In defense of Nawaz Sharif

Nawaz Sharif

And once again I must brace myself, for the torrent of “you love Nawaz Sharif” trolls is forthcoming. But that’s OK, because sometimes objectivity and truth is more important than reality denying denizens attacking your integrity. Now that I’ve gotten that out of the way, let us talk about Nawaz Sharif.

Two days ago, an interview which Nawaz Sharif gave to Cyril Almeida of Dawn was published in which Sharif claimed:

“…we have isolated ourselves. Despite giving sacrifices, our narrative is not being accepted. Afghanistan’s narrative is being accepted, but ours is not. We must look into it. Militant organizations are active. Call them non-state actors, should we allow them to cross the border and kill 150 people in Mumbai? Explain it to me. Why can’t we complete the trial?”

This statement of his, particularly his allusion to the fact that non-state militant organizations active on Pakistani soil were used to kill people in the Mumbai attack has caused the military establishment and its social media mongering masses’ libido to go into overdrive. Some choice comments from social media following the publishing of Nawaz Sharif’s interview present the following narrative: Nawaz Sharif is a traitor! Look how he defames Pakistan! He is an Indian agent! He has been placed in Pakistan for Indian interests!

The outlandishness of these claims is only exceeded by the outlandishness of the well read, well connected, well educated masses, who have ample access to fact checking resources, yet still choose to not only believe in such nonsense, but revel in spouting it off. When it is the educated people who hawk such nonsense, it is an indicator that any debate on merit and value is effectively dead in Pakistan. Nawaz Sharif is a traitor because he is a traitor, ergo anything he will say and do is because he is a traitor.

Just the other day I was having a discussion with a friend and I told him the genius of the military establishment is not that they can meddle and muck with the civilian government; it is that they have made the general public believe that it is not only acceptable, but it is actually for the greater good. Spoiler alert: we’ve seen this film before, and the greater good is a pound of horseshit that never hits home. Nawaz Sharif being removed from the post of the premiership on the flimsiest of excuses, the censorship imposed on him, the humiliation he is being subjected to (re: not being given an extension to visit his cancer-stricken wife), is not only acceptable, it is actually preferable because it is “for the greater good.”

Tomorrow (May 14, 2018), the military has called for a meeting of the National Security Council “…to discuss recent misleading media statement regarding the Bombay [sic] incident.” No doubt, the Supreme Ruler of Pakistan, General Qamar Javed Bajwa will tell his puppet Shahid Khaqan Abbasi, the Prime Minister of Pakistan, to put the out of control madman Nawaz Sharif on a leash. In what universe does any of this make sense, or sound appropriate?

But let’s back up for a moment. In 2009 Rehman Malik held a national presser in which he proclaimed:

“Some part of the conspiracy has taken place in Pakistan. We have lodged an FIR into the case.”

He then went on to say that the “attackers left from Karachi on a boat hired from Balochistan” and that, “an e-mail claiming responsibility for the attack was sent by Zarrar Shah of the Lashkar-e-Taiba.” All this was admitted by the Interior Minister of Pakistan … in 2009.

In 2016 Rehman Malik further said (in response to David Headley’s testimony):

“We have the details about who paid tickets, who funded him and how he recruited non-state actors from Pakistan [for the attacks].”

But that’s Rehman Malik. He too is a traitor in the mould of Nawaz Sharif. Why should we listen to him?

OK then. Here’s General (R) Mahmud Durrani, the National Security Advisor describing the 26/11 Mumbai attack in his own words:

“I hate to admit that the 26/11 Mumbai attack carried out by a terror group based in Pakistan on November 26, 2008 is a classic trans-border terrorist event.”

Mahmud Durrani further went on to explain that he has —

“… very good information that the government of Pakistan or the ISI was not involved in 26/11. I am 110% sure.”

Then there is Bob Woodward, Michael Hayden and Hussain Haqqani who all said the same thing — that General Pasha (ISI chief at the time) admitted that the Mumbai attack was planned and executed from Pakistan by non-state actors. His exact words are said to have been “the people were ours, the operation was not.”

Now that you have all this information, scroll up and look at the statement Nawaz Sharif made. Does it sound traitorous and treasonous anymore? Does asking a legitimate question — can we allow non-state actors to operate from our soil? — really make one a traitor to Pakistan? Because if this is the definition we’re using now, it’s only a matter of time before each and everyone, including those who think they’re above board, are accused of treason.

This is not to say that Nawaz Sharif is without fault and we need to defend his integrity. Not at all. What this is about is the fact that a de facto shadow government is in place, with unwilling puppets dancing in front taking the abuse. Nawaz Sharif’s self-indulgence is revolting, his satiation repulsive, but in the same vain ask yourself why him only? Why do we think it is OK to break every single norm that we bandy about as being essential to a democratic, prosperous Pakistan when it comes to Nawaz Sharif and single him out? If there is accountability, it should be across the board. But does it look that way to you?

If your answer is “for the greater good,” and that it needs to start from somewhere, I have nothing but despair and hopelessness for you. The greater good is nothing, if it is not for everyone including those you hate, loathe and detest. 

Pakistan’s unhealthy obsession with its military prowess

Pakistani F-16s

They say minstrels write songs about the military might of Pakistan. They say poets try to equate the omnipresence of God with the creation of Pakistan. They say even philosophers are forced to concede that the existence of Pakistan is a miracle.

Meanwhile in the mortal world, we’re left to wonder if Pakistan is so great, why the hell do they turn off mobile networks every time a bird sneezes?

The other day I went to McDonald’s. Right in front of me was a military officer wearing his uniform. He crossed the metal detector and was on his way. When I crossed the metal detector a security guard jumped out of nowhere and told me to stretch out my arms for the proverbial “checking.” I was outraged. Why did that security guard not “check” the military officer? To which that innocent, misguided, gullible representation of the Pakistani populace replied, “because he defends us. It doesn’t behoove us to check those who defend us.” Pure anger coursed through my veins. So the 70,000 Pakistanis that we like to bandy about before the international media, did they drop dead of their own accord? If these men of the so-called Allah’s army are supposed to defend me, why did the attack on APS Peshawar happen? Or the attack at Sehwan Sharif? Or the attack in Iqbal Park Lahore?

I’m not a fan of the military in Pakistan. This is the reason why: They get a free pass, every single time. And they’re allowed to get a free pass every time they want to show off their love affair with phallic toys. Like today.

I woke up today with fighter jets whizzing over my house. They were on their way to the military parade ground in Islamabad, for the full dress rehearsal that’s taking place, before the actual thing takes place on the 23rd. So I picked up my phone and tried to message a colleague, but the message wouldn’t deliver. And that’s when I saw that I had “No Service” instead of the bars of phone strength signals. So there it was again — a free pass. People’s lives can be damned; their inconveniences can be ignored; their priorities can be shelved, as long as the boys wearing camoflague uniforms get to show off their toys. And for what? What have these toys achieved? I still don’t feel safe going to a market, or a mosque, or a bazaar.

They say when you go to a foreign country, they treat you like a second class citizen. That’s a load of bullshit if I ever heard one. But what about being treated like second class citizens within your country? What do you think your status is when they shuffle you like sheep and ask you to “prove your identity” when they stop you at checkpoints and search your vehicles without warrants? Thatis called being treated like second class citizens. It doesn’t happen in America. It doesn’t happen in Europe. Or Canada, or any other country where the majority of Pakistanis want to escape to.

It is tme for catharsis. This country which we claim is all we need in the world is not great. It’s not even good. In this country we have problems of terrorism, extremism, corruption, lack of rule of law. Instead, what we’ve decided to tackle is free speech, the internet, the very existence of social media and inclusion. State agencies, without following due process, kidnap people who are critical of the state, and judges scream profanities when those same kidnapped people are recovered and try to find asylum abroad. I mean the sheer naivete and blindness that makes up the national character of this country astounds me to no end.

I don’t know. It’s the culmination of the little things that has boiled over. The terrible traffic, the electricity crises, the lack of due process, the relentless war on the freedom of speech.

