b></p> <p><b>CDA Chairman, Tahir Shahbaz, sacked for resisting allotting choice plots in choice sectors of Islamabad to many key bureaucrats. Tahir Shahbaz, who unlike his predecessors and despite the authority’s policy had refused to get a residential plot from the CDA for being its chairman, has also been under pressure to allot plots to over 100 federal secretaries, four judges, 10 senior officers of the Prime Minister’s Secretariat and some journalists in developed sectors of Islamabad[2].</b> </p> <p><b></b></p> <p><b>Speaker NA, Fehmida Mirza, approved 100% increase in benefits and allowances of all members of the NA. Millions of rupees worth of new cars were bought on her orders. Approved life time benefits and perks for Speaker of NA[3].</b> </p> <p><b></b></p> <p><b>All ministerial staff from the Information Minister, Qamaruz Zaman Kaira’s office given foreign postings. Before leaving the ministry, the Minister appointed all his office staff to foreign postings.</b> </p> <p><b></b></p> <p><b>Sindh Assembly dominated by the PPP approved a bill recommending an increment in legislators’ salaries. The income of the speaker, deputy speakers, ministers and special assistants has also been increased by a massive 40 per cent. What’s more is that the changes are effective July 2011, meaning that the legislators will also be paid arrears amounting to the difference between their old and new salaries over the past two years. But the generous legislators didn’t stop here: two private bills proposing that the chief minister, speaker and deputy speaker receive 70 per cent of their current pay after retiring were also passed[4].agha-siraj-durrani</b> </p> <p><b></b></p> <p><b></b></p> <p>  </p> <p><b></b></p> <p><b>Former Minister of Local Bodies, Agha Siraj Durrani, thrashed a Secretary, Shaukat Jhokio, in his ministry for refusing to sign a list of appointments. Shaukat Jhokio claimed that the local bodies minister came to his office and asked him to sign a document carrying appointment list and on refusal he started beating him[5].</b> </p> <p><b></b></p> <p><b>Despite the SC order, the PM appointed his Son-in-Law as the Deputy Managing Director of the Pakistan China Investment Company. This was done after the Governments spent 5 months trying to accommodate the Prime Minister’s Son in Law at the Pakistan Brunei Investment Company. </b></p> <p><b>The government made all-out efforts to appoint the prime minister’s son-in-law Shahnawaz Mahmood as the managing director of Pakistan-Brunei Investment Company in the last five months but the Brunei government has rejected the move[6].</b> </p> <p><b></b></p> <p><b>Billions of Rupees worth of funds were released by the government within the last day after making sure the banks remain opened to hand out the money to relevant parties. So much so that the federal government had to declare March 16 a working day so that it could get the bureaucracy to push through the last minute appointments, loans, promotions and transfers. </b></p> <p><b>All the staff at National Bank of Pakistan and State Bank of Pakistan was on high alert throughout the day on March 16, 2013 to accommodate the last whim and desire of the people who were about to lose power within a few hours. Even private banks had to stay open on Saturday, March 16, 2013 so that all the cheques of government or other persons got cleared on that day[7].</b> </p> <p><b></b></p> <p><b>PPP’s last day in power represents how it ruled the country for 5 years. </b><b>The steps taken on the last day are the concentrated version of what the PPP has done ever since it took power i.e. looted the national exchequer, made wrongful appointments and thrashed anyone who stood in their way while they shamelessly pillaged.</b> </p> <p><b></b></p> <p><b></b></p> <p><a href="http://seedhibaat.com.pk/epic-tale-loot-plunder-ppps-24-hours-power/">http://seedhibaat.com.pk/epic-tale-l...4-hours-power/</a></p> <div class="blogger-post-footer">http://thecitizenstrust.blogspot.com is a blog run by the admin of the facebook group 'The Citizen's Trust for Victims of Terror' it is a voluntary group with no formal associations with any political party or group.</div>SOAP BOXhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04514006243211979566noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5992656860273359959.post-13009041438526786412013-04-06T12:23:00.001+05:002013-04-06T12:23:57.774+05:00The Destabilization of Pakistan<h3> </h3> <p><em><strong>By </strong></em><a href="http://r20.rs6.net/tn.jsp?e=001EmS89MocSAoJjvNb7jCr5FtUm0dZDLg-orRhnwTL87j746Ya4g30qhnniay6_V95QUZAwaXSUD2QtLH8Dn9-0n8BcdVVZEN7Izr9nLeUR_vtKoM52v3SVAYvli99EhMesULuBV-jPCGDg4a6E5oeOv-m9lLgW4Zq"><em><strong>Prof Michel Chossudovsky</strong></em></a> </p> <p><b>Global Research, December 27, 2012</b> </p> <p><b>Url of this article:</b> <br /><a href="http://r20.rs6.net/tn.jsp?e=001EmS89MocSAoZjPWtVuPCrbC3ZymOedEeJQMB00tj3vtReL5EfaPOTRxsPTLsn6Uw2uslRB6Ed5E1mHxguRxIbFWzmUZrtbF78gVeZDr6hOqClNBCo0ticCqf6P2wf0dXqBLS77kFLo9lVr6YW_GwI-RAF17ai3_-sofQmEmMeM8=">http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-destabilization-of-pakistan/7705</a> </p> <p><b>Author’s Note</b> </p> <p><i>This article first published five years ago in December 2007 focuses on the historical process of collapse of Pakistan as a nation state following the assassination of Benazir Bhutto.</i> </p> <p><i>Washington’s intent goes beyond the narrow objective of “regime change”. The thrust of US foreign policy consists in weakening the central government and fracturing the country.</i> </p> <p><i>The ongoing US drone attacks under the banner of the “Global War on Terrorism” are part of that process.</i> </p> <p><i>Washington had already envisaged a scenario of disintegration and civil war. According to a 2005 report by the US National Intelligence Council and the CIA, Pakistan is slated to become a “failed state” by 2015, “as it would be affected by civil war, complete Talibanisation and struggle for control of its nuclear weapons”.</i> </p> <p><i>What is not mentioned in this report is that the destabilization process (including the drone attacks) is part of a longstanding US led intelligence operation.</i> </p> <p><b>Michel Chossudovsky, December 27, 2012</b> </p> <p>____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ </p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">The assassination of Benazir Bhutto has created conditions which contribute to the ongoing destabilization and fragmentation of Pakistan as a Nation.</font> </p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">The process of US sponsored “regime change”, which normally consists in the re-formation of a fresh proxy government under new leaders has been broken. Discredited in the eyes of Pakistani public opinion, General Pervez Musharaf cannot remain in the seat of political power. But at the same time, the fake elections supported by the “international community” scheduled for January 2008, even if they were to be carried out, would not be accepted as legitimate, thereby creating a political impasse.</font> </p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">There are indications that the assassination of Benazir Bhutto was anticipated by US officials:</font> </p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">“It has been known for months that the Bush-Cheney administration and its allies have been maneuvering to strengthen their political control of Pakistan, paving the way for the expansion and deepening of the “war on terrorism” across the region.</font> </p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">Various American destabilization plans, known for months by officials and analysts, proposed the toppling of Pakistan’s military…</font> </p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">The assassination of Bhutto appears to have been anticipated. There were even reports of “chatter” among US officials about the possible assassinations of either Pervez Musharraf or Benazir Bhutto, well before the actual attempts took place. (</font><a href="http://r20.rs6.net/tn.jsp?e=001EmS89MocSArly2zA4ifxm2S-GWNIsICEcu7_UuOrdWxSOCEwu5Vbka0E6w7SjerBC2ryYW2jL7vI6NVXlUZLPDHvfUf7dOOsUbxQDd6G3yrCIUdtroOmRbadHcivzvFu36zMMkxxWdACdilXToZXAxxn8A9CvWkWFqwIEWn8FMY="><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">Larry Chin, Global Research, 29 December 2007)</font></a> </p> <p><b><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">Political Impasse</font></b> </p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">“Regime change” with a view to ensuring continuity under military rule is no longer the main thrust of US foreign policy. The regime of Pervez Musharraf cannot prevail. Washington’s foreign policy course is to actively promote the political fragmentation and balkanization of Pakistan as a nation.</font> </p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">A new political leadership is anticipated but in all likelihood it will take on a very different shape, in relation to previous US sponsored regimes. One can expect that Washington will push for a compliant political leadership, with no commitment to the national interest, a leadership which will serve US imperial interests, while concurrently contributing under the disguise of “decentralization”, to the weakening of the central government and the fracture of Pakistan’s fragile federal structure.</font> </p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">The political impasse is deliberate. It is part of an evolving US foreign policy agenda, which favors disruption and disarray in the structures of the Pakistani State. Indirect rule by the Pakistani military and intelligence apparatus is to be replaced by more direct forms of US interference, including an expanded US military presence inside Pakistan.</font> </p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">This expanded military presence is also dictated by the Middle East-Central Asia geopolitical situation and Washington’s ongoing plans to extend the Middle East war to a much broader area.</font> </p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">The US has several military bases in Pakistan. It controls the country’s air space. According to a recent report: “U.S. Special Forces are expected to vastly expand their presence in Pakistan, as part of an effort to train and support indigenous counter-insurgency forces and clandestine counterterrorism units” (William Arkin, Washington Post, December 2007).</font> </p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">The official justification and pretext for an increased military presence in Pakistan is to extend the “war on terrorism”. Concurrently, to justify its counterrorism program, Washington is also beefing up its covert support to the “terrorists.”</font> </p> <p><b><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">The Balkanization of Pakistan</font></b> </p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">Already in 2005, a report by the US National Intelligence Council and the CIA forecast a “Yugoslav-like fate” for Pakistan “in a decade with the country riven by civil war, bloodshed and inter-provincial rivalries, as seen recently in Balochistan.” (Energy Compass, 2 March 2005). According to the NIC-CIA, Pakistan is slated to become a “failed state” by 2015, “as it would be affected by civil war, complete Talibanisation and struggle for control of its nuclear weapons”. (Quoted by former Pakistan High Commissioner to UK, Wajid Shamsul Hasan, Times of India, 13 February 2005):</font> </p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">“Nascent democratic reforms will produce little change in the face of opposition from an entrenched political elite and radical Islamic parties. In a climate of continuing domestic turmoil, the Central government’s control probably will be reduced to the Punjabi heartland and the economic hub of Karachi,” the former diplomat quoted the NIC-CIA report as saying.</font> </p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">Expressing apprehension, Hasan asked, “are our military rulers working on a similar agenda or something that has been laid out for them in the various assessment reports over the years by the National Intelligence Council in joint collaboration with CIA?” (Ibid)</font> </p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">Continuity, characterized by the dominant role of the Pakistani military and intelligence has been scrapped in favor of political breakup and balkanization.</font> </p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">According to the NIC-CIA scenario, which Washington intends to carry out: “Pakistan will not recover easily from decades of political and economic mismanagement, divisive policies, lawlessness, corruption and ethnic friction,” (Ibid) .</font> </p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">The US course consists in fomenting social, ethnic and factional divisions and political fragmentation, including the territorial breakup of Pakistan. This course of action is also dictated by US war plans in relation to both Afghanistan and Iran.</font> </p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">This US agenda for Pakistan is similar to that applied throughout the broader Middle East Central Asian region. US strategy, supported by covert intelligence operations, consists in triggering ethnic and religious strife, abetting and financing secessionist movements while also weakening the institutions of the central government.</font> </p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">The broader objective is to fracture the Nation State and redraw the borders of Iraq, Iran, Syria, Afghanistan and Pakistan.</font> </p> <p><b><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">Pakistan’s Oil and Gas reserves</font></b> </p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">Pakistan’s extensive oil and gas reserves, largely located in Balochistan province, as well as its pipeline corridors are considered strategic by the Anglo-American alliance, requiring the concurrent militarization of Pakistani territory.</font> </p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">Balochistan comprises more than 40 percent of Pakistan’s land mass, possesses important reserves of oil and natural gas as well as extensive mineral resources.</font> </p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">The Iran-India pipeline corridor is slated to transit through Balochistan. Balochistan also possesses a deap sea port largely financed by China located at Gwadar, on the Arabian Sea, not far from the Straits of Hormuz where 30 % of the world’s daily oil supply moves by ship or pipeline. (Asia News.it, 29 December 2007)</font> </p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">Pakistan has an estimated 25.1 trillion cubic feet (Tcf) of proven gas reserves of which 19 trillion are located in Balochistan. Among foreign oil and gas contractors in Balochistan are BP, Italy’s ENI, Austria’s OMV, and Australia’s BHP. It is worth noting that Pakistan’s State oil and gas companies, including PPL which has the largest stake in the Sui oil fields of Balochistan are up for privatization under IMF-World Bank supervision.</font> </p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">According to the Oil and Gas Journal (OGJ), Pakistan had proven oil reserves of 300 million barrels, most of which are located in Balochistan. Other estimates place Balochistan oil reserves at an estimated six trillion barrels of oil reserves both on-shore and off-shore (</font><a href="http://r20.rs6.net/tn.jsp?e=001EmS89MocSAoB0fTv3SeKIQ2d0iEkV8eJpDlasXMezyNxbAbGhfet9oNgtBkrw07C-r0vJ7Fi6un4SN2_a2FoyCuYpXs-XuzZPEly5kIAUcL5cpsYYUjO-PV6afRDC9vb72Woa3tAg2WV79TTcAJ6l0l6Nmmf5Z9Blaz51k6SFUQ="><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">Environment News Service, 27 October 2006</font></a><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">) .</font> </p> <p><b><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">Covert Support to Balochistan Separatists</font></b> </p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">Balochistan’s strategic energy reserves have a bearing on the separatist agenda. Following a familiar pattern, there are indications that the Baloch insurgency is being supported and abetted by Britain and the US.</font> </p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">The Baloch national resistance movement dates back to the late 1940s, when Balochistan was invaded by Pakistan. In the current geopolitical context, the separatist movement is in the process of being hijacked by foreign powers.</font> </p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">British intelligence is allegedly providing covert support to Balochistan separatists (which from the outset have been repressed by Pakistan’s military). In June 2006, Pakistan’s Senate Committee on Defence accused British intelligence of “abetting the insurgency in the province bordering Iran” [Balochistan]..(Press Trust of India, 9 August 2006). Ten British MPs were involved in a closed door session of the Senate Committee on Defence regarding the alleged support of Britain’s Secret Service to Baloch separatists (Ibid). Also of relevance are reports of CIA and Mossad support to Baloch rebels in Iran and Southern Afghanistan.</font> </p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">It would appear that Britain and the US are supporting both sides. The US is providing American F-16 jets to the Pakistani military, which are being used to bomb Baloch villages in Balochistan. Meanwhile, British alleged covert support to the separatist movement (according to the Pakistani Senate Committee) contributes to weakening the central government.</font> </p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">The stated purpose of US counter-terrorism is to provide covert support as well as as training to “Liberation Armies” ultimately with a view to destabilizing sovereign governments. In Kosovo, the training of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) in the 1990s had been entrusted to a private mercenary company, Military Professional Resources Inc (MPRI), on contract to the Pentagon.</font> </p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">The BLA bears a canny resemblance to Kosovo’s KLA, which was financed by the drug trade and supported by the CIA and Germany’s Bundes Nachrichten Dienst (BND).</font> </p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">The BLA emerged shortly after the 1999 military coup. It has no tangible links to the Baloch resistance movement, which developed since the late 1940s. An aura of mystery surrounds the leadership of the BLA.</font> </p> <p><a href="http://r20.rs6.net/tn.jsp?e=001EmS89MocSArE5D2VZW3RgiVP99kN_YH_3ijYUgCOcplm88itDTL59_pyJHx-qxAt900Lugyq7sXp_vkgWyVDv4Z6aMYM0QVoypl9cSE7gBkYUIF44q6Ck4blPYkBnVB1jlvv2fdyxlVo-5GifLsgxMnZq18aLupoYmKD3y2ZR3EYvwjJ89yU1jKYR4KAsoX9"><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><img border="0" alt="Distribution of Balochs is marked in pink." src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/6e/Major_ethnic_groups_of_Pakistan_in_1980.jpg/304px-Major_ethnic_groups_of_Pakistan_in_1980.jpg" width="692" height="669" /></font></a> </p> <p><i><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">Baloch population in Pink: In Iran, Pakistan and Southern Afghanistan</font></i> </p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">Washington favors the creation of a “Greater Balochistan” which would integrate the Baloch areas of Pakistan with those of Iran and possibly the Southern tip of Afghanistan (See Map above), thereby leading to a process of political fracturing in both Iran and Pakistan.</font> </p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">“The US is using Balochi nationalism for staging an insurgency inside Iran’s Sistan-Balochistan province. The ‘war on terror’ in Afghanistan gives a useful political backdrop for the ascendancy of Balochi militancy” </font><a href="http://r20.rs6.net/tn.jsp?e=001EmS89MocSArHTPVpbSPbRR_RVEF0DUNb9Lg0qokcv_nYMqYPiWeNipYRh0puGu3JwQ8a4ZSnl97QN9muJQSZi4pJZOuDULTiFgnQ4YaATE4Ok2K-cYU_52OGADCoNK2cw6uEEIoz1OYtXlIOhUCAwojymitfMc0sdB3BrwINBH8="><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">(See Global Research, 6 March 2007)</font></a><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">.</font> </p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">Military scholar Lieutenant Colonel Ralph Peters writing in the June 2006 issue of <i>The Armed Forces Journal,</i> suggests, in no uncertain terms that Pakistan should be broken up, leading to the formation of a separate country: “Greater Balochistan” or “Free Balochistan” (see Map below). The latter would incorporate the Pakistani and Iranian Baloch provinces into a single political entity.</font> </p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">In turn, according to Peters, Pakistan’s North West Frontier Province (NWFP) should be incorporated into Afghanistan “because of its linguistic and ethnic affinity”. This proposed fragmentation, which broadly reflects US foreign policy, would reduce Pakistani territory to approximately 50 percent of its present land area. (See map). Pakistan would also loose a large part of its coastline on the Arabian Sea.</font> </p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">Although the map does not officially reflect Pentagon doctrine, it has been used in a training program at NATO’s Defense College for senior military officers. This map, as well as other similar maps, have most probably been used at the National War Academy as well as in military planning circles. (</font><a href="http://r20.rs6.net/tn.jsp?e=001EmS89MocSAoCf-aB4Gx0uZXf4OR0Ye9T7d45MhzRHTItdxLn6yFEl5cMCcPiKxkz9H52qMIVgFYzsyUMgNW4UwgQ84-wHCTyDrS63gyJrUW_6wvGASzDdVyFnlgTM4Vq5-KKs2_G0CkMMGP2BUG1zEWgaJBWWfGKaBuMIeS_Toc="><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">See Mahdi D. Nazemroaya, Global Research, 18 November 2006</font></a><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">)</font> </p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">“Lieutenant-Colonel Peters was last posted, before he retired to the Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff for Intelligence, within the U.S. Defence Department, and has been one of the Pentagon’s foremost authors with numerous essays on strategy for military journals and U.S. foreign policy.” (Ibid)</font> </p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><img border="0" src="http://www.globalresearch.ca/images/harita_b.jpeg" /></font><a href="http://r20.rs6.net/tn.jsp?e=001EmS89MocSAqSJrOALcYU8MuLtSbzHJ_gBhCLy9FrKFr0uvEccU_EwzY4KaowPEmZ1KMZ5B1PrUIvnad4cKqk6f7FEH-vrO6FLK74GjD8ZR9I1kYIzyv16Qv7k5oCy1KIfA84v4hA_wFbTKFxu2UdnA=="> <br /></a><a href="http://r20.rs6.net/tn.jsp?e=001EmS89MocSAq6pPWjKDgYG3SRgoXocFmOOKhyZ7CIVGnmXOgwVvU7V9SVNN3KdmXSFSW-FGv8YT2qnJI2mPyQaQp686Y1zEa7HCpYm4V5ekwzipiwhPEFxkbVUtPiZ8JuYtQn0_WdQ-2MpYayN14lDw=="><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">Map: click to enlarge</font></a> </p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">It is worth noting that secessionist tendencies are not limited to Balochistan. There are separatist groups in Sindh province, which are largely based on opposition to the Punjabi-dominated military regime of General Pervez Musharraf </font><a href="http://r20.rs6.net/tn.jsp?e=001EmS89MocSAp6tngpbdKdEbjzsmJg4rU71-Jju8_z4b4wXtg2rkaA07ew5LyG42F9XmgHKuYs7mn0Av2kBN-Mjiy5naUi7vO4ehK_NkII_5nexlveWiFgp_3BY_yD0kMygOlChE0434B9B8dP0iRqAA=="><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">(For Further details see Selig Harrisson, Le Monde diplomatique, October 2006)</font></a> </p> <p><b><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">“Strong Economic Medicine”: Weakening Pakistan’s Central Government</font></b> </p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">Pakistan has a federal structure based on federal provincial transfers. Under a federal fiscal structure, the central government transfers financial resources to the provinces, with a view to supporting provincial based programs. When these transfers are frozen as occurred in Yugoslavia in January 1990, on orders of the IMF, the federal fiscal structure collapses:</font> </p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">“State revenues that should have gone as transfer payments to the republics [of the Yugoslav federation] went instead to service Belgrade’s debt … . The republics were largely left to their own devices. … The budget cuts requiring the redirection of federal revenues towards debt servicing, were conducive to the suspension of transfer payments by Belgrade to the governments of the Republics and Autonomous Provinces.</font> </p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">In one fell swoop, the reformers had engineered the final collapse of Yugoslavia’s federal fiscal structure and mortally wounded its federal political institutions. By cutting the financial arteries between Belgrade and the republics, the reforms fueled secessionist tendencies that fed on economic factors as well as ethnic divisions, virtually ensuring the de facto secession of the republics. (Michel Chossudovsky, The Globalization of Poverty and the New World Order, Second Edition, Global Research, Montreal, 2003, Chapter 17.)</font> </p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">It is by no means accidental that the 2005 National Intelligence Council- CIA report had predicted a “Yugoslav-like fate” for Pakistan pointing to the impacts of “economic mismanagement” as one of the causes of political break-up and balkanization.</font> </p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">“Economic mismanagement” is a term used by the Washington based international financial institutions to describe the chaos which results from not fully abiding by the IMF’s Structural Adjustment Program. In actual fact, the “economic mismanagement” and chaos is the outcome of IMF-World Bank prescriptions, which invariably trigger hyperinflation and precipitate indebted countries into extreme poverty.</font> </p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">Pakistan has been subjected to the same deadly IMF “economic medicine” as Yugoslavia: In 1999, in the immediate wake of the coup d’Etat which brought General Pervez Musharaf to the helm of the military government, an IMF economic package, which included currency devaluation and drastic austerity measures, was imposed on Pakistan. Pakistan’s external debt is of the order of US$40 billion. The IMF’s “debt reduction” under the package was conditional upon the sell-off to foreign capital of the most profitable State owned enterprises (including the oil and gas facilities in Balochistan) at rockbottom prices .</font> </p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">Musharaf’s Finance Minister was chosen by Wall Street, which is not an unusual practice. The military rulers appointed at Wall Street’s behest, a vice-president of Citigroup, Shaukat Aziz, who at the time was head of CitiGroup’s Global Private Banking. (</font><a href="http://r20.rs6.net/tn.jsp?e=001EmS89MocSAqMxxStHptp9wb9hPDELXDvivhcU3MAtoKvnD7aAElyA6FAVQWSNwJN3MUe3_BG4w3Vm3bG_fWLH_u5tDPGx3CO68l0E_S1bvRqbSXfVA0a8UBMac--Pmxb4egrmIf430vc9OSaVW1TkKY_Cb8v6pYqrInvFFBArgI="><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">See WSWS.org, 30 October 1999)</font></a><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">. CitiGroup is among the largest commercial foreign banking institutions in Pakistan.</font> </p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">There are obvious similarities in the nature of US covert intelligence operations applied in country after country in different parts of the so-called “developing World”. These covert operation, including the organisation of military coups, are often synchronized with the imposition of IMF-World Bank macro-economic reforms. In this regard, Yugoslavia’s federal fiscal structure collapsed in 1990 leading to mass poverty and heightened ethnic and social divisions. The US and NATO sponsored “civil war” launched in mid-1991 consisted in coveting Islamic groups as well as channeling covert support to separatist paramilitary armies in Bosnia, Kosovo and Macedonia.</font> </p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">A similar “civil war” scenario has been envisaged for Pakistan by the National Intelligence Council and the CIA: From the point of view of US intelligence, which has a longstanding experience in abetting separatist “liberation armies”, “Greater Albania” is to Kosovo what “Greater Balochistan” is to Pakistan’s Southeastern Balochistan province. Similarly, the KLA is Washington’s chosen model, to be replicated in Balochistan province.</font> </p> <p><b><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">The Assassination of Benazir Bhutto</font></b> </p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">Benazir Bhutto was assassinated in Rawalpindi, no ordinary city. Rawalpindi is a military city host to the headquarters of the Pakistani Armed Forces and Military Intelligence (ISI). Ironically Bhutto was assassinated in an urban area tightly controlled and guarded by the military police and the country’s elite forces. Rawalpindi is swarming with ISI intelligence officials, which invariably infiltrate political rallies. Her assassination was not a haphazard event.</font> </p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">Without evidence, quoting Pakistan government sources, the Western media in chorus has highlighted the role of Al-Qaeda, while also focusing on the the possible involvement of the ISI.</font> </p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">What these interpretations do not mention is that the ISI continues to play a key role in overseeing Al Qaeda on behalf of US intelligence. The press reports fail to mention two important and well documented facts:</font> </p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">1) the ISI maintains close ties to the CIA. The ISI is virtually an appendage of the CIA.</font> </p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">2) Al Qaeda is a creation of the CIA. The ISI provides covert support to Al Qaeda, acting on behalf of US intelligence.</font> </p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">The involvement of either Al Qaeda and/or the ISI would suggest that US intelligence was cognizant and/or implicated in the assassination plot.</font> </p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">[<b>Part Two:</b> Pakistan and the "Global War on Terrorism" at <br /></font><a href="http://r20.rs6.net/tn.jsp?e=001EmS89MocSAow2Q4HEdkwjz87Oid_eARifEO-L3M7P20x-1jlvcux4MQzNIkw6nOW9zCBERdtgfCC5mEZTosWabWbXsdfZbKxKge1wDOlfydhFUhH0Fgqydz7HkMFrySO-52VC9ZXy-jPbUCQ34JJOxSFDkcEF28UD9ZHX2CshEQ="><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=7746</font></a><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">]</font> </p> <p><font size="3"><font face="Times New Roman"><b>Michel Chossudovsky</b> </font></font><i><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">is the author of the international bestseller </font><a href="http://r20.rs6.net/tn.jsp?e=001EmS89MocSAp_STziKUE3MmJqvH-d2O-9kL2yYQ15u5Mh8B-sgSVhQ913XRPCEM8OxwvclwkXutt89ejWx7tyzHVMNFADTRs3W8S0yMSS6Y79ZKlr2xDn09-8d9SHheLubeui2UGU2gjWdHsAdPyFMJOKQ3kSbCxl"><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">America’s “War on Terrorism” </font></a><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">Global Research, 2005. He is Professor of Economics at the University of Ottawa and Director of the Center for Research on Globalization</font>.</i> </p> <p><b>Copyright © 2012 Global Research</b></p> <div class="blogger-post-footer">http://thecitizenstrust.blogspot.com is a blog run by the admin of the facebook group 'The Citizen's Trust for Victims of Terror' it is a voluntary group with no formal associations with any political party or group.</div>SOAP BOXhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04514006243211979566noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5992656860273359959.post-64264811783093577172013-03-22T10:55:00.001+05:002013-03-22T10:55:17.470+05:00How the Taliban gripped Karachi<p><strong><em>BBC 21 March 2013 Last updated at 00:55 GMT</em></strong> </p> <h5> </h5> <h3> </h3> <p><img alt="March against Taliban in Karachi - 2009" src="http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/66062000/jpg/_66062271_taliban_karachi.jpg" width="464" height="261" /></p> <p>Political groups have warned of Taliban influence in the city</p> <p>For years there have been fears that the Taliban were gaining ground in Pakistan's commercial capital, the port city of Karachi. There is now evidence that the militants' influence in the city has hit alarming new levels, reports the BBC's Ahmed Wali Mujeeb. </p> <p>More than 20 people are gathered outside a ramshackle house in a suburb of Karachi - Pakistan's largest city. </p> <p>They say a plot of land, which was the property of a local businessman, was forcibly occupied by a local mafia last September, and they are here to complain. </p> <p>The difference now - and a source of much alarm to those in the know - is that this group of Karachi residents are choosing to bring their complaint to the Taliban. </p> <p>After a two-hour session, the Taliban judge adjourns the hearing to another date and venue which he says will be disclosed shortly before the hearing. </p> <p><a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-21343397#story_continues_1">Continue reading the main story</a> </p> <h4>“Start Quote</h4> <blockquote> <p>I do not know about the Taliban's presence - however if they come here I will welcome them”</p> </blockquote> Mohammed Yusuf Mehsud Karachi resident <p>This mobile Taliban court does not limit its interests to this one shanty town on the outskirts of Karachi. It has been arbitrating disputes across many suburbs in the metropolis. </p> <p>The Taliban largely emerged in poor areas on the fringes of the city, run-down places with little or no infrastructure for health, education and civic amenities. </p> <p>Their mobile courts have been hearing complaints for quite some time, but in recent months they have also started administering punishments - a sign of their growing clout. </p> <p>In January, they publicly administered lashes to an alleged thief after recovering stolen goods from him. The goods were returned to the owner who had reported the theft. </p> <p>Suburban Taliban </p> <p>But the picture is complicated. </p> <p>There is a tussle under way between mafia groups (becoming more prolific and powerful in Karachi) who seek to seize land and militant groups who are also grabbing land. This includes the Taliban, for all their willingness to arbitrate in these disputes. </p> <p>It is clear that they want to tighten their grip in Pakistan's biggest city, its commercial centre. And they appear to have great influence in those suburbs dominated by the Pashtun ethnic group. </p> <p><img alt="Protest in Karachi against operations cracking down on the Taliban in the north-west of Pakistan" src="http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/66062000/jpg/_66062274_operation_protaliban.jpg" width="464" height="261" /></p> <p>There are also demonstrations protesting against crackdowns on the Taliban</p> <p>These include many of the districts on the edge of the highways and roads leading to neighbouring Balochistan province. </p> <p>They have long had a power base in the north-west of the country but this entry into Karachi is a more recent phenomenon. </p> <p><a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-21343397#story_continues_2">Continue reading the main story</a> </p> <h4>Karachi's East District/West District</h4> <p>Districts East and West in Karachi, with shops and street stalls selling chapli kebabs, fruit, sweets and clothes, have a very traditional Pashtun feel. </p> <p>Many people earn their money as day labourers with a daily wage. They work in construction and in factories. Their income level varies from 7,000 rupees per month ($71; £48) to 20,000 rupees per month. </p> <p>Pashtuns have been here since before the creation of Pakistan in 1947, but a major influx began in the 1960s. After the Afghan war of 1979 and military action in recent years in Swat and Waziristan, many more came. </p> <p>There are many slum homes with poor infrastructure, amenities and low literacy rates. </p> <p>People here express fears about "bias" on the part of the local administration towards this area and many attribute the area's poverty to such perceived attitudes. </p> <ul> <li><a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-south-asia-11342588">Karachi: Volatile metropolis</a> </li> </ul> <p>Indeed while impromptu Taliban courts are increasingly settling small disputes over property, financial theft, robberies and feuds in Karachi, residents say major issues are decided in Pakistan's northern tribal areas - where Taliban strongholds abound. </p> <p>And when they think their authority is being encroached on, they act with deadly force: The MQM lawmaker Syed Manzar Imam was killed by Taliban gunmen in January in Orangi town, which borders a Pashtun area. </p> <p>One former leader of the Awami National Party (ANP) - a party of the ethnic Pashtun nationalists - recently left Karachi and said more than 25 of his party offices had been forced to close because of threats from the Taliban. </p> <p>A senior police officer who does not wish to be named told me simply: "Taliban are swiftly extending their influence. </p> <p>"There needs