Thursday editorial (23-06-2011)

Dream of civilian supremacy

Dr Qaisar Rashid


In a speech in Kotli, Azad Kashmir, on June 16, Nawaz Sharif held four army generals responsible for the Kargil war, which he said sabotaged the Pakistan-India peace process and halted the resolution of the Kashmir dispute, ultimately leading to the toppling of his elected government in October 1999. Needless to say, the list of conspirators, as he called them, had Gen Pervez Musharraf on the top.
The speech was a broad indication that civilian-military relations may ultimately attain a balance in the coming years. Events in the past six weeks have kick-started a debate on the necessity for civilian supremacy in national politics, and the speech, launching the Azad Kashmir branch of his PML-N, should be seen in that perspective.
In retrospect, had Nawaz Sharif strengthened the hands of the government of Mohammad Khan Junejo against Gen Ziaul Haq, who dismissed it, he would have faced fewer problems during his two prime ministerial tenures in establishing civilian oversight in national affairs. In addition, had Nawaz Sharif constituted a Kargil commission in 1999, he would have led the nation by example.
Pakistan is not an outcome of military’s conquests but of civilians’ constitutional struggle. Pakistan has not annexed any foreign territory to be kept under military subjugation. Again, the initiative to make Pakistan’s defence impregnable through a nuclear programme was taken by a civilian, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto. If it is to be a genuinely democratic country, Pakistan has to have civilian supremacy.
The dream of asserting civilian supremacy in national affairs goes back to the 1970s when, in the immediate aftermath of the fall of Dhaka, Bhutto tried to tip the institutional balance in favour of parliament. The enactment of the 1973 Constitution was an attempt to realise this dream.
It was the second time in the history of Pakistan that a political leader has tried to assert civilian supremacy, not only by introducing the 13th Constitutional Amendment to the Constitution in 1997 but also by holding the then chief of the army staff, Gen Jehangir Karamat, accountable for his proposal to have a body named National Security Council. The NSC, consisting of members of the armed forces civilian representatives, would have participated in national decision-making in the domestic and foreign realms. Gen Karamat had to resign from the service in 1998.
Constitutionally speaking, as a branch of the executive, the army should not play any role in national policymaking process. But the army is all-powerful and can thereby influence the external and internal policies of the country. The operational strength of the army dwarfs that of civilian institutions. The area into which the army cannot venture is the Constitution. That is why, after toppling Nawaz Sharif’s government in 1999, Gen Musharraf was keen to make the NSC a part of the Constitution through the 17th Amendment in 2003. That could not happen because wisdom prevailed in the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA) and it decided not to sponsor any such move. Consequently, the NSC remained a creation of an act of parliament.
Undoubtedly, the Constitution of 1973 discourages the role of the army in national affairs. The 18th Amendment has reinforced the same spirit by broadening the scope of Article 6. On the contrary, on the practical plane, civilian supremacy is a project still unaccomplished and an unfulfilled dream.
One of the main hindrances on the path to civilian supremacy in practical terms is an indulgence of politicians of all hues in corrupt practices—one of the greatest weaknesses of the political institution. Corruption spawns inequities in society and is therefore despised by everyone. That is why corrupt politicians are reviled and consequently they lose support in public. The malpractice of misappropriation of national funds for the growth of one someone’s personal bank accounts in Switzerland and elsewhere undermines the credibility of politicians and they are believed to be unable to run country’s affairs. The weakness of one institution as a result of corruption becomes the strength of another. When the army meddles in the political domain on the pretext of saving the country from corrupt politicians, people heave a sigh of relief.
Under the present government, the National Accountability Bureau has been deliberately defanged. Presently, there is neither a chairman of Nab at the centre nor a director general in the regional office of Rawalpindi. Shirking responsibilities of this sort is tantamount to encouraging corrupt practices in society and discouraging anti-corruption forces. Consequently, the political institutions will become still weaker than they are, and could offer a justification for another military intervention.
Another obstacle is the lack of democracy at the grassroots level. Ironically, the local government system is not being practised by the present democratic government. People cannot prize democracy if they don’t get involved in the system and figure out the worth of democracy. Nawaz Sharif stumbled and fell owing to that reason. For example, during his second stint as prime minister, he did not hold local body elections. As a result, when he was overthrown, people had no platform from which to express solidarity with him, even if they had wanted to do that, and voice their opposition to the abrogation of the Constitution.
The democratic value of the local government system is not being realised by the present government either. The government of the PPP is perhaps overconfident as a result of its success in dealing with the NRO tangle.
The country is in critical need for reforms. The army should be made accountable to parliament and directly answerable to people in the court of law. But if parliament protects corrupt politicians and denies basic democracy to people, the dream of civilian supremacy cannot be realised.
Email: qaisarrashid@yahoo.com

