Greek resistance

By Costas Douzinas


WHEN French resistance hero and former diplomat Stephane Hessel demanded last year that indignation with injustice should turn to “a peaceful insurrection”, perhaps he did not expect that the movement of aganaktismenoi (outraged) in Greece would take his advice to heart so soon and so spectacularly.
Resistance to the catastrophic economic measures was expected. Confrontations between young people and riot police have followed major demonstrations, and the same script played out on Wednesday, leaving a cloud of teargas hanging over Athens. The latest wave of protest began three weeks ago, when indignant people of all ideologies, ages and occupations, including many unemployed, began occupying Syntagma, the central square of Athens opposite parliament; the area around White Tower in Thessaloniki; and public spaces in other major cities. The daily occupations and rallies, some times involving more than 100,000 people, have been peaceful, with police observing from a distance.

Calling themselves the ‘outraged’, the people have attacked the unjust pauperising of working Greeks, the loss of sovereignty that has turned the country into a fiefdom of bankers, and the destruction of democracy. Their demand is that the corrupt political elites who have ruled for 30 years — and brought it to the edge of collapse — should go.

In Syntagma, no issue is beyond discussion. In weekly debates invited economists, lawyers and political philosophers present ideas for tackling the crisis.

This is democracy in action. The views of the unemployed and the professor are given equal time, discussed with equal vigour and put to the vote. The outraged have reclaimed the square and transformed it into a space of public interaction.

Syntagma’s articulate debates have discredited the banal mantra that most issues of public policy are too technical for ordinary people. The realisation that the demos has more collective nous than any leader is now returning to Athens. The outraged have shown that parliamentary democracy must be supplemented with its more direct version — just as the belief in political representation is coming under pressure throughout Europe.

The government’s response has been embarrassingly muted. Establishment propagandists blame the protests and the limited violence that followed on the divided left. But the outraged come from all parties and none. A determined campaign has been agreed to stop parliament voting in the new measures that President George Papandreou agreed with the bankers and Germany’s Chancellor Merkel, which would extend the current recession until at least 2015.

The effect of Wednesday’s huge demonstration was immediate. Papandreou accepted the failure of his policies and asked the right-wing opposition leader to form a government of national unity — and, according to media reports, offered to stand down. This is the greatest anti-austerity achievement in Europe so far — though the test will be the policies of any new government.

The experience of standing daily and confronting the parliament opposite has changed the politics of Greece for good. In Greek, the word ‘stasis’ means an upright posture as well as revolt or insurrection. The square was named after 19th-century demonstrations, which demanded a constitution (syntagma) from the king. This is what the outraged repeat today: they are standing upright, demanding a new politics to free them from neoliberal domination and political corruption. ¦ — The Guardian, London

Breaking the siege

The path to breaking the siege begins at home.


By Syed Talat Hussain


PAKISTAN’S military is under siege. Domestically, the media’s protest over the murder of Saleem Shahzad has rallied diverse forces to form a formidable front to bear down on the military high command.
Mian Nawaz Sharif’s renewal of criticism of the army’s role in politics and the puzzling delay in the formation of the judicial commission to investigate the slain journalist’s case, has kept the pot of armybashing boiling. The PPP government has taken the convenient position of staying on the margins, and from the looks of it, is enjoying the sight of the army getting hit.

International pressure is also piling up. Reports of US information on Waziristan sanctuaries being leaked to militants have cemented the image of a mullah-military alliance. No less oppressive is the new debate in the American media about the weakening of Gen Ashfaq Kayani’s command over his own institution.

A New York Times news report last week spoke of the seething anger of top generals and junior officers. Written by Jane Perlez, the report quotes unnamed sources to rub in the point that Gen Kayani is faced with a mutiny of sorts — a coup within, as it were.

All this is happening in the backdrop of repeated violations of Pakistan’s north-western borders where hordes of militants attack villages with impunity, pillage, plunder and retreat to their hideouts in Afghanistan without inviting any punishment, causing further embarrassment to the army.

The deterioration in ties with Washington is adding to the burden of challenges. US officials are demanding more and delivering even less. They think that they have finally nailed the army, and more pressure would eventually get them closer to their goal of making Pakistan a more ‘manageable country’.

This is a serious situation. Unfortunately, so far the response of the military’s top brass has not been up to speed. They have been mostly silent and inward-looking at a time when they should be speaking forthrightly and engaging in the national debate about their role.

Just like the US, but far less intelligently, they are using media proxies to build a counter-narrative to the criticism they face, but without much effect. The bashing season continues unabated. The siege is still tight, the image battered.

Seeing themselves encircled and having to rely on an incompetent government for defence against mounting pressure has made the brass angrier. The controversial press release of June 9 at the end of the corps commanders meeting last week manifested this anger. It was bitter, a sign not of self-confidence but tension and nervousness.

A better, more practical response to these testing times has to focus primarily on the domestic front, which has become the slipperiest ground for the security apparatus. In order to hold firm against international schemes and to ward off blows from without, a conducive domestic environment is a must. Small steps can help build this environment.

First and foremost, the media debate can easily be turned around by candidly answering the questions surrounding Saleem Shahzad’s murder.