to be a strategy to stem the Taliban's rise, otherwise the city will lose other important and central parts to them," he says. </p> <p>Taliban 'gangs' </p> <p>Muhammad Usman is a 26-year-old Taliban commander from the Swat valley. He came to Karachi after the Pakistani army started an operation in Swat in 2009. </p> <p>He says he was first part of a group of Swati Taliban in Karachi and was offered shelter and safety by them. </p> <p>After some time, he gradually got involved in what he calls "eliminating rivals" in the city. </p> <p><img alt="Woman sits outside her home after violence swept across neighbourhood " src="http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/66062000/jpg/_66062701_karachi_violence.jpg" width="464" height="261" /></p> <p>Violence and targeted killings across Karachi can bring people's lives to a standstill</p> <p>When questioned about extortion and kidnappings done in the name of the Taliban, he said there were several criminal gangs involved and that the Taliban were trying to put them out of business. </p> <p><a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-21343397#story_continues_3">Continue reading the main story</a> </p> <h4>“Start Quote</h4> <blockquote> <p>The police are scared of the Taliban and are therefore reluctant to take action against them”</p> </blockquote> Haji Afridi Trader <p>But the response of the public is the ultimate test for them. One resident of Kanwari Colony, Muhammad Yousuf Mehsud, says: "I do not know about the Taliban's presence in the locality, however if they come here I will welcome them." </p> <p>Another, a 45-year-old resident in Landhi, Haji Afridi, says: "The Taliban have created discontent amongst Pashtuns." </p> <p>He says that every Pashtun trader is threatened with extortion by the Taliban and whoever refuses to pay is killed. "The police are scared of the Taliban and are therefore reluctant to take action against them," he adds. </p> <p>A 25-year-old Taliban foot soldier, who identified himself as Hussain, describes his mission in Karachi and his comments highlight the nature of the violence that has riven the city. </p> <p>"First, my task was to work with groups that sought to eliminate members of the ANP party and people who spied for the police. I am now in a group that is fighting the MQM activists." </p> <p>Volatile ethnic mix </p> <p>The MQM, which is the dominant political party in the city, was one of the first groups to voice concern over the growing Taliban presence in Karachi. </p> <p>But Karachi's ethnic and political landscape is complex. </p> <p>The city has long suffered outbreaks of violence, some of which is down to militancy, but the bloodshed is also about turf wars between rival ethnic and indeed political groups. </p> <p><img alt="boats at karachi" src="http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/66062000/jpg/_66062703_karachi_boat.jpg" width="464" height="261" /></p> <p>Karachi is a port city and Pakistan's commercial hub</p> <p>In recent years the Pashtun community in the city has grown, and they are seen as competition for land and jobs with the Urdu-speaking community. </p> <p>The MQM has long argued that there is a link between the growth of the Pashtun community and the "Talibanisation" of the city. </p> <p>But there have also been separate battles over turf between the city's Baloch community - the original inhabitants of the city - and the MQM. </p> <p>This violence also makes itself felt politically and there is profound antagonism between the local chapters of three political parties: the Pakistan People's Party (PPP), the mostly Pashtun Awami National Party (ANP) and the Muttahida Quami Movement (MQM). </p> <p>So while many point to the increasing presence of the Taliban, the rate of targeted killings and spontaneous confrontations between supporters of these rival ethnic and political groups has not let up either. </p> <p>Karachi's network of violence </p> <p>Intelligence sources say that there is one Taliban chief for the city, and heads of groups operating in different areas answer to him. </p> <p>"Though the government has expressed its resolve to eradicate militancy, other state institutions are not co-operating," analyst Professor Tauseed Ahmed Khan says. </p> <p>He argues that the security forces are losing morale when it comes to the battle against the militant groups and adds that this is not improved when rebels find it easy to get released on bail by the courts. </p> <p><img alt="Pakistani Shiite Muslims carry coffins during the funeral procession of bomb blast victims in Karachi on March 4, 2013" src="http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/66337000/jpg/_66337668_66337666.jpg" width="464" height="261" /></p> <p>Shia Muslims have frequently been targeted by militant groups in Karachi</p> <p>Prof Khan says that if the government fails to recognise the threat, the city will descend into chaos. </p> <p>But Sindh Information Minister Sharjeel Inaam Memon says the government is planning an operation to clamp down on the Taliban. He adds that the government has already arrested a large number of militants. </p> <p>The figures are sobering: at least 2,350 people were killed in violence in Karachi in 2012. Over the last six years, more than 6,000 people were killed, say police. </p> <p>The fear for many observers is that the Taliban are drawing their strength from the continuing silence of the government and a lack of focus by the security forces </p> <div class="blogger-post-footer">http://thecitizenstrust.blogspot.com is a blog run by the admin of the facebook group 'The Citizen's Trust for Victims of Terror' it is a voluntary group with no formal associations with any political party or group.</div>SOAP BOXhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04514006243211979566noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5992656860273359959.post-88380263403735211852013-03-12T11:14:00.001+05:002013-03-12T11:14:15.576+05:00Kerry, Hagel and the Indians.<p>(A good analysis, well done Bhadrakumar ) <br /><strong><em>March 5, 2013  </em></strong></p> <p><strong><em>by </em></strong><strong><em>M K Bhadrakumar <br /></em></strong>Gnawing doubts arise as to what Kerry and Hagel signify for the spirit of our times and indeed for India’s interests. <br />Some of the key assumptions on which India's regional strategies were predicated for the past decade are being called into question. Source: AP <br />China, Russia, Iran, Israel, Turkey, the Philippines – the list of countries is freely extendable, which are carefully weighing the significance of President Barack Obama’s cabinet appointments of John Kerry and Chuck Hagel as the secretaries of state and defence. These are extraordinary times. The American economy is in distress; world situation is turbulent and dangerous; locus of world power is shifting; and the US’ capacity to “lead” is in difficulty. A long sunset has begun.</p> <p> <br />From all accounts, the Indian pundits are getting a sinking feeling, too. Some of the key assumptions on which the country’s regional strategies were predicated for the past decade are being called into question. Gnawing doubts arise as to what Kerry and Hagel signify for the spirit of our times and indeed for India’s interests. The heart of the matter is that these powerful statesmen broadly share a worldview that discounts the real worth of military force for the advancement of the US’s global reach and influence.</p> <p> <br />To be sure, Kerry and Hagel have brought into the discourse a refreshing sense of realism. In a manner of speaking, they are doing a favor to the Indians by making them realize a few home truths themselves. No doubt, India’s internal problems are mounting and there is great urgency to reset the national priorities. The accumulated systemic failures are impeding even the modernization of India’s armed forces. <br />Most certainly India too needs a re-prioritization of national policies, akin to what Obama has vowed in his own way for the direction of the US’s economic recovery and social regeneration. Besides, more than priorities, this is also a matter of self-awareness of the limitations of power in the contemporary world situation. Some most inspiring views and tenets have been attributed to Hagel and Kerry about the efficacy of solving regional issues through military force, and, more important, on the preference to ‘engage’ adversaries in a calm and rational manner.</p> <p> <br />Meanwhile, Hagel just walked into a storm in an Indian tea cup – rather, dragged into it – over a previously unreleased 2011 speech that he made at Oklahoma’s Cameron University, which has been brought to light by a US website with pronounced right wing leanings just as his appointment as defence secretary was about to be confirmed by the US Senate. Hagel apparently said, inter alia, in a wide-ranging speech: <br />“India for some time has always used Afghanistan as a second front, and India has over the years financed problems for Pakistan on that side of the border. And you can carry that into many dimensions, the point being [that] the tense, fragmented relationship between Pakistan and Afghanistan has been there for many, many years.” <br />The Indian pundits are hopping mad. But then, this is not the first time that such a thing has been openly said. Way back in September 2009, then American (and NATO) commander in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley McChrystal made an assessment for the then secretary of defence Robert Gates that “increasing Indian influence in Afghanistan is likely to exacerbate regional tensions and encourage Pakistani countermeasures in Afghanistan or India.”</p> <p> <br />The general wrote in his report: “Indian political and economic influence is increasing in Afghanistan, including significant development efforts and financial investment. In addition, the current Afghan government is perceived by Islamabad to be pro-Indian.” <br />Suffice to say, the US policies always factored in that while India’s economic assistance to Afghan reconstruction is welcome, its political or security role needs to be circumscribed so as not to ruffle the sensitivities of Pakistan, which Washington consistently regarded as its key ally in the war. <br />The American officials are au fait with the decades-old Indian mantra of a ‘second front’ vis-à-vis Pakistan, but in the prevailing circumstances of western military presence in the Hindu Kush credited the Indian policymakers with the discerning capacity not to stray into gray areas. (Would anyone believe that India’s all-out support of Dr. Najibullah was out of enthusiasm for an unvarnished communist in its neighborhood?) <br />However, there was never any misconception in the American mind that India can ever be a match for Pakistan on the Afghan chessboard – a pawn at best, but not a rook by any reckoning. Again, Washington conceived certain selective use for India in Afghanistan, but there was never any doubt about Pakistan’s centrality. <br />Equally, the US recognizes that Pakistan has legitimate interests in Afghanistan, which relate to its national sovereignty and territorial integrity and its security and social stability. Even with regard to radical Islam, India and the US have had divergent opinions – and contrarian experiences – and Washington will never allow itself to be swayed by the Indian prejudices regarding the Taliban.</p> <p> <br />Hagel’s 2011 speech touched a raw nerve when India faces isolation once again in Afghanistan, but there was nothing stunningly new in it. However, the ‘course correction’ of great interest to Indian interests that Kerry and Hagel might have signaled relates to America’s ‘rebalancing’ in Asia. In the course of his Senate hearing, Kerry voiced support for the rebalancing policy, but added a caveat that he isn’t convinced that increasing the US’ military influence is critical yet, and pointing out that the US already has more bases in the region than any other nation. He also took note that Beijing is concerned about the increased number of US marines based in Australia. Kerry said: <br />“The Chinese ask what the United States is doing. ‘They try to encircle us, what’s going on’ – and so every action has its reaction. We have to think thoughtfully about not creating a threat when there isn’t one and understand where we can find bases for cooperation. I am not talking about retreating, I am simply trying to think about how we do this, not creating the reaction you don’t like to create.”</p> <p> <br />Why should these thoughtful views bring down the Indian roof? <br />Quite obviously, one key objective Obama had in mind in zeroing in on Hagel is the critical need to trim the US’s defence spending and the president’s firm conviction that this Vietnam veteran with a Purple Heart is just the brave man to take the bull by the horns at the Pentagon, given the entrenched interest groups in the US military-industrial complex. Put differently, it was never quite realistic for the Indian pundits to imagine that the US is wedded to a cold-war style containment strategy toward China or that India would have a key role to play as the US’s partner in the vast ‘Indo-Pacific’ region stretching from the Strait of Hormuz to Vanuatu, which we have unilaterally decided is our ‘sphere of influence’. <br />Maybe, Hagel and Kerry disappoint us. But then, the fault doesn’t lie with Hagel or Kerry, but with the lotus-eaters amongst us who chose to be indolently forgetful and were drugged by the fruit of the ‘unipolar predicament’.</p> <p> <br />How does it all add up? What is there in it for India in the Obama-era US strategies? Actually, there is a lot. Only last week, the government-owned China Daily newspaper wrote that the US policies may create “friction” in Sino-American ties, but Washington “needs” cooperation – “The US needs cooperation with China, and vice versa, as cooperation helps promote the economic interests of both countries… The huge Chinese market potential will undoubtedly serve as an anchor for bilateral trade. If US exports to China grow by 12 percent annually over the next four years, a total of 143,000 jobs could be created in the US.”</p> <p> <br />India should take note that China is well on the way to figure out its logarithm after tabling the entries of exactly what is on the mind of Kerry and Hagel – and Obama.</p> <div class="blogger-post-footer">http://thecitizenstrust.blogspot.com is a blog run by the admin of the facebook group 'The Citizen's Trust for Victims of Terror' it is a voluntary group with no formal associations with any political party or group.</div>SOAP BOXhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04514006243211979566noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5992656860273359959.post-13336391752030378902013-02-19T12:29:00.001+05:002013-02-19T12:29:35.242+05:00This is why George Galloway was chief guest of the KLF closing ceremony<h3> </h3> <p><strong><em>By </em></strong><a href="http://tribune.com.pk/author/2765/zahra-peer-mohammed/"><strong><em>Zahra Peer Mohammed</em></strong></a></p> <p>Published: February 18, 2013</p> <p><img alt="" src="http://i1.tribune.com.pk/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/508821-GeorgeGalloway-1361128325-887-640x480.jpg" width="625" height="469" /></p> <p>George Galloway. PHOTO: EXPRESS</p> <p><strong>KARACHI: </strong></p> <p><strong><font size="3">“Stop invading Muslims lands! How can you expect Muslims to love you when you are forcefully occupying their lands and murdering their people?”</font></strong></p> <p><font size="3">This one statement was enough to prove why scores of people had gathered at Beach Luxury Hotel to hear the closing speech of the chief guest of the fourth Karachi Literature Festival, MP George Galloway Sunday.</font></p> <p><font size="3">He spoke from the heart with such passion that many were wiping tears from their eyes – even those who had stood at the far corners of the ground for lack of space to sit.</font></p> <p><font size="3">Renowned British author, politician and journalist, Galloway’s speech focused on the War on Terror.</font></p> <p><font size="3">He made his disdain for Obama’s government obvious by quoting his foolish statement that the boys suddenly surrounding his daughters are like drones – in that you ‘don’t see them coming’.</font></p> <p><font size="3">“Well, yes you don’t see them coming, President until your wife is sitting without her head and your children are in pieces,” stated a clearly emotional Galloway.</font></p> <p><font size="3">The MP made it clear that drones are not the way to counter terrorism. “They only feed the swamp of hatred which is what 9/11 was — pure hatred for a country that has meted out injustice to Muslims.”</font></p> <p><font size="3">To end this hatred, the rulers of the world must do the opposite of what they are doing at present. And so he listed three points.</font></p> <p><font size="3">The first one, he stated, was addressed in part to a major soft drink company.</font></p> <p><font size="3">“Stop supporting the crimes of Israel against the Palestinians.”</font></p> <p><font size="3">Palestinians have no country, no papers; they are marginalized and oppressed. The Western support of Israel has undoubtedly led hatred to grow among Muslims. “The double standards and hypocrisy of the West,” he spat.</font></p> <p><img style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 10px" alt="" src="http://pullquotesandexcerpts.files.wordpress.com/2013/02/george-galloway.jpg?w=625" width="343" height="111" /></p> <p><font size="3">Iran is being openly threatened with war when it doesn’t have any nuclear weapons while Israel possesses loads of them and goes unpunished – how is that for double standards? As long as Western countries are giving Israel money for weapons, inventing one law for Israel and another for others, how can you expect Muslims to look with equanimity towards a crime of such importance in such a place?</font></p> <p><font size="3">“Support the victims of terrorism rather than the perpetrators of terrorism,” said the MP to huge applause.</font></p> <p><font size="3">Coming to his second point, Galloway stated that the West must stop invading and occupying Muslim countries.</font></p> <p><font size="3">“How can you expect Muslims to love you when you are occupying Muslim countries in the name of democracy? Occupation of Muslim lands can only feed the fanatics and fill this swamp of hatred. This has to stop.”</font></p> <p><font size="3">Finally, he stated that the West must stop propping up the dictators who rule the Muslim worlds.</font></p> <p><font size="3">“Muslims are not stupid – they know that you arm them, finance them and support them. You give them political and diplomatic support in order to stay in power. We help the tyrants stay in power – the people know this.”</font></p> <p><font size="3">The crowd was won over – nothing else needed to be said.</font></p> <p><font size="3">Galloway stated that although he has visited Karachi after 25 years – mainly due to political reasons – he would want his next visit to be much sooner.</font></p> <p><font size="3">“Believe me, I could stay here for the rest of my life – if you promise to gather every day to listen to me – believe me I would never leave,” said the MP, to a crowd that was now a fan for life.</font></p> <p><i>Published in The Express Tribune, February </i><i>18<sup>th</sup>, 2013.</i></p> <div class="blogger-post-footer">http://thecitizenstrust.blogspot.com is a blog run by the admin of the facebook group 'The Citizen's Trust for Victims of Terror' it is a voluntary group with no formal associations with any political party or group.</div>SOAP BOXhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04514006243211979566noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5992656860273359959.post-7228281704030623502013-02-18T12:49:00.001+05:002013-02-18T12:49:39.815+05:00POST 2014<table border="0" cellspacing="5" cellpadding="0"><tbody> <tr> <td> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><em><strong>by Ayaz Amir</strong></em></font></p> </td> </tr> <tr> <td> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><strong>Islamabad diary <br /></strong></font></p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">The Soviet pullout from Afghanistan in 1989 was a triumph for our military establishment. The ISI and the Zia regime, while not solely responsible for that outcome, had helped bring it about. But the American pullout from Afghanistan, now underway and to be completed in about a year’s time, far from being any kind of triumph looks set to be a disaster...one for which we are wholly unprepared. <br /></font></p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">Afghanistan in 1989 was a simpler proposition, the highs and lows of it etched in black and white. Afghanistan in 2013 is a place infinitely more complicated and dangerous...not just for itself but for us as well.</font></p> <font size="3" face="Times New Roman"> <p> <br />This is because of one vital difference. Afghanistan then was a country contained within its borders. Afghanistan now, to our misfortune, is stretched across the Durand Line. Ask yourself two simple questions: (1) Are the Taliban based in Fata more loyal to Mullah Omar or to the state of Pakistan? (2) Is North Waziristan, in real terms, more a part of Pakistan or Afghanistan? <br />When the American pullout is complete these facts will become starker. Does anyone in his right mind think that in a year from now Amir Hakeemullah Mehsud – amir of the semi-independent Islamic Emirate of North Waziristan – will come down from the mountains and lay down his arms before the army command in Rawalpindi?</p> <p> <br />The Afghan ‘mujahideen’ in 1989 exulted over the circumstance that they had defeated one superpower. Now they can lay claim to a far bigger triumph. Forget about the Afghan Taliban. Does any fool think that when the Americans have drunk fully from their cup of humiliation, the Pakistani Taliban will be in a more penitent mood, ready to settle for modest or moderate terms with the hapless representatives of the Pakistani state? What world of fantasy and make-believe are we living in?</p> <p> <br />We can fit that old proverb to our circumstances: with friends like the United States who needs enemies? The Americans made life difficult for us by coming to Afghanistan in 2011. They will make life more difficult for us by leaving the job they came to do not just half-done but utterly undone. The Taliban before were just an Afghan phenomenon, a curiosity to be observed from afar. Thanks to our American friends they are now just as much a Pakistani phenomenon.</p> <p> <br />And we will have to deal with this phenomenon not in the remote future but in a year’s time. When President Obama first said that American troops would be out by 2014, it seemed such a distant date. Now it’s upon us and, far from being prepared, we are seeing to it that we bury our heads deeper into the sand, with sundry paladins saying we must talk peace with the Taliban without being at all clear what this would entail.</p> <p> <br />Forget for a moment the modalities of peace talks, whether in the mountains or Doha or wherever. Can the knights proposing talks with the Taliban just spell out the terms of a likely settlement? We need some clarity here, not woolly statements...specific outlines of a settlement that would be good for Pakistan. If capable of this clarity, they should not waste a minute. If not, then perhaps it would be best not to brandish olive branches which can only encourage the Taliban and confuse our own forces risking their lives in the killing fields of Fata.</p> <p> <br />There has been no greater apologist for the Taliban than Imran Khan. Yet when he wanted to march to North Waziristan the Taliban would not allow him. Maulana Fazlur Rehman is a self-appointed mediator for talks with the Taliban. Yet the Taliban, in so many words, have made it clear they want to have nothing to do with him.</p> <p> <br />Do we take the Taliban to be a bunch of kids? They have been fighting the Pakistan army and air force for the last so many years. Having held out for so long will they settle for any kind of lollipops when, across the Hindukush mountains, vindication is so close at hand for their brethren under Mullah Omar from whom they derive their inspiration? And from whom besides inspiration they will derive more physical strength once the Americans are out of Afghanistan. </p> <p> <br />Are we in a position to dictate terms or negotiate from a position of strength? Quite apart from the balance of military forces, is there any internal cohesion on our side? If there are elements in Pakistani society hostile to the Taliban, there is no shortage of elements sympathetic to them. The Taliban suffer from no such confusion. We need no videos from the Taliban spokesman, Ehsanullah Ehsan, to tell us that they are united in their aim: the recasting of the Pakistani state along lines prescribed by their own version of Islam. </p> <p> <br />What Swat was under Mullah Fazlullah, what North Waziristan is under Hakeemullah Mehsud, what the Taliban-controlled areas of Afghanistan will be under Mullah Omar, is what they would like the whole of Pakistan to be. And don’t forget that their support network in the form of friendly seminaries and friendly religious parties is now spread across Pakistan.</p> <p> <br />The MQM may have its own sins to answer for but it is not crying wolf when it says that spreading areas of Karachi are now Taliban-dominated, with their own jirgas to settle local disputes. Indeed, the Taliban are stepping into the shoes of the Awami National Party. And the MQM while not without its own power will, in times to come, be no match for these veterans of multiple jihads. <br /></p> <p>So the dynamics of the national situation are changing and we remain blissfully unaware. This is strategic depth in reverse; not Afghanistan our depth but Pakistan with its religious parties and Taliban sympathisers becoming, oh scary thought, an extension of Afghanistan. Does this sound too apocalyptic? But then could anyone have imagined in 2001 that in a few years’ time North Waziristan would become a no-go area where our military boots would fear to tread? Or that the spectre of Vietnam would come to haunt Afghanistan?</p> <p> <br />Afghanistan is only living up to its reputation of being the graveyard of empires. But who told us to play with fire there? Now it’s just not our fingers that are being burnt but much more. <br />Come to think of it, through our folly we are reversing 200 years of history. Once upon a time most of the territories now comprising Pakistan were part of the kingdom of Kabul. Then on these territories Maharajah Ranjit Singh established his kingdom and, as a measure of his power, wrested Peshawar from Afghan hands. With the Maharajah’s death his kingdom fell on evil days and it was not long before it was defeated and then annexed by the British.</p> <p> <br />Of this tangled skein we are the luckless inheritors, successors of course to the British but, at a remove, successors also to the kingdom of Maharajah Ranjit Singh. His was a secular kingdom but let’s not get into that minefield here. More to the point, he kept the Afghans at a distance. We have been less successful than him in our Afghan policy. Our military commanders talk strangely of training Afghan troops. Our own house in disorder, we have the hubris to offer free advice to others. </p> <p> <br />And as the Americans prepare to leave, forget all the hogwash about their continued interest in our affairs. A skeletal relationship will of course survive but we will be largely on our own, with the rupee in free-fall and the Taliban on the march, in spirit if not otherwise. This about sums up our predicament.</p> <p> <br />That is why 2013 is so crucial for us, for the governing arrangement that emerges from the coming elections will be the stewards of our discontent when the Americans are out and the Taliban are dreaming of duplicating in Pakistan their victory that side of the Durand Line. <br />And will we be prepared for all this?</p> <br />Email: <a href="mailto:winlust@yahoo.com">winlust@yahoo.com</a></font></td> </tr> </tbody></table> <div class="blogger-post-footer">http://thecitizenstrust.blogspot.com is a blog run by the admin of the facebook group 'The Citizen's Trust for Victims of Terror' it is a voluntary group with no formal associations with any political party or group.</div>SOAP BOXhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04514006243211979566noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5992656860273359959.post-75673900971423987462013-01-29T12:53:00.001+05:002013-01-29T12:53:32.703+05:00What price ignorance Dec 06<h3><font style="font-weight: bold"><em>by Khurshid Anwer</em></font></h3> <h3> </h3> <h3>My letter to the press -  Today the Sindh assembly stabbed Sindh in the back. Tarbela dam is the mainstay of agriculture in Sindh. </h3> <h3> </h3> <h3>It has lost 30 percent of its storage capacity to silting and there is a corresponding decrease in the supply of water to Sindh. </h3> <h3>While the demand in Sindh will go on increasing as the years go by, the supply from Tarbela dam will go on decreasing until one day it will stop completely. </h3> <h3>Bhasha dam is at least fifteen years away. Of the other alternates to Kalabagh dam, only Akhori dam has a sizeable storage capacity but it is in Punjab and will meet with the same mindless objections. Also it will generate only 600 megawatts . </h3> <h3>Bunji and Dasu dams which have sizeable generating capacity have negligible storage capacity. So how will Sindh cope with the ever rising demand of its ever rising population. </h3> <h3> </h3> <h3>All this misery just because Kalabagh dam is in Punjab and in this day and age of technology we feel we cannot ensure equitable shares to all the stakeholders. What price ignorance?          Khurshid Anwer</h3> <div class="blogger-post-footer">http://thecitizenstrust.blogspot.com is a blog run by the admin of the facebook group 'The Citizen's Trust for Victims of Terror' it is a voluntary group with no formal associations with any political party or group.</div>SOAP BOXhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04514006243211979566noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5992656860273359959.post-59464176487628682082012-09-13T12:58:00.005+05:002012-09-13T13:00:40.825+05:00Threat analysis and Situation report<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: small;"><strong><em>By Syed Zaid Zaman
Hamid</em></strong></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: small;"><strong><em>
</em></strong><strong><em><br /></em></strong>BrassTacks Threat analysis and Situation report which the
treacherous media, idiotic politicians and the naive judiciary will NOT tell
you:<br />Whatever we wrote in the last few weeks is rapidly being unfolded on all
threat axis for Pakistan.<br />
<br />
The US is now well and truly aggressive to provoke more wars within Pakistan
and to force the Pak army to into a head-on collision with the tribes in North
Waziristan and against Afghan resistance. The panic has already started to set
in the tribes who are pondering over mass migration and exodus from the region,
even towards Afghanistan where these Pakistani tribals would be easy prey for
NATO and Indian military psy-ops operators to ignite their anger into rage
against Pakistan and Pak army.<br />
On the other hand, NATO is literally raining
missiles in North Waziristan against pro-Pakistan tribals and against Afghan
resistance. <br />
<br />
The Drone warfare is now creating a major crisis for Pakistan army as the
military leadership is coming under severe pressure and criticism from the
nation over their failure to stop this blatant abuse of national dignity and
slaughter of innocent citizens.<br />
<br />“The strategy deployed by NATO/CIA/RAW is:<br />
<br />1. To attack and destroy Pakistan’s surveillance and early warning
systems of the Navy, PAF and army to incapacitate their military capability to
forewarn of any invasion on the country.<br />
<br />2. The second axis is to ignite the sectarian wars in Pakistan, just as
in Syria and Lebanon. Dozens of Shias are being assassinated in macabre style
killings all across the country. Not just that it would ignite the local
sectarian wars, it would also destroy Pakistan’s relations with Iran.<br />
<br />3. Massive attacks on Pakistan army continue in FATA, tribal areas and in
Baluchistan to keep the army bogged down in internal high intensity wars and to
bleed the military’s resources to weaken it substantially so that it is not able
to resist the external invasion.<br />
<br />
4. NATO is also testing the waters and challenging the Pakistan’s defenses on
the Western theatre. After the attack on Salala check post last year, NATO had
stopped coming close to the Pakistan border. But now, they are aggressively
intruding closer and even attacking close to the Pakistan border.<br />
<br />5. NATO/CIA drone strikes have become more frequent, lethal and
destructive. The objective is to ignite the tribes into open rebellion against
Pakistan army for being “collaborators” of the US which is killing women and
children of the Pakistani tribals as massive “collateral damage”.<br />
<br />6. In Baluchistan, security forces are being targeted in a renewed and
bloody campaign led by both TTP and the BLA. The sudden upsurge in violence and
its vicious intensity is coordinated with the other axis of violence in the
country. In addition to the attacks on the forces, trains, buses and energy
infrastructure is also being attacked to cripple the provincial administration
and critical services.<br />
<br />7. Chinese assets, interests and personnel in Pakistan are being targeted
to disrupt the strategic relationship between Pakistan and China.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: small;"><br />
8. The panic and chaos which this urban war has created is now breaking the
back of national economy and morale, throwing the entire country into fits of
panic and chaos. The desperate measures being adopted by the PPP regime are only
adding to the meltdown and panic.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: small;"><br />
9. Pressure is also being increased on Pakistan to declare war on the Afghan
resistance and against friendly own tribes in North Waziristan. The US strategy
is to deploy Pakistan to do the fighting for the NATO. As the violence touches
the red hot levels in the country and the army is already over stretched, US is
forcing the army leadership to open new deadlier fronts which would totally
destroy not just the army but also any prospects of Pakistan having any
strategic assets in the Afghan Pashtuns. The war in North Waziristan would not
hurt any TTP assets which may be there as they would simply draw the army in but
them melt back into Afghanistan, leaving the army to fight the local tribes and
afghan resistance.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: small;"><br />
10. Massive propaganda, information war and Psy-ops have also been launched
by the Indians as well as the CIA to prove that Pakistan’s nuclear assets are
unsafe, the country is in a meltdown and that Pakistan is involved in spreading
violence and terrorism in the neighboring countries especially against US forces
in Afghanistan and India.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: small;"><br />
The war against Pakistan is now crystal clear. It has reached the last stages
of deployment while the Pakistan army is well and truly surrounded but still not
responding on the entire axis. Every day lost in removing this regime will be
paid in massive bloodshed and destruction of the state, society and the
army.<br />
<br />Within the government, the anarchy reigns supreme. The government and the
judiciary at war with each other oblivious of the grave existential threats the
nation faces. Army has remained a silent spectator of this political and
judicial war and this has indeed brought the country to the brink of
annihilation. Pakistan army is the last hope in this total and complete anarchy
and chaos. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: small;"><br />
While the Pakistan army is indeed aware of the fatal encirclement of the
state and the army, it is still reluctant to decisively intervene into the
political chaos to salvage the country. The military leadership is still
deliberating the crisis and has not made up their mind. In the next few weeks,
they may not have the luxury of controlling the dynamics of the events, even if
they want to then. Today, they can. After just a few weeks, the events would
become out of control and then events would decide the destiny of the nation and
the fate of its leaders. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: small;"><br />
Saddam, Qaddafi, Mubarak and now Bashar ul Asad also thought that they have
infinite amount of time at their disposal. For Pakistani leaders the moment of
truth just seems around the corner now.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: small;"><br />Pakistan army is only fighting back
at the military axis but have no response strategy for political chaos, economic
meltdown, media war and ongoing social chaos. On the military axis, they have
achieved some major success in recent days. <br />
The following news report about the assassination of a major TTP leader in
Afghanistan is a clear indication that TTP is well and truly protected in
Afghanistan and their wounded are being treated in Afghan military hospitals.