Time-out

Ikram Sehgal


While the Osama bin Laden raid was indeed disastrous for the army’s image, to condemn the ISI outright without hard evidence for the horrific Saleem Shahzad kidnapping and murder is terribly unfair. Casting aspersions and accusations on a flimsy basis is normal in a society where defamation laws are neither strong nor enforceable. The government knew quite well that unilaterally naming SC judges to head enquiry commissions without the permission of the chief justice (CJ) of the Supreme Court would be a non-starter. This manipulated delay gave a false perception that the army was attempting to thwart the two enquiries and thus had to face more approbation in the media while the government’s top officials shed crocodile tears.
One finds it impossible to morally reconcile the strident criticism directed against those in uniform to the casualties being suffered by the Pakistan Army on a daily basis. Those unleashing unrelenting venom and hatred on the electronic and print media may certainly have very justifiable grievances because of excesses committed against them during periods of our history when martial law was imposed (and even afterwards). But the unfortunate fact is that even those with motivated bias or even a paid agenda cannot justify the scathing denunciation of the entire army’s rank and file even as they are fighting and dying for what are essentially the sins of a few.
The unfortunate irony is, clubbing the vast mass of the innocent in uniform will allow the culpable to escape accountability. Why are those individuals accused of alleged crimes not being named and singled out to be charged individually in a court of law instead of the whole army being maligned unless the real motivation is to defame the army as an institution?
To quote an extract from my article on May 23, 1988, “Leave the army alone” at about the time the Afghan War was winding down: “The Civil War will intensify and ebb in Afghanistan but the pressures on Pakistan will increase, both physical and psychological. Needless to say, it will test all of Pakistan’s patience not to be drawn into the vortex or allow the war to spill into Pakistan, particularly into the urban areas of Pakistan which will be the prime enemy target. The single most positive factor in Pakistan for peace and tranquility is the strong, stable Pakistan Army, the finest fighting machine in the world, a reputation that particularly wards off adventurism from our loving neighbour, India. It is in our self-interest to sustain and motivate this fine army and not resort to self-flagellation. Criticism, if any, should be well-conceived and objectively targeted without slurring the reputation of the army as a whole.”
Unfortunately even those representatives of the people that one truly had faith in have joined the “criticism” bandwagon without thinking through the consequences. This was not so two decades ago, to quote my article “Keeping One’s Cool” published on August 16, 1988, “one of the prime ploys since centuries is that if you cannot beat somebody on the battlefield, use psychological and other forms of subterfuge to undercut the base of support and gain victory. The atmosphere in the media is being methodically polluted and vitiated against the army, complicated by the fact that the long benign martial law had demilitarised the military mind to an extent. Martial laws, unless absolutely necessary, do not do any country any good, and when imposed must be short and effective, without debilitating the capabilities of the army as an institution”.
Was I wrong when I wrote in the same article, “An intricate smear campaign has been particularly mounted against our armed forces as an institution, both internally and externally, with certain voluble and immature neophytes in political circles being used as puppets on a string by those vested interests who would rather do without a strong and credible Pakistan Army...”
Mian Nawaz Sharif has a justifiable grouse against Musharraf but why go after the whole army as an institution? Despite what Mian Sahib thinks, the rank and file of the army thought highly of him (and grudgingly still do), why is he bent on turning them against him? No wonder Asif Ali Zardari, claiming to be holier-than-thou, is laughing all the way to the bank!
While imposing martial law amounts to subverting of the Constitution, if the conditions in the country require that intervention to save the country from descending into anarchy, then those in uniform have a moral obligation to risk their lives in doing so, for a limited time and with certain conditions paramount. Without the know-how or expertise of governance, they must never try to rule the country themselves, instead they must support the civilian bureaucracy who are already engaged in and have experience in governance to set up a caretaker government.
If ever forced into subverting the Constitution, the leaders of the military coup must go before the SC and explain their reasons for extra-constitutional intervention and the period that the caretaker set-up would possibly require to put things right, particularly in ensuring a credible electoral exercise. The SC can set up an accountability commission with their auspices (with the army’s role limited to logistics support) to ensure the bureaucracy does not go berserk in their governance.
Once a new elected democratic government is in place, the leaders of the military coup should voluntarily surrender before the SC for falling afoul of Article 6 of the Constitution. They are soldiers and if the SC decides they acted in bad faith they must be so charge-sheeted and be prepared to face the consequences of their actions, including the extreme penalty of death if necessary. Aren’t their soldiers dying for the country in Fata, Swat and other places?
The army has no reason to be defensive about the vagaries of a few individuals; it has nothing to be ashamed of as an institution. The soldier’s patriotism begins with a deeply imbued courage of conviction, with the embodiment of sacrifice for what one really believes in, the totality of devotion to duty and the lack of fear in facing up to the consequences of one’s actions in good faith. People who have no concept of nationhood or have never heard a bullet fired in anger cannot begin to understand the rudiments of patriotism.
A soldier has not much to offer except his life for his country and a deep conviction that in the sacrificing of his life he will be saving that of countless others. No one in the country except a soldier (a sailor and an airman) is expected to give up his life for his country when required to do so, his life is forfeit to the nation.
One has to hand it to Zardari. He has turned the tables on those who wanted to hold him accountable for corruption. Does anyone remember what the initials NRO stand for?
The writer is a defence and political analyst.
Email: isehgal@pathfinder9.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)

An alliance gone sour

Zafar Hilaly


A large part of friendship is feigning, especially in the cut-throat world of international politics. So, US Defence Secretary Gates got it right when in response to a US Senator’s question about how Pakistan could have ‘lied’ about the presence of OBL in Abbottabad, he replied that a lot of countries ‘lie’ to each other, including the US.
Gates, a former CIA chief, must have reflected on how often America had resorted to lies to get out of a jam and to further its ends. Indeed, how, as recently as 2007, America had lied not merely to one country but the whole world, and not once but repeatedly, about the presence of WMDs in Iraq to justify its invasion. That is not to say that the Senator did not know about America’s record of lying or to say that he was naïve. The kind of selective amnesia he displayed is common among politicians who have a bone to pick or wish to score cheap points in a debate.
Also evident was the anger that gripped the American media and some Senators at the news that 30 or so Pakistanis had been detained for questioning for passing on information to the CIA about the goings on in the OBL compound in Abbottabad. In an angry and incredulous tone they asked how Pakistan could possibly arrest anyone who helped the CIA bring the world’s number one terrorist to justice. It did not seem to cross their minds that those detained may be traitors because they preferred to work for a foreign spy agency rather than their own in return for money or some other favour. Instead, surprise and hurt were on display and the feeling among American politicians that such spiteful actions by Pakistan were actually meant to divert attention from the involvement, embarrassment, and incompetence of our own spooks.
Ambassador Haqqani tried to assuage US anger by parrying questions and when cornered by adopting a very conciliatory tone. Even saying that none of those arrested had been punished thereby implying somehow that they would be dealt with leniently even if found to be spying for the CIA. This suggested to his legion of critics here that recruiting agents for the CIA among our uniformed personnel and civilians is somehow acceptable when, in fact, it is reprehensible and illegal to suborn their loyalty. I cannot believe Haqqani was saying anything of the sort or that “the issue would be resolved to the satisfaction of Pakistan’s friends and its laws.” The law surely does not reflect the wishes of either friend or foe.
What especially raised hackles here are the ongoing attempts, subsequently leaked to the press by the Americans that Panetta had intervened with Kayani on behalf of those arrested on suspicion of being CIA informers. How can Panetta forget that working for a foreign spy agency is deemed illegal in all the countries of the world, including his own, regardless of the issue involved? How can it be considered legal for a national of one country to spy for another country? It infringes on the very concepts of sovereignty, nation-state, and interstate relations. Neither the Russians nor the Americans believed their moles were doing the legal thing during the Cold War when they passed on sensitive information even if the individuals involved personally believed they were pursuing the right cause.
The logic behind this just doesn’t make sense. Even more ridiculous is when the issue involves a person in the armed service of another country. By the same token, the US should be releasing its own nationals held in custody because they were charged with spying for a foreign country but who were doing the right thing as deemed by the country they were working for. It can start by releasing Jonathan Pollard who spied for Israel, the closest of American allies.
It would have been a lot better for Leon Panetta to have waited until the authorities had completed their investigation and to make a discreet pitch for clemency for the persons in question. Washing dirty linen in public is silly as it puts the country in an awkward position and may indeed worsen matters by being perceived as provocative and demeaning. Nor has Panetta done much good by allegedly leaking the matter and doing it at a time when there is mounting tension over more important issues. Actually, all he has done is to ensure that if found guilty of violating their oath of loyalty to their institution and the state to which they belong, the fate of those being held will be dire.
The question often asked is why America behaves in an arrogant and insensitive manner when dealing with friends or allies. Why doesn’t it care if it is distrusted and disliked? Why do Americans feel they must step on the dignity of others, including friends, only so that they can claim they are maintaining their own? The fact that these questions are repeatedly asked by its friends should bother Americans and not be treated like water off a duck’s back.
The time has surely come to question the importance of the American alliance and the temptation to hang on to it in order to benefit from the American largesse and in particular, the weapons we need for our defence. Indeed, the price tag has grown more exorbitant while our capacity to foot the bill in terms of reciprocity has shrunk further. In short the alliance is turning out to look like a luxury we can ill afford and we must therefore begin to live within our means as best as we can.
We cannot continue to believe out of sheer force of habit that what we have become accustomed to is what is best for us, when it is not. We must cease to find excuses for acting and believing in the manner we do. When love no longer exists in the heart, as it does not today for America, then the love affair is truly over. Old creeds that have shrouded policies must be abandoned. Putting the American connection behind us sensibly and deftly should now be the priority of the moment. It is worth recalling what George Washington had to say in his “Farewell Address”:
“The nation which indulges towards another a habitual hatred, or a habitual fondness, is in some degree a slave. It is a slave to animosity or to its affection, either of which is sufficient to lead it astray from its duty and its interest.”
It is absurd that the Americans should be in the business of killing and be killed even as they declare their wish to make peace with their adversary. This absurd war has truly plunged Pakistan into a civil conflict and effectively destroyed our chances of emerging as a strong united nation for another generation. And the longer we remain tethered to the Americans, the greater the chances of deeper ruin. The need to cut our losses and free ourselves from an embrace that has in any case become a suffocating one, therefore, is now beyond doubt. Although admittedly untangling ourselves from the alliance will require far more skill and dexterity than we have been shown to possess.
While doing so, let us bear in mind that ending an alliance does not mean making an abrupt shift from friendship to enmity — that would be an error and an emotional response to an existential trauma we are undergoing today. It only means making a determined and diligent realignment of our external relations so that we have more options and more space within which to address our national interests. The close American connection has outlived whatever value it may have had in the past and it has degenerated into a perpetual headache and heartburn. Parting amicably when we can is better than parting disagreeably when we must.
The writer is a former ambassador.