This controversy has gone on for too long. Instead of losing steam, it has picked up momentum. Hunching up in the trenches in the hope that the storm will blow over is a vain and wasteful strategy.

If Saleem was killed by the agencies’ goons then it is time to catch hold of them rather than protect them. If the accusation is false and baseless, it should be convincingly countered at the highest level, perhaps by the DG ISI or the army chief himself. Disinfecting the domestic environment of suspicion is absolutely necessary to restore public trust. And this will not happen by issuing belated press releases.

The murder of the youth at the hands of the Rangers can be cited here. The timely removal of the DG Rangers and the IG Sindh has brought to an end a controversy which at one point had started to engulf the whole institution. Saleem Shahzad’s murder case needs similar closure. It cannot be shovelled off into oblivion.

The second step the security establishment can take to soften the siege around it is to do a better job of explaining to the public and public representatives the threat scenario that Pakistan faces.

The debate on the vast array of threats is still a closely guarded secret that is only discussed at corps commanders’ gatherings. Outside, in the public sphere, there is speculation, sensationalism or selective understanding of issues. This holding back of information is least helpful in establishing a connection of trust with the public.

From attacks on Pakistan’s border villages to charges that the army helped the Taliban vacate sanctuaries in Waziristan, everything is enveloped in mystery. No timely official word is ever uttered on these supremely important matters.

In this situation, how can an ill-informed public and public representatives relate to the occasional cry of ‘Pakistan is in danger’ that official quar ters let out? The security apparatus has to become news-active, no matter how bad the news is.

The third and the most important step is for the security establishment to realise the new dynamics in Pakistan. Fast information flow, through the social and mainstream media, has created a vast network of shared values, demands and grievances.

It is next to impossible for any institution to claim or enjoy a special status. No authority is beyond public challenge and scrutiny. Judges, journalists, politicians, businessmen, landlords are all under the spotlight.

Only urban terrorists and criminal groups, who kill inquiry and eliminate dissent, are escaping this examination, but that too is temporary respite. This national movement towards transparency cannot be resisted.

The army cannot afford to be an isolated island of absolute power and pelf. It must seriously revisit its corporate interests and begin to relate to the world outside cantonments. The path to breaking the siege and to dealing with international designs on Pakistan begins at home. ¦
The writer is a senior journalist at DawnNews.

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A successful person is one who can lay a firm foundation with the bricks that other throw at him. (David Brinkley)

Pakistan, 50 years ago

By Hajrah Mumtaz


HAVING been occupied with compiling the ‘50 years ago’ section on these pages, I have recently spent hours trawling through Dawn’s 1961 editions. It is a fascinating yet ultimately, a deeply saddening experience.
The Dawn of those days was a slimmer volume, with a format different to what it is today. The first thing to strike me was the advertising. If any of you have the impression that the Forhans toothpaste advertisement hasn’t changed in years, you’re right: it hasn’t changed in decades. Much of the advertising content is pretty much what it is today: soaps, talcum powders and so on. There are some glaring differences, though.

Advertisements for dances, cabarets, acrobatic performances and balls — how alien they seem in the modern Pakistani landscape. Karachi was reasonably important on the international landscape, and references in western literature of the time reflect an exotic Orientalism that still exists in reference to, for example, Mumbai. And so, the city often hosted worldclass performers and entertainers, as to a somewhat lesser extent did Lahore.

No doubt to other people in my age group, the children of Zia, these advertisements would hold more meaning than as merely curiosities reminiscent of different times.

The ad about dinner and drinks with live dance performances at the Beach Luxury, or sister acrobats Klaudia and Karla (pictured in short, frilled skirts) at the Metropole, talk not of different times but, indeed, of a different country. Such acts have not been tolerated in Pakistan for upwards of three decades — the lifespan of an entire generation.

Even before Pakistan involved itself in America’s duplicitous ‘war on terror’, which is when the situation really went into freefall, Klaudia and Karla could not have performed here. It was the Nawaz Sharif government, after all, which banned men with long hair on television. And Zia who dictated that all women appearing on television should have their heads covered at all times, so that it would appear to audiences that they went to bed and woke up in the morning wearing their modesty firmly on their heads.

Is the tragedy greater for those who knew such a Pakistan and then watched it die? Or is it greater for those, the people who are nearing middle-age now or younger, who never saw it at all and learnt to find their way through an increasingly complicated maze of fundamentalism and repression?

And what about the children who are under 15 now? The ones who know only the Pakistan of war and militancy, of the Taliban and suicide bombings, who don’t have the experience of the Khabarnama at 9pm being the single most boring thing broadcast on the one channel that Pakistan had? Perhaps, the only conclusion to reach is that in Pakistan, tragedy abounds.

In the 1960s, there was such a place as East Pakistan. We all know this, all of us having grown up with the haunt ing knowledge of the country that once was. But it is different to trawl through the newspapers of that time and see the Dacca dateline, read about Field Marshal Ayub Khan’s expression of solidarity with the East Pakistanis after floods (which took place in early June, 1961), see a photograph of goods being readied to be flown to the eastern wing.