And now, today, them turning off my mobile phone network.

Drone strikes kill terrorists

US drone

Yesterday a drone strike killed Wali ur Rehman Mehsud, the 2nd in command of the Tehrik e Taliban Pakistan (TTP). News reports say he was killed with his close aide Fakhr-e-Islam and 5 other Uzbek militants.

When I rejoiced at the thought of this snake being killed in a drone strike on Twitter, a very dear friend of mine pointed out that this is unacceptable and should not be tolerated under any circumstances. Normally I'd be prone to agree with him. After all, which country would tolerate another country's weapon of mass destruction firing missiles into its territory?

But these are not normal circumstances. Why does the US feel it has to fire missiles into Pakistan to kill terrorists? Because a) our army does not/dare not go into North Waziristan Agency which has known hideouts of terrorists and b) the Pakistan army has given its blessing to the American drone strike program. And for good measure. Many terrorists have been killed by these very drones that the Pakistani public loves to hate. The government maintains plausible deniability (or used to; recently the US has gone solo on the program so now the government actually has no advance knowledge of a drone strike according to the NYT) and builds up anti US rhetoric which keeps the masses united in their hatred against anything to do with the West and also keeps the terrorists from sparing them (or so they hope!).

Drone strikes have taken out legions of terrorists. According to the Bureau of Investigative journalism, there have 366 drone strikes in Pakistan up to now. Between 2,537 - 3,581 people have been killed in these strikes. Of these people killed between 579 - 1,081 are civilians and children. Whatever way you cut it, that means there's between 1000 - 1500 terrorists who have been killed in these drone strikes. In war there is collateral. And this collateral, between 1000 - 1500, is very limited considering the kind of dangerous animals have been killed.

But of course collateral damage of any kind is unacceptable. And then there's the issue of Pakistan's sovereignty. Ah. The fabled sovereignty. Countries with honest leaders, and honest people have sovereignty. Countries who are willing to fight to the death to defend their honor have sovereignty. Countries who are ready to face long periods of hardship have sovereignty. Iran has sovereignty. Venezuela has sovereignty. Cuba has sovereignty. We only have tatters of indecency which are sold for peanuts. So the myth of Pakistan's sovereignty is just a smokescreen designed to fool the gullible. But let's get back to the drone strikes, and how they violate Pakistan's sovereignty. Fair enough. Why doesn't the Pakistan military shoot down some drones? If we have sovereignty, why doesn't the Pakistan Air Force take down a couple of drones? Show the world we've got some muscle, no matter how puny, and we aren't afraid to use it to defend our honor?

And when the Pakistani people talk about "sovereignty" will they please explain to me where that sovereignty goes when Uzbeks, Tajiks, Afghans and Arabs decide to recreate scenes from Call of Duty on our streets? Uzbeks, Tajiks, Afghans and Arabs are not "Pakistani" people. Will the Pakistani people explain to me how these are "our" people and yet they found it so easy to slaughter 50,000 civilians? Innocent people who had nothing to do with this heinous war? Will the Pakistani people please explain to me what "sovereignty" they talk about when motherless bastards such as Hakeemullah Mehsud order the slaughtering of 130 innocent people in the 10 days before elections just because those people "support" a certain political viewpoint? What sovereignty is there when Pakistani land is allowed to be used to devise and plan terrorism acts WITHIN Pakistan, let alone the rest of the world?

The drones have killed 3500 people. A majority of them terrorists. Terrorists have killed 50,000 people. 46,000 of whom were innocent bystanders, or first responders. 4,000 of whom were military personnel. These are FACTS.

Another point that's objectively raised is will the US allow such drone strikes to occur on its own soil? Of course it won't. It's the world's most powerful country. Other countries dare not touch it. Besides, terrorists are not known to live and train in the US. Terrorists are not known to have safe havens in the US.

Let's get something else clear as well. The love Afghanistan and Afghan Taliban narrative that's eschewed in Pakistan has bitten us on our ass many, many times now. The Afghans have so much hatred for Pakistan, it's unbelievable. Instead we've taken 3.5 million Afghans and given them homes and jobs. The Afghan Taliban, vicious beasts that they are, were the ideology that led to the birth of the Pakistani Taliban. Declan Walsh is right when he says the Pakistani Taliban are a nihilistic organization. Snakes.

Also when you read and research about the objectives of the Pakistani Taliban, it is not to wage a war against the conquering forces. It is establishment of THEIR version of Sharia which as we've clearly seen is bordering on the insane - a far cry from Islam, or any other religion for that matter. So if the Pakistani people think once the US leaves the region things will get back to normal, they are highly mistaken.

Are drone strikes in a moral grey area? Sure. But they've been helpful. They've been helpful in killing the snakes who desecrate the Pakistani people's homes, maim their children, violate their women. And for that, I am thankful for the drone strikes.

And if you still want more certainty, here's a list of the world's most wanted terrorists killed by drone strikes:

1. Nek Muhammad Wazir
2. Haitham al-Yemeni
3. Abu Hamza Rabia (3rd in command of Al Qaeda)
4. Abu Laith al-Libi
5. Abu Sulayman al-Jaziri
6. Midhat Mursi
7. Abu Ubaidah al Tunisi
8. Khalid Habib
9. Abu Jihad al-Masri
10. Rashid Rauf
11. Usama al-Kini
12. Baitullah Mehsud
13. Tohir Yoldosh (leader of Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan - what the hell was he doing in Pakistan?)
14. Ilyas Kashmiri (was supposed to be a successor to Osama bin Laden)
15. Sayeed al-Misri
16. Jamal Saeed Abdul Rahim
17. Bahadur Mansoor (responsible for the FIA HQ bombing in Lahore)
18. Hussain al-Yemeni
19. Hamza al-Jufi
20. Sheikh Fateh al-Misri
21. Wali ur Rehman Mehsud

I've obviously missed out on a lot of other terrorists killed in these strikes but this ought to prove to you their effectiveness. These terrorists are responsible for killing millions of people around the world. Also, most of these terrorists aren't even Pakistani yet were killed in Pakistan. Proves the ineptness of our security apparatus. And yet we still want to blame the US for sending in drones?

Tahir ul Qadri is not Pakistan's promised messiah

In Pakistan messiahs are promised every few minutes. It is said they will come and change the face of the country. But the messiahs we usually get are illiterate, or if they're not illiterate they're still incompetent, useless, backwards thinking, corrupt, compulsive liars, supporters of military rule, anarchists or they have vested interests.

The PPP were the promised messiahs in 2008 when they won the elections. They said they would fix the country, they would catch Benazir Bhutto's killers, they would rid the country of corruption, they would fix the rule of law, they would fix the power situation and so on and so forth. But they failed just like everybody else. Pakistan today has slid to a point where it is bleeding from a thousand cuts. Either it will survive to live another day, or it will go south the way it did in 1971.

Sometimes I actually feel pity for Pakistan. Not the people, not the politicians but for the land itself. Sometimes I wonder to myself that if we could hear the land it would be crying and asking its dwellers what have you done to it. Why have you done what you did?

Now we have another promised messiah  from the shining land of Canada. A man who came out of nowhere and stole the thunder. A demagogue if you will as predicted by Cyril Almeida in this amazing article he published in 2011. But Tahir ul Qadri is not Pakistan's promised. He is not the man to lead Pakistan out of trouble. His character is flawed, his logic skewed and his demands unreasonable and unconstitutional. On top of that he is a compulsive liar.

Last I heard the supreme court has ordered the arrest of Raja Pervaiz Ashraf in the rental power plants corruption case. He is accused of having received kickbacks. Now that another Prime Minister has been removed from his position, it does indeed look like the forces of Qadri and the people funding and supporting him have won. Maybe the government will fail and the nation will rejoice. But that rejoice will be ironical, short lived and catastrophic.

People often ask me what's Pakistan like; is it chaotic, dangerous, serene or picturesque? That's the point where I scratch my head, look down at my feet and tell them I'll get back to them on that one.