Email: charles123it@hotmail.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)

Enough of army-bashing...now let’s look ahead

Ayaz Amir


Never a dull moment in the Islamic Republic. Pakistani politics, always interesting, is now getting positively exciting. But this, instead of leading the regular doom-and-gloom brigade into more depression, should be cause for come cheer. The disorder under the heavens it portrays could be the harbinger of glad tidings.
Pakistan’s problem is a truly democratic transition. In all our history not one democratic government has been able to complete its term and hand over the torch of responsibility to another popularly-elected government. It just might happen this time if, with all its shortcomings, the present dispensation holds and we safely come up to the next elections. It won’t be the magical cure to end power and other shortages, or show us the outline of the promised kingdom of our dreams, but it will be a crucial step in the right direction.
So patience and a little forbearance, and the fervent prayer that we don’t wreck the national train in the meantime. Just last year media jihadis, their deadly fervour never to be underestimated, were giving one deadline after another about imminent change at the top. Now, Allah be praised, even the foam around their mouths has dried up, their frustration being a sight to behold.
The heating up of the national atmosphere thus should cause us no great distress. This should be as it is, the battle-lines drawn sharper and national discourse developing along clearer lines. As this heat grows, and it should, the greater the pressure on all political parties to spell out their positions on important issues.
If there is one national problem, the severest of all, it is empty rhetoric. We could do with a bit more of substance in our national conversation. So let us take heart from the present clamour and not be dismayed by it.
One fallacy, however, is easily dismissed. On present evidence, there aren’t going to be early elections, no one being in a position to force this issue. So it is a bit of a long wait...between now and the end of 2012, which too should be counted a blessing – enough time for necessary homework. Any party relying only on the drumbeats of hollow rhetoric may be setting itself up for huge disappointment. So this is perhaps a cue for comrades to get cracking. No time to waste.
But the season of one exercise should now definitely be over...that of army-bashing. We’ve had enough of it, in buckets and with spades. There has been some cynical and sadistic pleasure in the exercise, as was bound to happen when a holy sanctum, long immune to any form of criticism or accountability, was caught all of a sudden in the glare of unwelcome and harsh publicity. But all of us having cast our stones, in fact hurled them with all our might, we could now do with some rest to our arms.
After all, this is our army and we don’t have the luxury of creating a new one. Even when nations lose wars and suffer catastrophic defeats, they don’t destroy their armies but strengthen them anew.
Our national ills are many but they weren’t all invented by the army. The army did not write the Objectives Resolution. It did not linger over the writing of our first constitution. Our national leadership, right from Jinnah onwards, were predisposed to seeking alliances with the United States. This did not happen because of the army, despite the army too being inclined in the same direction. The cry of Islam in danger, which we have been shouting from the housetops ever since the founding of Pakistan, was not devised by General Headquarters.
Jinnah took no orders from the army and it was Jinnah who said that Urdu should be the national language, causing anger and riots in East Pakistan. One can go on with this list.
Yes, the army is the author of many of our sorrows but not the sole author. Elements of the governing class with a say in determining the course of national elements have been equally responsible. If the army’s outlook needs to be reformed – and there’s no question of this – so does the outlook of the rest of us, all of us having made our little contributions to the cesspool of confusion which the Islamic Republic, in all its bewildering manifestations, has become. So the task and agenda of reform are wider than we care to think.
Gen Musharraf wanted it otherwise, but the present army command saw to it that the 2008 elections were free and fair. In all the army-bashing which seems to have become the flavour of the season this should not be forgotten.
The return to professionalism, the eschewing of overt political games (although the same, alas, cannot be said of covert games), and the operations in Swat and South Waziristan are not small achievements. If the army continues to call the shots on important issues it may partly be due to conscious design but to a great extent because of political inadequacy.
No one, after all, will accuse Yousuf Raza Gilani of being a Tayyip Erdogan. With a chief executive like him, with his own sense of priorities and his own brand of humour – and let no one say that the prime minister is a man without humour – any general, even the most vapid, would be inclined to spread his wings.
So we should keep things in perspective. Pakistan’s multifarious ills will not be cured in a day. The army’s outlook will not change overnight. If we have taken a long time to nurture our distresses, it will take some time to remove the various cobwebs clogging the national mind. That is, if we are at all lucky in this undertaking – there being equal chances, if not more, that we will remain beset by the ideological claptrap which has had such an enduring grip on our national thinking.
There may have been bitterness and anger in the statement issued after the last Corps Commanders’ Conference but didn’t it also call upon the people of North Waziristan not to allow foreigners to make their territory a base for operations against Pakistan? This is a departure from the Hamid Gul and Aslam Beg schools of ideological thought, the jihadi theology we should finally be consigning to the trashcan of history. Shouldn’t we welcome it? And shouldn’t we welcome the fact that the army is doing this on its own instead of under American suggestion or dictation?
The strangest thing of all is that this army command, after all the bowing and scraping of the Musharraf years, is finally standing up to the Americans and trying to work out new rules of engagement with them. And yet this very command is coming under harsh criticism from the very elements whose foremost mantra is national dignity and honour and national sovereignty.
There is no winning this game: being attacked for subservience and then coming under more attack for showing a rare streak of independence. There is no suiting some tastes.
If the army is going after a banned religious outfit like the Hizb-ut-Tehrir what is there to object about it? All of us are entitled to our religious beliefs but there should be no place in the army for an outfit which subscribes, as the Hizb does, to a form of the caliphate.
Soldiers are bound by their oath to uphold and defend the Constitution of Pakistan. If they subscribe to something else, they can create their own salvation army or erect some other temple to their beliefs but they should leave the army alone. So it is not a little surprising to find politicians – mercifully, not too many – cavilling at the arrest of some Hizb-inclined officers.
There is much to set right in the army. But then there is much to set right in the nation. If the army, at long last, is moving in the right direction it deserves our support, instead of becoming an object of reflexive target-shooting...as a mark, I suppose, of some higher kind of patriotism.

