Pakistan: We are successfully being held hostage

[Ray]

We are successfully being held hostage

Jahanzaib Haque

Writer and journalist Muhammed Hanif's latest article for the New Yorker accurately captures a part of the equation when it comes to our leaders' twisted, yet, very vocal support for the terrorists that have killed thousands of our own. He writes, "The logic — or its absence — goes like this: Hakimullah Mehsud was our enemy. But the United States is also our enemy. So, how dare the Americans kill him? And how dare they kill him when we had made up our minds to talk to him? If the United States is talking to the Afghan Taliban, why can't we talk to our own Taliban?"

Hanif is right in pointing out the logic is flawed, playing to the benefit of the militants and the continued disintegration of the state in the face of an enemy who truly, "believe in something". What gets left out of his analysis was the very real role fear is playing in what, on the surface, seems to be clouded, delusional thinking and an absence of logic. I'm going to give our power players a little benefit of the doubt and assume not all of them are as clueless as they seem with regard to the direction they are pushing Pakistan with their calls for peace talks and condemnations of a terrorist's death. Many of them know they are edging closer to a precipice, but are too afraid to turn around and face those prodding them forward.

They utter words that please militants to ensure their names, and the names of their extended families stay off hit lists. They speak out against the US and condemn drone strikes in the hopes that their words will stay the trigger-happy hands of the terrorists who have kidnapped their son, their nephew, their relative. They hold back on purpose, hoping to keep alive those of their rank captured from check posts, from raided prisons, during operations.

Through media reports, the public has been clued in to this strategy employed by the terrorists, but few can really understand the daily terror of knowing someone you love is being held in a terrorist camp — only Amna Taseer, Yousuf Raza Gilani and others facing this situation right now can really relate. Similarly, while the public is aware of the strategic holding and exchange of prisoners as a part of any war, most are unaware of the extent of the problem in the current war, or how deeply it could be impacting strategy. Bear in mind, this is just one of many terror tactics we tend to overlook in this debate.

Make no mistake, our state is under very real threat and no individual or institution involved is safe. I can vouch for this as a journalist. Without naming names, media houses and the journalists working for them live with fear on a daily basis, forced to self-censor, or worse, ordered to censor, retract or publish a counter-piece to whatever brought them on the radar. Promises have to be made to not cover a certain issue in a particular way, or in a particular context, or even with/without particular words.

In TV channels, everyone from the anchor down to the tickers desk may be told where the line is to be drawn, not as an editorial decision, but to ensure colleagues working out in the field or in vulnerable bureaus are not attacked.

While it is true that generally confusion reigns when it comes to Pakistan's role in the war on terror, the role of fear — the terrorists' real weapon — has to be included in any discussion of the current situation. Fear of death and personal injury. Fear of taking on an enemy, and losing. Fear of saying the wrong thing and getting killed for it. Fear of passing the wrong judgment in the wrong case. Fear is palpable in Pakistan; it can be felt across all pillars of the state. In such an environment, where those who are meant to provide you security, justice, governance and information are under constant attack, it requires no delusions or absence of logic to see why we are lionising our tormentors.

We are successfully being held hostage.

We are successfully being held hostage – The Express Tribune

**********************************************

The conundrum called Pakistan.

The people of the Nation are people afflicted with schizophrenia - a lot that has no idea of its national identity.

A Nation at war with itself.

A Nation of self proclaimed Khalifas who are at sixes and sevens and know not that they know not.

A land of self flagellating fools.

 

[W.G.Ewald]

Why Pakistan Lionizes Its Tormenters : The New Yorker

 

[Ray]

Why Pakistan Lionizes Its Tormenters?
They are masochists!

 

[Bilal]

Nice article,i will agree to most parts even to the part the pakistan is migraine to the world,i have travelled quite a bit,actually to every continent there is i will agree we do lack behind most of the continents,but we are new comparing to ancient civilizations of japan and china we are just 65 something so give us a chance will you !

 

[Blackwater]

Nice article,i will agree to most parts even to the part the pakistan is migraine to the world,i have travelled quite a bit,actually to every continent there is i will agree we do lack behind most of the continents,but we are new comparing to ancient civilizations of japan and china we are just 65 something so give us a chance will you !

but what about Indus valley Pakistani 50000000000000 yrs old civilization ????

 

[AVERAGE INDIAN]

Pakistan is like the main breeding ground for many kinds of terrorist. They do give support to them and these terrorist do know this.. Since 9/11 the public has often wondered why President Bush invaded Iraq? He dropped the ball concerning Aphganistan and these Terrorist have had time too become stronger and reorganized in Pakistan.

Pakistans Goverment officals only care about the money or kick backs from bothsides. You see the USA gives them money too help combat Terrorist and the terrorist give them money too keep them protected while they plan new attacks.