Damned if you do, damned if you don't

I've just finished reading Irfan Hussain's article in today's Dawn. Normally I hold great respect for the man, but on certain fundamental points (like Pakistan's sovereignty for instance) I disagree with him to the extent of no reconciliation. His musings in today's newspaper fall in the latter category for me.

Irfan Hussain has benignly accused the government of being incapable of growing a pair when its required. Instead he accuses the government of hiding behind a facade, a mummer's farce if you will, so that it doesn't have to deal with the ugly realities of life. But on what points one may ask? Well on the point of the USA and its demonic stance of droning over Pakistan. Now I am all for these drone attacks because as we've seen they were an excellent way of killing Behtullah Mehsud and several others of his ilk. Unfortunately after this point is where I begin to differ significantly with Irfan Hussain. While he believes the government shouldn't have put the matter of the NATO supply routes before the parliament, I believe that's one of the democratic things this government has done.

Let me explain. Irfan Hussain says that because the government has decided to take this matter to the Parliament, it will be unable to maneuver around and show flexibility when the need arises to take some drastic measures as the people, and everybody in the Parliament will cause an uproar about how the will of the people wasn't taken into account. Essentially, Irfan Hussain is advocating that the government behave in a totally autocratic manner and take unilateral decisions which in essence amounts to licking the US of A's ass. Now I don't know from where he's getting these notions because if I remember correctly, he used to take very strong objection when this government or the previous government used to by pass Parliament in taking foreign policy level decision. Isn't this why he was always on Musharraf's case all the time? Well to really hit the nail on the head, isn't this extremely hypocritical?

While the thought of Pakistan licking USA's ass might get Irfan Hussain off, other self respecting Pakistani citizens such as myself realize that while it may be next to impossible to break the shackles of slavery vis-a-vis the USA, there needs to be a starting point.  The government's decision to involve the Parliament in the decision making process is 100% correct. The Parliament symbolizes the will of the people. Unfortunately for Irfan Hussain that will currently states that the USA can go to hell (but he needn't worry; our government isn't yet strong enough to say that to the USA, and probably never will be). In addition, by involving the Parliament the government is doing the legitimate and right thing. It is standing by its institutions. This also sets a precedent where all future significant foreign policy designs and ventures will be executed by the majority of the elected representatives leading up to across the board accountability.

Now Irfan Hussain can shimmy up to the USA all that he wants but let's get one thing clear. In a democracy, the majority needs to agree and be on board so that if God forbid things start to unravel, they can be patched up quickly. If the government does take a unilateral action, it will simply lose all credibility with the masses and then we would be forced to ask the question, why did we ever kick Musharraf out of the picture anyway because as I recall, he was really good at this doing-things-my-own-damn-way thing?

You've got it all wrong!

Zero Dark Thirty released in Dec 2012

Over the past couple of months I've watched several western TV shows. Three of them stuck to mind. The first is Sherlock, a British thriller TV series that reincarnates Sherlock in the 21st century. Modern, elegant, crisp and beautifully shot, this TV show has been a particular hit in the UK. The second show that stuck to my mind is Homeland, a US TV series based around the premise (spoiler alert) that two US marines taken captive in northern Iraq have turned on their country, become Muslim and are now sleeper assassins ready to bring down the mighty USA. And finally the third TV show is another US based series called Shameless which is about a dysfunctional family and their various problems. But why am I talking about western television shows you might be wondering? Well I'll tell you why. They've got something very wrong. And that something is the image of Karachi, Lahore and Islamabad.

Now we as citizens of Pakistan know how cool and exciting Karachi, Lahore and Islamabad are. Unfortunately these westerners have absolutely no iota of an idea about their awesomeness and they have depicted them as terror havens with burqa clad women, turbaned mullahs, and terrorists roaming around as if they are on vacation. In Sherlock for example, Sherlock Holmes actually saves someone from getting beheaded in Karachi. In Homeland, Lahore is depicted as being a breeding ground for terrorists, and Islamabad is depicted as having safe houses of terrorists. And in Shameless, well they pretty much bulldoze the entire country in to the ground.

The problem is because the majority of the western population has no idea about Pakistan and its cities, they will more likely than not form negative, unjust and cruel opinions about these Pakistanis cities. They will never get to know about the calmness, serendipity and relaxing charm of Islamabad. They will never get to know about the unique Lahori hospitality, the colorful life, the amazing food (some say its the best food in the world and I agree wholeheartedly) that Lahore offers. And these same people will never get to know that Karachi never sleeps, has malls, parks and recreational places that rival Madrid's, has a diversified and multi ethnic community that happens to be the most educated amongst all of Pakistan's cities.

Homeland is instrumental in depicting Muslims in
bad light

And this is what alarms me most. An average Westerner who watches TV, goes to work, comes back, goes to his regular hang out place with his regular friends will grow old thinking Pakistan is the country where terrorists are born and bred. The whole image of Pakistan stands broken and shattered. It doesn't help our cause that the law and order situation in our cities isn't top notch, but Pakistan simply isn't the country that its made out to be. For example Karachi's problems are no different than Mumbai's so to speak, but while the Indians show the world how fun and classy Mumbai is, we are left with defending Karachi as not being the place where terrorists go to shop.

And this leads me on to my second point. It's all about the image perception. Even though India has some dramatic domestic problems, the world does not get to hear about them. What they do get to see and hear instead are the "Incredible India" ads that show what a classy, true to its roots eastern, modern, vibrant, happy and colorful country it is. Which makes me want to ask this question: Why can't we do the same? Where are our image managers? Oh that's right, we don't have any because nobody cares. What we do have however is a President who is tainted with corruption charges and who refuses to acknowledge those blemishes, we have a Prime Minister who goes to the Supreme Court for disobeying its orders, we have an army that is constantly berated for harboring ties with the militants, we have an administration that is repeatedly told to do more because inadvertently the majority of terrorists are found to have visited Pakistan and most importantly we are the country where Osama bin Laden was found.

We really need to pull our act together and fix our faults. Because even though all of the aforementioned things are true, we know what a great culture and a beautiful country we have. We can't let the world's idea of us ruin our heritage and our pride like this. This propaganda needs to be countered because these festering notions about Pakistan will lead to a greater scrutinization of Pakistan which considering how many problems we already have with the world, will hurt us even more. It's time to show the world what Pakistan really is. It's time to take this cause into our own hands because our elected leaders are incapable of projecting our image the right way.

Stay in your limits, general

Can't say anything to the military, that's treason; can't say anything to the judiciary, that's contempt of court; can't say anything to the Mullahs, that's blasphemy; but the Prime Minister, President and Parliament, let's lynch them because it is our democratic right.

Or so read the Facebook statuses of thousands of Pakistanis. And apparently also on Twitter. So why is everybody being so queasy about treason and contempt of court and blasphemy? Well that's because the lot of Pakistanis with some common sense and rationality are increasingly being cornered with no way.

PM Gilani in an interview to a Chinese daily hinted that the replies filed by the Chief of Army Staff General Kayani and the Director General ISI General Pasha were unconstitutional and held no legal merit. He of course forgot that they were both respondents who were served notices by the court directly and then had to reply to the court with or without Gilani's approval.

Now we know that Gilani is not a very clever man and doesn't think things through properly. But we have been led to believe like the little black sheep who only bleat and follow whatever comes in their way, that Kayani is super perfect and that he has Kim Jong Il type powers of awesomeness. In addition we have also been told rather repeatedly that because Kayani is so perfect, he can never do any wrong. Oh how sorry were we.

You see in response to Gilani's rather stupid hinting capabilities, Kayani hit back at the "civilian democracy" in the place where it hurts the most. Kayani via an army statement said that Gilani's statement could have "serious ramifications" for Pakistan. But hold your horses! He further goes onto threaten the civilian baddies with "potential grievous consequences for the country."