Email: winlust@yahoo.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)

Al-Qaeda after Bin Laden

S Iftikhar Murshed


Mullah Omar, the supreme leader of the Taliban, said to me during a meeting in Kandahar in early 1999: “Osama bin Laden is like a chicken bone stuck in my gullet, I can neither spit him out nor swallow him.” He explained that Bin Laden had been brought back to Afghanistan by the Burhanuddin Rabbani regime and had subsequently sought asylum. Under the Afghan code of honour, refuge seekers have to be protected, no matter what the cost. According to Mullah Omar, Afghan men and women, even children, would rather die than surrender a fugitive.
The tradition of honour, if honour also lies in sheltering terrorists, has cost Afghanistan dearly. Bin Laden is now dead and, if Mullah Omar was speaking the truth, he should not have any hesitation in severing all links with Al-Qaeda. Pakistan can play a significant role in bringing about such an outcome and persuading its friends among the Afghan Taliban to be responsive to President Karzai’s reintegration programme. This would also be in line with the communique of July 20, 2010, which was issued after the first-ever international conference on Afghanistan held in Kabul.
What needs to be unambiguously driven home in this endeavour is that there are also practical reasons why Al-Qaeda should be renounced. There is verifiable evidence that the outfit is not only running out of steam ideologically but is also wracked by internal dissention. Even at the time of its inception in August 1988, Al-Qaeda was never a unified organisation, let alone a monolith. But with the death of Bin Laden it seems to have run into a formidable leadership crisis and this warrants further assessment of the outfit.
After the killing of Bin Laden it took more than six weeks for the bruised and battered Al-Qaeda to select Ayman al-Zawahiri as its new leader. Reports sourced to Al-Qaeda insiders reveal that the succession was fiercely contested between the Egyptian, Saudi, Libyan, Palestinian and Pakistani factions and the struggle may not be over. Furthermore, Al-Zawahiri, who turned sixty this month, neither has the charisma nor the stature of Bin Laden, and it is uncertain whether he will be able to maintain even a semblance of unity within Al-Qaeda.
For the moment it appears that Al-Zawahiri’s Egyptian Islamic Jihad (EIJ), which was formally merged with Al-Qaeda in 1998, is ascendant. However, Al-Zawahiri has a blemished track record which the other factions could exploit to undermine his authority. Two major events from his murky past, and one relating to the dramatic elimination of Bin Laden, lend credence to the perception among his rivals that he is a scheming double-dealer who cannot be trusted.
The first occurred in 1981. For most of that year, Al-Zawahiri had been working closely with Aboud al-Zumar, the founder and first emir of the EIJ who was a colonel in military intelligence, in crafting a plan to assassinate the Egyptian leadership. President Anwar al-Sadat was thus killed in October 1981 and hundreds of people, including Al-Zawahiri, were arrested. His lawyer, Montasser el-Ziyat subsequently revealed in his book, Al-Zawahiri As I Knew Him, that Al-Zawahiri disclosed under duress the whereabouts of Essam al-Qamari, a key member of EIJ’s Maadi cell which led to Al-Qamari’s “arrest and execution.”
Al-Zawahiri’s treachery paid off and he received only a three-year sentence, which he completed in 1984. Shortly afterwards, he proceeded to Saudi Arabia and then relocated to Peshawar in 1987 to be close to the Afghan jihad against the Soviet Union. Aboud Al-Zumar received life imprisonment and was released in March this year after the ouster of the dictatorship of Hosny Mubarak. During the initial years of his incarceration Al-Zumar continued to be accepted as the head of Egyptian Islamic Jihad, but in 1991, Al-Zawahiri, ever the master of intrigue, had him removed and usurped the leadership of the outfit.
The second incident that besmirches Al-Zawahiri’s standing is the alleged role of the EIJ in the Nov 24, 1989, assassination in Peshawar of the ideological founder of Al-Qaeda, Abdullah Yusuf Azzam. Soon after his arrival in Peshawar, Al-Zawahiri became completely radicalised and adopted the murderous concept of takfir under which pro-Western Islamic governments and their supporters were denounced as “apostates” who deserved to be killed. Such Muslims were the “near enemy” and it was against them that jihad had to be waged, so that their regimes could be replaced by Sharia-based Islamic emirates.
Abdullah Azzam rejected takfir and his vision encompassed a global struggle against the “far enemy” to liberate Muslims living under oppressive foreign occupation. A number of scholars have described him as “a non-terrorist jihadist.” Al-Zawahiri who was soon able to convince Bin Laden that Azzam was a US agent. Shortly afterwards, an initial attempt to assassinate him failed when a lethal amount of TNT placed under the pulpit at the mosque where he usually delivered his Friday sermons failed to detonate. He was eventually killed a few months later, along with his son Muhammad, as their vehicle approached a roadside bomb allegedly planted by Al-Zawahiri loyalists.
Al-Zawahiri’s leadership of Al-Qaeda has kicked off on an inauspicious start amid suspicions that he orchestrated the killing of Bin Laden. Reports sourced to Al-Qaeda insiders have emerged in the Arab media that the courier who carried messages to and from Bin Laden had been hired by Al-Zawahiri, who then ensured that this information reached US intelligence. Stories have now surfaced that it was the Egyptian faction led by Al-Zawahiri that tipped off the Americans about the precise whereabouts of Ilyas Kashmiri, and this reportedly resulted in his death in a drone strike on June 4.
The dense fog surrounding the mysterious presence of Bin Laden in Abbottabad and his subsequent killing has yet to dissipate because of the unpardonable delay by the government in constituting an independent commission to investigate the May 2 debacle. Now that an inquiry mechanism is finally in place the information available in the Arab media and sourced to Al-Qaeda factions could be useful. Some of the details are summarised in my article of June 12 titled “The fracturing of Al-Qaeda.”
Though these reports are difficult to verify, what does emerge is that Bin Laden’s death has worked to the advantage of Al-Zawahiri. But this could turn out to be a Pyrrhic victory because his tainted past, starting from the 1981 betrayal of Essam al-Qamari, has Al-Qaeda divested his leadership of all moral authority. Furthermore, the outfit is plagued by Byzantine intrigues, fears and suspicions as a consequence of which there have been defections from within its ranks, notably by leaders of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group.
This has been accompanied by stern denunciations of Al-Qaeda by former close associates of Bin Laden such as Sheikh Imam al-Sharif and Abu Mohammad al-Libi, as well as by fundamentalist theologians including the influential Sheikh Salman al-Ouda of Saudi Arabia. Their writings have resulted in the rapid erosion of public support for Al-Qaeda in the Arab world.
When Muhammad Bouazizi set himself ablaze in a public square in Tunis on Dec 17 he ignited a revolution that consumed not only the pro-West dictatorships in his own country and Egypt but also set in motion mass movements for change in Yemen, Syria, Bahrain and Libya, as well as other countries in the Middle East and the Maghreb.
The unmistakable message of the revolutionary upsurge in the Arab world is that the Arab masses yearn for freedom and for economic and social justice. In this scheme of things there is no place for concepts such as takfir expounded by Al-Zawahiri or the establishment of Islamic emirates. The Arab spring has demonstrated that Al-Qaeda’s obscurantist ideology is rejected by the Muslim world.
The writer publishes Criterion quarterly.