Hindsight brings clarity. It is easy, now, to read between the lines and see which way the wind would have to blow. In ’61, a decade before Bangladesh was born in blood and tears, Dawn has reports about people asking that Bengali be accorded greater status, questions of disproportionate spending and contributions to the national exchequer. Knowing what we know, it is easy to detect a certain parochialism in the debate of the time.

Going through all these newspapers, I am left with the impression of Pakistan of the early ’60s as a place with hope, its life stretching out before it fresh and untarnished — a country that was going places. Dawn’s editions from those days are full of plans: the Second Five-Year Plan was going into action, factories and industries were being set up, schemes were being formulated for the uplift and education of the rural poor in both wings of the country.

It is sobering to realise that back then, a new plan announced by the administration could not have been met with anything near the sort of cynicism with which it is received today, with people having learnt the lessons dictated by decades of failure.Fifty years ago, schemes to irrigate agricultural land in Wana and Miramshah were under way, and schools were being set up. Jute mills were being set up in East Pakistan. Women’s vocational centres were being set up seemingly all over the place. Fifty years ago, PIA had just launched its inaugural flight to New York and was one of the most successful young airlines of the time.

It’s easy to see things clearly in hindsight. Today, we can see that a number of the cancers that are tearing Pakistan apart now had already taken root, even back in 1961. The first military foray into civilian affairs had taken place, the country’s first prime minister had been assassinated and, over a decade later, no responsibility had been affixed (the irony being that the Rawalpindi park named in his honour was, just over 50 years later, to become the site where yet another prime minister was murdered, to be followed by yet another failed inquiry), a number of deeply flawed policies and mindsets had already been adopted.

But back then, could anybody have guessed the disastrous trajectory that the country was to take? From my vantage point of the present, because I am a rather fanciful person, I get the impression of the Pakistan of that time revelling in its newfound freedoms, irresponsible as a teenager — unaware of the horror its decisions would bring, dancing heedless into a future full of murder.

That was then, this is now. The past, it would appear, really is another country. ¦
The writer is a member of staff.

EMAIL:-
hajrahmumtaz@gmail.com

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A successful person is one who can lay a firm foundation with the bricks that other throw at him. (David Brinkley)

Military hegemony

Too much power resting with the military, much of it conceded by civilians, has caused Pakistan’s most dominant institution to undermine the core sentiment of democracy.

By S. Akbar Zaidi


FOR academics wanting to un derstand Pakistan’s political eco nomy and the nature of the Pak istani state, a careful analysis of how Pakistan’s military operat es, is essential. There is little do ubt that it is the military — and its numerous agencies — which dominate both Pakistan’s politi cal economy and the state.
This is not simply about how the mili tary functions and what its class or ethnic base is, nor its impact and influence on the defence budget, which is important, but more crucially, how this institution determines numerous activities of the Pakistani state.

After three sets of well-known events in May, ranging from the Osama/sover eignty issue, to the attack on PNS Mehran and the killing of Saleem Shahzad, all three in which the military has been held responsible in one way or the other, there has been growing criticism by civil society, the media and even the main opposition political party, about the role of the military as defenders of Pakistan’s sovereignty, as a defender of military institutions and of Pakistan’s nationals, particularly those who have made revelations regarding (alleged) links between the military and terrorist groups. On all three counts, the military has been seen to be responsible for not doing its duty or fulfilling its basic responsibilities.

This failing by the military has opened the public sphere of the electronic and publishing media, where perhaps for the first time ever, there has been extensive criticism of the institution, its activities, the lifestyle which its leaders flaunt and its presumed role as defenders of Pakistan’s territorial borders. What is also not surprising then, is that just as the military has been criticised, it has found a large number of defenders as well. Many of these defenders on television talk shows and in columns for newspapers — thankfully not Dawn — are retired military officers standing up for their institutions, but many are also civilians.

For academics studying Pakistan’s political economy, it is this civilian support for the military which should be of particular interest. Of course, one simplistic accusation for this support is that the military, like other institutions of the state, has many civilians in its pocket making payments or offering favours of some kind or another to them.

The military, as the most powerful institution in the establishment, it is inferred, can make offers which others cannot refuse. But despite these possibilities, there is real support for the military amongst many Pakistanis. The political careers of all Pakistan’s general-presidents are ample testimony to them finding support from numerous naive civilians giving their technocratic skills to strengthen military dictatorships. Proximity to power acts as a strong aphrodisiac.

Politicians and political parties have also been active supporters of the military and have even invited it to remove elected governments, subsequently becoming the military’s B team. The fact that the prime minister stood up in parliament a few days ago to defend the military, is a sad testimony to the same problem, as had been the government’s dillydallying over the judicial commissions to investigate any of the three key events which took place last month. An elected government should not need to stay on in power hanging on to the coattails of Pakistan’s armed forces.

While many of the defenders of the military have been praising the military’s past — one wonders how, given the failed adventures of 1965,1971 and Kargil — others have been arguing for the need to have some ‘balance’ while criticising the military. Again, one wonders where that balance was when many of them were such enthusiastic supporters of military dictatorships, discrediting civilian governments. What is required, is not so much a balance as a thorough re-examination of the basis of the power and hegemony of Pakistan’s military over institutions of the state. The fact that ‘the state’ and the military are seen as coterminous, only underlines the fact that there has been too little analysis of this extremely imbalanced power equation.