As a citizen of this poor, shunned, brow beaten shell of a country that this once was, I stand hurt and well mighty damn angry. How dare Kayani who is nothing more than a grade 22 officer threaten the democratic institutions of Pakistan? Who does he think he is? Does he think he is God (naaoozubillah)? Does he have a magic wand that he will wave and make the problems of Pakistan go away? Oh wait. That can't be it because he was asleep in his king size bed at home when Pakistan's sovereignty was raped for 2 whole goddamn hours on May the 2nd!

It pains me, disgusts me and shames me that even now there are people in this country who support a martial law imposition; who think Kayani coming to the helm of affairs will fix everything. Well let me just bust your bubble: It will not. The favourite argument of these self professed cleansers of Pakistan is that because Zardari is corrupt, he has done corruption. Because he has done corruption, his whole party has done corruption. Because PPP has done corruption, the army needs to come to fix everything. Wrong!

So Zardari is corrupt and Gilani is stupid and Firdaus Ashiq Awan is an affront to the intelligence of women, the fact of the matter is they are only criticised because there are no "ramifications". Because criticizing them will not land you in jail, or your deathbed. Let's talk about another type of corruption today shall we?

Rs 800 billion was allotted to the army last year. Rs 800 billion. Now let's recount what took place last year. First there were the drone attacks. But it turns out Kayani was hand in glove with the Americans on that one. Let's all laugh about how stupid we all were for thinking the army was defending the frontier while in fact they were the ones providing spot locations for drone attacks. And lest you forget I'm all for drone strikes to wipe out militants. I'm just amazed at the sheer hypocrisy of those (read: army) who proclaim that the Americans will not be allowed to toy with our sovereignty. What sovereignty do they talk about? But I digress. Then came May the 2nd. A day that will forever go down in history as being the day when Pakistan lost all morality in the comity of nations. Why didn't our army defend us? Why didn't our Air force defend us? Why didn't the army shoot down the raiding American helicopters while they fluttered about in Pakistani airspace for two hours? Why didn't the army take action when all the action could in fact have been live from the Pakistan Military Academy? Why? And when the civilian baddies tried to fix that (via the Memogate, wrong method but correct intentions) the army just got pissed. What about the navy base attack? When 4 "Star Trek" characters set a whole base on fire and laid siege to it for 16 hours. How incompetent is our army? Even with Rs 800 billion a year in its pockets. And they talk about defeating India in war when can't even defend their own shoddy selves. Why does no one talk about this corruption?

And lest we forget, yes Kayani is the rat bastard who is responsible for putting this country under the water and making it sink. Now he trespasses the halls of morality but let me jog your memory. In 2007 Musharraf wanted an NRO with Benazir Bhutto. He sent his DG ISI to draft an agreement and get it signed. That agreement was called NRO. And who was that DG ISI, the architect of that agreement? Why yes it was Kayani. Who rules this country behind the facade of Gilani and Zardari? Why it's Kayani. And who has burnt this country down and sold it to the dogs? Why yes, it is indeed Kayani.

I don't have a problem with the army, or the soldiers who stand day and night watching these insolent generals who have nothing better to do than to fart all over the destiny of Pakistan. I have a problem with the generals. Making Kayani the chief executive will be the final nail in the Pakistan's coffin. Let's make that clear.

So how do we go about sorting through this mess? By letting the PPP complete its 5 years in power. You see we have now seen how inept the PPP has been in power. In the next elections people like me who have never voted before, are going to vote it out of power and vote somebody better in its place and so on and so forth. But instead if Kayani comes to the helm, well then bye bye Pakistan. You were truly loved and you will sorely be missed.

By linking the performance of the governments to the voting process and by empowering the common people, in only 20 years' time this country will be a much, much better place than it is today. People themselves will see how democracy is a million times better than the army mounting coups. Kayani should not sully the good name of all those nameless soldiers who have died, who stand upright during the night to protect his highness, and who when the time comes become brothers to those Pakistanis who need them. Kayani would be well advised to keep his fantasies to his self. Kayani should stay within his limits.

Did Imran Khan just own Lahore?

Imran Khan

I know a lot has been said, is being said, and will be said about Imran Khan's insanely large rally in Lahore yesterday. Did he woo the masses of their feet? Yes. Did he prove that a lot of people support him? Yes. Did he own Lahore? I think he might just have.

Imran Khan set out to prove a point, and he nailed it into every nailable thing out there. He ripped through the Sharifs' fortress and came out the other side victorious. He didn't say anything new, he didn't surprise anyone with new promises, but he delivered a powerful speech, one that might have sent shivers down his opponents spines. He also managed to shut his detractors (yours truly included) up and proved that his followers are not only from the educated urban middle class. They come from all strata of society.

But while all that is good and rosy, there are other points that need to be discussed. There are questions that need to be asked and answers that need to be heard. Imran Khan once again continued to lick the shiny armour of the army. He recounted an anecdote involving Hussain Haqqani, Pakistan's ambassador to the US, and Zardari in which both of them beg the Americans to save them from the Pakistani generals. Perhaps Imran Khan thinks licking the army's shiny suit would earn him the required number of points to qualify as the next prime minister of Pakistan?

He also talked about corruption and how Rs 3000 billion is lost every year in tax corruption. But once again, he failed to mention how he would eradicate this colossal negative enigma from Pakistan. He also talked about telling the Americans to talk to Pakistan on an equal footing. While these are noble sentiments, in the real world they hold no water. The US acts as our benefactor, hence we dare not say anything offensive to it. Unless the shackles of benefaction can be broken, I'm afraid Imran Khan was simply indulging in yesterday's rhetoric.

Imran Khan also spoke of ending the military operations in the tribal belts. I really want to ask him whether he's become insane? OK so he says the military fights the local Pakistani population in the tribal belt. My question is what of the many thousands of Uzbek, Chechen and Arab militants residing in those places? Who is going to fight them? Or are they "our people" too? Or does Imran Khan believe they do not exist and they are simply a figment of the imagination of a few people?

Imran Khan said the tribal elders have assured him that if the army stops taking action in the tribal belt, the terrorism will automatically go away. Of  course it will. By not fighting the cancer spurting out of the tribal belts, the Pakistan army will become complicit in letting it spread.

Is Imran Khan a very charismatic man with a lot of fan following? Yes he is. But he talks nonsense at times particularly with regards to the foreign and interior policy. While his solutions to the energy crisis are admirable and in fact extremely workable, his solutions to steering the country out of the mess it finds itself in are based on populist whims and rhetoric.

I want to like Imran Khan. But he never gives me any reason to even bother. Rather, he takes all of the reasons that might make me like him and shoots them in the head. And that makes me wonder, who am I going to vote for in 2013 when I've ruled Imran Khan out?

Good Taliban, Bad Taliban

If it were merely blithering idiots giving us the good Taliban, bad Taliban story, we would simply laugh and move on. But that's not the case. The good Taliban, bad Taliban is deeply embedded into the minds of our intellectuals and journalists and hence this rhetoric finds its way onto the mainstream. Which is problematic for two reasons: 1) it creates confusion amongst the masses, and 2) it keeps the Pakistani establishment hovering two feet above the air when it needs to be brought back down.

Why does the Pakistani establishment keep floating in the air when this rhetoric is flowing though? The answer is simple. They are the ones who have fooled us into believing in this rhetoric in the first place. While the Afghan Taliban are good Taliban, the Pakistani Taliban are the bad Taliban. Unfortunately for the Pakistani people, the Taliban refuse to distinguish themselves as the Pakistani or Afghan Taliban. To them they are just the Taliban. Hence the Pakistani Taliban claim that Sirajuddin Haqqani is a commander of the Taliban while the Pakistani establishment believes that because Sirajuddin Haqqani is an Afghan, he is good for Pakistan.

I have questioned repeatedly and vigorously as to what benefit the Pakistani establishment sees when it tries to enforce upon the masses that creating a strategic depth in Afghanistan is paramount to Pakistan's future. However no answer has ever been forthcoming. So, we don't know what good will come from having a war torn and destabilized Afghanistan on our west border with the Taliban in the government's seat other than somehow it will help us against India.