Email: iftimurshed@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)

Capital suggestion

Americans going home

Dr Farrukh Saleem


The $500 billion ‘nation building’ drama is drawing to a close. The Americans are going home. They abandoned Afghanistan back in 1989 as well. The second divorce in less than 25 years is, however, going to be slower-and perhaps more painful-than the first one.
Everything in American politics – well, almost everything – revolves around electoral timetables. The Iowa Democratic Presidential Caucus, the first election for the Democrats of the 2012 presidential election, is scheduled for February 6, 2012. Obama has now announced that 5,000 GIs will be going home in July and an additional 5,000 by the end of this year. Just in time for the Iowa Caucus.
The 2012 Democratic National Convention, in which delegates will elect the party’s nominees for president and the vice president, takes place in the week of September 3. Obama has now announced that some 33,000 troops will be back home by September 2012. Just in time both for the Convention and for the United States presidential election of 2012 which is scheduled for November 6, 2012.
By the end of 2014, some 50,000 troops are to be withdrawn so that no combat troops are left in Afghanistan by end-2014 (around 20,000 non-combat, so-called ‘military advisers’ or ‘special operations’ will be left behind).
The Obama Doctrine is taking wings. David Petraeus, the four-star United States Army General, the current Commander, US Forces Afghanistan (USFOR-A), and the architect of the ‘surge’, has been kicked upstairs to the CIA. Robert Gates, the 22nd United States Secretary of Defence, who was not in favour of an accelerated troop draw-down, is retiring. The dreams of a ‘democratic Afghanistan’ with schools and an ‘independent judiciary’ have all gone up in smoke.
The $100 billion-a-year Afghan war tag had become politically unpalatable. The military reality in Afghanistan is that the Taliban would not fight the US on American terms and that not even the entire US army will ever be able to subdue the Taliban spirit behind throwing out an occupying force. Obama is therefore transforming the 10-year war into a major, high-tech, intelligence intensive, robot-driven counterterrorism undertaking.
The Obama Doctrine has two goals: one; not to allow Afghanistan to become the source of another attack on the US and, two, to use Afghan soil to hunt Al-Qaeda and other transnational terrorists in Pakistan’s badlands. For Pakistan, the Obama Doctrine means three things. One; more drone attacks. Two; sophisticated, cross-border, stealth counterterrorism strikes. Three; a decreasing Pakistani leverage over America because of America’s decreasing logistical dependence on Pakistan.
The Obama Doctrine also means leaving behind a 650,000 sq km massive power vacuum – a vacuum surrounded by Iran, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. Nature abhors vacuums and with the Americans gone, the Pakistan Army would be the largest, most powerful military force in the region.
As far as the War on Terror is concerned, the Pak-US transactional relationship is also drawing to a close. We are free to pick our friends. But would it be in Pakistan’s interest to pick the US as an adversary? We also need to pick a role model. As a point of reference, North Korea picked the US as an adversary and has always had close relations with the People’s Republic of China and Russia.
The writer is a columnist based in Islamabad.

Email: farrukh15@hotmail.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)

My superheroes at close range

Adiah Afraz


Now, if there is one thing the lawyer’s movement had done was to convince me, without a reasonable doubt, that all lawyers were heroes.
So if all lawyers were heroes, and all heroes had super-powers, then could it be that all heroes with super-powers were actually lawyers?
If yes, then was Superman nothing but a lawyer who could fly?
And Cat Woman nothing but a lawyer who could meow?
Well, res ipsa loquitur. (The thing speaks for itself.)
But since, in the real world, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, we should leave the argument aside for a minute, and focus only on the beauty that lies in the coats of the beholders. Or, should I say, the beauty that lies in the courts of the beholders?
Well, all this while, for me and for many others just like me, the lawyers in their black coats were actually superheroes in their black armours. They fought against the injustices in life, swooped in when the going was tough, and saved the day when there were desperate times ahead. They volunteered incarceration, got beaten up on roadsides, survived persecution and harassment, and they still managed to write motivational poetry for the masses, made suave TV appearances, and looked brave and ruthless, and very, very heroic indeed.
So, during the time of the lawyers’ movement, like a lot of other Pakistanis doing the exact same thing, I would sit glued to the television screen for hours watching reruns of Capital Talk, admiring the silver lining in Mr Kurd’s tresses, and generally wondering: Why, oh why, was I not a lawyer myself? I could have become famous, you see.
So, considering the situation of my fairytale world, would you blame me for being shocked out of my lawyer-worshipping wits if I told you about the time when I visited a lower court in Lahore and saw all my romantic illusions about law and lawyers come crumbling down to my feet?
Well, a few months ago, I was asked to be a witness in a child custody case on behalf of a litigant father, and it was there in the middle of screaming, hollering kids and frothing-at-the-mouth estranged spouses that I witnessed firsthand how all that glitters on the TV screen is not really gold.
Ok, to begin with, the lower court, as you might want to know, is nothing but what the name suggests it is...the lower court. It is smelly and shady, and not at all what you had been led to believe about the looks of “justice” all that time when you waited for The Justice.
The very first thing that you notice about the face of justice in the lower courts is that there is no place to park your car.
And once you cross that hurdle, then the next thing that hits you right across that face is the smell of lawyers in the air.
I mean, it’s a lawyers’ carnival out there, and the more closely you inspect them the more clearly you can see that all of them are not necessarily as heroic as they would want you to believe. And then a lot of lawyers together at one place not always symbolise hot pursuit of justice; it could be a variety of other things, like campaigning for an election, or inciting emotions against this and that, or simply going on strike for special effect, if nothing else.
So, all these lawyers and no action?
And with that we sum up the workings of the justice system for the common man and all his aunts.
Once you wade through the sea of all these out-of-action lawyers indulging in such lethal activities as pinning badges on each others’ lapels and giggling their coats off over a joke about pickled vegetables, you reach a place called the courtroom. And it is here that the last of your preconceived notions pertaining to the judges in black robes, solemnly rapping their gavels and inspiring standing ovations, all plummet, down the proverbial drain.
To put it more sophisticatedly, it’s a ruckus out there. The litigants are haggling, the lawyers are pleading, and the honourable judge is simply sitting and looking lost and harassed and very, very unheroic. So where is the guy who calls “Order! Order! Order!”?
The only person in the crowded courtroom that looks in full control of himself, and seems to know all about what a litigant should do with his life, is the unsung hero of the legal system called the Reader, and his network.
Would it be considered contempt of court if I, in the capacity of a witness trying to record my statement for many months in a lower court, and wasting precious working hours every fortnight, would say in the print media that I would really like to meet the dear Reader in his chambers, because the honourable judges of the lower courts, I am sorry to say, are not really bothered at all?
Actually, my problem is that my honourable judge is always on leave. And, by the way, how many leaves exactly are allowed to a person if the person is an honourable judge of the lower court? There is a leave called the “short leave,” then there is a leave called “got up early leave,” a leave called “the judge is late leave,” a leave called ‘the judge is a heart patient leave.” Why, oh why, was I not a judge of the lower court myself? So many leaves, and not one but just a hundred or so emotionally stunted parents of minor children to be answerable to. What a perfect respite for my aching conscious it would have been!
So the next time there is a movement for justice, let’s call it the Readers’ movement and see where it takes a fourteen-year-old kid’s father who has been fighting a custody battle for the past fourteen years.
Thereafter, let this become a watchword for all our courts: Fiat justitia ruat caelum – ”let justice be done though the heavens fall.”
The writer is an academic.