Academic research on the military’s disproportionate power shows that it is not simply the institution’s ability to do violence which makes people conform to its bidding and gives it centre stage in the power equation, but that civilians and politicians embrace it allowing it to rule. The argument that civilian and political actors are more responsible for military rule by supporting military dictatorships, is not without substance, and it is probably unfair to blame the military alone for its rule in Pakistan.

Diplomatic, military and financial support from western powers is also a critical reason for prolonged military rule in Pakistan; the Reagan-Zia and Bush Musharraf relationships were responsible for prolonged dictatorship here. Nevertheless, despite this support, one also needs to make the point that had civilian and political actors been better united and clearer in their understanding, even foreign support to military generals could have been overcome. Indonesia, the Philippines and Iran are recent examples, as are numerous such cases in Latin America.

With the military having dominated Pakistan’s state and political economy since 1957, this is an important juncture for civilian and political actors to finally make the Pakistan armed forces a professional military institution rather than a political one. Too much power resting with the military, much of it conceded by civilians, has made the military Pakistan’s most dominant institution undermining the core sentiment of democracy. Democracy and military hegemony are antithetical to each other. Only when democratic actors understand this, will they be able to make Pakistan a substantive democracy. ¦
The writer is a political economist.

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A successful person is one who can lay a firm foundation with the bricks that other throw at him. (David Brinkley)

ON May 3, while Pakistanis were reeling from the immediate aftermath of the Abbottabad affair, the United Nations Population Division was releasing its updated demographic projections for the country.

Understandably, these new estimates garnered little, if any, attention in Pakistan. Yet they bear mentioning here, given how drastically they differ from previous projections. According to the revised medium-variant estimates, Pakistan will have 275 million people by 2050 — significantly less than the 335 million forecast previously. If fertility rates remain constant, the
country will hold about 380 million people by that year — not the 450 million estimated earlier.

What to make of these lowered projections? Has the population bomb, in effect, been defused?

Far from it. Even if the estimates have been downgraded, Pakistan’s population growth is still soaring. The country’s total fertility rate (TFR) is currently about 3.6, significantly higher than the replacement level rate (2.1) now registering across much of the world. A quarter of Pakistan’s women wish for, but do not use, some form of contraception, which is due in part to the fact that many rural Pakistani women must travel, on average, 50 to 100 kilometres to receive family planning services. Unsurprisingly, the country’s contraception prevalence rate (CPR) registers at only 30 per cent. Little wonder Pakistan has the highest population growth, birth, and fertility rates in South Asia.

Ultimately, however, one must not let the UN estimates about future population growth detract from an essential point:

Pakistan can barely support its existing population. As much as a third of Pakistanis may lack access to safe drinking water.

Seventy-seven million are food-insecure. Forty million out of the country’s 70 million 5-to-19 year-olds do not attend school.

Half the population is not fully active in the labour force, while women’s labour participation rates barely crack 20 per cent.

Such statistics have a silencing effect on all the happy talk about the country’s potential to experience a “demographic dividend” in which a young, growing workforce helps usher in national prosperity and development. So does the observation of Nadeem ul Haque, the deputy chair of the Planning Commission, that Pakistan will require nine per cent GDP growth (it is now 2.4pc) to employ its nearly 100-million-strong under-20 population.

From this silence emerges a drumbeat of demographic doom. It warns of cities overflowing with the hungry and the homeless, nationwide natural resource scarcities, and youth radicalisation — all scenarios becoming more realistic than remote by the day.

Pakistan’s demographic conundrum arguably constitutes the country’s greatest development challenge. This is because of its sheer magnitude, but also because there is no supply-side quick-fix. Policymakers can erect dams to generate more water, or authorise more grain production to increase food supply, but (short of a China-style one-child policy) they cannot flick a switch to produce fewer people. Nor, presumably, would they wish to do so.

As a result, Pakistan’s population policies effectively boil down to a plethora of vague promises (rarely kept) about making future progress toward improving an alphabet soup of demographic indicators. While one day achieving targets for lower TFRs and higher CPRs would be lovely, the need of the moment is to devise concrete, actionable policies that ease the plight of today’s population.

These may include convening a high-level task force to oversee the development of a universal education plan; generating incentives for the private sector to ramp up investment in urban housing, jobs, and basic services; and better educating Pakistani clergy and men — groups that often oppose women’s contraception use in Pakistan — about the merits of family planning services.

To be sure, all this takes time and political will, both of which are in short supply, given Pakistan’s multitude of real-time challenges and the extreme caution prevailing in policymaking circles during such volatile times.

Admittedly, in an era of deep public scepticism toward the government, it is difficult for Islamabad to convince the Pakistani
people that population policies are genuinely meant to bolster the country’s economic development and social well-being, and not to control population growth and meddle in their personal lives.

The highly politicised process of conducting this year’s national census (the first since 1998) is also problematic. The Sindh Census Monitoring Committee recently accused census workers of committing “large-scale malpractices.” How can Pakistan be in a better position to allocate scarce resources equitably among its masses if, as alleged by the committee, washrooms and electric poles are counted as houses?