Nationalities of Foreign Mercenaries Operating in Jammu and Kashmir: Pakistan, Pakistan-occupied Kashmir, Afghanistan, Egypt, Sudan, Yemen, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Iran, Iraq

Deadliest Pakistani Terrorist Groups Active in Jammu and Kashmir: Harkat-ul-Ansar (recently renamed Harkat-ul-Mujaheedin)

Headquarters: Muzaffarabad (Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir)
Lashkar-e-Toiba
Headquarters: Muridke (Pakistan)
Hizbul Mujahideen

Peak time of annual infiltration of terrorists into India:

Summer months, when the snows have melted, under cover of Pakistani Army firing (Washington Post, Oct. 15, 1998).

Number of people in Jammu and Kashmir killed in violence waged by Pakistan-supported terrorists over the last decade: over 20,000.
Ethnic Cleansing in Kashmir: Over 300,000 Kashmiri Pandits (original Hindu inhabitants of Kashmir valley) driven out of their ancestral homeland by Pakistan-supported terrorists.

Pakistan's response to charges of terrorism support: "It only provides diplomatic and moral support to the terrorists". To see through this outright lie, read about the "credible reports of official Pakistani support to Kashmiri terrorist groups..." in the US State Department 1997 report on global terrorism.

The US Tomahawk missiles killed Pakistani terrorists belonging to Harkat-ul-Ansar in the Khost camps in Afghanistan this year. These terrorists were training to fight in Kashmir.

The Harkat-ul-Ansar and the Lashkar-e-Toiba threatened US citizens recently in open news conferences in major cities in Pakistan (Kashmir Chronicle, Vol. 1, No. 6). The Pakistani government makes no attempt to shut down any of these groups.

Most recent recruits to Pakistani terrorist camps: Kashmiri Muslim children as young as 12 years old, coerced into a dead-end career by Pakistani terrorist groups(CNN Online, Oct. 8, 1998).

Why is the Pakistani economy in shambles? 70% of its budget goes to the military plus its debt payments, much of the military spending being on sustaining the Kashmiri terror (NY Times, Aug. 30, 1998, The Tribune, Oct. 10, 1998).

There is enough evidence to suggest that Pakistan is one of the most active state-sponsors of international terrorism in the world.

 

[Ray]

Nationalities of Foreign Mercenaries Operating in Jammu and Kashmir: Pakistan, Pakistan-occupied Kashmir, Afghanistan, Egypt, Sudan, Yemen, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Iran, Iraq

Pakistan is a Mecca (as in English) to all social, psychological and paranoiac malcontents.

 

[bennedose]

Why Pakistan Lionizes Its Tormenters : The New Yorker

Here is a quote from the article - and I have some comments

One of Pakistan's leading religious and political leaders, Maulana Fazlur Rehman, whose party is a member of Sharif's ruling coalition, probably summed up the situation best when he said that even if a dog was killed by the Americans, he would call it a martyr.

The head of Pakistan's oldest religious party, Maulana Munawar Hassan, has declared that Pakistani soldiers killed at the hands of the Taliban are not martyrs—so, in a way, worse than dogs. In an usually strong and emotional statement, Pakistan's Army condemned Hassan's remarks and demanded an unconditional apology for "hurting the feelings" of families whose loved ones had died at the hands of the Taliban.

1. The motto of the Pakistan army is "Iman, Takwa, Jihad fi sabillah" I am sure you can recognise one of the words in that motto.
2. Pakistani pilot-hero Air Commodore Sajad Haider in 1965 led a very successful air raid on the Indian air base of Pathankot destroying a few of our shiny new MiG 21s on the ground. In his autobiography, Haider writes of the preparation for that raid - when he ordered buckets of cologne scented water for pilots to wipe themselves with so that "if they were martyred ("killed") they would arrive in heaven smelling sweet for the houris destined for those who die fighting for Islam. Similar preparations that suicide bombers do now are nothing new- they are an old tradition indicative of morale boosting by "fighting for Islam".
3. Pakistan's missiles (imported from north Korea) have been given named like "Ghauri" and "Ghaznavi". Both Ghauri (or Ghori) and Ghaznavi are Islamic raiders who camped in Afghanistan and raided "India". Of course the Indus river and the other rivers were formidable barriers in those days so the raids and killing were conducted in the area that is now Pakistan. The people in that area are now indoctrinated into admiring and lauding histprical figures who were essentially looters, rapists and murderers.

The elephant in the room is Islam. Even a small squeak that is construed as being anti-Islamic leads to a death penalty - which is easiest to fulfil in an avowedly Islamic country. No one in Pakistan can admit that Ghauri and Ghaznavi were actually murderers because they are credited with spreading Islam.