The news report that he has been killed in a Drone strike is non-sense as CIA
does not do drones in Kunar. The militant has been eliminated by a Pak army
strike after he was returning to Afghanistan from an attack inside
Pakistan.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: small;"><br />
The encirclement of Pakistan is rapid and total. Now the UN is planning to
send in a mission to Baluchistan to observe HR violations. Baluchistan is the
prized target of the US policy towards Pakistan to cut a strategic corridor to
Afghanistan bypassing the mainland. In the past also, US has been taking great
interest in the internal chaos of Baluchistan to use it as a pretext to
intervene. The anarchy in Baluchistan is not total also with hundreds of
training camps and terrorist bases operating from Afghanistan.<br />
<br />Within Pakistan, the political chaos is at its peak. 27th August would be
another day of infamy in Pakistan’s history as the battles between the Supreme
Court and the Government threatens to bring down the state itself.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: small;"><br />Pakistan
is not too far from becoming another “Syria”. The global media war, regional
encirclement, UN intervention, support to insurgencies in FATA and Baluchistan,
urban war through political terrorist gangs in Karachi, psychological warfare
through the paid media and direct interference into Pakistan’s social and
religious circles through US AID is now tightening the grip of US and India on
Pakistan’s entire social, political, economic and military fabric.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: small;"><br />
The following picture is from Syria but it may pass as from being Pakistan
also. This is what happens when armies are forced to fight urban high intensity
wars within own cities. This is the 4thGW, where fighting lines are not on the
borders but in the major cities and towns. The soldiers are not uniformed
opponents from regular armies but rag tag urban insurgents backed by regional
powers. You DO NOT fight a war within your own cities or else get what the
Syrians are getting now and Iraqis and Libyans tasted before them.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: small;"> This is what
is planned for Pakistan now but the leadership and the judiciary is stone dead,
deaf, dumb, blind and even collaborative to the collapse. I only wonder how the
history would judge this nation which saw it coming but decided to fiddle only
??</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: small;"><br />
Now even if Pak Army intervenes, the cost of recovering the nation from this
anarchic state would be staggering. If the army still does not intervene, then
it will be all over within the next 4 months.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: small;"><br />
</span><span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: small;">Khair inshAllah. Pakistan Zindabaad.</span></div>
<div class="blogger-post-footer">http://thecitizenstrust.blogspot.com is a blog run by the admin of the facebook group 'The Citizen's Trust for Victims of Terror' it is a voluntary group with no formal associations with any political party or group.</div>SOAP BOXhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04514006243211979566noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5992656860273359959.post-70526524995519823422012-09-13T12:34:00.002+05:002012-09-13T12:34:51.069+05:00Terrorism is certainly not a Muslim monopoly<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<br />
<strong><em>‘by SWAMINATHAN S ANKLESARIA AIYAR</em> </strong><br />
<strong></strong><br /><span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: x-small;">''All Muslims may
not be terrorists, but all terrorists are Muslims..'' This comment, frequently
heard after the Mumbai bomb blasts implies that terrorism is a Muslim specialty,
if not a monopoly. The facts are very different. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: x-small;">First, there is nothing new about
terrorism. In 1881, anarchists killed the Russian Tsar Alexander II and 21
bystanders. In 1901, anarchists killed US President McKinley as well as King
Humbert I of Italy . World War I started in 1914 when anarchists killed Archduke
Ferdinand of Austria . These terrorist attacks were not Muslim. <br />Terrorism is
generally defined as the killing of civilians for political reasons. Going by
this definition, the British Raj referred to Bhagat Singh, Chandrasekhar Azad
and many other Indian freedom fighters as terrorists. These were Hindu and Sikh
rather than Muslim. <br />Guerrilla fighters from Mao Zedong to Ho Chi Minh and
Fidel Castro killed civilians during their revolutionary campaigns. They too
were called terrorists until they triumphed. Nothing Muslim about them <br />In
Palestine , after World War II, Jewish groups (the Haganah, Irgun and Stern
Gang) fought for the creation of a Jewish state, bombing hotels and
installations and killing civilians. The British, who then governed Palestine ,
rightly called these Jewish groups terrorists. Many of these terrorists later
became leaders of independent Israel - Moshe Dayan, Yitzhak Rabin, Menachem
Begin, Ariel Sharon. Ironically, these former terrorists then lambasted
terrorism, applying this label only to Arabs fighting for the very same
nationhood that the Jews had fought for earlier. </span><br />
<br /><span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: x-small;">In Germany in 1968-92, the
Baader-Meinhoff Gang killed dozens, including the head of Treuhand, the German
privatization agency. In Italy , the Red Brigades kidnapped and killed Aldo
Moro, former prime minister. <br />The Japanese Red Army was an Asian version of
this. Japan was also the home of Aum Shinrikyo, a Buddhist cult that tried to
kill thousands in the Tokyo metro system using nerve gas in 1995. <br />In Europe
, the Irish Republican Army has been a Catholic terrorist organization for
almost a century. Spain and France face a terrorist challenge from ETA, the
Basque terrorist organization. </span><br />
<br /><span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: x-small;">Africa is ravaged by so much civil
war and internal strife that few people even bother to check which groups can be
labeled terrorist. They stretch across the continent. Possibly the most
notorious is the <br />Lord's Salvation Army in Uganda , a Christian outfit that
uses children as warriors. While the West amplifies the plight Muslim Darfour
region in the Sudan , the Western media has rellatively ignored this Christian
sponsored conflict next door in Uganda and the Eastern Congo that has done
horrendous crimes against women and children.</span><br />
<br /><span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: x-small;">Tamil Tigers have long constituted
one of the most vicious and formidable terrorist groups in the world. They were
the first to train children as terrorists. They happen to be Hindus. Suicide
bombing is widely associated with Muslim Palestinians and Iraqis, but the Tamil
Tigers were the first to use this tactic on a large scale and surprisingly more
suicide bombings have been associated with Tiger (400+ in 2003-2007) than all
bombings in Iraq and Afghanistan combined. One such suicide bomber assassinated
Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi in 1991. </span><br />
<br /><span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: x-small;">In India , the militants in Kashmir
are Muslim. But they are only one of several militant groups. The Punjab
militants, led by Bhindranwale, were Sikhs. The United Liberation Front of Assam
is a Hindu terrorist group that targets Muslims rather than the other way round.
Tripura has witnessed the rise and fall of several terrorist groups, and so have
Bodo strongholds in Assam . Christian Mizos mounted an insurrection for decades,
and Christian Nagas are still heading militant groups. </span><br />
<br /><span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: x-small;">But most important of all are the
Maoist terrorist groups that now exist in no less than 150 out of India 's 600
districts. They have attacked police stations, and killed and razed entire
villages that oppose them. These are secular terrorists (like the Baader Meinhof
Gang or Red Brigades). In terms of membership and area controlled, secular
terrorists are far ahead of Muslim terrorists. </span><br />
<br /><span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: x-small;">In sum, terrorism is certainly not a
Muslim monopoly. There are or have been terrorist groups among Christians, Jews,
Hindus, Sikhs, and even Buddhists. Secular terrorists (anarchists, Maoists) have
been the biggest killers in India . <br />Why then is there such a widespread
impression that most or all terrorist groups are Muslim? I see two reasons.
First, the Indian elite keenly and blindly follows the western media (they are
the Brown British of the British Raj today, used to eating Roti and Roast Beef
and BigMacs), and the West feels under attack from Islamic groups. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: x-small;">Catholic Irish terrorists have killed far
more people in Britain than Muslims, yet the subway bombings in London and
Madrid are what Europeans remember today. The Baader Meinhof Gang, IRA and Red
Brigades no longer pose much of a threat, but after 9/11 Americans and Europeans
fear that they could be hit anywhere anytime. So they focus attention on Islamic
militancy. They pay little notice to other forms of terrorism in Africa, Sri
Lanka or India : these pose no threat to the West. <br />Within India , Maoists
pose a far greater threat than Muslim militants in 150 districts, one-third of
India 's area. But major cities feel threatened only by Muslim groups. So the
national elite and media focus overwhelmingly on Muslim terrorism. The elite are
hardly aware that this is an elite phenomenon.</span> <br />
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: x-small;">The real threat to India today are the
Maouist groups who are getting bigger in numbers, exponentially, now being
joined also by poor Muslims youth especially in South India.</span> <br />
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: x-small;">“First they ignore you, then they
ridicule you, then they break your bones, then you win" Mahatma Gandh</span>
<br />
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: x-small;">Terrorism is not a new phenomenon of the
last few decades. It just has acquired a newer flavour. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: x-small;">It was there when man lived in caves, to
the Middle Ages, to the classical Egyptian/Greek/Roman empires, to the European
colonial era, to communist era, to the Nazis, to apartheid era, and today.
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: x-small;">When we talk about terrorism it is not
only by a group of individuals but also the states.</span> <br />
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: x-small;">Since mankind started to live in
communities it found a need to establish law and order in order to provide
equity amongst the individuals sharing common resources. When this social order
establishes injustices and ignores the inherent rights of others and
disenfranchises the weak, then there are always a few who would take the law
into their own hands without the consent of the community because the community
has been rendered impotent by the greed of the most powerful. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: x-small;">When such disenfranchised groups get
organized, both the powerful elite and the group of angry individuals have a
showdown. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: x-small;">This is when both the parties lose their
moral values of human decency on the pretext that "the end justifies the means"
and this is when the innocent civilians get caught in the fight as the so called
"co-lateral damage". </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: x-small;">This carnage of the civilians in their
midst continues until the injustices are addressed by the reasonable and
thinking people and communities of the world. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: x-small;">For that reason the root of the post war
resurgence in terrorism, whether one likes it or not, started and happens to be
the plight of the six million Palestinians (both 15% Christians and 85% Muslims)
who have been made homeless and humiliated for the last six decades or more and
the unconditional support given to the state of Israel by some of the guilt
ridden leadership in Europe, US and in the West, because of Europe's Nazi past.
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: x-small;">The fact that these "terrorists" are born
in the Muslims homes is incidental because Palestine has evoked natural
sympathies from Muslims youth of the world in the beginning but now has evoked
the same sympathies (the Gaza Flotilla) from the previously indifferent youth
of the West too who were not only brought up in Christian homes but also in the
Jewish homes too. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: x-small;">Remember that apartheid South Africa
collapsed not only when the disenfranchised poor black communities were marching
and protesting on the streets but when the youth of the world started marching
with them in their own cities of the world in the seventies and eighties.
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: x-small;">Also, more importantly, apartheid regime
collapsed because the children of the white parents who supported apartheid in S
Africa also started questioning their parents' crimes against humanity such that
it not only bankrupted South Africa but also began to tear apart their white
family structure too.</span><br />
</div>
<div class="blogger-post-footer">http://thecitizenstrust.blogspot.com is a blog run by the admin of the facebook group 'The Citizen's Trust for Victims of Terror' it is a voluntary group with no formal associations with any political party or group.</div>SOAP BOXhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04514006243211979566noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5992656860273359959.post-1390431087719681902012-09-09T11:29:00.001+05:002012-09-09T11:29:34.877+05:00ISI: US Special Forces Back Terror Attack on Pakistan’s Kamra Base<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<br />
<b>ISI: US Special Forces Back Terror Attack on Pakistan’s Kamra Base</b>
<br />
<b>Militants who attacked the Minhas Air Base in the aviation city of Kamra
had highly-sophisticated equipment and possessed a very tactical standard of
guerrilla warfare training which no ordinary Taliban brigade has.</b> <br />
by <a href="http://www.veteranstoday.com/author/khalid/">Zaki Khalid</a> <br />
<b><a href="http://www.veteranstoday.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/jsoc1.jpg"><img border="0" height="256" src="http://www.veteranstoday.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/jsoc1.jpg" width="342" /></a></b> <br />
<b>As the sacred Islamic month of Ramadan was at its peak in Pakistan, the
serene city of Kamra near Islamabad (known as the <i>Aviation City</i> for
housing a number of aircraft production/maintenance factories) was <a href="http://www.terminalx.org/2012/08/pak-special-forces-antiterror-op-at-minhas-base.html">attacked
by a horde of terrorists</a> in the dark hours of the night.</b> <br />
The final overview of the attack made it clear that it was, fortunately, a
humiliating failure for the improvised militants whose core objective was to
give a series of strategic blows to the Pakistani military, especially the
airforce since two very important assets of the country were parked at that
base: JF-17 Thunder jets which were jointly manufactured with China and the Saab
AWACS tasked with gathering aerial intelligence for the country’s defence
establishment. <br />
Had this terror operation proven successful, another major loss for the
Pakistan Air Force would have taken place like the one before it when
similarly-trained guerrillas managed to destroy Orion surveillance planes at the
PNS Mehran base in the port city of Karachi. <br />
However, thanks to the enhanced training for Pakistani Special Forces
regiments such as the Special Services Group (SSG) Commandos and the exclusive
Special Service Wing (SSW) Commandos of the airforce, a dreadful repeat was
averted. Like the previous occurrence, the fingers were immediately raised
towards India as the arch-rival. <br />
But as my team <a href="http://www.terminalx.org/2011/05/tx-report-jsoc-attack-on-pns-mehran.html">presented
in its report last year</a>, this assertion is what was planned by the actual
layout officials. The assortment of sophisticated hi-tech equipment, ammunition
and training which the terrorists had was found to be too advanced for what the
Indian intelligence RAW is capable of. <br />
As always, machine guns, rocket-propelled grenades were found along with
suicide jackets. This time, there was a new addition: For the attack on PNS
Mehran in Karachi, the militants then had static preset coordinates set for the
operation and communicated just via satellite phones; but during the recent
attack on Kamra, the terrorists besides these had real-time GPS enabled
touchpads fixed on their bodies, two BlackBerry smartphones (<i>exact</i>
<i>quantity could not be confirmed from secondary source</i>), infrared devices,
daggers inside pockets and more items which were not disclosed by sources for
various reasons. <br />
As always, the planners always forget to leave their marks (mostly by
accident), and this time the mark they left was that the GPS devices were of a
make used only by US troops. They might not have had the intention to let the
devices come in Pakistani hands since the recruits were strapped with suicide
vests to blow themselves off after the stunt, but the vest-strapped attackers
were all gunned down by sniper shots where only one blew himself up beforehand.
This helped forensic experts from the ISI and MI gather evidence which remained
intact. Using BlackBerry phones was a smart option because of its highly secure
encrypted communication logs. <br />
In an ominous backdrop, just a day before the attack, Leon Panetta <a href="http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2012-08-15/pakistan/33216067_1_nuclear-weapons-nuclear-power-terrorists">held
a press conference</a> at the Pentagon in which he said: <br />
<b><i>“The great danger we’ve always feared is that if terrorism is not
controlled in their country (Pakistan), then those nuclear weapons could fall
into the wrong hands”</i></b> <br />
I am not saying that the attack was planned right after that overnight.
Surely such pinpoint operations take months of regular practice before the
recruits are sent on their mission by being told that they are ‘<i>doing a great
service to Islam</i>‘. <br />
The attacks are executed on symbolic occasions: that night was the most
holiest night of Ramadan in the country and the Independence Day (August 14) had
just passed. Pakistani security officials have maintained that almost all
militants who come from Afghanistan are jointly trained by the Afghan NDS and
Indian RAW or directly by the US, in this case the latter was found involved
knee-deep. <br />
<b>“It is very easy to assess that the attackers were backed by a group more
technologically advanced since the Afghan intelligence has considerably zero
TECHINT capability and neither did our ground sources find any archived leads
which showed that the Indian RAW had links to this particular misadventure,”
said an official on condition of anonymity. “Almost all the militants were
traced to the Khost area of Afghanistan. Leads from that region suggest that
<u>majority of the attackers comprised of recruits from various<i> Kandaks
(battalions) </i>of the Afghan National Army Commando Brigade working under the
directorate of the US Special Operations forces had been trained for incursion
into Pakistan</u>. They were deployed to the mainland of the country for a grand
operation and had local assistance by Pakistani militia also”.</b> <br />
The Minhas Air Base has a false notion attributed to it. Miscreant
journalists tasked with writing propaganda such as Declan Walsh of Guardian fame
(now in the New York Times) wrote an article on the attack with the crispy
headline ‘<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/17/world/asia/pakistani-air-force-base-with-nuclear-ties-is-attacked.html"><i>Pakistani
Air Force base with nuclear ties is attacked</i></a>‘. <br />
Just where the heck did he come out with the supposed relation is beyond
many; since my primary subject of discourse is intelligence affairs, I happen to
be a regular reader of the DEBKAFile website which has close ties to the Israeli
intelligence. The site had written a report titled ‘<a href="http://www.debka.com/article/20505/Two-Pakistani-N-bombs-available-to-Saudi-Arabia"><i>Two
Pakistani N-bombs available to Saudi Arabia</i></a>‘. An excerpt from the
article reads: <br />
<b><i>‘Saudi Arabia has jumped ahead of Iran by obtaining the use of two
Pakistani nuclear bombs or guided missile warheads. debkafile’s Gulf sources
believe the weapons are ready for delivery upon royal summons in Pakistan’s
nuclear air base at Kamra in the northern district of Attock. Already delivered
is a quantity of Pakistan’s Ghauri-II missile with an extended range of 2,300
kilometers. They are tucked away in silos in the underground city of
Al-Sulaiyil, south of the capital Riyadh’</i></b> <br />
Pakistan indeed has nuclear cooperation with Saudi Arabia but the details
aforementioned are quite distorted and far from reality. This is a separate
topic for discussion and might be highlighted later someday. What is to be noted
above is that it is <i>DEBKAFile</i> which is the first known news source to
allege Kamra as a nuclear base whereas it is not factually true. <br />
The Minhas Air Base was never used for emergency nuclear assembly neither is
Pakistan’s National Command Authority so unprofessional that it will store
disassembled warheads on a base which is in a region infested with growing
threats from the <a href="http://www.veteranstoday.com/2012/07/13/cia-punjabi-taliban-and-urban-guerrilla-warfare-in-pakistan/">CIA-sponsored
Punjabi Taliban</a>. For the part, this proves Mr. Walsh’s research is either
absolutely faulty or it was purposely added for nefarious reasons known better
to himself. <br />
It has long been an American strategy to push for an Indo-Pakistan war.