Pakistan’s politicians, however, have not exactly treated the census with solemnity and respect. Last year, according to media reports, the census commissioner had to delay his announcement that the census would occur in 2011 because members of the National Assembly’s Standing Committee on Economic Affairs and Statistics failed to show up. Then, once the commissioner finally began speaking, another MP left the room.

This lack of interest is as disturbing as the allegations of improprieties. In fact, discussions about broader demographics are rare in Pakistan. Other than periodic recitations of distressing statistics, occasional conferences, and an obligatory speech on World Population Day, little debate transpires. Zeba Sathar, one of Pakistan’s top demographers, has lamented how demographic issues are effectively “sidelined” by matters perceived as more pressing.

As Pakistan’s population continues to rise, as the strain on natural resources and basic services intensifies, and as the masses grow more and more restless, one shudders at the long-term implications of such inattention and inaction.

The writer is the South Asia programme associate at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, and lead editor of Reaping the Dividend: Overcoming Pakistan’s Demographic Challenges.

The most lethal bomb | Opinion | DAWN.COM

WHO are the terrorists, and what do they want? There are many answers to these questions that have kicked up so much bitter controversy that there hardly is any possibility of consensus.

The confusion about terrorists and terrorism is mainly because three different sorts of activities by three different groups have been lumped together, ignoring their separate concerns and objectives. Those three groups are clearly distinguishable: Al Qaeda and its affiliates, the Pakistani Taliban and their affiliates, and the Afghan Taliban.

Al Qaeda, born during the ‘jihad’ against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, is mainly an Arab-led organisation that felt betrayed when the US established a strong military presence in many Arab lands soon after the release of Afghanistan from the Soviet bear hug. It has an anti-US and anti-West agenda, and a global network. But having been hunted down in many parts of the world for the last 10 years, it now reportedly has diminishing resources and arguably weakening support in the Arab world and elsewhere.

The Afghan Taliban, on the other hand, have no global agenda or network. Like their precursors, the Mujahideen, they are fighting against the occupation of their land. They have never attacked any American or European asset outside Afghanistan.

They do, however, have sympathy for Al Qaeda, an organisation of their brothers-in-faith.

As Pashtuns and Wahabis they do have close affinity with the Pakistani Taliban, but they have never been directly involved in any unprovoked acts of violence in Pakistan. Calling them terrorists doesn’t belittle their objective nor does it diminish support for them in Afghanistan.

Finally, there is the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan and its affiliates. Accepting the reality of what the Pakistani Taliban did in the areas that fell under their operational control, such as Swat, and what they claim to aspire to, we should have no doubt that their goal is to capture the state apparatus by force and establish in Pakistan a regime dedicated to imposing their version of Islam on the model of the Taliban rule in Afghanistan. While the story of Al Qaeda can be said to be almost over and the story of the Afghan Taliban will reach a predictable end in the near future, the story of Pakistani Taliban has just begun.

Even from those few things that we know for sure about the Pakistani Taliban, it is clear enough that what we are facing today in Pakistan is a raging ideological civil war, not merely terrorist activities by criminals or semi-literate mullahs. The Pakistani Taliban are, in fact, well-trained, well-equipped, overly motivated and generously funded. They also have significant support in every section and strata of society directly or through their affiliates and sympathisers.

The way this insurgency is proceeding in its early phase is so well-orchestrated that we cannot be sure whether we are in the midst of a civil war. Most of us have the uncomfortable feeling that we are in the midst of some kind of war. But whose war? We keep asking this question with the detachment of an unconcerned onlooker.

In the ongoing insurgency the classic tactics of guerrilla warfare are already observable: harass, weaken, infiltrate, confuse and sow the seeds of discord, and harvest the countryside for associates. The insurgents have done all this and more. Their technical and organisational competence has been displayed in the raids on such military strongholds as the GHQ and PNS Mehran where almost all the aforementioned tactics can be seen in operation.

The insurgents operate from behind the smokescreen of anti-US, anti-India and anti-Israel slogans and have probably assimilated a bit of the ideologies dictated by all these slogans. But their persona is not the sum total of all those negativities.

They have seemingly assigned to themselves a much larger task: overthrow the existing state apparatus and inaugurate a theocracy of their definition. During the course of an evolutionary period of more than 30 years, they have evolved into a formidable weapon.

This brings us to the most disturbing question of all: who wields this weapon? It is difficult to believe that any of the known present or past leaders of the Taliban could possibly plan and execute such professionally conducted raids as the ones on the GHQ or PNS Mehran. Could it be that all those names that we keep hearing are no more than the public face of so far unknown persons who operate from behind the scenes? Could it be a cabal of highly educated, trained and experienced zealots that are well-versed in the art of unconventional warfare?

It could be that the truth, if and when revealed, will turn out stranger than fiction.

Who can stop the insurgents, whether or not led by a hidden cabal? Obviously, the armed forces — not unarmed civilians. It is time, therefore, for the armed forces, politicians and civil society to stop slinging mud at each other and come together. It is also time that the security forces cleansed their own ranks of infiltrators and zealots, instead of behaving like a harassed and embarrassed giant flailing at outspoken politicians and a hostile media.