Email: adiahafraz@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)

Pakistan’s decision to join the US and the Coalition in Afghanistan in their attack on the Taliban remains a subject of intense debate. This is the decision we took after a thorough, deliberate and realistic appraisal of the obtaining geo-strategic realities, but it has drawn criticism and praise alike. With the latest upsurge in terrorist activity in Pakistan, the debate on the post-9/11 response of Pakistan has intensified. I, therefore, thought it my duty to lay bare facts in front of the people of Pakistan, so that with all the necessary information they could judge the situation more accurately. The decision of my government was indeed based on, and in conformity with, my slogan of ‘Pakistan First’.
Some people suggested that we should oppose the United States and favour the Taliban. Was this, in any way, beneficial for Pakistan? Certainly not! Even if the Taliban and Al-Qaeda emerged victorious, it would not be in Pakistan’s interest to embrace obscurantist Talibanisation. That would have meant a society where women had no rights, minorities lived in fear and semi-literate clerics set themselves up as custodians of justice. I could have never accepted this kind of society for Pakistan. In any case, judging by military realities one was sure that the Taliban would be defeated. It would have been even more detrimental for Pakistan to be standing on the defeated side.
The United States, the sole superpower, was wounded and humiliated by the 9/11 Al-Qaeda terrorist attack. A strong retaliatory response against Al-Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan was imminent.
I was angrily told, by the US, that Pakistan had to be ‘either with us or against us’. The message was also conveyed to me that ‘if Pakistan was against the United States then it should be prepared to be bombed back to the Stone Age.’
This was the environment within which we had to take a critical decision for Pakistan. My sole focus was to make a decision that would benefit Pakistan in the long run, and also guard it against negative effects.
What options did the US have to attack Afghanistan? Not possible from the north, through Russia and the Central Asian Republics. Not from the west, through Iran. The only viable direction was from the east, through Pakistan. If we did not agree, India was ever ready to afford all support. A US-India collusion would obviously have to trample Pakistan to reach Afghanistan. Our airspace and land would have been violated. Should we then have pitched our forces, especially Pakistan Air Force, against the combined might of the US and Indian forces? India would have been delighted with such a response from us. This would surely have been a foolhardy, rash and most unwise decision. Our strategic interests – our nuclear capability and the Kashmir cause – would both have been irreparably compromised. We might even have put our very territorial integrity at stake.
The economic dimension of confronting the United States and the West also needed serious analysis. Pakistan’s major export and investment is to and from the United States and the European Union. Our textiles, which form 60 percent of our export and earnings, go to the West. Any sanctions on these would have crippled our industry and choked our economy. Workers would lose their jobs. The poor masses of Pakistan would have been the greatest sufferers.
China, our great friend, also has serious apprehensions about Al-Qaeda and the Taliban. The upsurge of religious extremism emboldening the East Turkistan Islamic Movement in China is due to events in Afghanistan and the tribal agencies of Pakistan. China would certainly not be too happy with Pakistan on the side of Al-Qaeda and the Taliban. Even the Islamic Ummah had no sympathy for the Taliban regime; countries like Turkey and Iran were certainly against the Taliban. The UAE and Saudi Arabia – the only two countries other than Pakistan that had recognised the Taliban regime – had become so disenchanted with the Taliban that they had closed their missions in Kabul.
Here, I would also like to clear the notion that we accepted all the demands put forward by USA.
On September 13th 2001, the US Ambassador to Pakistan, Wendy Chamberlain, brought me a set of seven demands. These demands had also been communicated to our Foreign Office by the US State Department.

1. Stop Al-Qaeda operatives at your borders, intercept arms shipments through Pakistan, and end all logistical support for bin Laden.
2. Provide the United States with blanket overflight and landing rights to conduct all necessary military and intelligence operations.
3. Provide territorial access to the United States and allied military intelligence as needed, and other personnel to conduct all necessary operations against the perpetrators of terrorism and those that harbour them, including the use of Pakistan’s naval ports, air bases, and strategic locations on borders.
4. Provide the United States immediately with intelligence, immigration information and databases, and internal security information, to help prevent and respond to terrorist acts perpetrated against the United States, its friends, or its allies.
5. Continue to publicly condemn the terrorist acts of September 11 and any other terrorist acts against the United States or its friends and allies, and curb all domestic expressions of support [for terrorism] against the United States, its friends, or its allies.
6. Cut off all shipments of fuel to the Taliban and any other items and recruits, including volunteers, en route to Afghanistan, who can be used in a military offensive capacity or to abet a terrorist threat.
7. Should the evidence strongly implicate Osama bin Laden and the Al-Qaeda network in Afghanistan and should Afghanistan and the Taliban continue to harbour him and his network, Pakistan will break diplomatic relations with the Taliban government, end support for the Taliban, and assist the United States in the afore-mentioned ways to destroy Osama bin Laden and his Al Qaeda network.