Admiral Mullen was <a href="http://tribune.com.pk/story/29551/mullen-fears-repeat-of-2008-mumbai-attacks/">the
first to push for one</a>, and so was McRaven, who is now at SOCOM. His
successor Lt Gen Joseph Votel is proving to be even more of an enthusiastic
officer. What is clear though is that whichever special operations team was
involved, SOCOM or JSOC, the quality of intelligence which the attackers had was
courtesy of the notorious CIA. <br />
To be honest, the US gains nothing by destroying the Saabs and JF-17s under
Pakistan’s possession. All this was meant, as I have been consistently saying,
to provoke Pakistan into triggering a regional war. India could surely have
garnered strategic leverage but it could not afford a misadventure into Pakistan
of this magnitude. India’s RAW in association with the CIA already has its hands
full providing for the TTP militancy in northern and central Pakistan. <br />
I personally think that the American Task Force 373 (TF373) could be behind
this attack keeping in light its bloody past and bases in Khost and Kunar from
where major terrorism comes into Pakistan. However, it might not be so since the
TF373 act as more of standalone contractors rather than trainers and the level
of training imparted to the terrorist Afghan Commandos was very high which can
lead one to safely suggest that such specified exercise could only be the
handiwork of the elite US Special Operations forces scattered across
Afghanistan. <br />
But then why did the TTP accept responsibility for the attack? <br />
<b>“Routine PR,” says the official. “Tomorrow a false-flag happens in Europe
or the US, they will be told to come out again and <i>‘accept
responsibility’</i>. Its all about repeatedly stressing that Waziristan is the
supposed epicentre of global terror. </b><br />
<b>The Kamra attack is a notable addition to this demand. They are
challenging the Pakistan Army to come to North Waziristan and believe me, the
military leadership including General Kayani <i>do not</i> want to go
there”.</b> <br />
“Has the military expressed its concerns with the government?” I asked. <br />
“Yes it has. But to no avail”, came the reply. <br />
<h4>
Conclusion</h4>
I would like to reiterate what I briefed in my <a href="http://www.presstv.ir/usdetail/247653.html">interview to Press TV</a> not
long ago. It provides a comprehensive summary of why the US is constantly
provoking Pakistan’s military establishment and what adverse effects it could
have for the entire world. Please spare out some minutes to listen to my
statement: <br />
<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KS9--J174A4&feature=player_embedded">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KS9--J174A4&feature=player_embedded</a>
<br />
<b><i>Zaki Khalid is the Director and Chief Editor of <a href="http://www.terminalx.org/">www.terminalx.org</a>, Pakistan's most
authoritative portal on Defence, Intelligence and Geopolitics.</i></b> <br />
<b><a href="http://www.veteranstoday.com/2012/08/29/pakistani-intelligence-officials-say-afghan-commandos-trained-by-us-special-forces-behind-kamra-attack/">Source
of article</a></b><br />
</div>
<div class="blogger-post-footer">http://thecitizenstrust.blogspot.com is a blog run by the admin of the facebook group 'The Citizen's Trust for Victims of Terror' it is a voluntary group with no formal associations with any political party or group.</div>SOAP BOXhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04514006243211979566noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5992656860273359959.post-32068106011202500492012-08-30T13:13:00.001+05:002012-08-30T13:13:52.279+05:00Measuring Life<p><font face="Times New Roman"><font size="3"><b><i></i></b></font></font> </p> <p><font face="Times New Roman"><font size="3"><b><i>The paradox of our time in history is that we have taller buildings but shorter tempers, wider Freeways ,</i></b><b><i> </i></b></font></font><font face="Times New Roman"><font size="3"><b><i>but narrower viewpoints. We spend more, but have less, we buy more, but enjoy less. We have bigger houses and smaller families, more conveniences, but less time. We have more degrees but less sense, more knowledge, but less judgment, more experts, yet more problems, more medicine, but less wellness. </i></b></font></font></p> <p><font face="Times New Roman"><font size="3"><b><i>  <br />We drink too much, smoke too much, spend too recklessly, laugh too little, drive too fast, get too angry, stay up too late, get up too tired, read too little, watch TV too much, and pray too seldom.</i></b><b> </b></font></font><b><i> <br /><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">We have multiplied our possessions, but reduced our values. We talk too much, love too seldom, and hate too often. <br /></font></i></b></p> <p><b><i><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">We've learned how to make a living, but not a life. We've added years to life not life to years. We've been all the way to the moon and back, but have trouble crossing the street to meet a new neighbor. We conquered outer space but not inner space. We've done larger things, but not better things.  <br /></font></i></b></p> <p><b><i><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">We've cleaned up the air, but polluted the soul. We've conquered the atom, but not our prejudice. We write more, but learn less. We plan more, but accomplish less. We've learned to rush, but not to wait. We build more computers to hold more information, to produce more copies than ever, but we communicate less and less.  <br />These are the times of fast foods and slow digestion, big men and small character, steep profits and shallow relationships. These are the days of two incomes but more divorce, fancier houses, but broken homes. </font></i></b></p> <p><b><i><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">These are days of quick trips, disposable diapers, throwaway morality, one night stands, overweight bodies, and pills that do everything from cheer, to quiet, to kill. It is a time when there is much in the showroom window and nothing in the stockroom A time when technology can bring this letter to you, and a time when you can choose either to share this insight, or to just hit delete...  <br />Remember; spend some time with your loved ones, because they are not going to be around forever. <br /></font></i></b></p> <p><b><i><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">Remember, say a kind word to someone who looks up to you in awe, because that little person soon will grow up and leave your side.  <br />Remember, to give a warm hug to the one next to you, because that is the only treasure you can give with your heart and it doesn't cost a cent. <br />Remember, to say, 'I love you' to your partner and your loved ones, but most of all mean it. A kiss and an embrace will mend hurt when it comes from deep inside of you. </font></i></b></p> <b><i><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"> <p> <br />Remember to hold hands and cherish the moment for someday that person will not be there again <br />Give time to love, give time to speak! And give time to share the precious thoughts in your mind. <br /></p> <p>AND ALWAYS REMEMBER:  <br />Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away.</p> </font></i></b> <div class="blogger-post-footer">http://thecitizenstrust.blogspot.com is a blog run by the admin of the facebook group 'The Citizen's Trust for Victims of Terror' it is a voluntary group with no formal associations with any political party or group.</div>SOAP BOXhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04514006243211979566noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5992656860273359959.post-79028493664290972622012-08-17T12:22:00.001+05:002012-08-17T12:22:36.238+05:00Mullahs and Heretics<h3> </h3> <h4><font style="font-weight: bold"><em>Tariq Ali</em></font></h4> <p><a href="http://ads.lrb.co.uk/www/delivery/ck.php?oaparams=2__bannerid=36__zoneid=9__source=%2F1%2FBRAND%2FPK%2FRW%2F__cb=cd21b94f10__oadest=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.lrb.co.uk%2FHedFba01GL">You are invited to read this free essay from the <i>London Review of Books</i>. Subscribe now to access every article from every fortnightly issue of the <em>London Review of Books</em>, including the entire LRB archive of over 12,500 essays and reviews.</a></p> <p><img alt="" src="http://ads.lrb.co.uk/www/delivery/lg.php?bannerid=36&campaignid=18&zoneid=9&source=/1/BRAND/PK/RW/&loc=1&referer=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.lrb.co.uk%2Fv24%2Fn03%2Ftariq-ali%2Fmullahs-and-heretics&cb=cd21b94f10" width="0" height="0" /></p> <p>I never believed in God, not even between the ages of six and ten, when I was an agnostic. This unbelief was instinctive. I was sure there was nothing else out there but space. It could have been my lack of imagination. In the jasmine-scented summer nights, long before mosques were allowed to use loudspeakers, it was enough to savour the silence, look up at the exquisitely lit sky, count the shooting stars and fall asleep. The early morning call of the muezzin was a pleasant alarm-clock.</p> <p>There were many advantages in being an unbeliever. Threatened with divine sanctions by family retainers, cousins or elderly relatives – ‘If you do that Allah will be angry’ or ‘If you don’t do this Allah will punish you’ – I was unmoved. Let him do his worst, I used to tell myself, but he never did, and that reinforced my belief in his non-existence.</p> <p>My parents, too, were non-believers. So were most of their close friends. Religion played a tiny part in our Lahore household. In the second half of the last century, a large proportion of educated Muslims had embraced modernity. Old habits persisted, nonetheless: the would-be virtuous made their ablutions and sloped off to Friday prayers. Some fasted for a few days each year, usually just before the new moon marking the end of Ramadan. I doubt whether more than a quarter of the population in the cities fasted for a whole month. Café life continued unabated. Many claimed that they had fasted so as to take advantage of the free food doled out at the end of each fasting day by the mosques or the kitchens of the wealthy. In the countryside fewer still fasted, since outdoor work was difficult without sustenance, and especially without water when Ramadan fell during the summer months. Eid, the festival marking the end of Ramadan, was celebrated by everyone.</p> <p>One day, I think in the autumn of 1956 when I was 12, I was eavesdropping on an after-dinner conversation at home. My sister, assorted cousins and I had been asked nicely to occupy ourselves elsewhere. Obediently, we moved to an adjoining room, but then listened, giggling, to a particularly raucous, wooden-headed aunt and a bony uncle berating my parents in loud whispers: ‘We know what you’re like . . . we know you’re unbelievers, but these children should be given a chance . . . They must be taught their religion.’</p> <p>The giggles were premature. A few months later a tutor was hired to teach me the Koran and Islamic history. ‘You live here,’ my father said. ‘You should study the texts. You should know our history. Later you may do as you wish. Even if you reject everything, it’s always better to know what it is that one is rejecting.’ Sensible enough advice, but regarded by me at the time as hypocritical and a betrayal. How often had I heard talk of superstitious idiots, often relatives, who worshipped a God they didn’t have the brains to doubt? Now I was being forced to study religion. I was determined to sabotage the process.</p> <p>It didn’t occur to me at the time that my father’s decision may have had something to do with an episode from his own life. In 1928, aged 12, he had accompanied his mother and his old wet-nurse (my grandmother’s most trusted maid) on the pilgrimage to perform the<em>hajj</em> ceremony. Women, then as now, could visit Mecca only if they were accompanied by a male more than 12 years old. The older men flatly refused to go. My father, as the youngest male in the family, wasn’t given a choice. His older brother, the most religious member of the family, never let him forget the pilgrimage: his letters to my father always arrived with the prefix ‘al-Haj’ (‘pilgrim’) attached to the name, a cause for much merriment at teatime.</p> <p>Decades later, when the pores of the Saudi elite were sweating petro-dollars, my father would remember the poverty he had seen in the Hijaz and recall the tales of non-Arab pilgrims who had been robbed on the road to Mecca. In the pre-oil period, the annual pilgrimage had been a major source of income for the locals, who would often augment their meagre earnings with well-organised raids on pilgrims’ lodgings. The ceremony itself requires that the pilgrim come clothed in a simple white sheet and nothing else. All valuables have to be left behind and local gangs became especially adept at stealing watches and gold. Soon, the more experienced pilgrims realised that the ‘pure souls’ of Mecca weren’t above thieving. They began to take precautions, and a war of wits ensued.</p> <p>Several years after the trip to the Holy Land my father became an orthodox Communist and remained one for the rest of his life. Moscow was now his Mecca. Perhaps he thought that immersing me in religion at a young age might result in a similar transformation. I like to think that this was his real motive, and that he wasn’t pandering to the more dim-witted members of our family. I came to admire my father for breaking away from what he described as ‘the emptiness of the feudal world’.<a href="http://www.lrb.co.uk/v24/n03/tariq-ali/mullahs-and-heretics#fn-01">[1]</a></p> <p>Since I did not read Arabic, I could learn the Koran only by rote. My tutor, Nizam Din, arrived on the appointed day and thanks to his heroic efforts, I can at least recite the lines from the opening of the Koran – ‘Alif, lam, mim . . .’ – followed by the crucial: ‘This book is not to be doubted.’ Nizam Din, to my great delight, was not deeply religious. From his late teens to his late twenties, he had worn a beard. But by 1940 he’d shaved it off, deserted religion for the anti-imperialist cause and dedicated himself to left-wing politics. Like many others he had served a spell in a colonial prison and been further radicalised. Truth, he would say, was a very powerful concept in the Koran, but it had never been translated into practical life because the mullahs had destroyed Islam.</p> <p>Nizam Din soon realised that I was bored by learning Koranic verses and we started to spend the allotted hour discussing history: the nationalist struggle against British imperialism, the origins of terrorism in Bengal and the Punjab, and the story of the Sikh terrorist Bhagat Singh, who had thrown a bomb in the Punjab Legislative Assembly to protest against repressive legislation and the 1919 massacre of Jallianwallah Bagh. Once imprisoned, he had refused to plead for mercy, but renounced terrorism as a tactic and moved closer to traditional Marxism. He was tried in secret and executed by the British in the Central Jail in Lahore, a 15-minute walk from where Nizam Din was telling me the story. ‘If he had lived,’ Nizam Din used to say, ‘he would have become a leader the British really feared. And look at us now. Just because he was a Sikh, we haven’t even marked his martyrdom with a monument.’</p> <p>Nizam Din remembered the good times when all the villages in what was now Pakistan had Hindu and Sikh inhabitants; many of his non-Muslim friends had now left for India. ‘They are pygmies,’ he would say of Pakistan’s politicians. ‘Do you understand what I’m saying, Tariqji? Pygmies! Look at India. Observe the difference. Gandhi was a giant. Jawaharlal Nehru is a giant.’ Over the years I learned far more about history, p0litics and everyday life from Nizam Din than I ever learned at school. But his failure to interest me in religion had been noted.</p> <p>A young maternal uncle, who had grown a beard at an early age, volunteered to take on the task. His weekly visits to our house, which coincided with my return from school, irritated me greatly. We would pace the garden while, in unctuous tones, he related a version of Islamic history which, like him, was unconvincing and dull. There were endless tales of heroism, with the Prophet raised to the stature of a divinity, and a punitive Allah. As he droned on, I would watch the kites flying and tangling with each other in the afternoon sky, mentally replay a lost game of marbles, or look forward to the Test match between Pakistan and the West Indies. Anything but religion. After a few weeks he, too, gave up, announcing that my unbeliever’s inheritance was too strong.</p> <p>During the summer months, when the heat in the plains became unbearable, we would flee to the Himalayan foothills, to Nathiagali, then a tiny, isolated hill resort perched on a ridge in a thick pine forest and overlooked by the peaks. Here, in a relaxed atmosphere with almost no social restrictions, I met Pashtun boys and girls from the frontier towns of Peshawar and Mardan, and children from Lahore whom I rarely saw during the winter became summer friends. I acquired a taste for freedom. We had favourite hiding places: mysterious cemeteries where the tombstones had English names on them (many had died young) and a deserted Gothic church that had been charred by lightning.</p> <p>We also explored the many burned houses. How were they burned? I would ask the locals. Back would come the casual reply. ‘They belonged to Hindus and Sikhs. Our fathers and uncles burned them.’ Why? ‘So they could never come back, of course.’ Why? ‘Because we are now Pakistan. Their home is India.’ Why, I persisted, when they had lived here for centuries, just like your families, and spoke the same language, even if they worshipped different gods? The only reply was a shrug. It was strange to think that Hindus and Sikhs had been here, had been killed in the villages in the valleys below. In the tribal areas – the no-man’s-land between Afghanistan and Pakistan – quite a few Hindus stayed on, protected by tribal codes. The same was true in Afghanistan itself (till the mujahedin and the Taliban arrived).</p> <p>One of my favourite spots in Nathiagali lay between two giant oaks. From here one could watch the sun set on Nanga Parbat. The snow covering the peak would turn orange, then crimson, bathing the entire valley in its light. Here we would breathe the air from China, gaze in the direction of Kashmir and marvel at the moon. Given all this, why would one need a multi-layered heaven, let alone the seventh layer that belonged to us alone – the Islamic paradise?</p> <p>One day, to my horror, my mother informed me that a mullah from a neighbouring mountain village had been hired to make sure I completed my study of the Koran. She had pre-empted all my objections. He would explain what each verse meant. My summer was about to be wrecked. I moaned, groaned, protested, pleaded and tantrumed. To no avail. My friends were sympathetic, but powerless: most of them had undergone the same ritual.</p> <p>Mullahs, especially the rural variety, were objects of ridicule, widely regarded as dishonest, hypocritical and lazy. It was generally believed that they had grown beards and chosen this path not out of spiritual fervour, but in order to earn a crust. Unless attached to a mosque, they depended on voluntary contributions, tuition fees and free meals. The jokes about them mostly concerned their sexual appetites; in particular, a penchant for boys below a certain age. The fictional mullah of the storytellers and puppet-shows who travelled from village to village was a greedy and lustful arch-villain; he used religion to pursue his desires and ambitions. He humiliated and cheated the poor peasants, while toadying to landlords and potentates.</p> <p>On the dreaded day, the mullah arrived and, after eating a hearty lunch, was introduced to me by our family retainer, Khuda Baksh (‘God Bless’), who had served in my grandfather’s household and because of his status and age enjoyed a familiarity denied to other servants. God Bless was bearded, a staunch believer in the primacy of Islam, and said his prayers and fasted regularly. He was, however, deeply hostile to the mullahs, whom he regarded as pilferers, perverts and parasites. He smiled as the mullah, a man of medium height in his late fifties, exchanged greetings with me. We took our seats round a garden table placed to catch the warming sun. The afternoon chorus was in full flow. The air smelled of sun-roasted pine needles and wild strawberries.</p> <p>When the mullah began to speak I noticed he was nearly toothless. The rhymed verse at once lost its magic. The few false teeth he had wobbled. I began to wonder if it would happen, and then it did: he became so excited with fake emotion that the false teeth dropped out onto the table. He smiled, picked them up and put them back in his mouth. At first, I managed to restrain myself, but then I heard a suppressed giggle from the veranda and made the mistake of turning round. God Bless, who had stationed himself behind a large rhododendron to eavesdrop on the lesson, was choking with silent laughter. I excused myself and rushed indoors.</p> <p>The following week, God Bless dared me to ask the mullah a question before the lesson began. ‘Were your false teeth supplied by the local butcher?’ I enquired with an innocent expression, in an ultra-polite voice. The mullah asked me to leave: he wished to see my mother alone. A few minutes later he, too, left, never to return. Later that day he was sent an envelope full of money to compensate him for my insolence. God Bless and I celebrated his departure in the bazaar café with mountain tea and home-made biscuits. My religious studies ended there. My only duty was to substitute for my father once a year and accompany the male servants to Eid prayers at the mosque, a painless enough task.</p> <p>Some years later, when I came to Britain to study, the first group of people I met were hard-core rationalists. I might have missed the Humanist Group’s stall at the Fresher’s Fair had it not been for a spotty Irishman, dressed in a faded maroon corduroy jacket, with a mop of untidy dark brown hair, standing on a table and in a melodious, slightly breathless voice shouting: ‘Down with God!’ When he saw me staring, he smiled and added ‘and Allah’ to the refrain. I joined on the spot and was immediately roped into becoming the Humanist rep at my college. Some time afterwards when I asked how he had known I was of Muslim origin rather than a Hindu or a Zoroastrian, he replied that his chant only affected Muslims and Catholics. Hindus, Sikhs and Protestants ignored him completely.</p> <p>My knowledge of Islamic history remained slender and, as the years progressed, Pakistan regressed. Islamic studies were made compulsory in the 1970s, but children were given only a tiny sprinkling of history on a foundation of fairytales and mythology. My interest in Islam lay dormant till the Third Oil War in 1990.<a href="http://www.lrb.co.uk/v24/n03/tariq-ali/mullahs-and-heretics#fn-02">[2]</a>The Second Oil War in 1967 had seen Israel, backed by the West, inflict a severe defeat on Arab nationalism, one from which it never really recovered. The 1990 war was accompanied in the West by a wave of crude anti-Arab propaganda. The level of ignorance displayed by most pundits and politicians distressed me, and I began to ask myself questions which, until then, had seemed barely relevant. Why had Islam not undergone a Reformation? Why had the Ottoman Empire not been touched by the Enlightenment? I began to study Islamic history, and later travelled to the regions where it had been made, especially those in which its clashes with Christendom had taken place.</p> <p>Judaism, Christianity and Islam all began as versions of what we would today describe as political movements. They were credible belief-systems which aimed to make it easier to resist imperial oppression, to unite a disparate people, or both. If we look at early Islam in this light, it becomes apparent that its Prophet was a visionary political leader and its triumphs a vindication of his action programme. Bertrand Russell once compared early Islam to Bolshevism, arguing that both were ‘practical, social, unspiritual, concerned to win the empire of this world’. By contrast, he saw Christianity as ‘personal’ and ‘contemplative’. Whether or not the comparison is apt, Russell had grasped that the first two decades of Islam had a distinctly Jacobin feel. Sections of the Koran have the vigour of a political manifesto, and at times the tone in which it addresses its Jewish and Christian rivals is as factional as that of any left-wing organisation. The speed with which it took off was phenomenal. Academic discussion as to whether the new religion was born in the Hijaz or Jerusalem or elsewhere is essentially of archaeological interest. Whatever its precise origins, Islam replaced two great empires and soon reached the Atlantic coast. At its height three Muslim empires dominated large parts of the globe: the Ottomans with Istanbul as their capital, the Safavids in Persia and the Mughal dynasty in India.</p> <p>A good place for a historian of Islam to start would be 629 AD, or Year 8 of the new Muslim calendar, though that had yet to come into being. In that year, 20 armed horsemen, led by Sa’d ibn Zayd, were sent by Muhammad to destroy the statue of Manat, the pagan goddess of fate, at Qudayd, on the road between Mecca and Medina. For eight years Muhammad had tolerated the uneasy coexistence of the pagan male god Allah and his three daughters: al-Lat, al-Uzza and Manat. Al-Uzza (the morning star, Venus) was the favourite goddess of the Quraysh, the tribe to which Muhammad belonged, but Manat was the most popular in the region as a whole, and was idolised by three key Meccan tribes that Muhammad had been desperately trying to win over to his new monotheistic religion. By Year 8, however, three important military victories had been won against rival pagan and Jewish forces. The Battle of Badr had seen Muhammad triumph against the Meccan tribes despite the smallness of his army. The tribes had been impressed by the muscularity of the new religion, and Muhammad must have deemed further ideological compromise unnecessary. Sa’d ibn Zayd and his 20 horsemen had arrived to enforce the new monotheism.</p> <p>The keeper of Manat’s sanctuary saw the horsemen approach, but remained silent as they dismounted. No greetings were exchanged. Their demeanour indicated that they had not come to honour Manat or to leave a token offering. The keeper didn’t stand in their way. According to Islamic tradition, as Sa’d ibn Zayd approached the beautifully carved statue of Manat, a naked black woman seemed to emerge from nowhere. The keeper called out: ‘Come, O Manat, show the anger of which you are capable!’ Manat began to pull out her hair and beat her breasts in despair, while cursing her tormentors. Sa’d beat her to death. Only then did his 20 companions join him. Together they hacked away until they had destroyed the statue. The sanctuaries of al-Lat and al-Uzza were dealt with in similar fashion, probably on the same day.</p> <p>A seventh-century prophet could not become the true spiritual leader of a tribal community without exercising political leadership and, in the Peninsula, mastering the basics of horsemanship, sword-play and military strategy. Muhammad had understood the need to delay the final breach with polytheism until he and his companions were less isolated. However, once the decision to declare a strict monotheism was taken, no concessions were granted. The Christian Church had been forced into a permanent compromise with its pagan forebears, allowing its new followers to worship a woman who had conceived a child by God. Muhammad, too, could have picked one of Allah’s daughters to form part of a new constellation – this might even have made it easier to attract recruits – but factional considerations acted as a restraint: a new religious party had to distinguish itself forcefully from Christianity, its main monotheistic rival, while simultaneously marginalising the appeal of contemporary paganism. The oneness of a patriarchal Allah appeared the most attractive option, essential not only to demonstrate the weakness of Christianity, but also to break definitively with the dominant cultural practices of the Peninsula Arabs, with their polyandry and their matrilinear past. Muhammad himself had been the third and youngest husband of his first wife, Khadija, who died three years before the birth of the Islamic calendar.</p> <p>Historians of Islam, following Muhammad’s lead, would come to refer to the pre-Islamic period as the <em>jahiliyya</em> (‘the time of ignorance’), but the influence of its traditions should not be underestimated. For the pre-Islamic tribes, the past was the preserve of poets, who also served as historians, blending myth and fact in odes designed to heighten tribal feeling. The future was considered irrelevant, the present all-important. One reason for the tribes’ inability to unite was that the profusion of their gods and goddesses helped to perpetuate divisions and disputes whose real origins often lay in commercial rivalries.</p> <p>Muhammad fully understood this world. He belonged to the Quraysh, a tribe that prided itself on its genealogy and claimed descent from Ishmael. Before his marriage, he had worked as one of Khadija’s employees on a merchant caravan. He travelled a great deal in the region, coming into contact with Christians, Jews, Magians and pagans of every stripe. He would have had dealings with two important neighbours: Byzantine Christians and the fire-worshipping Zoroastrians of Persia.</p> <p>Muhammad’s spiritual drive was fuelled by socio-economic ambitions: by the need to strengthen the commercial standing of the Arabs, and to impose a set of common rules. He envisioned a tribal confederation united by common goals and loyal to a single faith which, of necessity, had to be new and universal. Islam was the cement he used to unite the Arab tribes; commerce was to be the only noble occupation. This meant that the new religion was both nomadic and urban. Peasants who worked the land were regarded as servile and inferior. A <em>hadith</em> (a reported saying of Muhammad’s) quotes the Prophet’s words on sighting a ploughshare: ‘That never enters the house of the faithful without degradation entering at the same time.’ Certainly the new rules made religious observance in the countryside virtually impossible. The injunction to pray five times a day, for example, played an important part in inculcating military discipline, but was difficult to manage outside the towns. What was wanted was a community of believers in urban areas, who would meet after prayers and exchange information. Unsurprisingly, peasants found it impossible to do their work and fulfil the strict conditions demanded by the new faith. They were the last social group to accept Islam, and some of the earliest deviations from orthodoxy matured in the Muslim countryside.</p> <p>The military successes of the first Muslim armies were remarkable. The speed of their advance startled the Mediterranean world, and the contrast with early Christianity could not have been more pronounced. Within twenty years of Muhammad’s death in 632, his followers had laid the foundations of the first Islamic empire in the Fertile Crescent. Impressed by these successes, whole tribes embraced the new religion. Mosques began to appear in the desert, and the army expanded. Its swift triumphs were seen as a sign that Allah was both omnipotent and on the side of the Believers.</p> <p>These victories were no doubt possible only because the Persian and Byzantine Empires had been engaged for almost a hundred years in a war that had enfeebled both sides, alienated their populations and created an opening for the new conquerors. Syria and Egypt were part of the Byzantine Empire; Iraq was ruled by Sassanid Persia. All three now fell to the might and fervour of a unified tribal force.</p> <p>Force of numbers didn’t come into it – nor did military strategy, although the ability of the Muslim generals to manoeuvre their camel cavalry and combine it with an effective guerrilla-style infantry confused an enemy used to small-scale nomadic raids. Much more important was the active sympathy which a sizeable minority of the local people demonstrated for the invaders. A majority remained passive, waiting to see which side would prevail, but they were no longer prepared to fight for or help the old empires.</p> <p>The fervour of the unified tribes, on the other hand, cannot be explained simply by the appeal of the new religion or promises of untold pleasures in Paradise. The tens of thousands who flocked to fight under Khalid ibn al-Walid wanted the comforts of this world.<a href="http://www.lrb.co.uk/v24/n03/tariq-ali/mullahs-and-heretics#fn-03">[3]</a></p> <p>In 638, soon after the Muslim armies took Jerusalem, Caliph Umar visited the city to enforce peace terms. Like other Muslim leaders of the period, he was modestly dressed; he was also dusty from the journey, and his beard was untrimmed. Sophronius, the Patriarch of Jerusalem, who greeted him, was taken aback by Umar’s appearance and the absence of any attendant pomp. The chronicles record that he turned to a servant and said in Greek: ‘Truly this is the abomination of desolation spoken of by Daniel the Prophet as standing in the holy place.’