Finally, the enigmatic role played by the US administration and think-tanks in providing fuel to the anti-US bandwagon, driven by the Taliban, on which all sorts of people are trying to clamber. Consider just two of the many examples. The US administration continues to rebuke and humiliate the Pakistani leadership publicly, while drones continue to pound the tribal areas. US think-tanks keep rolling out all sorts of anti-Pakistan prescriptions, including the break-up of Pakistan.

A number of analysts have joined the band of political cartographers in Washington that feel that an independent Balochistan would be a good idea. Yet, even better would be an independent Pakistan.


Agenda of terrorists | Opinion | DAWN.COM

THE much-heralded US policy change in Afghanistan has begun with President Obama`s announcement to pull out 33,000 troops by September 2012.

That will leave about 100,000 US troops in Afghanistan. Of these, most will be withdrawn by 2014. The president`s decision should be seen as a statement of intent rather than a plan for a smooth draw-down.

It is questionable whether Afghanistan deserved retribution for 9/11 in the first place. Of the 19 hijackers involved in the 9/11 attacks, 15 were from Saudi Arabia, one was Egyptian, another Lebanese and two were from the UAE. None of them were from either Afghanistan or Pakistan. However, American ire fell primarily on Afghanistan and Iraq, while Pakistan was also deeply affected.

Now, President Obama has said that the withdrawal from Afghanistan is in the best interests of the US in terms of security as well as its economy. It may be pertinent to inquire whether what is being contemplated is also in the best future interests of Pakistan and Afghanistan. How will these countries tackle the fallout of the withdrawal? War was brought to these countries. What were its objectives and have they been fulfilled?

Such questions often do not figure in the calculations of superpowers. The pain and misery suffered by countless men, women and servicemen of these nations, along with the institutional degradation that is the consequence of war, may never be remedied. The total loss suffered by Pakistan as a result of the war stands in excess of $65bn. Its economy is in shambles, while Al Qaeda is more strongly entrenched today in Fata and in Pakistan`s cities than it was prior to 9/11. Cables from Kabul

In Afghanistan, meanwhile, government control is tenuous. In his revealing account of Afghanistan, , Sherard Cowper-Coles says that when the then UK foreign secretary David Miliband visited southern Afghanistan, he inquired of some Afghans how long they expected their government to exist in Lashkar Gah after the withdrawal of Western forces. They replied, “Twenty-four hours.”

It is difficult to imagine that the US spent nearly $4trn, according to some estimates, on its Afghan and Iraq campaigns and yet achieved such poor outcomes. After reading many of the important analyses published during the last 10 years, one is perplexed by the poor decision-making regarding both Afghanistan and Pakistan. The tragedy is that in the aftermath of the US withdrawal, and given its current tensions with Pakistan, peace will not return quickly to either Afghanistan or Pakistan.

One must sympathise with the Afghan president, sitting as he is atop a time bomb. He has to quickly improvise to resolve the predicament that he is in, or the US exit could end up resembling the circumstances that prevailed in Kabul after the Soviets withdrew in 1989. The move could leave in its wake a powerless president. Recent Afghan history shows that governments last as long as they are subsidised; President Najibullah lasted for three years after the Soviet withdrawal and his government fell after Gorbachev stopped financial assistance. There is a lesson here.

What happened to the poverty stricken people of Afghanistan and Pakistan, who are amongst the most wretched in wake of the violence of various sorts triggered after 9/11, is tragic. Also, if the war in Afghanistan was not based on justice, how then is one to define the sacrifices of so many loyal citizens of different nations who gave their lives for their countries while fighting in Afghanistan? Similarly, what is the justification for the deaths of so many innocent civilians in this war?

The Afghan invasion raises serious concerns about the principles under which the international security system operates through the UN Security Council. Doubts must be raised about whether the principles of the UN Charter are followed in spirit. In some people`s view, yet another issue is whether these 21st century wars are the result of the manipulative manoeuvres of powerful corporations and individuals. Could it be that these wars were undertaken for business interests through the machinations of a collusive civil-military elite reminiscent of 18th century imperialism?

Given the above factors, what is the best course to adopt for the troubled nations of Afghanistan and Pakistan? Will the US withdrawal lead to more trouble?

Clearly, peace in Afghanistan will depend on achieving success in reaching an agreement between the various ethnic groups in Afghanistan. These groups should negotiate amongst themselves in order to lay down a framework for peace. They need to decide as soon as possible how they wish to manage the state after the withdrawal of foreign forces.

It would appear that this is not a task for Prof. Rabbani`s High Peace Council alone but a matter to be considered by the Loya Jirga under Article 110 of the Afghan constitution. This forum is empowered under Article 111 of the constitution to take decisions that involve the supreme national interest of Afghanistan. Today, achieving peace in the country is the most important task. However, after consultation with the Taliban leadership, legal representation for their formal participation in the deliberations will need to be found; currently, the Afghan Taliban are not part of the Loya Jirga. This may require a constitutional amendment that permits them to be included. n

On the Pakistani side, the indicator of success will be to end the influence and presence of Al Qaeda in Pakistani areas, particularly in FATA, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and in our cities. The military has already begun cleansing its establishment. However, the hope for peace will be stillborn unless the Taliban accept it. In the absence of such a commitment, President Obama`s withdrawal strategy will amount to a manoeuvre designed to suit his political needs alone. It is thus essential to get a commitment for peace from the Taliban immediately.