Some of these demands were ludicrous, such as “curb all domestic expressions of support [for terrorism] against the United States, its friends, and its allies.” How could my government suppress public debate, when I had been trying to encourage freedom of expression?
I also thought that asking us to break off diplomatic relations with Afghanistan if it continued to harbour Osama bin Laden and Al-Qaeda was not realistic, because not only would the United States need us to have access to Afghanistan, at least until the Taliban fell, but such decisions are the internal affair of a country and cannot be dictated by anyone. But we had no problem with curbing terrorism in all its forms and manifestations. We had been itching to do so before the United States became its victim.
We just could not accept demands two and three. How could we allow the United States “blanket overflight and landing rights” without jeopardising our strategic assets? I offered only a narrow flight corridor that was far from any sensitive areas. Neither could we give the United States “use of Pakistan’s naval ports, air bases, and strategic locations on borders.” We refused to give any naval ports or fighter aircraft bases. We allowed the United States only two bases – Shamsi in Balochistan and Jacobabad in Sindh – and only for logistics and aircraft recovery. No attack could be launched from there. We gave no “blanket permission” for anything.
The rest of the demands we could live with. I am happy that the US government accepted our counterproposal without any fuss. I am shocked at the aspersion being cast on me: that I readily accepted all preconditions of the United States during the telephone call from Colin Powell. He did not give any conditions to me. These were brought by the US ambassador on the third day.
Having made my decision, I took it to the Cabinet. Then I began meeting with a cross section of society. Between September 18 and October 3, I met with intellectuals, top editors, leading columnists, academics, tribal chiefs, students, and the leaders of labour unions. On October 18, I also met a delegation from China and discussed the decision with them. Then I went to army garrisons all over the country and talked to the soldiers. I thus developed a broad consensus on my decision.
This was an analysis of all the losses/harms we would have suffered. if we had taken an anti-US stand. At the same time, I obviously analysed the socio-economic and military gains that would accrue from an alliance with the West. I have laid down the rationale for my decision in all its details. Even with hindsight, now, I do not repent it. It was correct in the larger interest of Pakistan. I am confident that the majority of Pakistanis agree with it.

Pervez Musharraf
The writer is a former President of Pakistan and Founding President of the All Pakistan Muslim League.

Time to stop fighting and start talking

Rahimullah Yusufzai


Afghanistan would return to the same uncertain situation that existed before December 2, 2009 when the recent decision by President Barack Obama to withdraw 33,000 US troops from the war-torn country by September 2012 is implemented. At that time, one-and-a-half year ago, he had ordered the military “surge” almost in desperation and deployed those soldiers who would now be pulled out.
The US then had 68,000 troops in Afghanistan and was struggling to contain the Taliban-led resistance that was gradually spreading from the Taliban strongholds in the Pashtun-populated southern and eastern Afghanistan to the north and west where they had been traditionally weak among the non-Pashtun population. Together with the troops provided by other Nato member countries, the total number of foreign soldiers in Afghanistan at the time was around 100,000. There were thousands of private foreign contractors, or mercenaries if you will, also along with a sizeable Afghan National Army and Afghan National Police.
The situation wasn’t dire but the then US military commander General Stanley McChrystal, later disgraced and replaced for passing offensive remarks against President Obama and some of his security aides, wanted at least 40,000 extra troops to avoid defeat and break the Taliban momentum. His wish was reluctantly granted by Obama, though he sent 33,000 American troops only and ensured that the remaining 7,000 were made available by the British and other Nato members. To show his authority and remind everyone that the US military was under civilian control, he announced an exit strategy along with the military “surge” by promising to start withdrawing troops in July 2011. The strategy was criticised, among others by the rival Republican Party, as defeatist and termed by some a “surge to exit”.
Obama had devised this difficult balancing act due to political compulsions because he had to respond to the wishes of the anti-war camp in his Democratic Party and at the same time prove to the American people that he was strong on security and mindful of extending the power of the US to secure its global interest.
Much is being made of the Obama announcement to drawdown the US troops and hand over responsibility to the Afghan security forces to secure their country. It is being portrayed as fulfillment of a presidential promise made in December 2009 when the “surge” was ordered. A US president needs to fulfill commitments to look credible and more so if he is seeking a second term in office. However, a closer look at the timings chosen for the phased withdrawal of US troops betray the anxieties of a president with an eye on the next presidential election.
The 10,000 troops to be pulled out by the end of 2011 would be home before the February 2012 Iowa state caucus at the start of the nomination of the presidential candidates. Though Obama presently hasn’t got any real challenger for the job in the Democratic Party, it would be an advantage for him over all other candidates including the Republicans on account of the images of smiling and relieved American soldiers returning home from a tough duty in faraway Afghanistan.
Besides, the 33,000 “surge” troops would have returned to the US by September 2012 just before the election for the president. It would be perfect timing, though difficult questions would still be asked of Obama as to the purpose and achievements of the “surge” and also his roadmap for “finishing the job” in Afghanistan as he has so often declared. After all the Afghan war had become Obama’s war due to his willingness to triple the number of US troops in Afghanistan and commit every resource demanded by his military commanders ranging from McChrystal to General David Petraeus.
Though the gains made by the military “surge” have yet to be calculated and quantified, Obama’s supporters point out that the Taliban momentum has been halted and even reversed in their strongholds such as Kandahar, Helmand and Kunduz. However, such gains could be temporary and unsustainable in the face of a determined foe such as the Taliban, who, as a guerilla force, fight on their own terms, not those of the Americans.
Retreat is part of the Taliban strategy to minimise losses in the fight against a larger and better-equipped regular army backed by lethal airpower. The US officials also concede the fact that the battleground gains by the Nato forces in 2010-2011 are fragile. Moreover, the Taliban have tried, sometimes successfully, to cover up their losses in the south and east by undertaking a “surge” of their own in western, northern and central Afghanistan. The Taliban ability to extend their geographical reach to almost every province of Afghanistan and attract non-Pashtuns even if still in small numbers into their fold seems to have alarmed the US-led coalition forces and almost convinced them that they cannot be defeated. This admission has prompted the US and certain other Western nations having troops in Afghanistan to open channels of communication with the Taliban.
Despite denials, the Taliban don’t seem averse to talking to the Americans and some of their Western allies as they believe that the US-led Nato holds the key to ending the Afghan conflict. They still don’t want to talk to President Hamid Karzai, who in their view is powerless and “puppet” of the US. The US, however, would want the Taliban to eventually make a deal with the Afghan government to reinforce the latter’s legitimacy. If the US had its way, it would want disarmed Taliban brought into the political mainstream after accepting Afghanistan’s constitution, in an amended form if need be. This would be an ideal solution of a conflict that began with the communist Saur Revolution in April 1978 and became intense due to the subsequent Soviet invasion, Afghan mujahideen infighting, Taliban takeover and arrival of Al-Qaeda on the scene. The US invasion of Taliban-ruled Afghanistan 10-year ago to avenge the 9/11 attacks turned the conflict not only into America’s longest war but also one of the costliest and trickiest. It also became a test of Nato’s credibility as it struggles to avoid defeat at the hands of the rag-tag Taliban guerilla force in its first war away from its western borders.
It cannot be easy for the US and its allies to agree to talk to the Taliban after having refused to do so earlier and demonised them to no limit. One relevant question that President Obama needs to answer is his refusal to talk to the Taliban before the military “surge” as this could have avoided the human and material losses since December 2009. In fact, the “surge” brought more foreign troops and weapons to Afghanistan, led to ferocious fighting and caused violence, bloodshed and displacement on a scale not seen before. More importantly, the “surge” didn’t weaken the Taliban or strengthen the Karzai government.
Still the decision to talk should be appreciated as it is admission on the part of the US and the Taliban that they cannot defeat each other. It is time to stop fighting and start talking. As one understands, the two sides have agreed to hold secret talks and issue denials in case their meetings become known to the media. The first rounds have been held in Qatar and Germany and another round was planned in Dubai. These are preliminary meetings in which the two sides would size up each other and reiterate their known positions. A breakthrough is unlikely at this stage and none should be expected.
The US would be wrong if it concludes that the Taliban have been fatigued by the long fighting and have agreed to talk out of weakness. The Taliban would be making a mistake if they believe that the US was again running away from Afghanistan. Both sides need to make a deal on the basis of their existing instead of desired strength. A note of caution though is in order because no past deal in context of the Afghan conflict has worked.
The writer is resident editor of The News in Peshawar.