</p> <p>The ‘abomination of desolation’ did not remain for long in Jerusalem. The strategic victories against the Byzantines and the Persians had been so easily achieved that the Believers were now filled with a sense of their own destiny. After all, they were, in their own eyes, the people whose leader was the final Prophet, the last ever to receive the message of God. Muhammad’s vision of a universal religion as precursor to a universal state had captured the imagination, and furthered the material interests, of the tribes. When German tribes took Rome in the fifth century, they insisted on certain social privileges but they succumbed to a superior culture and, with time, accepted Christianity. The Arabs who conquered Persia preserved their monopoly of power by excluding non-Arabs from military service and temporarily restricting intermarriage, but although willing to learn from the civilisations they had overpowered, they were never tempted to abandon their language, their identity or their new faith.</p> <p>The development of medicine, a discipline in which Muslims later excelled, provides an interesting example of the way knowledge travelled, was adapted and matured in the course of the first millennium. Two centuries before Islam, the city of Gondeshapur in south-western Persia became a refuge for dissident intellectuals and freethinkers facing repression in their own cities. The Nestorians of Edessa fled here in 489 after their school was closed. When, forty years later, the Emperor Justinian decreed that the school of Neoplatonic philosophers in Athens be closed, its students and teachers, too, made the long trek to Gondeshapur. News of this city of learning spread to neighbouring civilisations. Scholars from India and, according to some, even China arrived to take part in discussions with Greeks, Jews, Arabs, Christians and Syrians. The discussions ranged over a wide variety of subjects, but it was the philosophy of medicine that attracted the largest numbers.</p> <p>Theoretical instruction in medicine was supplemented by practice in a <em>bimaristan</em> (hospital), making the citizens of Gondeshapur the most cared for in the world. The first Arab who earned the title of physician, Harith bin Kalada, was later admitted to the Court of the Persian ruler Chosroes Anushirwan and a conversation between the two men was recorded by scribes. According to this the physician advised the ruler to avoid over-eating and undiluted wine, to drink plenty of water every day, to avoid sex while drunk and to have baths after meals. He is reputed to have pioneered enemas to deal with constipation.</p> <p>Medical dynasties were well established in the city by the time of the Muslim conquest in 638. Arabs began to train in Gondeshapur’s medical schools and the knowledge they acquired began to spread throughout the Muslim Empire. Treatises and documents began to flow. Ibn Sina and al-Razi, the two great Muslim philosopher-physicians of Islam, were well aware that the basis of their medical knowledge derived from a small town in Persia.</p> <p>A new Islamic civilisation emerged, in which the arts, literature and philosophy of Persia became part of a common heritage. This was an important element in the defeat by the Abbasids, the cosmopolitan Persian faction within Islam, of the narrow nationalism of the Arab Umayyads in 750. Their victory reflected the transcending of Arabism by Islam, though the last remaining prince of the Umayyads, Abdel Rahman, managed to escape to al-Andalus, where he founded a caliphate in Córdoba. Rahman had to deal with the Jewish and Christian cultures he found there, and his city came to rival Baghdad as a cosmopolitan centre.</p> <p>Caliph Umar’s successors fanned out from Egypt to North Africa. A base was established and consolidated in the Tunisian city of al-Qayrawan, and Carthage became a Muslim city. Musa bin Nusayr, the Arab governor of Ifriqiya (present-day Libya, Tunisia and most of Algeria), established the first contact with continental Europe. He received promises of support and much encouragement from Count Julian, the Exarch of Septem (Ceuta in Morocco). In April 711, Musa’s leading lieutenant, Tarik bin Ziyad, assembled an army of 7000 men, and crossed over to Europe near the rock which still bears his name, Jabal Tarik (or Gibraltar). Once again, the Muslim armies profited from the unpopul-arity of the ruling Visigoths. In July, Tarik defeated King Roderic, and the local population flocked to join the army that had rid them of an oppressive ruler. By the autumn, Córdoba and Toledo had both fallen. As it became clear that Tarik was determined to take the whole peninsula, an envious Musa bin Nusayr left Morocco with 10,000 men to join his victorious subordinate in Toledo. Together, the two armies marched north and took Zaragoza. Most of Spain was now under their control, largely thanks to the population’s refusal to defend the ancien régime. The two Muslim leaders planned to cross the Pyrenees and march to Paris.</p> <p>Rather than obtain permission from the Caliph in Damascus, however, they had merely informed him of their progress. Angered by their cavalier attitude to authority, the Commander of the Faithful dispatched messengers to summon the conquerors of Spain to the capital; they never saw Europe again. Others carried on the struggle, but the impetus was lost. At the Battle of Poitiers in October 732, Charles Martel’s forces marked the end of the first Muslim century by inflicting a sobering defeat on the soldiers of the Prophet: naval bases remained in the South of France – at Nice and Marseille, for example – but, for now, Islam was largely confined to the Iberian peninsula. A century later, the Arabs took Sicily, but could only threaten the mainland. Palermo became a city of a hundred mosques; Rome remained sacrosanct. Xenophobic northern Italians still refer to Sicilians as ‘Arabs’.</p> <p>In 958, Sancho the Fat left his cold and windy castle in the Kingdom of Navarre in search of a cure for obesity, and went south to Córdoba, the capital of the western caliphate and, thanks to Caliph Abderrahman III, Europe’s main cultural centre. Its closest rival lay in distant Mesopotamia, where a caliph from another dynasty presided over Baghdad. Both cities were renowned for their schools and libraries, musicians and poets, physicians and astronomers, mullahs and heretics, and also for their taverns and dancing girls. Córdoba had the edge in dissent. There, Islamic hegemony was not forcibly imposed; there had been genuine debates between the three religions, producing a synthesis from which native Islam benefited greatly.</p> <p>The Great Mosque in Córdoba could only have been created by men who had participated in the city’s intellectual ferment. The architects who built it in the eighth century understood that it was to represent a culture opposed to the Christian one which chose to occupy space with graven images. A mosque is intended as a void: all paths lead to emptiness, reality is affirmed through its negation. In the void, only the Word exists, but in Córdoba (and not only there) the Mosque was also intended as a political space, one in which the Koran might be discussed and analysed. The philosopher-poet Ibn Hazm would sit amid the sacred columns and chastise those Believers who refused to demonstrate the truth of ideas through argument. They would shout back that the use of the dialectic was forbidden. ‘Who has forbidden it?’ Ibn Hazm would demand, implying that they were the ones who were the enemies of true faith. In Baghdad they spoke half in admiration, half in fear, of the ‘Andalusian heresy’.</p> <p>It would be hundreds of years before this culture was obliterated. The fall of Granada, the last Muslim kingdom in al-Andalus, in 1492 marked the completion of that process: the first of Europe’s attempted final solutions was the ethnic cleansing of Muslims and Jews from the Iberian peninsula. When he visited Córdoba in 1526, Charles I of Spain rebuked his priests: ‘You have built what can be seen anywhere and destroyed what is unique.’ The remark was generous enough, but Charles had not realised that the mosque had been preserved at all only because of the church that now lay inside it.</p> <p>At the beginning of the 11th century, the Islamic world stretched from Central Asia to the Atlantic coast, though its political unity had been disrupted soon after the victory of the Abbasids. Three centres of power emerged: Baghdad, Córdoba and Cairo, each with its own caliph. Soon after the death of the Prophet, Islam had divided into two major factions, the Sunni majority and a Shia minority. The Sunnis ruled in al-Andalus, Algeria and Morocco in the Maghreb, Iran, Iraq and the regions beyond the Oxus. The Fatimid caliphs belonged to the Shia tradition, which claimed descent from the fourth Caliph, Ali, and his wife Fatima, the daughter of the Prophet. The Fatimid caliphs had ruled parts of North Africa and lived in Tunisia till a Fatimid expeditionary force under the command of the legendary Slav General Jawhar captured Egypt, and Jahwar established a dynasty complete with caliph and built a new city – Cairo.</p> <p>Each of these regions had different traditions, and each had its own material interests and needs, which determined its policy of alliances and coexistence with the non-Islamic world. Religion had played a major part in building the new empire, but its rapid growth had created the conditions for its own dismemberment. Baghdad, the most powerful of the three caliphates, lacked the military strength and the bureaucracy needed to administer such a large empire. Sectarian schisms, notably a thirty-year war between the Sunni and Shia factions, had also played their part. Key rulers, politicians and military leaders in both camps had died in the years immediately preceding the First Crusade. ‘This year,’ the historian Ibn Taghribirdi wrote in 1094, ‘is called the year of the death of caliphs and commanders.’ The deaths sparked off wars of succession in both Sunni and Shia camps, further weakening the Arab world. The notion of a monolithic and all-powerful Islamic civilisation had ceased to have any purchase by the beginning of the 11th century, and probably earlier.</p> <p>In 1099, after a forty-day siege, the Crusaders took Jerusalem. The killing lasted two whole days, at the end of which most of the Muslim population – men, women and children – had been killed. Jews had fought with Muslims to defend the city, but the entry of the Crusaders created panic. In remembrance of tradition, the Elders instructed the Jewish population to gather in the synagogue and to offer up a collective prayer. The Crusaders surrounded the building, set fire to it and made sure that every single Jew burned to death.</p> <p>News of the massacres spread slowly through the Muslim world. The Caliph al-Mustazhir was relaxing in his palace in Baghdad when the venerable <em>qadi</em><a href="http://www.lrb.co.uk/v24/n03/tariq-ali/mullahs-and-heretics#fn-04">[4]</a> Abu Sa’ad al-Harawi, his head clean-shaven in mourning, burst into the royal quarters. He had left Damascus three weeks earlier, and the scene he encountered in the palace did not please him:</p> <blockquote> <p>How dare you slumber in the shade of complacent safety, leading lives as frivolous as garden flowers, while your brothers in Syria have no dwelling place save the saddles of camels and the bellies of vultures? Blood has been spilled! Beautiful young girls have been shamed . . . Shall the valorous Arabs resign themselves to insult and the valiant Persians accept dishonour . . . Never have the Muslims been so humiliated. Never have their lands been so savagely devastated.</p> </blockquote> <p>The Crusaders settled in the region in the course of the 12th century, and many Muslim potentates, imagining that they were there to stay, began to collaborate with them commercially and militarily. A few of the Crusaders broke with Christian fundamentalism and made peace with their neighbours, but a majority continued to terrorise their Muslim and Jewish subjects, and reports of their violence circulated. In 1171, a Kurdish warrior, Salah al-Din (Saladin), defeated the Fatimid regime in Cairo and was acclaimed Sultan of Egypt. A few months later, on the death of his patron Nur al-Din, he marched to Damascus with his army and was made its Sultan. City after city accepted his suzerainty. The Caliph was afraid that Baghdad, too, would fall under the spell of the young conqueror. Though there was never any question of his assuming the Caliphate itself – caliphs had to be from the Quraysh, and Saladin was a Kurd – there may have been some concern that he would take the Caliphate under his aegis, as previous sultans had done. Saladin knew this, but he also knew that the Syrian aristocracy resented his Kurdish origins and ‘low upbringing’. It was best not to provoke them, and others like them, at a time when maximum unity was necessary. Saladin stayed away from Baghdad.</p> <p>The union of Egypt and Syria, symbolised by prayers offered in the name of the one Caliph in the mosques of Cairo and Damascus, formed the basis for a concerted assault against the Crusaders. Patiently, Saladin embarked on an undertaking that had until then proved impossible: the creation of a unified Muslim army to liberate Jerusalem. The barbarousness of the First Crusade was of enormous assistance to him in uniting his soldiers: ‘Regard the Franj,’ he exhorted them.<a href="http://www.lrb.co.uk/v24/n03/tariq-ali/mullahs-and-heretics#fn-05">[5]</a> ‘Behold with what obstinacy they fight for their religion, while we, the Muslims, show no enthusiasm for waging holy war.’<a href="http://www.lrb.co.uk/v24/n03/tariq-ali/mullahs-and-heretics#fn-06">[6]</a></p> <p>Saladin’s long march ended in victory: Jerusalem was taken in 1187 and once again made an open city. The Jews were provided with subsidies to rebuild their synagogues; the churches were left untouched. No revenge killings were permitted. Like Caliph Umar five hundred years before him, Saladin proclaimed the freedom of the city for worshippers of all faiths. But his failure to take Tyre was to prove costly. Pope Urban despatched the Third Crusade to take back the Holy City, and Tyre became the base of its operations. Its leader, Richard Plantagenet, reoccupied Acre, executing prisoners and slaughtering its inhabitants. Jerusalem, however, could not be retaken. For the next seven hundred years, with the exception of one short-lived and inconsequential Crusader occupation, the city remained under Muslim rule, and no blood was spilled.</p> <p>The Crusades had disrupted a world already in slow decline. Saladin’s victories had temporarily halted the process, but the internal structures of the Caliphate were damaged beyond repair, and new invaders were on the way. A Mongol army from Central Asia led by Timur (Marlowe’s Tamburlaine) laid siege to Baghdad in 1401, calling on the Caliph to surrender and promising that if he did so, the city would be spared. Foolish and vain till the last, the Caliph refused, and the Mongol armies sacked the city. A whole culture perished as libraries were put to the torch, and Baghdad never recovered its pre-eminence as the capital of Islamic civilisation.</p> <p>Despite its presence in India, which its armies had first entered in the eighth century, and, later, in north-western China, and despite its merchant fleets trading in the Indonesian archipelago, in southern China, and off the east and west coasts of Africa, Islam’s centre of gravity was by the 14th century moving in the direction of the Bosphorus. On four occasions Muslim armies had laid siege to Constantinople, the capital of Eastern Christianity. Each time the city had survived. But from 1300, the frontier emirate of Anatolia began slowly to eat into Byzantine territory, and in 1453 old dreams were realised and the ancient city of Byzantium acquired its present name: Istanbul. Its new ruler was Mehmet II, whose forebear, Uthman, had founded the dynasty bearing his name over a hundred years earlier.</p> <p>The Ottoman dynasty inaugurated its reign by opening a new Islamic front in South-East Europe, just as Islamic civilisation was about to collapse in the Iberian peninsula. In the course of the 14th century, the Ottomans took Hungary, swallowed the Balkans, nibbled away at the Ukraine and Poland, and threatened Vienna. Throughout the 15th and 16th centuries, a majority of Muslims lived under the rule of the Ottoman, the Safavid (Persian) or the Mughal (Indian) empires. The Sultan in Istanbul was recognised as Caliph by the majority and became the caretaker of the holy cities of Mecca and Medina. Arabic remained the religious language but Turkish became the Court vernacular, used by the ruling family and administrative and military elites throughout the Empire, though most of the religious, scientific, literary and legal vocabulary was lifted from Persian and Arabic. The Ottoman state, which was to last five hundred years, recognised and protected the rights of Christians and Jews. Many of the Jews expelled from Spain and Portugal after the Reconquest were granted refuge in Ottoman lands and a large number returned to the Arab world, settling not just in Istanbul, but in Baghdad, Cairo and Damascus.</p> <p>Jews were not the only privileged refugees. During the wars of the Reformation German, French and Czech Protestants fleeing Catholic revenge-squads were also given protection by the Ottoman sultans. Here, there was an additional political motive. The Ottoman state closely followed developments in the rest of Europe, and vigorously defended its interests by means of diplomatic, trade and cultural alliances with major powers. The Pope, however, was viewed with suspicion, and revolts against Catholicism were welcomed in Istanbul.</p> <p>Ottoman sultans began to feature in Eur-opean folklore, often demonised and vulgarised, but the sultans themselves were always conscious of their place in geography and history, as evidenced in this modest letter of introduction sent by Suleiman the Magnificent, who reigned from 1520 to 1566, to the French King:</p> <blockquote> <p>I who am the Sultan of Sultans, the sovereign of sovereigns, the dispenser of crowns to the monarchs on the face of the earth, the shadow of God on Earth, the Sultan and sovereign lord of the White Sea and of the Black Sea, of Rumelia and of Anatolia, of Karamania, of the land of Rum, of Zulkadria, of Diyarbekir, of Kurdistan, of Aizerbaijan, of Persia, of Damascus, of Aleppo, of Cairo, of Mecca, of Medina, of Jerusalem, of all Arabia, of Yemen and of many other lands which my noble fore-fathers and my glorious ancestors (may Allah light up their tombs!) conquered by the force of their arms and which my August Majesty has made subject to my flaming sword and my victorious blade, I, Sultan Suleiman Khan, son of Sultan Selim, son of Sultan Bayezid: To thee, who art Francis, King of the land of France.</p> </blockquote> <p>The tolerance shown to Jews and Protestants was rarely, if ever, extended to heretics within Islam, however. The mullahs ensured that punishment was brutal and swift. To deter heresies they jealously safeguarded their monopoly of information and power, opposing all moves to import a printing press to Istanbul. ‘Remember Martin Luther,’ the <em>qadi</em> warned the Sultan. The Reformation could be supported because it served to divide Christianity, but the very idea of a Muslim Luther was unacceptable. The clerics knew the early history of Islam and were determined not to repeat it.</p> <p>Unlike Christianity, Islam had not spent its first hundred years in the wilderness. Instead, its early leaders had rapidly found themselves at the head of large empires, and a great deal of improvisation had been required. According to some scholars, the first authorised version of the Koran was published some thirty years after the death of Muhammad, its accuracy guaranteed by the third Caliph, Uthman. Others argued that it appeared much later, but Koranic prescriptions, while quite detailed on certain subjects, could not provide the complete code of social and political conduct needed to assert an Islamic hegemony. The <em>hadith</em> filled the gap: it consisted of what the Prophet had said at a particular time to X or Y, who had then passed it on to Z, who had informed the author, who in turn recorded the ‘tradition’. Christianity had done something similar, but confined it to four gospels, editing out or smoothing over contradictions along the way. Scholars and scribes began collating the <em>hadith</em> in the seventh and eighth centuries, and there have been ferocious arguments regarding the authenticity of particular traditions ever since. It is likely that more than 90 per cent of them were invented.</p> <p>The point is not their authenticity, however, but the political role they have played in Islamic societies. The origins of Shi’ism, for example, lie in a disputed succession. After Muhammad’s death, his Companions elected Abu-Bakr as his successor and, after his death, Umar. If Ali, Muhammad’s son-in-law, resented this, he did not protest. His anger was provoked, however, by the election of the third Caliph, Uthman. Uthman, from the Umayya clan, represented the tribal aristocracy of Mecca, and his victory annoyed a loyalist old guard. Had the new Caliph been younger and more vigorous he might have managed to effect a reconciliation, but Uthman was in his seventies, an old man in a hurry, and he appointed close relatives and clan members to key positions in the newly conquered provinces. In 656 he was murdered by Ali’s supporters, whereupon Ali was anointed as the new Caliph.</p> <p>Islam’s first civil war followed. Two old Companions, Talha and al-Zubair, called on troops who had been loyal to Uthman to rebel against Ali. They were joined by Aisha, the Prophet’s young widow. Aisha, mounted on a camel, exhorted her troops to defeat the usurper at Basra, in what has come to be known as the Battle of the Camel, but it was Ali’s army that triumphed. Talha and al-Zubair died in the battle; Aisha was taken prisoner and returned to Medina, where she was placed under virtual house-arrest. Another battle took place, in which Ali was outmanoeuvred by the Umayyads. His decision to accept arbitration and defeat annoyed hardliners in his own faction, and in 661 he was assassinated outside a mosque in Kufa. His opponent, the brilliant Umayyad General Muawiya, was recognised as Caliph, but Ali’s sons refused to accept his authority and were defeated and killed in the Battle of Kerbala by Muawiya’s son Yazid. That defeat led to a permanent schism within Islam. Henceforth, Ali’s faction – or <em>shiat</em> – were to create their own traditions, dynasties and states, of which modern Iran is the most prominent example.</p> <p>It would have been surprising if these military and intellectual civil wars – tradition v. counter-tradition, differing schools of interpretation, disputes about the authenticity of the Koran itself – had not yielded a fine harvest of sceptics and heretics. What is remarkable is that so many of them were tolerated for so long. Those who challenged the Koran were usually executed, but many poets, philosophers and heretics expanded the frontiers of debate and dissent. Andalusian philosophers, for example, usually debated within the codes of Islam, but the 12th-century Córdoban, Ibn Rushd, occasionally transgressed them. Known in the Latin world as Averroes, he was the son and grandson of <em>qadi</em>s, and his other grandfather had served as the Imam of the Great Mosque of Córdoba. Ibn Rushd himself had been the <em>qadi</em> in both Seville and Córdoba, though he had to flee the latter when the mullahs banned him from entering the Great Mosque and ordered his books to be burned. These clashes with orthodoxy sharpened his mind, but also put him on his guard. When the enlightened Sultan Abu Yusuf questioned him about the nature of the sky, the astronomer-philosopher did not initially reply. Abu Yusuf persisted: ‘Is it a substance which has existed for all eternity or did it have a beginning?’ Only when the ruler indicated his awareness of ancient philosophy did Ibn Rushd respond by explaining why rationalist methods were superior to religious dogma. When the Sultan indicated that he found some of Aristotle’s work obscure and wished it to be explained, Ibn Rushd obliged with his<em>Commentaries</em>, which attracted the attention of Christian and Jewish theologians. The <em>Commentaries</em> served a dual function. They were an attempt to systematise Aristotle’s vast body of work and to introduce rationalism and anti-mysticism to a new audience, but also to move beyond it and promote rational thought as a virtue in itself.</p> <p>Two centuries earlier, Ibn Sina (980-1037), a Persian scholar known in the Latin world as Avicenna, had laid the basis for a study of logic, science, philosophy, politics and medicine. His skills as a physician led his employers, the native rulers of Khurasan and Isfahan, to seek his advice on political matters. Often, he gave advice that annoyed his patrons, and had to leave town in a hurry. His <em>Kanun fi’l-tibb</em> (‘Medical Canon’) became the major textbook in medical schools throughout the Islamic world – sections of it are still used in contemporary Iran. His <em>Kitab al-Insaf</em> (‘Book of Impartial Judgment’), dealing with 28,000 different philosophical questions, was lost when Isfahan was sacked during his lifetime by a rival potentate: he had lodged his only copy at the local library.</p> <p>The stories of Ibn Hazm, Ibn Sina and Ibn Rushd demonstrate the potential for semi-official thought during Islam’s first five hundred years. The last two, in particular, chafed at the restrictions of religious orthodoxy, but like Galileo after them, chose to live and continue their researches in preference to martyrdom. Others, however, were more outspoken. The ninth-century Baghdad heretic, Ibn al-Rawandi, wrote several books that questioned the basic principles of monotheism. The Mu’tazilite sect, to which he had once belonged, believed that it was possible to combine rationalism and belief in one God. They questioned the Revelation, rejected predestination, insisted that the Koran was a created and not a revealed book, and criticised the quality of its composition, its lack of eloquence and the impurity of its language. Only Reason dictated obligation to God.<a href="http://www.lrb.co.uk/v24/n03/tariq-ali/mullahs-and-heretics#fn-07">[7]</a> Ibn al-Rawandi went further still, arguing that religious dogma was always inferior to reason, because only through reason could one attain integrity and moral stature. The ferocity of his assault first surprised, then united Islamic and Jewish theologians, who denounced him mercilessly. None of his original work has survived, and we know of him and his writings mainly through Muslim and Jewish critics’ attempts to refute his heresies. However, he also makes a remarkable appearance in the work of the poet-philosopher Abu al-Ala al-Ma’ari (973-1058), whose epic poem <em>Risalat al-Ghufran</em> (‘Treatise on Forgiveness’), set in Paradise and Hell, has Ibn al-Rawandi berating God: ‘Thou didst apportion the means of livelihood to Thy creatures like a drunk revealing his churlishness. Had a man made such a division, we would have said to him: “You swindler! Let this teach you a lesson.”’</p> <p>TThe guardians of Islam during the Ottoman period knew this history well and were determined to prevent any challenge to Muslim orthodoxy. This may have preserved the dynasty, but it sank the Empire. By keeping Western European inventions, ideologies and scientific advances at bay, the clerics sealed the fate of the caliphate. But in the view of the majority of Muslims, the Ottomans had preserved the Islamic heritage, extended the frontiers of their religion, and, in the Arab East, created a new synthesis: an Ottoman Arab culture that united the entire region by means of a state bureaucracy presiding over a common administration and financial system. The Ottoman state, like other Muslim empires of the period, was characterised by three basic features: the absence of private property in the countryside, where the cultivator did not own and the owner (the state) did not cultivate; the existence of a powerful, non-hereditary bureaucratic elite in the administrative centres; and a professional, trained army with a slave component.</p> <p>By abolishing the traditional tribal aristocracy and forbidding the ownership of landed estates, the Ottomans had preserved their position as the only dynasty in the Empire, and the only repository of a quasi-divine power. To combat dynastic threats, they created a civil service recruited from every part of the Empire. The <em>devshirme</em>system forced Christian families in the Balkans and elsewhere to part with a son, who became the property of the state. He was sheltered, fed and educated until he was old enough to train in the academy as a soldier or bureaucrat. Thus Circassians, Albanians, Slavs, Greeks, Armenians and even Italians rose to occupy the highest offices of the Empire.</p> <p>Traditional hostility to the ploughshare determined the urban bias of the dynasties that ruled large tracts of the Islamic world, but to what extent was this attitude also responsible for the absence of landed property? This was not a local phenomenon: not one of the caliphates favoured the creation of a landed gentry or peasant-ownership or the existence of communal lands. Any combination of these would have aided capital-formation, which might have led to industrialisation, as it later did in Western Europe. The sophisticated agricultural techniques employed by the Arabs in Spain can be adduced to prove that working on the land was not taboo, but these techniques were generally confined to land surrounding towns, where cultivation was intense and carried out by the townsfolk. Rural land was rented from the state by middlemen, who in turn hired peasants to work on it. Some of the middlemen did become wealthy, but they lived and spent their money in the towns.</p> <p>In Western Europe, the peculiarities of the feudal system – the relative autonomy enjoyed by village communities organised round communal lands, combined with the limited but real sovereignties of vassals, lords and liege lords – encouraged the growth of small towns in the Middle Ages. The countryside still dominated, but political power was feudal power – that is, it wasn’t centralised. In the towns, trade and manufacturing was controlled by the guilds. In this arrangement lay the origins of modern capitalism. The subordination of the countryside in the Islamic world, with its a rigidly dynastic political structure dependent on a turbulent military caste, meant that the caliphates could not withstand the political and economic challenge posed by Western Europe. Radical nationalist impulses began to develop in the Ottoman lands as early as the late 18th century, when Turkish officers, influenced by the French Revolution and, much later, by Comte, began to plot against the regime in Istanbul. The main reason that the Ottomans staggered on till the First World War is that the three vultures eyeing the prey – the British Empire, tsarist Russia and the Habsburgs – could not agree on a division of the spoils. The only solution appeared to be to keep the Empire on its knees.</p> <p>The First World War ended with the defeat of the Ottomans, who had aligned themselves with the Kaiser. As the triumphant powers were discussing how to divide their booty, a Turkish nationalist force led by Kemal Pasha (later Ataturk) staked its claim to what is now Turkey, preventing the British from handing over Istanbul to the Greeks. For the first time in its history, thanks to Ataturk, Islam was without a caliph or even a pretender. Britain would have preferred to defeat and dump Ataturk, while hanging on to the Caliph, who could have become a pensioner of imperialism, kept for ceremonial occasions, like the last Mughal in Delhi before the 1857 Mutiny. It was the discovery of black gold underneath the Arabian desert that provided the old religion with the means and wherewithal to revive its culture while Britain created new sultans and emirs to safeguard their newest and most precious commodity. Throughout the 20th century, the West, to safeguard its own economic interests, supported the most backward, despotic and reactionary survivals from the past, helping to defeat all forms of secularism. As we know, the story is unfinished.</p> <div class="blogger-post-footer">http://thecitizenstrust.blogspot.com is a blog run by the admin of the facebook group 'The Citizen's Trust for Victims of Terror' it is a voluntary group with no formal associations with any political party or group.