Reflections on the Afghan war | Opinion | DAWN.COM

HERE we go again. The Special Tribunal for Lebanon, a United Nations-backed body investigating the killing of Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri in 2005, has accused four people of his murder. They all belong to Hezbollah, the militant Lebanese Shia movement that Israel and the United States define as terrorist. But they are probably not guilty.

Special tribunals of this kind have no intelligence agents of their own. They rely heavily on information provided by national intelligence services that they trust. They don`t seem to understand that there is no such thing as a trustworthy intelligence service.

Immediately after the explosion that killed Rafiq Hariri and 22 other people in Beirut, western and Israeli intelligence services said that the Syrian and Iranian governments were behind it. The main aim of the US and Israel at that time was to get Syrian troops out of Lebanon, who were stationed there since shortly after the start of the Lebanese civil war in 1975.

Four Lebanese generals accused of working for Syria were arrested. The non-violent “Cedar Revolution” broke out, demanding an end to Syrian meddling in Lebanese politics. And in the end the Syrians left and a pro-western government took power: mission accomplished.

But there was actually no evidence against the four Lebanese generals, and the Special Tribunal for Lebanon, soon after its creation in 2009, ordered their release. So who had organised the killing of Hariri, then? Well, accusing the Syrians had worked pretty well for the western intelligence agencies. Maybe they decided to blame Hezbollah now, and see if that worked too.

Hezbollah came into existence in response to the long Israeli occupation of southern Syria (1982-2000). It has the support of most of Lebanon`s Shias, who dominate the south. And it gets arms and money not only from Syria but also from Syria`s ally, Iran.

During the last Israeli attack on Lebanon, in 2006, Hezbollah fought the Israeli army to a stand-still in southern Lebanon. But its leadership has always been intelligent and subtle, and the notion that it would let itself become a tool for some ham-fisted Syrian operation to kill the Lebanese prime minister seems simply unbelievable to most Lebanese.

The judges of the Special Tribunal for Lebanon were persuaded by evidence that western intelligence services pointed them towards, particularly about mobile phone calls allegedly made by Hezbollah officials. So arrest warrants have now been issued for Mustafa Badreddin, Hezbollah`s chief operations officer, and three other Hezbollah officials.

They probably had nothing to do with Hariri`s assassination. It`s more likely that they are being framed by western intelligence agencies because Hezbollah is seen a serious threat to Israel. If this sounds paranoid, consider the case of the Lockerbie bombing.

The bombing of Pan Am flight 103 in 1988 killed 270 people, most of them American. At first US intelligence blamed Iran, claiming that it used an Arab terrorist group based in Syria to carry out the operation. So Syria was under pressure too — but then in 1990 Saddam Hussein attacked Kuwait, and Washington needed the Syrians as allies in the war to liberate it. Suddenly the whole Iran-Syria case was abandoned, and the new suspect was Libya.

Libya under Muammar Qadhafi was an enemy of the west, so new evidence was found linking Libyan intelligence agents to the attack. Qadhafi was brought to heel, and one Libyan intelligence officer, Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, was tried by an international court and sentenced to life in prison. Alas, the new “evidence” was then gradually discredited as key “witnesses” turned out to be incredible.

Lebanon: another frame-up? | Opinion | DAWN.COM

One man, a Maltese shopkeeper called Tony Gauci whose testimony apparently linked al-Megrahi to the suitcase that contained the bomb, was later found living in Australia on several million dollars that the United States had paid him for his testimony.

THE arrest of Brig Ali Khan and four majors last month bring Hizb ut-Tahrir (HT) into the spotlight. Though HT did not confirm or deny their links with itself, its spokesman in Pakistan said in a recent interview that the idea of resonates with officers of the armed forces.

HT is an ideological group that falls somewhere between political Islamists and militant Islamists, and may also be classified as a kind of a revolutionary Islamist set-up. HT emphatically asserts that the only way to progress, prosperity and development is the implementation of Islam as an ideology in Pakistan, in fact the whole world.

In Pakistan, it has an anti-constitutional and anti-democratic outlook and agenda, and its narrative on militant and violent movements and groups in the country remains vague. This vagueness is a major hurdle in assessing the real threat the group can pose. Most analysts tend to watch madressahs and popular mass movements for signs of radicalisation. The danger with HT is ever more serious and often overlooked because it is not always visible and does not conform to stereotypes.

HT`s political discourse is based on religio-ideological narratives that are already in abundance in Pakistan and are one of the root causes of the main security threats posed to Pakistan`s state and society. HT can, in fact, give impetus to the theo-political polarisation in Pakistani society where space for any discourse other than the Islamist narrative has almost already disappeared. This is a threat in general, irrespective of which Islamist organisation or group is contributing to it; and HT is also a part of this threat augmentation.