Reverting to a point I made earlier regarding Pakistani intelligentsia's fallacy of falling for the rhetoric that is spewed by the establishment, it becomes doubly dangerous because this propaganda is passed off as facts. When national newspapers become the playgrounds of manipulation, the concept of objective journalism evaporates. It is indeed the need of the hour that the Pakistani journalistic community get its act together and pushes for an objective viewpoint that questions the intentions of all parties involves and condones transparency and the point of views that are beneficial for Pakistan as a whole; not simply for those pulling the strings.

Trying desperately to save face

Last night all the top politicians of Pakistan got together to chalk out a united strategy in the face of extreme pressure from the United States. Much as I would like to tell these same politicians what's really on my mind, I do believe they deserve tremendous applause for being man enough to tell the world that there is still some semblance of sanity that exists within Pakistan and its political ranks.

The joint resolution that was presented at the end of the 9 hour meeting says what we've always been hearing: that Pakistan is a peace loving country and that it will always keep its interests supreme. We already know from the last 60 odd years that that's not true. We also know that we're absolutely unsure about what Pakistan's interests are and who decides them. Supposedly, supporting the Haqqani network of the Taliban in Afghanistan is one of the interests of Pakistan. Like I questioned in my blog yesterday, to what end?

The resolution also failed to distance Pakistan from its image of always helping the wrong side and of double dealing. You see while the Pakistani government may feed us all lies about how our establishment is so sweet and nobody loves it, the world has become quite sick of our shenanigans. The Pakistani nation is identified in vile terms and its image is scorned upon. Did the resolution address any of these critical exclamation marks? Afraid not.

So what did the joint resolution of the APC achieve then? Well the answer to that will be nothing really. General Pasha and General Kayani simply denied all allegations of wrong doing. Even with Nawaz Sharif's rather testy remark that wherever there is smoke there is fire, the military men refused to concede that they are responsible for maintaining links with the Haqqani network. Ironically the resolution fails to say that Pakistan does not, will not and has not maintained any links with the Haqqani network. Does that amount to admission of guilt? You're free to draw your own conclusions.

While the world continues to move on berating Pakistan for its duplicity we vehemently and strictly refuse to acknowledge our shortcomings. We refuse to accept our mistakes and we refuse to correct them. We live in denial. We like it. Unfortunately the world doesn't like it and hence it has run out of patience with Pakistan. Mike Mullen was just one man who made one allegation. Very soon (if we keep our charades) a whole corps will be out there doing the same.

10 questions that need to be answered at the All Parties Conference

As you all might know an All Parties Conference (APC) is currently under way in Islamabad to chalk out a united response from the country's political leadership to the threats and accusations made by Admiral Mike Mullen in which he accused the Taliban's Haqqani network as being a veritable arm of the ISI. Almost 58 politicians belonging to all the major political parties are attending this conference including Nawaz Sharif, Imran Khan and Chaudry Shujaat Ali. The important question is whether this conference will actually achieve anything substantial?

We of course need a united stance on the American accusations and allegations which are by their nature very extreme. To help the politicians achieve that, General Ashfaq Kayani (COAS) and General Ahmed Shuja Pasha (DG ISI) will be presenting themselves before the politicians and answering the various questions that they might have.

Some of the questions that I have and which I would really like to be answered are as follows:

1. Does Pakistan actually have any "veritable" links to the Haqqani network?
2. Does the Pakistani military support a "strategic depth" doctrine in Afghanistan?
3. If yes, then what exactly does the Pakistani military intend to achieve with that strategic depth in Afghanistan?
4. Does the ISI share strategic intel with the US intel agencies?
5. Does the Pakistani military have compulsive, incriminating evidence against CIA/US double dealing in Afghanistan and Pakistan?
6. Does the Pakistani intelligence apparatus have compulsive, incriminating evidence against Indian involvement in Pakistan's tribal areas and Balochistan?
7. Does the Pakistani military believe that it can defend the country in the event of a ground invasion by the US forces?
8. Why did the Pakistani military allow a known CIA operative who is also a murderer (Raymond Davis) go scot free?
9. Has the Pakistani military officially sanctioned the lease of Shamsi airbase to the UAE and further on to the USA?
10. How can General Kayani and General Pasha convince the Pakistani nation that after the OBL fiasco (being discovered in the heart of the Pakistani military) a repeat of that episode will not take place?

These are just some of the many questions that I would like to be answered. Because they form the bedrock of the many confusions plaguing our nation regarding the intentions of our armed forces.

A reply: The Gloves Come Off

Karen Bleier/AFP/Getty Images

On Foreign Policy magazine's online website today, you will find a hard hitting article by Daniel Markey regarding the US pressure vis-a-vis Pakistan. In that unfortunate article, Daniel Markey has just talked the talk and labelled the Pakistani military as being a sponsor to terrorism in Afghanistan. Being a Pakistani, this hurts me deeply for obvious reasons. However, while some part of me may believe that the Pakistani military has not been entirely honest with the US (they've been much less honest to the Pakistani people) I do believe that the American people must know of the inadvertent failures of their own armed forces in a country that they shouldn't have attacked in the first place.

The US has taken the Pakistani case to the press and has played hard ball with it. Twisting the Pakistani military's arm in front of the camera must have been a massive adrenaline rush for Mike Mullen and Leon Panetta but the fact remains that there's hardly anything else they can do.

While the world looks with dazed eyes on the volley emanating from both sides, there is little doubt that they have both hit a stalemate. Frankly speaking though, the Pakistani government and military might just be about to enter the bad boy zone by unilaterally telling the US to piss off. Ramifications for such an action are far reaching and dangerous; already the IMF and World Bank heads have refused to meet with the delegation of Pakistanis headed by Hafeez Shaikh the finance minister and there is little doubt the US will squeeze every remaining drop of blood from the Pakistani veins.

If Mike Mullen and Leon Panetta feel confident in berating Pakistan publicly and delivering some not so veiled threats then it must mean that they have credible information regarding Pakistan's double game. Surprisingly however this time around the Pakistani's have hit back with a vengeance and have counter alleged that the CIA itself has links to many terrorist organizations and that the Haqqani network, which is the bone of contention, was a blue eyed boy of the CIA for many years.

So what can the US really do in such a situation? Well it can ill afford to wage a new war in Pakistan. Sure it can replace the drones with B-52 bombers which make a much higher impact but lets not forget that in these freezing times, the Pakistani military just might grow the balls to actually scramble the F-16s that it keeps touting about.

Most importantly though, and I cannot over emphasize this enough, the Americans have failed on the frontier that they should've won -- the Pakistani people. Like I said before the US has never really worked on winning the hearts and minds of the people of Pakistan. It has always tried to push through its policies in the region via the corrupt, the weak and the dishonest governments of Pakistan whether they be civilian or military. When foreign minister Khar stated that "...the US cannot afford to alienate the people of Pakistan," she forgot that the US has already alienated the majority for the last 60 years. She also forgot (because she lives above the common man?) that her words ring hollow back home.

If the US wants to win the war in Afghanistan, it will have to win the people of Pakistan. The governments, the military and the agencies will always fight their two faced wars because they want to maintain a stronghold over this country and the mantra of "strategic depth" and "India is our no. 1 enemy" holds a large majority of the people hooked. 

$800 million less aid? Good riddance!

Athar Abbas says the army doesn't care if the US doesn't 

give it more aid.

Now I have been reading up quite a lot on the purported US cut in military aid to Pakistan which totals $800 million. Apparently this is big news and it somehow masquerades that the US government is oh so angry at the Pakistani military. Obviously the Pakistani military deserves to reap what it has sowed, but somehow the effect of the aid cut has materialized in the public sector instead of from the military establishment. Which I presume is good for the military establishment since it shows that the population of Pakistan is slowly forgetting the horrors and nightmares that army generals have wreaked across and upon this country, once more.