</div>SOAP BOXhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04514006243211979566noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5992656860273359959.post-18054077018200729782012-08-11T11:59:00.001+05:002012-08-11T11:59:23.067+05:00How CIA used Spy Equipment Devices to Hunt Pak Nukes-<p><strong><em>stories told by Black-water Agent</em></strong> <br /></p> <p>We were all wondering what Pakistan’s plan was for its nuclear warheads. We knew it had 76 enriched uranium warheads with 5 – 25 kilotons of explosive yield each. We also knew it was working on plutonium fissile materials and had well over 100 tons of raw uranium buried in the hills of Baluchistan. It was a God-awful mess of reckless development. <br />We knew Pakistan wasn’t afraid to hand off its warheads to some of our worst enemies, and the country had already sold nuclear secrets for oil, gas, and economic trade agreements to North Korea, Iran, Syria, Libya to name a few. The Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence agency, which uncharacteristically and unexplainably oversaw the country’s nuclear program, was also growing increasingly cooperative with China. We felt there was much reason for concern over Pakistan’s nuclear weapons program. <br />In November 2004, I was given a series of briefs over a three-day period by former Senior Pakistani Military Officers. These men were educated, well traveled, and religious in their beliefs, family oriented and professionally respectful toward everyone in our group. Some unpolished, but very knowledgeable British and American scientists also attended the briefings. The former Pakistani officers conducted a brilliant briefing about Pakistan’s Nuclear Program since it’s inception in the 1970s and made very pointed statements about the ISI’s exclusive control of the country’s nuclear arsenal and its dangerous habit of recklessly moving nuclear warheads. <br />The briefing also included details of a Pakistani nuclear scientist’s visit to Afghanistan to consult with Osama bin Laden, the Al-Qaida terrorist network and the Taliban-controlled government of Afghanistan of the late 1990s that was orchestrated, planned and executed by Pakistan’s ISI. The General also mentioned China’s now-growing cooperation with the ISI in the advanced production of lighter plutonium warheads for miniaturization and fitment on Chinese missiles made from stolen US and British technology. Plutonium weapons are lighter and have a higher explosive yield than weapons based on enriched uranium, which have been the mainstay of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons program. Those weapons are now showing signs of decay due to purity contamination in the early stages of the uranium enrichment processes. By the time we heard this, everyone in the room was silent. The briefing had hit a deep nerve. <br />I intervened and asked, is it not the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission’s right and duty to oversee the nuclear power development in Pakistan? Also, why would an intelligence services organization like the ISI be in the business of massing a nuclear arsenal? Is it not the central government’s job to ensure that any nuclear energy program is managed and operated by its country’s qualified personnel? <br />The room went silent again and everyone started shaking their heads in approval, except the Pakistani military officers giving the briefing. They were looking at me and nodding their heads in disapproval. But I understood people from this region of the world usually shook their heads from side to side whether they agreed or disagreed. I was understanding of the culture and bodily gestures they commonly express. The highest ranking officer, Brigadier General Naseer, looked out at our group and was about to say something when one of the American scientists stopped him and stated that he would take it from there. <br />The American scientist was a nuclear weapons expert and was employed by the Department of Energy. He looked a bit scraggly—long hair, a beard, slacks and a short sleeve shirt. He said: “ I understand that all of you here have been selected by our government to attend this briefing. You all have impeccable credentials and are unusually skilled in specific areas of your profession. We’re all grown men, and I’m going to fast forward a bit here and get to the heart of a very sensitive matter. <br />“Last week, an elite team of Navy SEALs attached devices to the hull of a luxury yacht off the coast of U.A.E. and <br />deployed powerful miniature surface water devices that enhanced eavesdropping. On board were three high-ranking Pakistani ISI general officers with Iranian officials to discuss the sale and transfer of nuclear arms to the Islamic Republic of Iran. Furthermore, it has been leaked through a Saudi Arabian official, many years before—whose identity is anonymous—that Saudi Arabia has already made a purchase from the Central Government of Pakistan for 13 enriched uranium nuclear warheads in a long-term oil-for-arms deal. The three ISI officials, who have been identified, are in charge and in control, by succession of Rank and Authority, of various sites that store these warheads and are rouge profiteers conspiring to make the sale and transfer without Pakistani government knowledge.” <br />“What has been discovered thus far is that the movement of the enriched uranium warheads may occur within the next three to six months, or when there is an event within the country or region that would warrant authorized movement of the warheads from the highest level of Pakistani leadership and power. It is most likely at that time, the ISI General Officers would move three warheads into the possession of Iranian handlers”. <br />An American General Officer and two company personnel came into the room, and the Pakistani generals along with the American and British scientists were escorted out. The lights were turned on, and my group all filed into another room. We went to lunch, and no one talked. But there was no doubt we could feel the energy of mind vibes at lunch. What was next, we were all thinking. We didn’t have to wait long. <br />It’s 2004, the US and its allies were at war in Afghanistan and Iraq. The Pakistani government is virtually in a perpetual state of economic default due to expenditures in nuclear development, increased military budgets, cuts in social and food programs for its people and a deep rooted hatred of its neighbor, India. A secret intelligence agency virtually ran everything in and out of Pakistan and killed its own leaders who were determined to either harness or diminish its power and authority, much like the Nazi Gestapo of World War II. The agency was out of control, and the ISI’s own leadership was now in the radical Muslim, “Islamic Jihadi” nuclear black market business. <br />Planning went into effect to locate Pakistan’s nuclear warheads that were to be sold to Iran.A large team was assembled and assigned various known routes to transport the weapons—rail, air, road, tunnels, ports. Highly sophisticated electronics with powerful penetrating x-ray, sensors, cameras, Geiger counters, radiation-exposure detectors, cellular GPRS eavesdropping devices, even remote satellite command was employed. This was going to be a huge undertaking of diligent efforts on everyone’s part to make this work like a Swiss clock. <br />My primary responsibility was Aviation Operations Surveillance, and I had all the resources at my disposal I could imagine. I was assigned six crack aviators with impeccable flying skills beyond reproach. These guys were the best we had to offer. There was a team of excellent technicians; all were combat-hardened, proven leaders with solid backgrounds in ethical and moral professionalism. If one of them screwed up, he admitted it, took full responsibility, and held himself to a high standard of maturity while ensuring whatever it was didn’t happen again. <br />Our home base of operations was in the desolate desert of Afghanistan with operational teams in Pakistan at key sites where the nukes were stored and maintained. I operated out of an airbase in Pakistan with a small fleet of Helicopters and Cessna Caravan Turboprops that were owned by the US and under the operational control of the Pakistani Ministry of Interior. <br />However, The exact number of planes and helicopters in Pakistan, to include their color, markings, registration numbers, interior and even the scratches or marks on the fuselage were staged just over the border in Afghanistan. In other words, for all the aircraft we had in Pakistan, we had exact lookalikes in Afghanistan that could easily intrude Pakistani Airspace at anytime. <br />Whenever the Pakistani Ministry of Interior, the Pakistani military, gave the US a mission in Pakistan, the teams in Afghanistan were alerted, given the Pakistani transponder and IFF codes so they could fly covertly over the border into Pakistan to scout any new evidence of moving nukes. In the meantime, the fleet that had always been in Pakistan flew the usual, day-to-day missions. Without the Pakistani Transponder and IFF Codes, our aircraft were sure to be shot down in these highly sensitive areas. We lucked out every time, and these guys never knew what was going on. <br />Our Cessnas were loaded with highly sophisticated ground-penetrating radar panels inside the cargo holds that emitted a lot of energy on a newly discovered frequency and band that isn’t recorded in any technical literature. We were searching for the enriched uranium signatures below ground, in buildings, on trains, in tunnels, you name it. <br />No Pakistani-deployed sensors ever picked up the slightest signature of electronic interrogation from our sweeps and it if it was there, we had no problems finding it. The floors and crew compartments of all our aircraft were flamed sprayed with a layer of lead to prevent exposure to the crews and sensitive equipment. The aircraft exterior control surfaces were enhanced with static wicks that dissipated electricity generated through the airframe and improved grounding discharge through landing gear contact with the earth upon landings. We went undetected.</p> <p> <br /><strong>SHAKY GROUND</strong> <br />On 8 October, 2005, a 7.6-magnitude earthquake in the North West Frontier Province struck with a destructive force never before seen in Pakistan. Some estimates put the number killed at 84,000 including 1,400 killed in China. All planes and helos we had in Afghanistan at home base immediately went into action as the US was very concerned that now was the time these rogue ISI generals would move the nukes. In addition, the Department of Energy was very concerned that a possible nuclear processing facility was leaking radiation as detected through satellite sensor readings. The Pakistani government knew about the leak, kept the information secret, and had issues getting qualified personnel to the location due to washed-out and debris-covered roads. It was a complete mess, and the Pakistanis had their pride and honor at stake for their inability to handle an emergency of this magnitude. <br />The Pakistani government is always claiming the need for and arguing for more and more aid and assets from the US. However, this time DOE was very concerned about Pakistan’s aging uranium enrichment processing plants, and it was a well known fact that the Pakistanis needed to bypass roads and get experts to the damaged facilities via air ASAP. The decision was made by DOE to approve funding for the purchase of six more Bell 412s through the Pacific Northwest Nuclear Laboratory. Knowing a great deal about the Pakistani Military Aviation Maintenance Programs and the caliber of technicians and pilots they possessed, this was just a Band-Aid compared to the gushing wound the services lacked. <br />The program manager for the company I was working for as my cover requested I immediately move air assets from the airbase where I was stationed. I communicated this request to the teams in Afghanistan, and a fully loaded Cessna Caravan landed at the airfield where I was with no issues whatsoever. The Pakistani Military understood the immediate need to get all air assets to the affected region as soon as possible. As we were en route to Qasim Air Base, all equipment was powered on and the surveillance ops were all now in full swing. I had to make a pit stop for fuel and passengers in Multan, and was soon back up and heading into the devil’s lair. Our mission this day was to actually land at Chaklala Air base and electronically interrogate a large hanger and adjacent facilities, as there were reports of a possible movement of warheads from this location.</p> <p> <br /><strong>FINAL APPROACH, MAY DAY, MAY DAY <br /></strong>As we entered Islamabad Airspace I made the usual calls to the tower at Qasim Airbase, gave tail number, heading, altitude, passenger and crew numbers. We were given clearance to enter airspace and as we reached the threshold between Qasim and Chaklala, I initiated an emergency call: “May day, May day! Experiencing power loss and smoke in the cockpit!” <br />I had tripped a simulated smoke generator, and from the tower at Chaklala Airbase, they could see we were in trouble. But Chaklala Airbase was not authorizing a US aircraft to land at Chaklala. I made another emergency “May day” call over the emergency net frequency and reported total engine failure as I oriented our flight path to the active runway on final. From our position, we could see Pakistani military vehicles scrambling on the runway to prevent our landing. I nosed it over, increased speed, turned on landing lights and proceeded with approach. The aircraft was at max gross weight, we had Pakistani military passengers and a ½ load of fuel. Off to our right, we could see the target hanger and a roadway along its side. The Pakistani troops guarding that hanger facility had mounted up in vehicles and were blocking the freaking runway. <br />My APR-39 was indicating a surface to air missile laser lock on the aircraft. We knew from intel surveillance that it was the French-design Crotale 2000 SAM System. By now, my pucker factor was a 10 and my co-pilot’s anal retention dropped to zero. If there was a launch, we would be vaporized. <br />I continued with the emergency calls: “May Day, May Day.” By now, the Pakistani Military passengers were yelling, screaming, saying their prayers to Allah. As soon as I was five feet off the runway, I applied max power on the engine, full feathered the prop and landed with the smoke generators blowing some serious smoke. I immediately steered the aircraft to the roadway next to the target hanger and reported a stuck throttle with braking difficulty. The Pakistani vehicles were all over the roadway waving us down, trying to get us back on the active, but I stayed the course and requested emergency fire vehicles. By now, we were scanning for warheads. “BINGO!” We got three major hits on the scope and the computers were recording everything in real time at the home base in Afghanistan. By the time I got to the other end of the hanger, we had the evidence we were looking for. <br />I brought the aircraft to a stop, killed the smoke generator, engines and stowed the landing gear light. I made communications with the tower that I was going through emergency shutdown procedures. Before I could thank all my passengers for flying with American Eagle flight 1 from Multan to Islamabad, they were already piling out, looking blue, pale and a little loose in bladder control. Now we were surrounded by Pakistani troops all pointing AK-47s at us. I felt one wrong move, and we’d cut to Swiss cheese. So I put my hands up in the air, and my crew did the same. They opened the door and had us deplane and lie flat on the ground. We were searched and a young captain walked up and asked in English, “Who’s in charge?” <br />I rolled my head to where he was standing and said I was. He then asked me to get up, and when I did I recognized the man as Captain Javed, a young arrogant officer who was an Aviator in Training. He immediately recognized me: “Mr. Larry! My God, man! What happened?” He ordered his troops to stand down into the low ready, and I explained we had taken on fuel in Multan and experienced engine failure before landing with a loss of oil pressure and high temperature readings from the power gearbox. <br />The Captain was concerned for us and stated we were in a highly restricted area that was off limits to even the Pakistani Military. He was shitting bricks when another vehicle pulled up and it was Colonel Imtaz, the ISI officer in charge of Chaklala Air base. He was more calm and relaxed and looking like the spitting image of Barney Fife of Mayberry RFD with his big bug eyes. The captain vouched for me, my credentials and crew and stated that I was an Aviation Advisor for the Department of State working as an instructor through the Ministry of Interior. Examining all my ID cards, Colonel Imtaz immediately ordered a search of the plane. (Like the Pakistani’s had any clue what they were looking at!) <br />Captain Javed told the Colonel all was OK, and that there were only relief supplies on board, which were our travel bags, toolbox and some boxes of aircraft oil. The passengers also were telling the Colonel that if it wasn’t for me and my Co-Pilot, they all would have died. By now my Co-pilot was telling everyone not to forget their box lunches and peanuts! Captain Javed had wanted to qualify in my aircraft, and he was a major kiss ass since I was posted as an instructor. He was always wanting to impress upon me his skills and knowledge as an aviator, but he was a marginal pilot at best. <br />Finally Col. Imtaz was satisfied with the search of the plane and our engine-failure story. About this time, my co-pilot, “Knuckles,” a big, corn-fed Alabama boy, says to Col. Imtaz, “Where’s the titty bar! Any liquor in this place?” Looking at Col. Imtaz, Knuckles puts this huge dip of snuff in his mouth and lets out a fart! He then reaches for his US Marine Corps K-Bar, pulls it out, and starts picking at a sore on his palm. I wanted to laugh so hard it made pee. Colonel Imtaz was fixated on Knuckles and didn’t know what to say. He looked confused, like he was thinking of a response for Knuckles. Still being surrounded by Pakistani troops, I told the Colonel, “Excuse me for a minute sir,” and took about six steps away and started to piss like a Texas jack ass. <br />The Pakistani soldiers were all looking at the Colonel and me. The roadway was slanted, and the soldiers started to move out of the way as the river of piss headed for them. Col. Imtaz, also looking at me, was speechless and called Captain Javed over. They walked toward the Colonel’s vehicle and were talking. Col. Imaz got into his vehicle and left the area. Captain Javed came over and said I had to stop pissing, that I was embarrassing him in front of the soldiers, who were all still in shock and staring at me. I told Captain Javed: “Dude, sorry! But I was on a freaking four-hour flight, had engine failure, made an emergency landing, and almost had my head blown off! Ya’ think I would have just pissed in my flight suit?” <br />Not hearing any response from Captain Javed, I looked over at him and he was staring like the rest of those morons. I finally said, “Hello, hello!” Captain Javed then ordered the troops to push the Cessna to a mooring spot right next to the hanger. Knuckles and I tied it down and got our bags. While Knuckles was talking to Captain Javed, I cycled a remote satellite transmitter that signaled we were OK and on Chaklala Airbase. I ensured the ground-penetrating radar system was completely grounded and the battery disconnected. We got a ride to the Officer’s Club and called U.S. Marine Corps Post 1, US Embassy, Islamabad for a ride ASAP. The young Marine on the other end patched me through to transportation, and our ride was on its way to take us to the safe house.</p> <p> <br /><strong>LEAVE NOW…ER, NEVER MIND</strong> <br />Captain Javed came over to the table where we sat and ordered coffee and tea. He conveyed to us that the aircraft had to be flown out of here by tomorrow or the Pakistani military was going to tow it. I immediately made a call to Qasim Airbase and requested a technician be transported to Chaklala to repair the Cessna by 7 PM that same day. I explained to Captain Javed that the technician had to eat dinner and would come afterward. Our tech knew exactly what to do upon arrival and made a big deal to the Pakistani’s that the work was complicated. I also mentioned to Captain Javed that I wanted to give him the rating on the Cessna and that if he wouldn’t mind accompanying me on flights to the Federally Administered Tribal Areas for the relief efforts, he would surely have enough time behind the wheel to receive the rating with no problems. His eyes lit up like alfalfa and buckwheat staring at a bar of soap. I did this to diffuse the tensions over having the Aircraft moored next to a hanger that was surrounded by troops and seemed suspicious. Col. Imtaz was also on his case to move the aircraft ASAP. <br />Captain Javed agreed and stated that he would get authorization from his superiors immediately. I mentioned to Knuckles that I would stay behind while he went with the driver to the safe house to shower. By this time it was approaching 7PM and the technician was escorted up to the aircraft by a group of Pakistani soldiers. I told the tech to open the engine doors and that I would get inside the cockpit to do some checks. <br />By this time, we had an audience, and even the security cameras all around the place were on us recording our every move. We had to make our efforts look good. The tech removed the igniters and cleaned them, replaced a gearbox pressure sensor and went through throttle checks. After about four hours, Knuckles came back, and we went through the preflight checklist, cranked the engine, prop feathering and brake checks. All comms were good, and we asked for permission to taxi to the active. The tower denied permission, and we stayed there for about 10 mins at engine idle listening to U2 and keeping our cool. We needed to get the hell out of there now. <br />Again I made the tower call and permission was denied. I was then instructed to power off and proceed to the Operations Center. We all just looked at each other and expected the worse. We didn’t know if we’d just been had. But I gave the hand signal for no one to talk as I felt we may have a listening device on board or worse. I did exactly as the tower instructed and looking out at the tower, we could see a lot of military vehicles there and more pulling up all the time. Were we going to be arrested? A jeep drove up to the plane and ground troops in the vicinity rushed the plane and surrounded it. I was then told by a Pakistani military officer that I was needed in the Operations Center and the crew was asked to go to the ready room of the Pilot’s office. We were being separated. <br />The driver took me over to Operations, and a room full of Pakistani officers was looking at me when I came through the door. I looked around and wanted to know what the problem was. A Brigadier approached and asked why I decided to land at Chaklala instead of Qasim Airbase—since Qasim was the base I should have landed at. I quickly told him, “Sir, I had to turn the troubled aircraft into the wind. I was loosing altitude and power, carrying six passengers. I was dropping like the stock market trying to keep the ship stable. Thinking quickly, I also knew you had a longer runway and emergency fire vehicles here. Which I reported and received no assistance from your fire brigade when I landed! The aircraft was full of smoke from a faulty engine oil pressure sensor that was leaking oil onto the engine, which your crews installed back at the airbase!” <br />The Brigadier then asked why I had pulled off the runway. “Why didn’t I stop on the active?” I asked. “I had to pull off onto the access road because your military vehicles were blocking the active, and I had to avoid a collision that surely would have resulted in a major incident, loss of life and aircraft. Furthermore, sir, the United States military and all its resources available are lending assistance to your country in a major disaster relief effort to save over a million people that have been trapped in the NWFP (North West Frontier Province)! My crew and myself have been working around the clock to repair the aircraft, move it to Qasim AB at this time and get some rest before daylight. Do I need to inform my Ambassador?” <br />By now all the officers were shaking their heads, “No.” Looking around, the Brigadier apologized and ordered the tower to give clearance immediately. <br />When I walked out of there, I was trembling with fear, and I knew I had just saved everyone’s ass. In the background was one of the ISI Generals who had made the deal to sell the nukes to Iran. He sat there listening to every word I had to say. The Brigadier actually had looked at him when I was done talking, and it was the ISI General that gave a hand signal to release us. <br />I got my guys on the aircraft, we mounted our PVS6 Night Vision Goggles and flew just 10 minutes to Qasim Airbase. We landed, got out of the ship and a new American crew from Afghanistan got in and flew the heavily equipped nuke hunter out of there toward the south. We quickly got into the waiting Suburban and went straight to the safe house without anyone saying a word. When we arrived, we went to our rooms, showered and went to sleep. It was a hell of a long day, but we made a major play in the discovery of the loose nukes.</p> <p> <br /><strong>THREE CARD MONTE <br /></strong>The next day was a day like any other day. The team assembled downstairs, and we all drove back down to Qasim Airbase to assist in the earthquake relief efforts. When we arrived at the tower, I noticed the Cessna Caravan that I usually fly that had always been based out of another airbase was there on station. We managed to pull off this three card monte because when I flew from Chaklala to Qasim, the original Cessna that we always use in country was just 30 minutes away at another airbase. When I took off from Chaklala, the other aircraft took off from the base it was pre-staged at, when I landed at Qasim, we all got off and changed crews. The new crew explained to Qasim Control Tower that they were taking the aircraft for a test flight. As they did, they flew in the direction of the replacement plane and as they passed each other, Transponder and IFF frequencies were swapped. This left the replacement aircraft returning to Qasim and the Nuke Hunter transmitting on another code and frequency that was Pakistani, back to Afghani airspace. <br />Captain Javed was there at the tower waiting for us and wanting to learn all he could about flying and I was happy to oblige. The relief efforts went on for over two months, and he was qualified afterward. <br />The mission was a complete success and all teams recalled back to Afghanistan. What we had discovered was a Boeing 737 Saudi Arabian airliner inside the hanger that was fitted for cargo use and having three enriched uranium, 25 kiloton bombs on board. The Saudis claimed to have absolutely no knowledge that the plane was theirs. But little did they know, the corrupt ISI generals were selling to the Iranians what the Saudi’s had already purchased from the Pakistanis in exchange for oil. The US immediately came forward with this information to the Pakistani and Saudi Arabian governments, including the recordings from the luxury yacht as well. <br />Strangely enough, the Pakistani ISI generals suddenly disappeared without a trace and were replaced within a few days of this disclosure.</p> <div class="blogger-post-footer">http://thecitizenstrust.blogspot.com is a blog run by the admin of the facebook group 'The Citizen's Trust for Victims of Terror' it is a voluntary group with no formal associations with any political party or group.</div>SOAP BOXhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04514006243211979566noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5992656860273359959.post-28686602875212343982012-08-10T12:21:00.001+05:002012-08-10T12:21:21.601+05:00The Bangladesh approach<p>Facing threat from militants and extremists, Bangladesh has launched a nationwide programme for monitoring mosques and madrasas to ensure clerics follow guidelines issued by the state-run Islamic Foundation. "We have engaged our 40,000 staff having background in Islamic studies to monitor the mosques and see if the imams or khatibs are conveying our messages against militancy in line with the real Islamic teachings," Islamic Foundation's director general Shamim Mohammed Afzal told PTI. </p> <p>He said the foundation staff would join the Muslim's weekly special 'juma' </p> <p>congregations when the clerics were supposed to deliver lectures or sermons against religious extremism and militancy and highlighting the "spirit of love" against "hatred and violence". Islamic Foundation is an autonomous organisation under the Ministry of Religious Affairs working to disseminate values and ideals of Islam and carry out related activities. Afzal said the foundation earlier distributed several million copies of two books against militancy at the 270,000 mosques and over 100,000 madrasahs. </p> <p>The foundation officials said they have set up an anti-militancy cell and every week their officials monitor at least 10 mosques in Dhaka to see whether the clerics speak about militancy in their Friday sermons. "The officials were also tasked to motivate or request the independent clerics of the mosques to use their good offices and knowledge so that the youngsters were not lured by Islamist militants". </p> <p>Bangladesh witnessed massive emergence of militant outfits in 2004-2005 when the country was hit by a series of blasts killing dozens of people as the groups promised to establish Islamic rule of their own brands. The situation sparked fears that the world's fourth largest Muslim majority nation was becoming a militancy hotspot and prompted the subsequent governments to launch a massive security clampdown that resulted in trial and execution of six militant kingpins while dozens were jailed or were still being tried. </p> <p><a href="http://ibnlive">http://ibnlive</a>. in.com/generalne wsfeed/news/ bangladesh- starts-monitorin </p> <p>g-mosques- madrasas/ 1038368.html </p> <p><http://ibnlive.in.com/generalnewsfeed/news/bangladesh-starts-monitoring-mos </p> <p>ques-madrasas/1038368.html> </p> <p>  </p> <p><font size="1">This can't work in Pakistan. </font></p> <p><font size="1">USA should send Marines to monitor Pak Military-run Schools, Cadet Colleges, Academies, Cantonments and GHQ also, not only Mosques, MuDaaris, Seminaries etc in an upside down crazy country, where Pak Military Staff itself runs JehaaDi Camps and Groups as dangerous as Taliban and Al Qaeda.</font></p> <div class="blogger-post-footer">http://thecitizenstrust.blogspot.com is a blog run by the admin of the facebook group 'The Citizen's Trust for Victims of Terror' it is a voluntary group with no formal associations with any political party or group.</div>SOAP BOXhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04514006243211979566noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5992656860273359959.post-56070357404055673832012-08-08T11:44:00.001+05:002012-08-08T11:44:48.648+05:00Khoda Pahar aur Nikla Mara Hua Chooha!<p>Dear Editor, </p> <p>Grateful if you publish the following response since he freely mentioned my name in his press conference and on capital talk Geo TV:</p> <p>Regards</p> <p><strong><em>Imtiaz Hydari</em></strong></p> <p>i was amazed but more amused as i witnessed the Sherlock Homes style performance of Khawaja Asif on television. Khoda Pahar aur Nikla Mara Hua Chooha!</p> <p>It is appropriate to set the record straight since his great discovery from publicly disclosed documents was gathering false alarms and in the process was hurting the finest public charity in Pakistan. If he is a man of any substance, he will appear again on television to Apologise to Imran Khan, SKMT and Imtiaz Hydari. Let me tell you why?</p> <p>First the facts on the investment:</p> <p>Shaukat Khanum Memorial Trust made a long-term real estate investment with HBG in 2008 when the market fundamentals across GCC were excellent, with a plan to develop it into a project. The decision by SKMT to invest with HBG was not a speculative play, but a long-term investment based on sound judgment of the market fundamentals in a solid real estate, prime location in Muscat in which HBG itself has committed a substantial amount. </p> <p>It is of'course a fact that Imran Khan had nothing to do with the decision as it was taken by the investment committee of the board of directors. I being a director in SKMT at the time, refrained from voting to avoid a conflict of interest. </p> <p>There is a misconception being propagated that just because the investment is through an offshore company, it is akin to a ‘<i>benami</i> ' transaction. This is a totally false representation as private equity investments across the world are conducted from such jurisdictions because they are considered investment-friendly jurisdictions. </p> <p>Pursuant to the severe correction in the real estate market following the Global economic crisis, it was rightly decided to defer the project. The investment has no leverage. However given the fact there has been impairment in land value, HBG has taken steps to absorb the impairment in value by granting increased shares to SKMT i.e. the reduced value of Sugarland shares will be compensated by higher percentage shareholding of SKMT in Sugarland BVI. This preserves and protects SKMT investment. Additionally, HBG has also provided an undertaking to assist SKMT's exit from the investment with Capital Protected. </p> <p>Now to his specific accusations:</p> <p>1. A case of Money laundering? - The answer is an emphatic NO. The investment was not transferred out of Pakistan. It was not for any personal gain. The investment was from the Endowment Fund not Zakat money. </p> <p>2. An attempt to hide the transaction so we can wonder at his discovery? - Definitely NOT. It is publicly disclosed</p> <p>3. An  SPV (special purpose vehicle) with an off shore jurisdiction is benami? - SORRY Khawaja Sahib, you are wrong. The  entities in this investment have names and declared shareholders who are audited by one of the big four accounting firms</p> <p>4. Investment was speculative and the real estate worthless? - No it was NOT, as explained above. This is prime land in prime location with excellent development potential</p> <p>4.The investment has lost value resulting in a major loss for SKMT? - Khawaja Asif reads the Balance sheet but is unable to differentiate between a note to the accounts and the actual adjustment for impairment in the accounts. No loss has been recorded even though impairment has taken place as explained above</p> <p>5. Capital Protection/Guarantee issued by a corporate entity is worthless? - How does Khawja Asif know? does he know the standing or stature of the corporate and the circumstances surrounding it? unfortunately he has not bothered to make any enquiries. </p> <p>Now what can be the purpose of his sensational out burst?