HT claims to be a non-violent movement, but has been linked to a number of terrorist plots in Pakistan, including an attempt to assassinate former president Gen Pervez Musharraf. A report by the Pak Institute for Peace Studies, quoting an HT member, claimed that the group did not deny the involvement of HT members in some “violent activities” — such as the plot to assassinate Musharraf and the case of an army captain who faces court martial in Kotli, in Pakistan-administered Kashmir on charges of planning a coup on HT`s behalf. khilafat khilafat

Some other factors also suggest that HT may pose potential threats to the security of the Pakistani state and society. Firstly, the frustrated youth associated with HT may get involved in terrorist activities; secondly, HT does not denounce such activities. Thirdly, HT does not discount the possibility of resort to violence via the military, in order to achieve the ultimate goal of establishing the state; it rather obliges it. Naveed Butt, HT spokesman in Pakistan, states that after the establishment of , part of the second phase will be to widen the borders of the state through offensive `jihad` or aggressive warfare. kufr khilafat. khilafat khilafat

At another level, the pursuit of a jihadist agenda cannot be ruled out in the case of HT. It believes that jihad and preaching will be used for “taking humanity out from the darkness of (infidelity) to the light of Islam” after the establishment of Perhaps HT has assumed a timeline for the establishment of their in Pakistan after which it plans to pursue a `jihad` to expand the boundaries of .

However, the question is, if things do not happen according to HT`s expectations, as the dominant discourse in Pakistan suggests, who can guarantee that the organisation, or its members at least, will not adopt the militant or jihadist discourse to achieve their primary objectives, especially when there are already some indications of their involvement in such activities. khilafat

Secondly, HT tries to influence the political leadership, mainly leaders of Islamist parties in Pakistan. It claims, as discussed earlier, that they do not have a clear agenda and that HT can provide them with a viable blueprint for the establishment of , or an `Islamic` revolution, that they are working towards.

Most Islamist organisations are traditionalists in their approach and work under the constitution of Pakistan. HT can lead the Islamists to a viewpoint that is characterised by opposition to the constitution. In other words, HT has the potential to compress the political and democratic space by guiding the Islamist parties and the citizens of Pakistan towards non-democratic and unconstitutional narratives of governance and state-functioning.

Thirdly, HT has been persistently targeting Pakistan Army officials for enlisting and the fact that it has the potential to augment the `Islamic revolution` niche occupied by some senior military officials cannot be ignored.

It is pertinent to mention that in two military coup plots unearthed in Pakistan HT was the prime suspect. A military court in Pakistan-administered Kashmir identified two military officers and two civilians in January 2010 as members of HT and charged them with planning to attack the Shamsi airbase in Balochistan. This facility is generally believed to be used as a base for US drones attacking targets in Pakistan`s tribal areas. The accused were also charged with transferring sensitive information to HT, which had also developed close links with Maj Gen Zaheer Abbasi, the main accused in the foiled military coup in 1995.

Fourthly, HT concentrates considerably on university students and those studying in professional institutions. The infiltration of these groups, especially with an anti-state and anti-constitutional agenda, runs the risk of putting more and more educated Pakistani youth on the path of radicalisation. According to Maajid Nawaz, a former member of HT, the radicalisation of this section of youth could have a poisonous effect on other segments of society, eventually making the core fabric of society prone to extremism because of its Islamist-guided polarisation.

HT certainly has the potential to polarise progress in Pakistan by injecting schismatic dogma into the very classes that Pakistan so desperately needs to progress.

The Hizb ut-Tahrir threat | Opinion | DAWN.COM

THE continuation of an Iran-Iraq rapprochement is welcome in the interest of stability in the region. Prime Minister Nouri Maliki received Iran`s first vice president warmly at the Baghdad airport last week, and on his part Rahman Rahimi said “all of what we Iranians love exists in Iraq” — a reference to Shia holy places in Najaf and Karbala. But deeper geopolitical issues, decades of hostility and the murderous 1980-88 war will not be so easily forgotten. More important, Iran has a Shia identity, while Iraq, despite its Shia majority, has an Arab identity. Unjustly, since its founding under a British `mandate` after the First World War, Iraq had been ruled by a Sunni minority even after the July 1958 revolution, which ousted the Hashemite dynasty. For the first time now, Iraq has an elected government representing all its ethnic and sectarian groups. Yet, in spite of being a Gulf power, it is not a member of the Gulf Cooperation Council, and Mr Maliki warned in a BBC interview that the Saudi-led intervention in Bahrain could lead to a sectarian war in the Middle East. Common views on Bahrain, however, are not enough to bring the two oil-rich countries together, who have their suspicions. Iran`s believes Iraq is under US control, while Baghdad suspects Iran helps anti-regime militants. Border disputes and the question of war reparations also remain irritants.

What, however, brought Mr Rahimi to Iraq was the economy. Squeezed by sanctions, Iran is keen to export gas from its southern Pars field to Europe via Iraq, Syria and Lebanon. The 5,600km pipeline will cost $6bn and pump 110 million cubic metres of natural gas per day to Europe. Given the civil war in Syria and the shaky peace in Lebanon, this ambitious project could remain a pipedream. Nevertheless, an Iran-Iraq rapprochement could have a positive impact on the region and enable the two countries to tackle the crises in the Middle East.