But before I get down to the nitty gritty of what the US aid cut means, if anything at all, I would just like to let everyone know that the very first thought that came to my mind after hearing about this news was: I don’t give a damn.

You see a lot of people, bloggers, like me have stopped writing. They’ve vanished, disappeared. Why? Well because there’s nothing much left to say or tell the world. We’ve constantly been saying the same things over and over again, and now there just doesn’t seem to be any point in conveying our words and thoughts to the population at large. Maybe it’s because we’ve become accustomed to the intuition that we are the world’s new favourite punching bag. Maybe it’s because we realize that we are partly responsible for the senseless monstrosities occurring with impunity in our homeland. But it’s mostly because we’ve become immune to the senselessness, and in this dark, depressed, depraved, deprived way of life, we’ve still managed to find something to cling on. Even though we’ve forgotten how to articulate our thoughts any more.

We need someone to blame. Every day when you see nothing good of your country being shown on international television and when people talk about your country as if it is hanging by a thread, you need to find someone or something to vent your anger out on. For us that someone/something is the US. Yes it is truly an evil that has grasped the world and poisoned the very roots of the concept of equanimity, brotherhood and peace. Maybe it isn’t the US; maybe it is the system it represents: A capitalistic overture that spouts for individualistic control over everything, at the cost of well everything. Human life is not sacred to the policy makers of the US. Countries’ sovereignties do not matter in their grand design. So what if they raped Pakistan (raid to capture OBL) and stabbed in the back (publicly stating they will not share any proof of OBL’s presence in Pakistan, but will go back and attack it again if they have ‘actionable intelligence’), and then left it to die (publicly telling the world the focus has shifted from Afghanistan onto Pakistan) before finally calling 911 (telling Pakistan there will be no suspension of aid at all), and then dashing back to put it on life support before it dies out completely (promising that the P3-C Orions and F – 16s will be delivered as promised), and then teasing it some more by lessening the amount of oxygen it was getting (reducing the total aid by $800 million)?

Here’s some food for thought. People in Pakistan don’t care how the US deals with the military of Pakistan. And that is the saddest bit. The US’ bigoted and selfish policies have only meant that the US only talks to the military and not the biggest stakeholder in Pakistan: The people of Pakistan. So the government decides to cancel aid from the USG as a form of rebellion, if I may be so brash to use that word. But the toothless rulers only cancel humanitarian aid. So here we are, a confused people, cursing the US for not giving us any aid, then rejoicing that we grew the balls to tell them to shove their aid where they may, and then cursing them some more for not providing aid for the hapless citizens of this country.

The military will find a way to get the $800 million that the USG has bitten back. But what will the people of this country get? More terrorism, more death and destruction, more sadness, more depravity, more misery.

Where the US could have made a mark, like educating children, or building basic infrastructure, or instead of training the military they could’ve offered to train the police so that we could’ve had real law enforcers instead of diseased pigs, or maybe started community projects to provide clean drinking water to the nation at large, the US did not bother. Because why should it? It’s already got the real players in the game by their balls.

So today, I don’t have any logic or reason left. Today I stand by the dozens and dozens of people in Pakistan who say that the pittance the US was paying us that they’ve now decided not to pay us is good riddance. Maybe like their money, they would also like to leave us alone. We will survive. We will win our battles. We have done that for 64 years. We will do it again.

O Pakistan... You have been screwed.

Literally. And repeatedly.

This is going to be a short post. Here's the thing. I get frustrated with people when they refuse to understand the obvious. It isn't their fault. Everyone's different, everyone has different views, opinions and ideas. But it just sort of annoys the creeping hell out of me.

Anyway, the title of the post has a literal meaning. Let me just say that the enemy (whoever that maybe) has partially succeeded. Internal strife has now become a regular affair. Other than that, raging division lines have appeared all across the country segregating people by thought with different thought holders looking at each other with the lust of blood in their eyes.

And finally, Pakistan has now become Hypocrisy Central. Hypocrites are as rampant here as the craters and potholes on Barki road.

I do have one final question though. If I were to agree with the opinion that the CIA, Mossad and RAW are following an objective to break up Pakistan, then what is there for them to gain out of our break up?

Anyone?

Is criticizing the army anti state?

I simply cannot hold back my views on this topic any longer. The reason I blog about this matter in English and not in Urdu is simple: There are a number of people out there to whom I direct this blog and they find it easier to read, write and understand English rather than Urdu. For the wider Pakistani population, I will blog about the same in Urdu later.

So is disagreeing with the army anti state? Am I an anti state person committing treason when I say that the army needs to put its house in order? Do I deserve to be burned at the stake when I question where the Rs 620 billion went that were allocated to the defence last year when events like May the 2nd and PNS Mehran take place? These are pertinent questions regardless of what anyone believes.

The fine line is that while most of us agree that the Pakistan army failed somewhere along the way in letting Raymond Davis off the hook, the continuous drone attacks take place, the rape of sovereignty by the Americans on May 2nd, the heinous incident of PNS Mehran in which we lost 10 commandos, there are people amongst us who classify even talking about these issues as being traitorous to the nation. I'm sorry, but how do they expect us to become better at our game when we simply refuse to acknowledge our problems?

Yeah I know there's always that "India's doing this, India's doing that" debate that's thrown at you in return every time you try talking about the atrocities being committed in the name of Pakistan's defence but it simply won't cut it any more. You see while there are people who will tell us that simply talking about the acts of dumbassery being committed in Pakistan is tantamount to blackening the name of Pakistan and sullying our reputation. But these hard questions need to be asked and answered in order to ensure that all the stakeholders (Pakistan nation, government and the military) are on the same page.

While there is no doubt in my mind that Pakistan needs to start standing on its feet; while I agree that the current government and the opposition is nothing other than shameless two faced bastards; while I agree that the US hasn't always been our friend, and well it doesn't appear to be one right now, I do agree that the US is absolutely within its right to want the best for itself. Might is right in the international arena and there's nothing we can do about it.

What we can do is to channel our energies into correcting our mistakes which will only be possible after the acknowledgement of our failures, our wrong policies and our wrong strategies. Once we clear that, then we will have no reason to not correct ourselves.

What have we done?

The mother of Sarfaraz Shah. I bet she wonders why her son 

was punished so brutally?

After approximately 32000 page views of this blog, the introduction of a new Blogger user interface, and a murdered man later, this is where we stand today.

Yesterday evening, a man was shot dead by one of the many dreaded law enforcement agencies of Pakistan aka the Sindh Rangers. Now I know how clichéd it sounds constantly reminding people that it is time to wake up from the stupor, lest we become a part of the madhouse and be treated like mad hounds but that has never made any difference. And well to be honest, I don't expect this to make any bit of a difference either.

Yesterday evening, before I had heard, seen or known anything about the 19 year old kid named Sarfaraz Shah murdered in cold blood by the Rangers, I was mulling over the fact about how the police is perhaps the most hated, reviled and abhorred institution in this entire country. Apparently the paramilitary which comes under the direct control of the military is fast catching up.

Remember the incident involving the Punjab Rangers by the way? The one in which the son of the DG Rangers Punjab parked his car in a no parking zone and when the traffic warden came to serve a ticket to him, he called up his goons who thrashed the warden and then locked him up in the Rangers HQ? Is it a problem individuals or is this indicative of a major problem with the mindset of the entire military? The latter seems to be true, but only God knows what's the truth.

I saw Javed Hashmi of the PML-N cry on TV today. I could see how this incident had hurt him. How this incident has hurt a lot of people. This incident reminded me of the Sialkot incident in which two brothers, Mughees and Muneeb Butt were beaten mercilessly for 4 hours before they succumbed to the callous, despicable violence and after which they were paraded around the town on the back of a tractor trolley with a police escort. Back then my blood boiled with rage. In fact, if it wasn't for my young age (probably) or God's mercy (definitely) I would've had a heart attack. But today? I just mourned. I was angry yes, but my anger was morbid. My anger was more of a desperation. I mourned the death of sanity in Pakistan. However, I simply could not open my arms and welcome the barbarity that has engulfed my beautiful, ruined country.