</p> <p>Unable to defend the allegations of money laundering and corruption against his own leadership he has to find something against Imran Khan, the most clean and honest political leader in Pakistan - and Good heavens, all Mr Sherlock Homes could find was a mara hua chooha? - desperately clinging to straws but in the process hurting SKMT and the poor people of Pakistan.</p> <p>Shame on you Khawaja Asif!</p> <div class="blogger-post-footer">http://thecitizenstrust.blogspot.com is a blog run by the admin of the facebook group 'The Citizen's Trust for Victims of Terror' it is a voluntary group with no formal associations with any political party or group.</div>SOAP BOXhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04514006243211979566noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5992656860273359959.post-3977809242212968312012-08-07T11:50:00.001+05:002012-08-07T11:50:18.682+05:00Craving Energy and Glory, Pakistan Revels in Boast of Water-Run Car<p> </p> <p><a href="http://twitter.com/#!/nytimesworld"><img style="background-image: none; border-right-width: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 0px 10px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: inline; border-top-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; padding-top: 0px" title="clip_image002" border="0" alt="clip_image002" src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/-g8r3hQLyud4/UCC6p16W-4I/AAAAAAAANBk/mDP_fJXpVWs/clip_image002%25255B3%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="98" height="98" /></a></p> <p><strong><em>By </em></strong><a href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/w/declan_walsh/index.html"><strong><em>DECLAN WALSH</em></strong></a>,</p> <p><strong>New York Times</strong></p> <p><strong><em>Published: August 4, 2012</em></strong></p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — In a nation thirsting for energy, he loomed like a messiah: a small-town engineer who claimed he could run a car on water.</font></p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">The assertion — based on the premise that he had discovered a way to easily split the oxygen and hydrogen atoms in water molecules with almost no energy — would, if proven, represent a stunning breakthrough for physics and a near-magical solution to Pakistan’s desperate power crisis.</font></p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">“By the grace of Allah, I have managed to make a formula that converts less voltage into more energy,” the professed inventor, Agha Waqar Ahmad, said in a telephone interview. “This invention will solve our country’s energy crisis and provide jobs to hundreds of thousands of people.”</font></p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">Established scientists have debunked his spectacular claims, first made one month ago, saying they violate ironclad laws of physics. But across Pakistan, where crippling electricity cuts have left millions drenched in the sweat of a powerless summer, and where there is hunger for tales of homegrown glory, the shimmering mirage of a “water car” received a broad and serious embrace.</font></p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">Federal ministers lauded Mr. Ahmad and his vehicle, sometimes at cabinet meetings. The stand-in minister for religious affairs, Khursheed Shah, appeared on television with him and took a ride in his small Suzuki rental, which was hooked up to a contraption that Mr. Ahmad described as a “water kit.” Respected talk show hosts suggested he should get state financing and protection.</font></p> <p><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/12/world/a-tale-of-nuclear-proliferation-how-pakistani-built-his-network.html"><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">The country’s most famous scientist</font></a><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">, Abdul Qadeer Khan — revered inside Pakistan as the father of the country’s </font><a href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/science/topics/atomic_weapons/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier"><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">nuclear weapons</font></a><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">program and reviled elsewhere as a notorious figure in the international nuclear black market — gave it his imprimatur, too. “I have investigated the matter, and there is no fraud involved,” he told Hamid Mir, a popular television journalist, during a recent broadcast that sealed Mr. Ahmad’s celebrity.</font></p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">The quest to harness chemical energy from water is a holy grail of science, offering the tantalizing promise of a world free from dependence on </font><a href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/business/energy-environment/oil-petroleum-and-gasoline/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier"><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">oil</font></a><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">. Groups in other countries, including Japan, the United States and Sri Lanka, have previously made similar claims. They have been largely ignored.</font></p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">Not so with Mr. Ahmad, even if he is an unlikely scientific prodigy. Forty years old and a father of five, he graduated with a degree in mechanical engineering in 1990 from a small technical college in Khairpur, in southern Sindh Province, he said in the interview. For most of his career he worked in a local police department. He is currently unemployed.</font></p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">But he sprang up at a moment when Pakistan was intensely aware of its power shortcomings. Violent riots erupted across Punjab and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Provinces recently as temperatures in some places hovered around 110 degrees amid electricity shortages that stretched up to 20 hours per day. Chronic shortages of natural gas, which powers many cars and homes, result in lines snaking from gas stations. Energy politics are expected to play a prominent role in elections set to take place within the next 10 months.</font></p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">In another measure of the issue, the United States government has donated heavily to electricity generation projects, hoping to win support from Pakistan’s largely hostile public; last week, </font><a href="http://islamabad.usembassy.gov/pr-080312.html"><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">Congress authorized</font></a><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"> $280 million for various </font><a href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/h/hydroelectric_power/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier"><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">hydroelectric</font></a><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"> projects.</font></p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">News media commentators said the coverage of Mr. Ahmad’s claims was the Pakistani version of Britain’s “silly season,” when journalists and politicians embrace the unlikely during the annual lull in politics. But for established scientists, it was a symptom of a wider, more worrisome, ignorance of science.</font></p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">It shows “how far Pakistan has fallen into the pit of ignorance and self-delusion,” </font><a href="http://tribune.com.pk/story/416542/the-water-car-fraud/"><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">wrote Pervez Hoodbhoy</font></a><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">, an outspoken physics professor, in The Express Tribune, a national English-language daily. He added: “Our leaders are lost in the dark, fumbling desperately for a miracle; our media is chasing spectacle, not truth; and our great scientists care more about being important than about evidence.”</font></p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">The “water car” is not the first unlikely episode in Pakistani science. In 2010 Atta ur-Rahman, head of the state higher education body, aired views that the United States government was financing a covert science project in Alaska that sought to manipulate the world’s weather and that could set off earthquakes, floods and tsunamis.</font></p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">Dr. Rahman’s article incited a furious public debate with other scientists, </font><a href="http://dawn.com/2010/11/16/case-of-bogus-science/"><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">notably Dr. Hoodbhoy</font></a><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">, who has also sought to highlight a worrisome decline in academic standards in Pakistan.</font></p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">Stories of widespread plagiarism, fake qualifications and doctorates granted under dubious circumstances have circulated in academic circles for several years. “We have had a flood of academic garbage,” Dr. Hoodbhoy said. The trend was inadvertently accelerated under the military ruler, Pervez Musharraf, who required all members of Parliament to hold a college degree — prompting some to acquire fake ones.</font></p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">Pakistan is not lacking in academic talent. With 68 percent of the population under 30, according to the United Nations, education is a preoccupation among parents across the social spectrum. This year 200 Pakistani undergraduates will start at 50 different American colleges under the government-financed Fulbright educational exchange program.</font></p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">Yet even the country’s academic achievements are mired in the old problems of politics, prejudice and religion.</font></p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">The work of a Pakistani particle physicist, </font><a href="http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/1979/salam-bio.html"><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">Abdus Salam</font></a><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">, won him a</font><a href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/science/topics/nobel_prizes/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier"><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">Nobel Prize</font></a><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"> along with two others scientists in 1979, and it has been credited with paving the way for the discovery of what appears to be the </font><a href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/h/higgs_boson/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier"><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">Higgs boson</font></a><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"> particle, which was announced July 4.</font></p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">But Dr. Salam, who died in 1996, is largely ignored in his homeland because he was a member of the Ahmadi sect, whose members suffer state-sponsored discrimination and, in recent years, attacks by violent extremists.</font></p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">For his part, Mr. Ahmad brushed off his critics, claiming to have run the Suzuki for 250 miles on 10 liters of water.</font></p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">“I am not concerned with theory. I have given a practical demonstration that a vehicle can run on water,” he said. “What more proof do these critics need?”</font></p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">In a word, more. “Water car” jokes have circulated widely on Twitter, while an Internet comedy group, The Naked Tyrant, rolled out </font><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wi8O6aN9tno"><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">a spoof video</font></a><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"> featuring a religious man who claimed to make his car run on “pious deeds.”</font></p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">And, as a reader of one newspaper noted in </font><a href="http://tribune.com.pk/story/416543/mother-of-all-solutions/"><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">a letter to the editor</font></a><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">: “What is odd is that the only specimen so far on display is the one fitted in his own car.”</font></p> <p><i><strong>Salman Masood contributed reporting.</strong></i></p> <div class="blogger-post-footer">http://thecitizenstrust.blogspot.com is a blog run by the admin of the facebook group 'The Citizen's Trust for Victims of Terror' it is a voluntary group with no formal associations with any political party or group.</div>SOAP BOXhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04514006243211979566noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5992656860273359959.post-42324973669324666712012-07-28T21:56:00.001+05:002012-07-28T21:56:13.739+05:00DON’T mess with them!!!<p> </p> <p><b><em><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">Don’t Mess with PPP or Zardari!</font></em></b></p> <p><b><em><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">By Saeed Qureshi</font></em></b></p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">No one has the guts to dislodge the incumbent PPP government. The prime and overpowering reason is that this party enjoys a majority in the parliament. AAZ as a shrewd puppeteer has tied such rubber stamp parties as MQM and ANP with the political apron-string of PPP, whose own political clout and profiteering depends upon the agreeable nod and patronage from Asif Ali Zardari. </font></p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">They are like small streams looking formidable because of their presence and merger in an ocean. The Ocean should be treated as metaphor for the encompassing political tenacity and resilience of PPP to remain trenchant in the riotous political arena of Pakistan.</font></p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">Had the PPP been debased or lost its popularity, the Multan citizens would not have voted for Abdul Qadir Gilani and enable him to capture the national assembly seat vacated by his father, the former Prime Minister Gilani. It is forgone and a much assured guess that in all the by-polls, the PPP’s nominated candidates would triumph. The Multan contest was a test case to measure-up the political standing of both Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaf and PML Nawaz faction. The joint candidate of both these parties Shaukat Hayat Bossan lost to Qadir Gilani.</font></p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">The Supreme Court and the rest of judiciary have been turned into a laughing stock for handing out the galore of verdicts and the executive blowing these away with disdain and mockery. In implementing surfeit of decisions by the Supreme Court, the acting chairman of PPP and the president of Pakistan Asif Ali Zardari have kept the apex court at bay. One example is defiance or disregard of Supreme Court’s unambiguous orders for writing a letter to the Swiss authorities for reopening the money laundering cases of Asif Ali Zardari and his deceased spouse Benazir Bhutto. </font></p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">Now the shrewish and bellicose attorney general of Pakistan Irfan Qadir categorically and rather impetuously tells the Supreme Court that the government would not write such a letter to the Swiss court. The Memogate issue has been relegated to the cold storage, the Abbottabad commissions’ proceedings have gone into hibernations. </font></p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">Despite threats by the religious parties both political and non-political, the NATO overland supply has been resumed.  Similarly the Hajj scandal, the ephedrine quota case seems to be gone with the winds and no one in the government give a dam to the highest judiciary’s orders. </font></p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">Mr. Zardari, who is pulling the strings and leading the game of wits and political brinkmanship from the safe fortress and the imposing building of the presidency, knows well that army would not intercede for upholding the Supreme Court’s various verdicts. The army is docile and detached because of her total commitment to the military operations in the tribal belt and also a unremitting engagement in the troubled Balochistan. Also the army would not opt to meddle in politics and grab power as this would be worst time for the military leadership to do so. As the adage goes, the army’s top brass would not like to fish in troubled waters.</font></p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">The opposition parties are in a state of disarray, dejection and dissolution. These parties have utterly failed to build up a strong and formidable movement or front against the government on such volatile and provocative issue as target killings, rampant and endemic lawlessness, the rising prices, the mushrooming corruption of the ruling cabal, decay of the nation- building institutions, the broken-down municipal system, the galloping inflation, and on top of all the grinding power shortage atrociously affecting every aspect of life and population in Pakistan. </font></p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">The press has been tamed and fixed. The recent drama with Malik Riaz Hussain as the main hero and villain has spilled the beans as to how the self-styled saints and moralists among the journalists were the recipient and beneficiary of cores of graft and sell-out rewards from him. The arch journalists have been so nakedly exposed for their clandestine wheeling dealing with the shady individuals who are immersed in corruption and loathsome money-making pursuits. That lethal lightening rod must have fallen on the high profile and preeminent media charlatans, presumably, at the behest of Mr. Zardari.</font></p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">So he knows the art of fixing the non-conformists and taming the rebellious or rowdy elements in every walk of life, be it the ministers, the lawyers, the journalists, the judges and even the military top notches. The PPP’s traditional vote bank is as intact and would remain so as are the assets of Mr. Zardari in offshore accounts and in the Swiss banks. </font></p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">He is a past master in making rapprochements and reconciliations. But he is a ruthless executioner as well. Where is Babar Awan who used to be as the lead cavalier for the PPP and the front man of president Zardari in rejoinders, reviling and foul mouthing the opponents? He was disgracefully kicked out of the party and the government when he dithered on bailing out Mr. Gilani in the court as a witness. AAZ has been able to command and extract unconditional and absolute loyalty from his associates and cohorts. In returns he treats them with utmost care like an indulgent godfather and cardinal patron.</font></p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">A clever and foxy person as he is, he possesses the abundant ability and adroitness to deflect the dark darks clouds that gather around the PPP and himself from time to time. He has always come out with amazing success and scoring victory over his raucous political adversaries. His four years’ track record eloquently bears out that he has been inimitable in browbeating and disarming his political opponents. </font></p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">As for the people’s outcry for their woes, he gives a dam to it. Understandably, the agitations or protests can be effective only if there are sincere and dedicated leaders to lead them. And in Pakistan there are self-centered, greedy and myopic pygmies whose vision is as narrow as their concern is negligible for the well being of Pakistan and Pakistanis.</font></p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">If all are chips of the same faulty and reprobate block then it hardly makes any difference whether you support and stand by Zardari or his adversaries. Better vote for PPP. After all it is a revolutionary party with a heavy backlog of plentiful sacrifices and hardships. More so because it is headed by a consummate, crafty and matchless navigator.</font></p> <p><i><strong><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">The writer is a senior journalist and a former diplomat</font></strong></i></p> <p><i><strong><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">To unsubscribe or for comments please write us at </font></strong></i><a href="mailto:qureshisaeed50@hotmail.com"><i><strong><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">qureshisaeed50@hotmail.com</font></strong></i></a></p> <div class="blogger-post-footer">http://thecitizenstrust.blogspot.com is a blog run by the admin of the facebook group 'The Citizen's Trust for Victims of Terror' it is a voluntary group with no formal associations with any political party or group.</div>SOAP BOXhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04514006243211979566noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5992656860273359959.post-65760687222852441382012-07-26T12:59:00.001+05:002012-07-26T12:59:37.391+05:00Pity the Nation<p> </p> <p><strong>Inspired by Khalil Gibran & more recently by Justice Asif Saeed  Khosa , </strong></p> <p><strong>I, too have ventured to speculate on what are the traits of a nation that  could invite universal pity.</strong></p> <p align="left"><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">Pity the Nation that is at war with itself</font></p> <p align="left"><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">But is happy to blame the world for all its sins</font></p> <p align="left"><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">Pity the Nation that refuses to learn from history</font></p> <p align="left"><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">But continues to distort historical facts</font></p> <p align="left"><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">Pity the nation that relishes in living on myths</font></p> <p align="left"><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">But tries unrelentingly to spurn reality</font></p> <p align="left"><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">Pity the Nation where citizens express anger at international atrocities</font></p> <p align="left"><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">But is oblivious to cruelties inflicted daily by its own sons & daughters on its own sons & daughters </font></p> <p align="left"><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">Pity the Nation where a nuclear technology salesman is a hero</font></p> <p align="left"><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">But is reluctant to honour its most distinguished nuclear scientist </font></p> <p align="left"><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">Pity the Nation where the judiciary functions as a moral brigade & law-enforcement agencies dispense ‘quick justice’</font></p> <p align="left"><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">Pity the Nation where usurpers are deemed to represent the will of the people and thus not subject to legal restraints</font></p> <p align="left"><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">But elected representatives are compelled to surrender to the majesty & the ‘rule of law’</font></p> <p align="left"><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">Pity the Nation where the incarceration of a ‘brave’ daughter in a foreign land invites intense anger</font></p> <p align="left"><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">But where countless hapless daughters rot in local prisons seeking justice</font></p> <p align="left"><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">Pity the Nation where law officers garland a confessed murderer</font></p> <p align="left"><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">But where victims’ families wait endlessly for justice</font></p> <p align="left"><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">Pity the Nation where defence forces assume the responsibility to guard ideological frontiers</font></p> <p align="left"><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">But outsource territorial defence to armed zealots</font></p> <p align="left"><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">Pity the Nation where hate-mongers are treated as patriots but peace activists as foreign agents</font></p> <p align="left"><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">Pity the Nation that laments its decrepit school system</font></p> <p align="left"><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">But where state created monsters are committed to destroy existing schools</font></p> <p align="left"><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">Pity the Nation that perpetually carries a begging bowl in its hands</font></p> <p align="left"><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">But expects its benefactors to treat it with respect</font></p> <p align="left"><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">Pity the Nation that boasts of its nuclear arsenal but does little to protect the life & liberty of its own people</font></p> <p align="left"><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">Pity the Nation where the rich seek personal security through bullet-proof cars & armed guards</font></p> <p align="left"><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">But the poor are expected to seek it through prayers alone</font></p> <p align="left"><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">Pity the Nation that espouses an ideology that ensures equal rights for all citizens</font></p> <p align="left"><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">But remains indifferent to gross violations of the rights of ‘lesser citizens’</font></p> <p align="left"><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">Pity the Nation that treats its friends as foes </font></p> <p align="left"><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">But its enemies as friends</font></p> <p align="left"><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">Pity the Nation where the rich rob the state of taxes </font></p> <p align="left"><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">But the loss is recouped from the poor</font></p> <p align="left"><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">Pity the Nation where anchor persons act as judges & judges as anchor persons</font></p> <p align="left"><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">Pity the Nation where Warriors are plotting, politicians  wrangling, media shrieking, Black Robes braying</font></p> <p align="left"><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">And where people are fast losing the hope of a better tomorrow.  </font></p> <p align="left"><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">In a supplementary note <i>ala</i> Justice Khosa, let me end with the following quote from ”a thousand and one nights.”</font></p> <p> </p> <p align="center"> <font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong>“When an unjust Judge without justice judges</strong></font></p> <p align="center"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong>Horrible, horrible things are done</strong></font></p> <p align="center"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong>But more horrible things are  done</strong></font></p> <p align="center"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong>When justice judges an unjust judge.”</strong></font></p> <div class="blogger-post-footer">http://thecitizenstrust.blogspot.com is a blog run by the admin of the facebook group 'The Citizen's Trust for Victims of Terror' it is a voluntary group with no formal associations with any political party or group.</div>SOAP BOXhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04514006243211979566noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5992656860273359959.post-44581658716118847422012-05-29T09:46:00.001+05:002012-05-29T09:46:25.181+05:00Vintage Artifacts of Pakistan!<p><strong>The Youth need to learn what is part of this Motherlands heritage!</strong> </p> <p> </p> <p>There is very little memory left of a Pakistan that today almost seems like an alien planet compared to what it has been ever since the mid-1980s.Here, I share with you some interesting photographs that I have managed to gather in the last couple of years of that alien country. A place that was also called Pakistan.This sequel comprises images of vintage artifacts </p> <p><img title="bhutto-quaid-mazaar-dawn-nfp" alt="ZA Bhutto at Quaid-e-Azam's mausoleum in 1969." src="http://dawncompk.files.wordpress.com/2012/05/bhutto-quaid-mazaar-dawn-nfp.jpg?w=670&h=459" width="373" height="257" /></p> <p>Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) chairman Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, addresses a rally at Muhammad Ali Jinnah’s mausoleum in Karachi in 1969. (Photo courtesy of eBay.)</p> <p>The rally was held immediately after a protest movement led by leftist students; labour and journalist unions; political parties, including PPP and the National Awami Party (NAP), had forced Pakistan’s first military dictator Ayub Khan, to resign. <br />Construction of the mausoleum began in the early 1960s and was still underway when the rally was held. Wooden ladders and planks being used for construction purposes were acrobatically utilised by the crowd to gain vantage viewing points on the day of the rally.</p> <p><img title="pidc-karachi-protest-dawn-nfp" alt="Army troops patrol streets near PIDC, Karachi." src="http://dawncompk.files.wordpress.com/2012/05/pidc-karachi-protest-dawn-nfp.jpg?w=670" width="395" height="294" /></p> <p>Army troops patrol the streets opposite Club Road and near PIDC building in Karachi, during the anti-Ayub Khan protest movement in 1969.</p> <p>The picture was taken by a foreign tourist from his room at the Hotel Intercontinental (now, Pearl Continental), which is situated diagonally opposite the PIDC building.</p> <p><img title="dizzy-gillespie-karachi-dawn-nfp" alt="Legendary Jazz singer Dizzy Gillespie performs at a park in Karachi." src="http://dawncompk.files.wordpress.com/2012/05/dizzy-gillespie-karachi-dawn-nfp.jpg?w=670" width="401" height="310" /></p> <p>Legendary jazz saxophonist and trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie,  visited Pakistan during his whirlwind tour of Asia and the Middle East in the early 1950s. Here, he is seen playing his sax with a Sindhi snake charmer at a public park in Karachi in 1954.</p> <p><img title="ava-gardner-stewart-granger-lahore-dawn-nfp" alt="Ava Gardner and Stewart Granger at Lahore Airport." src="http://dawncompk.files.wordpress.com/2012/05/ava-gardner-stewart-granger-lahore-dawn-nfp.jpg?w=670" width="377" height="249" /></p> <p>Famous Hollywood stars Ava Gardner and Stewart Granger arrive at Lahore Airport, 1954. The actors arrived in Lahore with a full filming crew to shoot a major portion of the film ‘Bhowani Junction.’</p> <p><img title="ava-gardner-shoot-lahore-dawn-nfp" alt="Ava Gardner shoots a scene at Lahore's Railway Station." src="http://dawncompk.files.wordpress.com/2012/05/ava-gardner-shoot-lahore-dawn-nfp.jpg?w=670" width="287" height="375" /> <br />Ava Gardner shooting a scene at the Lahore Railway Station in 1954. <br /><a href="http://dawncompk.files.wordpress.com/2012/05/bowani-junction-shoot-lahore-dawn-nfp.jpg"><img title="bowani-junction-shoot-lahore-dawn-nfp" border="0" alt="Pakistani fans and artistes gather around the main cast of Bhowani Junction on the film’s set in Lahore. " src="http://dawncompk.files.wordpress.com/2012/05/bowani-junction-shoot-lahore-dawn-nfp.jpg?w=670" width="325" height="410" /></a> <br />Pakistani fans and artistes gather around the main cast of Bhowani Junction on the film’s sets in Lahore. <br /><img title="karachi-beach-foreigners-dawn-nfp" border="0" alt="American tourists enjoy a camel ride at Karachi’s Clifton beach in 1960. (Video grab from a 1960 tourism promotional film made by Pan Am)" src="http://dawncompk.files.wordpress.com/2012/05/karachi-beach-foreigners-dawn-nfp.jpg?w=670" width="349" height="198" /> <br />American tourists enjoy a camel ride at Karachi’s Clifton beach in 1960.  [Video grab from a 1960 tourism promotional film made by Pan Am] <br />A series of apartment blocks, bungalows, fast-food joints and restaurants have sprung up in the area today – but no tourists,  especially not the bikini-wearing kind. <br /><img title="pia-ad-inflight-ent-dawn-nfp" border="0" alt="A 1964 PIA press ad featuring famous Hollywood comedian and actor Bob Hope." src="http://dawncompk.files.wordpress.com/2012/05/pia-ad-inflight-ent-dawn-nfp.jpg?w=670" width="383" height="528" /> <br />A 1964 PIA press ad featuring famous Hollywood comedian and actor Bob Hope. <br />PIA was one of the first airlines in the world to introduce in-flight entertainment. It regularly featured in all the prestigious top-10-airline lists for over 20 years, before dropping out in the  mid-1980s. <br /><img title="continental-ad-karachi-dawn-nfp" border="0" alt="This is a 1967 press ad published in LIFE magazine for the American insurance company, Continental Insurance." src="http://dawncompk.files.wordpress.com/2012/05/continental-ad-karachi-dawn-nfp.jpg?w=670" width="385" height="578" /> <br />This is a 1967 press ad published in LIFE magazine for the American insurance company, Continental Insurance. <br />The number of American and British tourists visiting Pakistan began to grow from the early 1960s. The trend hit a peak in the late 1970s before starting to dwindle and peter out in the mid-1980s. <br />It (in a tongue-in-cheek manner) addresses those traveling to Karachi and getting injured during a ‘camel crash.’ <br /><img title="karachi-us-embassay-dawn-nfp" border="0" alt="American Embassy building under construction in Karachi, 1957." src="http://dawncompk.files.wordpress.com/2012/05/karachi-us-embassay-dawn-nfp.jpg?w=670&h=511" width="357" height="273" /> <br />American Embassy building under construction in Karachi, 1957. (Photo courtesy of eBay.) <br />Completed in the late 1950s, the building became an iconic structure on Karachi’s Abdullah Haroon Road. <br />Apart from having a busy visa section, it also housed a state-of-the-art projection hall and a widespread library, which was used by generations of Karachi’s school and college students before it was closed down in the late 1990s. <br />Easy to access across the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s – the building was gradually barricaded and heavily fortified after the tragic September 11 episode in 2001. The visa section was moved to Islamabad, before returning to Karachi in 2012 (in a different building and compound). <br />This building faced at least four terrorist attacks between 2002 and 2006 and survived them all. <br />Though the US consulate has now moved to a different location in Karachi, the building still stands. <br /><img title="shazori-cast-ptv-dawn-nfp" border="0" alt="Part of the cast and crew of PTV’s 1970 play, ‘Shazori,’ at a reception given in their honour by Canada Dry beverages company." src="http://dawncompk.files.wordpress.com/2012/05/shazori-cast-ptv-dawn-nfp.jpg?w=670" width="327" height="204" /> <br />Part of the cast and crew of Pakistan Television (PTV)’s 1970 play, ‘Shazori,’ at a reception given in their honour by Canada Dry beverages company. <br />Shakeel (third from left) became a heartthrob and sex symbol, being cast in a number of famous PTV plays as a hero throughout the 1970s. He also tried his luck in films but failed to gain the kind of popularity he enjoyed on television. <br />Today, in his sixties, he still appears on the mini-screen as a character actor. <br /><img title="roma-shabana-dawn-nfp" border="0" alt="Newspaper ad (taken from DAWN’s 7 February, 1972 edition) announcing the arrival of a Lebanese belly dancer in Karachi." src="http://dawncompk.files.wordpress.com/2012/05/roma-shabana-dawn-nfp.jpg?w=670" width="144" height="202" /> <br />Newspaper ad (taken from DAWN’s 7 February, 1972 edition) announcing the arrival of a Lebanese belly dancer in Karachi. <br />Between the early 1960s and late 1970s, Karachi was dotted by a number of nightclubs that competed for clients by offering the best in-house pop bands, bars and professional belly dancers invited from cities like Beirut, Cairo, Tehran and Istanbul. <br />Nightclubs were ordered shut in 1977. <br /><img title="lahore-fort-stamp-dawn-nfp" border="0" alt="A vibrant 1973 poster prepared and printed by the Pakistan Ministry of Tourism to attract tourism to the city of Lahore. " src="http://dawncompk.files.wordpress.com/2012/05/lahore-fort-stamp-dawn-nfp.jpg?w=670" width="321" height="512" /> <br />A vibrant 1973 poster prepared and printed by the Pakistan Ministry of Tourism to attract tourism to the city of Lahore. <br /><img title="assignment-karachi-novel-dawn-nfp" border="0" alt="A copy of famous spy novelist, Edward S. Arron’s 1962 book, ‘Assignment Karachi.’" src="http://dawncompk.files.wordpress.com/2012/05/assignment-karachi-novel-dawn-nfp.jpg?w=670" width="303" height="505" /> <br />A copy of famous spy novelist, Edward S. Arron’s 1962 book ‘Assignment Karachi.’ <br />The book was one of the many he wrote that involved the adventures of CIA agent Sam Durell in various cities across the world. <br />This novel, which narrated the tale of Durell working with Pakistani authorities to capture Soviet-backed henchmen, became an instant best-seller in Pakistan. <br />However, in a quirky twist, some copies of this novel were set on fire by pro-Soviet leftist students during a demonstration (at the Karachi University) against Ayub Khan’s education policy in 1962. <br /><img title="karachi-ad-pan-am-dawn-nfp" border="0" alt="A 1967 tourism poster for Karachi (printed by American airline Pan Am and used in Europe and the US)." src="http://dawncompk.files.wordpress.com/2012/05/karachi-ad-pan-am-dawn-nfp.jpg?w=670" width="392" height="546" /> <br />A 1967 tourism poster for Karachi (printed by American airline Pan Am and used in Europe and the US). <br /><img title="pow-stamp-dawn-nfp" border="0" alt="A special stamp released by government of Pakistan in 1973, to plead the return of the 90,000 Pakistani prisoners of war captured by the Indian forces during the 1971 war." src="http://dawncompk.files.wordpress.com/2012/05/pow-stamp-dawn-nfp.jpg?w=670" width="348" height="245" /> <br />A special stamp released by government of Pakistan in 1973, to plead the return of the 90,000 Pakistani prisoners of war captured by the Indian forces during the 1971 war. <br />Pakistan lost its eastern wing (East Pakistan) in the war. The break gave birth to Bangladesh. <br /><img title="the-protocols-book-dawn-nfp" border="0" alt="A 1970 copy of a paperback version of the conspiratorial (and fictitious) book, ‘Protocols of Zion,’ printed in Pakistan in 1969." src="http://dawncompk.files.wordpress.com/2012/05/the-protocols-book-dawn-nfp.jpg?w=670" width="207" height="299" /> <br />A 1970 copy of a paperback version of the conspiratorial (and fictitious) book, ‘Protocols of Zion,’ printed in Pakistan in 1969. <br />The Protocols, a book describing a Jewish conspiracy to take over the world, first appeared in Russia in 1903. It was written by an obscure Russian anti-Semite author (most probably as a novel), but was given a whole new angle and widespread publicity by anti-Semite American industrial tycoons like Henry Ford and then by the Nazi regime in Germany. <br />Though constantly debunked as a hoax and a farce, the book soon became popular among Arabs incensed by the creation of Israel in 1948. <br />The book was little known in Pakistan until the Saudi Arabian regime used Pakistani publishers to print it for the Saudi monarchy in 1969. <br />Millions of copies of the above-seen book were published between 1969 and 1976 in Pakistan. Most of them were shipped off to Arab countries. In fact late King Faisal of Saudi Arabia used to hand a copy to visitors. He was assassinated by his nephew in 1975. <br />Many copies also found their way back on the shelves in Pakistan’s book stores. Initially, they became popular with anti-US leftist students, but by the mid-1980s, the book had almost entirely been adopted by the religious right. <br />It is interesting to note that almost no copies were published in  Pakistan after the assassination of King Faisal in 1975, but newer editions with additions made by certain ulema, religious parties and Islamists in Pakistan, have been appearing ever since the 1980s. <br />The book has also been influential on popular conspiracy theorists in present-day Pakistan. <br /><img title="hippies-balochistan-dawn-nfp" border="0" alt="Two hippie tourists at a tea shop in Sibi, Balochistan, in 1972." src="http://dawncompk.files.wordpress.com/2012/05/hippies-balochistan-dawn-nfp.jpg?w=670" width="355" height="243" /> <br />Two hippie tourists at a tea shop in Sibi, Balochistan, in 1972. .  <br />Today, traveling to a Baloch town like the one in the picture has become a no-go area even for Pakistanis! (Photo courtesy Rory McLane). <br /><img title="karachi-bar-bottles-dawn-nfp" border="0" alt="A section of a bar in Karachi seen in 1974." src="http://dawncompk.files.wordpress.com/2012/05/karachi-bar-bottles-dawn-nfp.jpg?w=670" width="251" height="251" /> <br />A section of a bar in Karachi seen in 1974. <br />Before the sale of alcohol beverages was banned (to Muslims) in Pakistan in April, 1977, Karachi had the largest number of bars in the country. <br />This particular bar (called “Karachi On”) was situated at Elphinstone Street, in the Saddar area of Karachi. The area was home to a number of nightclubs. <br />The picture belongs to Ali Huda Shah, whose maternal uncle was the owner of the bar. It was shut down in April 1977. <br />Today, though there are no public bars in Pakistan, however, licensed liquor outlets selling local beer, whiskey, gin and rum brands still operate in Karachi and the rest of Sindh. <br />The makers of these local brands are some of the leading tax-paying companies in the country. <br /><img title="naveen-tajik-quaratulain-drama-dawn-nfp" border="0" alt="A still from one of the most famous one-off plays on Pakistan television, ‘Quratul Ain’ (1975)*." src="http://dawncompk.files.wordpress.com/2012/05/naveen-tajik-quaratulain-drama-dawn-nfp.jpg?w=670&h=479" width="406" height="293" /> <br />A still from one of the most famous one-off plays on Pakistan television, ‘Quratul Ain’ (1975). <br />It starred Naveen Tajik (right), a Pakistani Christian, who, along with Roohi Bano and Uzma Gillani, was hailed as one of the finest TV actresses in Pakistan (in the 1970s). <br />‘Quratul Ain’ (scripted by Asfaq Ahmed) tells the story of a young man who wants to join the air force and is in love with a girl (Qurat). <br />Passionate about joining the air force, the young man is distraught after he begins to lose his eye sight. <br />Qurat tells him she doesn’t care and that they should get married. The young man agrees but then vanishes. Not even his family knows about his whereabouts. Qurat waits for him but is finally coaxed by her father to find another man. <br />Many years later she accompanies her husband to a Sufi shrine from where she wants to buy some bangles. <br />As the husband goes looking for a bangles shop, Qurat stumbles upon a blind Sufi fakir (vagabond) selling bangles from a sack. <br />He has long hair and a beard. He asks for one of her hands so he could put the bangles over her wrist. It’s her lost lover. She does not recognise him. <br />But he recognises her the moment he holds her hand. In shock, he lets go of his sack and her hand and vanishes into the crowd. It is left to the audience to figure out whether a surprised Qurat realises who the man was. <br />The play was part of PTV’s ‘Aik Muhabbat Soh Afsaney’ series in which Sufi themes were set in modern urban settings. <br />Naveen, though hugely successful as a TV actress and fashion model, failed to make a mark in films. She left for the US in the early 1980s. <br /><img title="whiskey-bottle-bara-market-dawn-nfp" border="0" alt="A shelf in a shop displaying Scotch whiskey brands in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s ‘Bara market’ (Smugglers’ Market) in 1977." src="http://dawncompk.files.wordpress.com/2012/05/whiskey-bottle-bara-market-dawn-nfp.jpg?w=670" width="268" height="396" /> <br />A shelf in a shop displaying Scotch whiskey brands in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s ‘Bara market’ (smugglers’ market) in 1977. <br />The market was popular with both foreign tourists as well as Pakistanis coming from Karachi and Lahore to buy imported and/or smuggled cloth, clothes, shoes, electronic good and foreign whiskey brands. <br />The Bara area began to come under the influence of Islamist groups from the late 1980s and today the area has no such market and is in the grip of a violent and bloody conflict between armed fundamentalist outfits and the state of Pakistan. <br /><img title="dulhan-aik-raat-ki-dawn-nfp" border="0" alt="Poster & still from 1975’s Pakistani film, ‘Dulhan Aik Raat Ki’ (A Bride for One Night)." src="http://dawncompk.files.wordpress.com/2012/05/dulhan-aik-raat-ki-dawn-nfp.jpg?w=670" width="591" height="301" /> <br />Poster and still from 1975’s Pakistani film, ‘Dulhan Aik Raat Ki’ (A Bride for One Night). <br />The flick was Pakistan’s first Urdu film advertised as ‘For Adults Only.’ In the mid-1970s, British and American ‘adult films’ had become a hugely successful outing for young middle-class Pakistanis and couples, and by 1974-75, films (especially in Karachi) labelled ‘For Adults Only,’ were doing a roaring business. <br />Karachi’s Rio Cinema and Palace Cinema became known for running such films (Rio today is a gaudy shopping mall while Palace was converted into a marriage hall). <br />Such films were mainly low-budget European and American romantic farces in which nudity scenes and sexual content were allowed to be shown by the censors, thus the tag: ‘For Adults Only’. <br />Inspired by the period’s ‘Adult Film’ phenomenon, Mumtaz Ali Khan directed Pakistan’s first Urdu film that was ‘For Adults Only.’ It was appropriately called ‘Dulhan Aik Raat Ki’. <br />Staring late Badar Munir (then known as the ‘Charles Bronson of Pakistan) and a number of famous 1970s Punjabi and Pushtun film actresses, it was a raunchy fusion of violent Italian spaghetti westerns and 1970s European soft-porn. <br />It was disallowed a re-release in the 1980s by the Zia dictatorship and was only made available (on VHS) in the late 1980s. It is still not available on DVD, but can be found on VCD. <br /><img title="ptv-1970-elections-dawn-nfp" border="0" alt="A video grab from PTV’s groundbreaking coverage of the 1970 general elections." src="http://dawncompk.files.wordpress.com/2012/05/ptv-1970-elections-dawn-nfp.jpg?w=670" width="351" height="257" /> <br />A video grab from PTV’s groundbreaking coverage of the 1970 general elections. <br />Running consecutively for 48 hours, the 1970 election transmission was one of the first long duration live events telecast by PTV. <br />Seen in the picture is famous PTV anchor of the 1970s, Laeeq Ahmed, pointing at the number of seats (162) won by the Bengali nationalist party in former East Pakistan, the Awami League (AL). <br />In 1971 AL rebelled against the West Pakistan military establishment (for not giving it the democratic right to lead the new democratic regime as a majority party), and after a bloody civil war, East Pakistan broke away and became the independent Bengali republic of Bangladesh. <br />Notice how the host is holding a cigarette in his hand while discussing the election results. TV hosts commonly smoked on the air until the practice was discontinued in the early 1980s. <br /><img title="irwins-terror-dawn-nfp" border="0" alt="A 1973 psychedelic poster of Pakistani rock band Irwin’s Terror." src="http://dawncompk.files.wordpress.com/2012/05/irwins-terror-dawn-nfp.jpg?w=670" width="369" height="278" /> <br />Pakistani rock band Irwin’s Error (1973) <br />The band was made up of (from left) Irfan Bawany (guitar), Tuppu (drums), Uruj Malik (bass) and Owne Patrick (keyboards). Bands like Irwin’s Terror were different from the famous bands of the era that played exclusively at nightclubs (see bellow). Irwin’s Error played harder versions of rock music and mostly performed at high school parties. <br />(Picture courtesy: <a href="http://lmkonline.wordpress.com/category/band-profile/">http://lmkonline.wordpress.com/category/band-profile/</a>) <br /><img title="iggy-fernandez-dawn-nfp" border="0" alt="A 1978 picture of Iggy Fernandez, famous Pakistani guitar player, who committed suicide in 1980." src="http://dawncompk.files.wordpress.com/2012/05/iggy-fernandez-dawn-nfp.jpg?w=670" width="353" height="241" /> <br />A 1978 picture of Iggy Fernandez, famous Pakistani guitar player, who committed suicide in 1980. <br />Iggy belonged to the Goan Christian community of Karachi that was very active in the city’s pop music scene in the 1960s and 1970s. He often performed solo at nightclubs and was dubbed as the ‘Jimi Hendrix of Pakistan.’ <br />Exceptionally talented, Iggy got caught-up in a vicious love triangle that led him to jump from the roof of Hotel Metropole in Karachi, in 1981. <br />The few recordings of his performances that survived his tragic  demise went on to influence moody guitar wizards like Aamir Zaki. <br />(Picture courtesy: <a href="http://lmkonline.wordpress.com/category/band-profile/">http://lmkonline.wordpress.com/category/band-profile/</a>) <br /><img title="in-crowd-playboy-club-dawn-nfp" border="0" alt="1974 photo showing famous Karachi pop band the In-Crowed performing at the Playboy nightclub on Karachi’s Club Road. The club was closed down in 1977." src="http://dawncompk.files.wordpress.com/2012/05/in-crowd-playboy-club-dawn-nfp.jpg?w=670" width="361" height="238" /> <br />A 1974 photo showing famous Karachi pop band the Captivators performing at the Playboy nightclub on Karachi’s Club Road. The club was closed down in 1977. <br />(Picture courtesy: <a href="http://lmkonline.wordpress.com/category/band-profile/">http://lmkonline.wordpress.com/category/band-profile/</a>) <br />A recording of The Communications – a funk band from Karachi. The song was recorded at the band’s performance at the Horse Shoe nightclub in January 1977. <br /><img title="red-n-white-pia-ad-dawn-nfp" border="0" alt="A 1974 press ad of Red & White cigarettes. Just like in other airports of the world at the time, smoking was allowed in all areas of Pakistani airports as well." src="http://dawncompk.files.wordpress.com/2012/05/red-n-white-pia-ad-dawn-nfp.jpg?w=670" width="373" height="562" /> <br />A 1974 press ad of Red & White cigarettes. Just like in other airports of the world at the time, smoking was allowed in all areas of Pakistani airports as well. The shoot for this ad took place at the old Karachi Airport that worked as a hub in the region and was one of the busiest airports in Asia receiving up to 60 flights in an hour from around the world. <br />The man is sitting at a famous waiting lounge/restaurant at the  airport (Sky Grill) that also had a full bar and was the only place at the airport that was centrally air-conditioned. <br /><img title="sadiq-moh-mushtaq-moh-dawn-nfp" border="0" alt="Former Pakistani test team opener, Sadiq Muhammad (left) and former Pakistan cricket captain, Mushtaq Muhammad, share a beer in Sydney in January, 1977." src="http://dawncompk.files.wordpress.com/2012/05/sadiq-moh-mushtaq-moh-dawn-nfp.jpg?w=670&h=350" width="354" height="187" /> <br />Former Pakistani Test batsman Sadiq Muhammad (left) and  former Pakistan cricket captain, Mushtaq Muhammad, share a beer in Sydney in January, 1977. <br />The picture was taken inside the players’ dressing room at the Sydney Cricket Ground after Pakistan defeated a strong Australian Test side. This was Pakistan’s first Test victory against Australia in Australia. With the victory, Pakistan squared the series 1-1 after being one down in the series. Seen in the background is a shirtless Imran Khan who took 12 wickets in the match. <br /><img title="imran-khan-sarfraz-sydney-dawn-nfp" border="0" alt="Pakistan cricket team’s famous pace duo, Imran Khan and Sarfraz Nawaz, at a nightclub in Melbourne in 1981." src="http://dawncompk.files.wordpress.com/2012/05/imran-khan-sarfraz-sydney-dawn-nfp.jpg?w=670" width="369" height="296" /> <br />Pakistan cricket team’s famous pace duo, Imran Khan and Sarfraz Nawaz, at a nightclub in Melbourne in 1981. <br />The picture was taken during Pakistan team’s 1981 tour of Australia. Architects of various wins by the Pakistan team in the 1970s and early 1980s,  Imran and Sarfraz who were both best friends but had a major falling out as politicians in the 1990s. <br />Sarfraz, a long-time Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) supporter, joined the PPP after retirement (in 1988) whereas Khan formed his own party (1996). Nawaz changed allegiances last year, when he switched to the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM). <br /><img title="nawaz-sharif-70s-dawn-nfp" border="0" alt="A 1973 photo of Nawaz Sharif. Sharif came from a business family and according to a biography (published in 2004) he was a music and film enthusiast and a PPP/Bhutto supporter at college (in the late 1960s)." src="http://dawncompk.files.wordpress.com/2012/05/nawaz-sharif-70s-dawn-nfp.jpg?w=670" width="292" height="437" /> <br />A 1973 photo of Nawaz Sharif.  Sharif came from a business family and according to a biography (published in 2004), he was a music and film enthusiast and a PPP/Bhutto supporter at college (in the late 1960s). <br />In the 1970s his family had a falling out with the PPP regime it nationalised a large part of the Sharif family’s businesses. <br />Nawaz joined politics in the 1980s, guided by anti-PPP dictator, Ziaul Haq. Today his party, the PML-N, is the second largest political party in Pakistan after the PPP. <img title="karachi-donkey-cart-80s-dawn-nfp" border="0" alt="Karachi on the day the reactionary military junta led by Ziaul Haq toppled the Z A. Bhutto regime (July 5, 1977). In the background is a large cinema that closed down in the 1980s." src="http://dawncompk.files.wordpress.com/2012/05/karachi-donkey-cart-80s-dawn-nfp.jpg?w=670&h=350" width="372" height="196" /> <br />  <br />End of an era: Karachi on the day the reactionary military junta led by Ziaul Haq toppled the Z A Bhutto regime (July 5, 1977). In the background is a large cinema that closed down in the 1980s.</p> <div class="blogger-post-footer">http://thecitizenstrust.blogspot.com is a blog run by the admin of the facebook group 'The Citizen's Trust for Victims of Terror' it is a voluntary group with no formal associations with any political party or group.</div>SOAP BOXhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04514006243211979566noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5992656860273359959.post-21800644208956853322012-05-23T10:36:00.001+05:002012-05-23T10:36:49.340+05:00MISKEEN<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">After a very long time I have come across such a well written article which expresses the feelings of millions of people like myself… </font></p> <p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">Now we know why Allah sent over a 100,000 messengers to this region……..and it has still not made a difference….!</font></p> <p><strong><b><i><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">Saudi Arabia was almost the last to end slavery officially in 1974 yet by nature retain all the instincts of slave-running alive!</font></i></b></strong></p> <p><strong><em><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"></font></em></strong></p> <p><em><b><i><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"></font></i></b></em></p> <p><strong><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">Miskeen<em> — by Mehboob Qadir </em></font></strong></p> <p><font size="3"><font face="Times New Roman"><b>Miskeen</b> is a spoken Saudi equal of ‘poor wretch’ used to denote mainly the Asian labour force, coloured workers and expatriates from Pakistan, India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Philippines, Indonesia, etc. For those of African and North African origins, they have different titles. More than a word, it shows a whole Saudi racial, social and national attitude and a rancid hubris. In this context, <strong>Ummah</strong> is either a misnomer or merely a convenience for the Arab. </font></font></p> <p><font size="3"><font face="Times New Roman">They are Saudis, Iraqis, Egyptians, Yemenis, Kuwaitis Bahrainis, Emiratis or whatever, but brothers in the Ummah. That notion is basically a political convenience. We, in the subcontinent, are emotionally more transparent and excitable. An Arab, like his camel, is emotionally frigid except when he is slighted or his female space is threatened. Despite a strangely adversarial disposition towards females, they count them among their possessions like the black tent, camels and cattle. </font></font></p> <p><font size="3"><font face="Times New Roman">One realised that the Saudi men’s honour and prestige seem to be tied more to their ability to control their women by diamond necklaces and gold biscuits than any equation of a sublime human relationship. Their family canvas is a sorry mess because of institutionalised licentiousness through a flood of divorces and multiple marriages. A society short of familial affiliations and internal gravitation disintegrates sooner or later.</font></font></p> <font size="3"><font face="Times New Roman"> <p> <br />Saudis, and Arabs for that matter, have an obsessive love for money, matched in our part of the world by the <b>Pathan</b> or the <b>Sikh</b> somewhat, if not fully. The difference is that Pathans and Sikhs both have plenty in the lands they live in, not the Saudis. Less the oil, they have always been short of food and means of livelihood as hardly anything grew in their deserts. Their harsh unsupportive environment forced them to become highwaymen for hire, ferrying the trade goods of richer nations on the ends of the desert and beyond. </p> <p>Those who were not involved in running trade caravans were busy raiding the same. Their land bridge geographical location between productive Asia, Africa and Europe helped them to become exchange traders or midway transit men. Since they produced literally nothing but had to sell others’ goods, therefore they developed excellent linguistic skills, which is why Arabic is such an eloquent language. <br /></p> <p>Arabs are racial exclusivists and the Saudis, a degree more, arrogant too. However, Kuwaitis excel in both fields. This racist arrogance does not stem from any real world class achievement but their age old ability to ply one’s merchandise to the other at exorbitant rates, making the other believe that the deal was fair, employing a clever-merchant syndrome. </p> <p>The other reason has been the inelasticity of their bare bones social capsule, which was unable to absorb any external influence or people. Their mercantile ability was polished after the advent of Islam with a large dose of missionary zeal and truth on the pain of divine condemnation forever. However, a few centuries on, this zeal waned and skillful statecraft replaced the art of salesmanship. Both required nearly the same neuro transmissions.</p> <p> <br />I have been Director General (SPAFO) of Pakistan Armed Forces deputationists, mainly, doctors and engineers, to the Saudi Armed Forces from <b>1998 to 2002</b>.This was one of the most privileged positions for a non-European/American military officer in the Kingdom. I used to sit in the Ministry of Defense sharing the floor with US, British and French military missions. Another unique privilege that I enjoyed was that I could move anywhere in the Kingdom without the indispensible written permission and saw them closely in both urban and rural landscapes. </p> <p>That regretfully shattered many a myth that we Muslims in the subcontinent carry almost as articles of faith, and along with that a part of my better self too. However, it was an invaluable education in reality and measurement of one’s worthiness or otherwise.</p> <p> <br />Within weeks, I realised that for a self-respecting person, it was nearly impossible to work honourably with those men. But for the call of duty to the fellow deputationists and mutuality between our two countries, I seriously considered repatriation. Hardly an occasion goes by without making an expatriate realise the tentative nature of his lower stature among these stiff-lipped, stuffy men. Our best, even a <b>PhD in Space Sciences</b>, weighs invariably less than a <b>Saudi camel-herder</b> from the Empty Quarter.</p> <p> <br />Saudi Arabia was almost the last to end slavery officially in 1974 yet by nature retain all the instincts of slave-running alive. The <b>Iqama</b> (work permit) is the principal instrument and is issued on behalf of the Saudi employer (Kafeel) for one year at a time. This is literally a <b>dog collar</b> that provides the Saudi master unlimited and rather coercive powers over the hapless expatriate. Regardless of innocence, merit, right to be heard and the number of years of hard work, one could be packed off and deported within hours. An expatriate has practically no legal stature, let alone the much talked about basic human rights. </p> <p>I know of a senior Pakistani banker who helped set up a renowned Saudi bank, rose to the position of vice-president and after 29 years was ordered out at a week’s notice, his invaluable service and lifetime of hard work notwithstanding. His fault? None except the sweet pleasure of his employer and the weapon, the guillotine of Iqama. Once your Iqama is withdrawn you are an immediate nonentity and must leave the country posthaste before they imprison you for an indefinite period. Moreover, one could see horrible exploitation of female expatriates by their masters, particularly that of Sri Lankans and Philippinas. Pathetic insensitivity that was.  <b>(why you people keep coming here? reply I got from a close Saudi friend)</b> <br /></p> <p>Peculiarly, Saudis have a cold and impersonal system of designating expatriates that they hire. Miskeen is a derisive phrase of pity and loathing that tends to massage their ego in a kind of perverted manner. It tends to be a device of superiority, distancing from the mass of toiling expatriate men and women working in the Saudi households, farms, factories, shops, hotels, offices and all places where an ordinary Saudi considers it below his dignity to work. </p> <p>The next lower phrase in their not so civil glossary is S<strong>iddique</strong>, which very eloquently conveys: ‘You work for me but mind your place. No liberties to be taken.’ Siddique is a belittling way of directly addressing one out of innumerable expatriates already held as miskeen.  <br /></p> <p>European and American expatriates are a different and far superior category. For them notions of pity are transformed into a view of admiration and longing. They are considered and addressed as R<strong>afique</strong>, meaning <b>‘dear friend’</b>. Americans top this list, followed closely by the British and other Europeans, depending upon how much they can benefit materially. </p> <p>There are cogent reasons for this preferential treatment. Americans and Europeans negotiate their terms of reference very carefully and hard. They are better networked, bring in more lucrative business, have better work ethics and their parent governments are unrelenting should Saudis maltreat one of their citizens. <br />There is a third but unspoken class who are mentioned with a smile and a wink. These are fair-skinned Central Asians, Lebanese, and blonde-haired Syrians. They are neither miskeen nor rafique but have the privilege of being the pleasure mates of a superior sort but not equals. They have half an access to the privacies of Saudi households; some even married in. <b>Late Rafique Hariri was a kinsman of the Saudi royal family</b>. <br /></p> <p>In all this business of labelling who was who in the shoddy Saudi esteem, they missed the forest for the trees. They know but never acknowledge that all of the Kingdom’s infrastructure, services and amenities were built by expatriates from all over the world. Saudi oil money drew the best of the foreign societies into their service but tragically, they failed to absorb them into their own society. It was because they were unfortunately blind to the power of diversification, induction of new talent and ideas. </p> <p>Their genetic disability had been that want and scarcity of thousands of years had made their tribal society grow inwards with no scope or space for expansion and accommodation. The net result is that not only the Saudis floundered a once in centuries chance to enrich their country and society with a mix of talented foreign men and women but also have a huge rootless foreign mass in their midst that can go out of hand any moment. The consequences could be devastating. More about this some other time. <br /></p> <i><strong></strong></i></font></font> <p><i><strong><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">The writer is a retired brigadier of the Pakistan Army and can be reached at </font></strong><a href="mailto:clay.potter@hotmail.com"><strong><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">clay.potter@hotmail.com</font></strong></a></i></p> <div class="blogger-post-footer">http://thecitizenstrust.blogspot.com is a blog run by the admin of the facebook group 'The Citizen's Trust for Victims of Terror' it is a voluntary group with no formal associations with any political party or group.</div>SOAP BOXhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04514006243211979566noreply@blogger.com0