Email: rahimyusufzai@yahoo.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)

Telling Pakistan’s story

Mosharraf Zaidi


As a one-time participant in the technology policy conversation in Pakistan, and an avid user of social media, I need little convincing of the potentially revolutionary power that new applications of technology offer to smart and dedicated users.
I am always struck, however, by how commonly people conflate technology itself with the need to be smart and dedicated. There is not, has never been and will never be a technology that can make up for the fatal flaws of any user. If you don’t have a compelling message based on substance, no amount of web-savvyness can save you. If you have limited dedication to what you are doing, no fancy new gadget will make up for your own lack of commitment. The bottom-line is that if you’re not smart and dedicated, technology is not for you. It will certainly not bridge the deficit of smartness of dedication for you. It may even deepen and expose your flaws.
The logic here is not particularly complex. Smart phones don’t make you smart. Smart phones simply offer new opportunities to already smart users, who dedicate time and energy into learning how to use them. Though this seems to be a rather simple idea, it is staggeringly common to hear and see how illogical people, organisations and institutions can be when thinking about technology. It seems that the less smart and less dedicated have more of a predilection to overestimate and overstate the worth of new technology. This is a shame, and unfortunately it is not new. As Pakistan gets battered for being a poorly governed nation with little proactive demonstration by either government or civil society that reflects any kind of understanding of how urgently reforms are required, the problem of confusing instruments as alternatives to substance is once again rearing its ugly head.
In 2000, Pakistan prepared its first National IT Policy and Action Plan. While many of the successes of the telecom and IT sectors in subsequent years can be traced to the consultative and inclusive manner in which that policy was formulated, it did have one enduring weakness. The document often seemed to place new technology itself as being the heart of the matter. The resulting boom in the use of technologies—mobile phones, the Internet and broadband—reflect that original bias. Pakistan is a great example of highly successful technology adoption. Pakistan is also, simultaneously, a great example of highly unsuccessful application and content generation (best manifested by the fact that Urdu continues to have desperately poor uptake as a standardised input language). This is what happens in a culture where public policy is often run by engineers and other linearly-programmed professionals (as most of the pre-2002 Musharraf government was).
The concept of information technology, or IT, became so overwhelmingly part of the national consciousness that people forgot that IT was an instrument, or a means. It was never the end itself. Like the abacus, a supercomputer was a tool or an instrument to do things that were already being done (or were conceptually doable), in a manner faster, cheaper and more efficient. IT has been great, for all the world. But it has been greatest for those that actually had something useful to do with it. It adds value, of course, but it adds really substantial value to transactions and systems where wonderful things are already happening.
Pakistanis can hardly be pleased with the vicious battering that Pakistan is taking in the US press these days. The New York Times has been particularly brutal, with reporters regularly digging up old stories, garnished with new data to sustain the seemingly ad infinitum “campaign to pressurise Pakistan.” (Never mind what a sad commentary it is on the state of Pakistani democracy that stories in The New York Times represent pressure points for Pakistan while the stories on every street and in every village in Pakistan seem to have no impact on those most sensitive to how Pakistan is covered by The New York Times.)
The larger and more significant question is actually a lot simpler. If Pakistan is worried about how it is being reflected in other parts of the world, then the question is what can be done about this. Too often, decision-makers in both the military and the civilian domain seem to think that a little bit of IT can do the trick. A Twitter account here. A smart-phone there. “If only Pakistan could use technology as well as its adversaries.” “If only Pakistan could counter the narrative from Langley.” “If only Pakistan could tell its side of the story.”
These statements are not entirely baseless. It is true, for example, that Pakistan’s state structures do not have access to, nor expertise in, technology. The Pakistani state does have some fair gripes with how skewed some of the reporting of the country has been, especially since May 2. But let’s not be delusional. These statements are also the sound of alarm bells. If we cannot hear the alarm bells ringing as Pakistanis across the political spectrum formally and informally say this kind of things, we’re missing the most important part of what is happening.
You cannot tell a bad story well. You cannot make numbers that don’t add up seem right with a supercomputer. You cannot make someone who isn’t very smart, sound smart just because he’s using a Blackberry, or Android. You cannot Tweet wisdom in 140 characters if none exists in the places where wisdom is required.
Since 9/11, Pakistan’s military (and ever so peripherally, its civilian leaders) have had a decade to sort out the state’s multifarious relationships with terrorists and gangsters that instrumentalise religion for monetary and political gain. Since 26/11, Pakistan’s state institutions have had more than two years to sort out the details of how to pursue the primary accused parties—starring the Lashkar-e-Taiba. The issue here is not normative. It is operative. An operative level of state capacity, no matter what theories and ideologies you hold dear, requires actions that defuse tension and blunt the knives that are out for Pakistan. The country’s long-term tolerance for dangerous people, as clients of the Pakistani state, needs to demonstrably be replaced with actions that indicate a plan to end this tolerance. Not an actual end, but at a bare, essential minimum, a plan to end it.
Pakistan’s national security rests on its economic viability, the education of its almost 100 million young people, and its protection of its environment. This national security is threatened by the continued failure of Pakistan to tell its story. To that extent, being concerned about the “narrative” is good.
But the failure to tell Pakistan’s story is not a failure of storytelling. It is not an absence of technology, or Twitter accounts that are failing Pakistan. It is the story itself. Pakistan doesn’t have a very compelling one. The facts on the ground are failing Pakistan. Until the story doesn’t change, it cannot be told well.
The writer advises governments, donors and NGOs on public policy.

URL: Mosharraf Zaidi

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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)