But getting back to Sarfaraz Shah. He was a 19 year old kid. He was a petty thief. He stole a mobile telephone from someone. His admission of guilt can be heard loud and clear in the video of his murder. You would imagine that when a thief admits his guilt, he would be hand cuffed and handed over to the police because civilians or paramilitary troops for that matter, cannot become judge, jury and executioner. But I forgot. From the people who brought you the Sialkot murder, this was totally expected. It was stupid of me to have assumed otherwise. It is strange how short our memories are. Even a whole year hasn't passed since the murders of Mughees and Muneeb Butt (whose murderers still walk outside of prison by the way) that we have a repeat episode. Only the cast is different this time. In the Sialkot case, the police had stood idly by. In this case, they were the mob themselves.

So what exactly went wrong? Sarfaraz Shah was caught by a plain clothes member of the law enforcement agencies (allegedly) and then thrust towards a van of the Sindh Rangers which had appeared there apparently on the call of the apprehender. While Sarfaraz Shah stood besides the van, he admitted his guilt. Then he gets an automatic rifle thrust into his face with the superior of the Rangers saying "Shoot him! Shoot him!" Sarfaraz Shah panics, raises his palms in supplication and moves towards the person who is thrusting the gun in his face, begging him not to shoot. He touches the barrel of the gun and begs for mercy, at which point another Rangers man grabs him and pushes him backward. Sarfaraz Shah still has his hands in the air, raised, begging for mercy when the Rangers man shoots him. One bullet pierces his hand and hits his leg. Then he fires again. In to his leg.

Sarfaraz Shah is then heard moaning and begging the Rangers' personnel to take him to the hospital. But he forgot that he was dealing with incorrigible wild, rabid dogs. Who know nothing of humanity or mercy.

The purpose of telling you all this narrative is so that I don't have to post the video here. We've seen enough blood being spilled to merit another one.

All I can say now is this: May Allah have mercy on us. May Allah have just a teeny weeny little bit of mercy on us. Please say Aameen. Please do.

What do I write about?

Of late I haven't been blogging so much. That is primarily because I have been suffering from a vastly known disease called the blogger's block. It's basically the same as writer's block, only that it applies to bloggers who then end up not being able to write about anything. Or anyone. At all.

It all started with the OBL raid on Pakistani soil. It has been more than a month since the world's most wanted terrorist was assassinated by US commandos. But since then things have just spiralled out of control. There are commentators on TV who say they are shocked at what the young Pakistani generation is writing on the internet but to be honest, I have to disagree with them. They shouldn't be shocked. At all.

Then there was the PNS Mehran attack in Karachi. Big news. Shameful to be honest and even then I was unable to write anything. Because somewhere in my head I have this vague idea that no matter what anyone says, does, writes or shouts from the rooftops, it simply will not make a difference. Two days later, a journalist involved with covering the PNS Mehran attack, Saleem Shahzad, turned up dead. So much for freedom of speech and freedom of expression.

The moral fibre of the society has decayed so much. Only today I crossed the same army checkpoint where a few months earlier I had seen a murder taking place. The army men did nothing back then. Today right next to the checkpoint I saw four guards of a housing society beating up a man with whips and rocks the size of someone's head and yet all those army men did was stand foolishly by. Yeah right. They are going to defend the civilians of Pakistan.

All I have is anger and despair. And that impedes me from saying the things that I want to say; stops me from writing the things that I want to write about. I wonder how the government cannot see that the lack of focus of educating the masses is yielding an irreversible decay in society. We have gone back 20 years ever since this government took over. It will take us at least 20 to 30 years, or at least till the next generation grows up to reach some sort of sanity. And that too if only the next generation is educated and taught the manners and etiquette that are necessary to live life as a gentleman.

Anyway, my mind has shut off again. More blogging when I can actually think of something to write about. Till then, ciao.

Attacking the generals, not the military

I’ve just finished reading Sana Abid’s blog titled “Stop attacking our military!”

I am the son of an army officer. I know the "hardships" that Sana talks about. But let's get something straight? Free phone, free water, cheap electricity, free medical services, staff cars, armed guards, plots in DHAs, PAs to do all your work and to stand in lines while you lounge about, cheap memberships to golf courses? Yes, that's exactly the life of a general.

The armed forces personnel die every day, like PNS Mehran for instance while an Admiral, a Navy's general comes on TV and blabbers forth like a God forsaken idiot about how it wasn't his fault, that there was no security lapse. I beg your pardon? 13 armed personnel died! A whole Naval base came under attack for a mind boggling 16 hours and in the end, some terrorists still managed to escape!

When we talk about the armed forces and how they have sold this country, we talk about the generals, admirals and the Air Marshals. Look at the BMW Nauman Bashir travels in. If he had any shame, he would travel on a donkey cart instead of a BMW with the donkey sitting on the cart, and Nauman Bashir pulling it.

If Shuja Pasha and Kayani had any shame they would publicly hang themselves because the best defence they could come up with after Pakistan's sovereignty had been raped was that they would "review" the military and intelligence cooperation between Pakistan and the US. What honour is there in that sort of military service? When you are effectively the servants of someone else?

My dad is a shamed soldier today. He is ashamed at how his generals have let him down. He is ashamed at how his generals have ruined this country. He is ashamed at their naked extravagance. He is ashamed at how they have ripped this country into smithereens.

I can go on and on but I think you get the point. A lot of people here say that they sleep peacefully at night because the army safeguards this country's borders. That's the whole point. They have been so "busy" in defending the "borders" and the “ideological boundaries” that they just couldn't be bothered to defend their GHQ, their regimental centers, their air bases. These very generals who come on TV and denounce the US secretly gave away a whole air base to the US and the UAE to operate drones out of. These generals because of their incompetence and lack of foresight have let 35,000 people die. They set up road blocks and check points not to capture terrorists, but to make the life of the common man hell. Because hey, a general does not have to stop anywhere.

What have the officers of the Pakistan army done to deserve plots in DHA? If anything, they should only be given to the jawans who sacrifice their lives and embrace Shahadat. What extraordinary thing has my dad done to deserve a plot in DHA and a house in some Askari somewhere? I can bet and he says this himself, that there have to be a million Pakistanis out there who are more deserving of these amenities; who have done more than the officers of the armed forces' combined; who deserve to be treated as heroes but instead are left to rot like garbage.

Let talk about fairness. Let us call a spade a spade. Look around. You will see how the generals and their ilk have ruined this country.

O hypocrisy, thou art a heartless bitch

Now if you are a regular reader or follower of this blog, you would know how much I abhor hypocrisy and hate hypocrites. I do not claim that I am not one myself (and I loathe myself for being hypocritical at times) but I do claim and know that I at least try not be a hypocrite or follow the hypocritical line.

As it so happens, not many in this country are capable of making amends. They preach one thing, do and follow quite another. So for instance, a debate with two fellow Facebookers really got my blood roiling. Firstly because what they were saying without substantiating their claims was absurd (at least that's the way it sounded to me); secondly they claimed to know much more about Islam than me (but that would've been OK because I'm not a theologist or an Islamic scholar, had they been one which they were not) and thirdly because they were sullying the name of my religion by attaching atrocious stuff to its commands.

To start of they claimed that the Taliban are the real Muslims and I quote, "Mullah Omar is the Ameer-ul-Momineen of all Muslims". You would imagine that would be it but then they claimed the killing of innocents is quite acceptable in Islam because there is always collateral damage in war. They also claimed that mere mortals like myself are the "dogs of the US" and we only know what the Jewish media feeds us; apparently to them it is quite OK to use Jewish media (Facebook et al.) to spread their own message.

I tried reasoning with them, repeatedly asking them questions that stated that is it OK for Muslims to kill innocent Muslims? They did not answer at first but rather rambled on and on about the US and how it has killed millions of Muslims in Iraq and Afghanistan. But that's not what I asked I pointed out, and finally they said the Taliban don't blow up barber shops, girl schools, behead people, shoot people, or kill civilians. They only kill military personnel who are the "dogs of the US".

After debating with them for almost an hour one of them finally conceded that he was a hypocrite. How did he concede that? Well I told him since he believes in the cause of the Taliban (blowing people up), why doesn't he go to the army house and blow himself up in the face of the army chief. Obviously it emerged that it far easier to preach what you do behind a screen and keyboard in the safe confines of your home. Hypocrisy then was the winner in this case.

I do not care that some people are crazy enough to say we must fight the Americans. As it turns out there are far crazier stuff people come out with. People have twisted Islam so much that they find it next to impossible to see that what they say and preach is extremely illogical and Islam is anything but illogical. To give you an example from this very debate, I stated that I cannot believe that a religion who's name's literal meaning is submission to peace can preach violence. Ironically, the counter argument I got was that the meaning of Islam is the submission to Allah, not to peace. To clarify this folks, the word Islam comes from two root words: Istalama and Salam. Istalama means submission while Salam means peace, hence the literal meaning of Islam is submission to peace. Not submission to Allah which as you will find out is the ideology of Islam.

The irony is that these people have hijacked Islam and claim to know everything about it. They quote out of context Quranic verses and proclaim that Islam ordains violence against the infidels. Maybe so but Islam only ordains that in defensive terms; like when you are attacked by a foreign force; like when you are repeatedly provoked through aggressive means such as the Israeli indiscriminate killing of Palestinians. The only trouble is, I'm not a Palestinian and I can't help them because I have to put my own house (country) in order first!

The other problem with people like these is that they think all those who do not preach violence against the "dogs of the US" aka all the military personnel, political leaders and the civilians of Pakistan are the lovers of the US. They conveniently forget to mention that their siblings reside in the infidel countries, study their education and live a luxurious life in the infidel lands. They also forget that disagreement does not mean that one has taken a stance that supports the other side.

To make this point clear I would give my point of view vis-a-vis the USA: The USA is no angel, saint or pope. It has committed atrocities. It has committed unspeakable and unpardonable sins. I cannot and will not deny that. 9/11 was a US intelligence failure was it not? The Americans knew terrorists wanted to attack their homeland and still let it happen. In 2003 George Bush authorised and launched a genocide in Iraq and yet he walks scot free. But the only reason the US can do whatever it wants is because it is the world's most powerful country. It will serve its own interests. That is common sense. That is only logical. We also need to keep our interests supreme and intact. And one of the ways we can do that is by not launching a war against the US. Lets be honest. This country is full of hypocrites. Not the Muslims about whom we read in our history books and Allah does not love or help hypocrites. Hence if we fight the US, we will lose. Our country will be torn apart. But I suppose that's OK because these extremists believe that nationalism is a sin anyway. The only way to fight the influence of the US is to stand on your own two feet. When the Muslims were powerful in the pre-1000s, they were expanding. Now the US is powerful, hence it is expanding. Common sense, common logic.

We rely on the West's education, the West's language (English), the West's mode of communication (Facebook, Skype, Twitter, internet) and we pretend like we are the masters of all eternity. Actually I don't pretend that. They also quote newspapers and magazines to support their points but when people having a debate with them quote from the same literature they are termed "fasiqeen" because we have "unreliable and unverifiable" literature.

How does one argue with such people? How? Please feel free to enlighten me using the comments section below.

Why the Pak army generals need to go home

A friend of mine wrote the following blog post. I thought I'd reproduce it here because it is an excellent read and it asks extremely pertinent questions.

Kayani must resign, right away. Never have I felt this let down as a Pakistani. For me, after 1971, this is the lowest point in Pakistani history of our failure as a state and as a nation. And I hold General Kayani responsible for this, as I hold AK Niazi and Yahya Khan responsible for the 1971 fall of Dacca. Let me tell you why:

A week before the fateful night OBL was killed the mighty chief of our army General Kayani had rather arrogantly declared that 'we have broken the back of terrorists'. He said this in a speech to the 125th graduating class of Pakistan's elite military academy, located in Kakul. At the time he was making this statement, OBL listened to Kayani's speech and his bogus words of 'victory' and Pakistan's 'impregnable defense', not from a TV or a radio but from a loudspeaker a mile away, located at the very place where Kayani was speaking. Yes, OBL was less than a mile away from the army chief on the day of April 22nd, 2011.

This wasn't the first speech OBL had heard live in his stay. Over a period of five years, in which he is reported to have lived in Kakul, various military dignitaries have spoken at the graduation ceremony at the academy, speeches in which they have made many tall claims about Pakistan Army's fullest preparedness to 'meet any eventuality' and thwart 'designs of aggression' by its 'enemies'. I can imagine OBL rolling in laughter on listening to claims about Pakistan Army's capabilities by the speakers all those years--and rightly so, for he had openly declared Pakistan Army its enemy and a 'jihad' in Pakistan to be mandatory, and still he was enjoying the hospitality of the 'Wazirsitani Haveli' right under the nose of Pakistan Army.

Kayani, and his side kick, AS Pasha, now accept that they did not know of OBL's presence. I believe them. But if that is so then here are some questions which the two gentlemen holding the highest and most powerful offices of the country must think about:

1. Pakistan's declared enemy Osama Bin Laden lived under the nose of the Pakistan Army, in a cantonment for five years. Intelligence services, which abound in Pakistan, carry out a security clearance for all purposes, and leave no unturned in harassing the weak and the ordinary. Yet they were somehow unable to identify the many suspicious aspects of the 7-8 canal facility OBL was living in. Wasn't this an intelligence failure? And because Pakistan's enemy was living in Pakistan, was this not a blatant violation of Pakistan's sovereignty?

2. Four (or more) helicopters of United States armed forces entered Pakistan's territory undetected. Carried out an operation for forty minutes and took out their 'high value' target, undetected. Destroyed a helicopter using a missile, and then flew over Pakistan for four long hours towards Arabian Sea, undetected. That Pakistan did detect something at some point and scramble air planes is correct, but it is also true that this happened much after the Americans had left. Was this, I must ask, a breach of Pakistan's defense?

3. Osama was Pakistan's enemy. It is a fact -- which we can deny, but the man, the enemy himself minced no words in saying so. And still, the chief of CIA Leon Panetta declares to the world that Pakistan was not informed because it might have 'alerted the target'. That in the comity of nations, we are the providers of safety and security to all terrorists. That our citizens die on a daily basis because of bomb blasts by OBL's partners or affiliates, and still we are perceived to be comrades in arms with terrorists. Is this not an insult of every Pakistani?

The answers to these questions are simple and they lead me to conclude one thing, and one thing only. Pakistan Army failed in protecting Pakistan. On multiple counts. It failed those 3000 jawans who have died fighting OBL and his affiliates in the last ten years. It failed the ordinary Pakistani, who bears the cost of having the seventh biggest army in the world by continuing to live below the poverty line.

Yahya Khan never accepted that Pakistan Army failed in East Pakistan. Even after his top lieutenant general had quiet shamefully surrendered to the forces of Jagjit Singh Arora in the Race course ground of Dacca, he insisted on continuing. He did not accept that in its failure the army had failed the state and the nation. He refused to accept that by doing so Pakistan Army had taken away a sense of hope and security from Pakistanis.

Kayani, like Yahya, has also not accepted his failure. He is refusing to take responsibility for something he alone is responsible for. He assured Pakistanis of impregnable defense, highest levels of preparedness, ready to ward off any threat, any eventuality, etc...Claims too hollow to be even brought up again. He failed in providing any of that, and still he says 'incomplete information and lack of technical details about the issue had resulted in speculations and misreporting'.

What a farce? The man, who for some time was held in high esteem by many across the world, has anticlimactically brought his own institution, Pakistan Army, into disrepute. He has demoralized the Pakistani people. He has compromised the honor and integrity of the men he leads. And, he failed in bringing the killer of 3000 Pakistani soldiers to justice.

Kayani must resign.

- Asfandyar Ali Mir