Pakistan has gradually islamized itself. VS Naipaul, Nobel Prize winning author wrote of Pakistan

The state withered, but faith didn't. Failure only led
back to the faith. The state had been founded as a
homeland for Muslims. If the state failed it wasn't
because the dream was flawed, or the faith flawed; it
could only be because men had failed the faith. And in
that quest of the Islamic absolute the society of
believers, where every action was instinct with worship
men lost sight of the political origins of their
state...Extraordinary claims began to be made for
Pakistan: it was founded as the land of the pure; it was
to be the first truly Islamic state since the days of the
Prophet and his close companions

In the 1960s the Pakistan air force used to have mixed male-female parties and serve alcohol. Now the men and women are segregated and the women's head s are covered. No alcohol now.

The Pakistani army officers and government are afraid of antagonizing the Taliban. Pakistani people have been fed for too long with the sorry excuse that they are poor or are suffering because of outsiders (usually India) who are out to destroy Islam. And the army and government are rich - accepting money and other perks from the USA. Pakistan has reached a stage where Pakistanis now feel that it is the non Islamic behavior of the ruling elite and rich army officers that needs to be corrected. Only sharia (strict Islamic laws - the veil, no female education etc) can cure the suffering and poverty of Pakistani people. The Taliban are implementing exactly that and they have the sympathy of the common man supported by opportunist politicians like Nawaz Sharif and Imran Khan. The elite and army are running scared.

Let me make a prediction. Pakistan will actually stabilize if they break relations with the USA. They will become more radical, but they will not get the arms and money that they get from US benevolence. Also the Paki army will not retain the cockiness they have had - knowing that they can fight with anyone because they have the support of the USA. Pakis think that they defeated the USSR. For the US, control over Pakistan is essential to meet US goals. One of the easiest ways for the US to control Pakistan is to feed the Pakistan army's paranoia about India and arm them against India. Why would Pakistan need AMRAAMs or antisubmarine aircraft? The US is bending over backwards to support and hold up a Pakistani army whose rank and file are heading towards a state of rebellion for having to fight against pious Muslim fighters who are waging jihad against the USA.

 

[W.G.Ewald]

Who Controls Pakistan's Security Forces? | United States Institute of Peace

 

[ninja85]

Nice article,i will agree to most parts even to the part the pakistan is migraine to the world,i have travelled quite a bit,actually to every continent there is i will agree we do lack behind most of the continents,but we are new comparing to ancient civilizations of japan and china we are just 65 something so give us a chance will you !

chance of what another terror attack from pakibeggaristan hahahahahahahahahaha.

 

[bennedose]

Who Controls Pakistan's Security Forces? | United States Institute of Peace

Thanks for posting.

But I have some areas of disagreement with this comprehensive study because the authors (that includes Shuja Nawaz) write as if Pakistan is a normal state with normal civil-military relations. The study, from 2011 suggests that the military will have "a bigger role"

There is, in my view a lot of fudging in the analysis. I will explain.

The analysis above seems to suggest that the military is not taking over because
1. Gen Kiyani does not want it
2. The military "realizes" the importance of a great economy
3. Civil politicians in Pakistan no longer want to call the army out.

This is all a load of crock as analyses go because the traditional relationship between military and politicians has been one of military contempt for inept politicians. The military have always waited for things to get bad in Pakistan and then have taken over - to the great relief of the population, promising the moon, but delivering nothing and getting mired down in the nitty gritty of civil administration while generals take on plum civil posts with no risk of war - such as running "WAPDA" - the Water and Power Distibution Authority, and the Pakistan Cricket board.

But this time round Pakistan is in a worse state that it has been for decades. As of this week Pakistan's dollar reserves are down to levels that they were shortly before 9-11. The twin tower attack came at such a fortuitous time that Pakistan was rescued with funds from America. Then why does the army not take over? Answer: they can't they are in deep trouble. 60% of the army rank and file are from Punjab.25 % were from the Pasthun areas. It is the familes of these Pashtun men and their villages that have harboured the Taliban previously with US and Pakistani support,. Now both the US and Pakistan have been hitting thse people. The army has seen desertions and low morale. That first page blather about the ISI chief saying that he knows that terrorism is the main problem is complete bullshit spoken as words that the US wants to hear - so the US will keep the funds flowing. In Rawalpindi, Gen Kiyani said that India is the main enemy. So Kiyani was saying what his men want to hear - what they have trained for and what will not make them revolt. The ISI chief is saying what the Americans want to hear.

Kiyani cannot take over even if he wants to. All civilian governments call for army help when they cannot manage. if you have followed Pakistan for the last 4-5 years there has been so much terrorism and so few have been arrested - what the fuk was the army doing? the army CANNOT help because the terrorists are "good Muslims" and the army are "Good Muslims". So who is responsible for the muck that Pakistan is in? The USA. And India. And Israel. Of course.

No one is in full control of Pakistan

 

[W.G.Ewald]

Pakistan is a Mecca (as in English) to all social, psychological and paranoiac malcontents.

Whoever could turn than around would become a historical figure.

Could Benazir Bhutto have done it?

Is it why she was assassinated?

 

[AVERAGE INDIAN]

Whoever could turn than around would become a historical figure.

Could Benazir Bhutto have done it?

Is it why she was assassinated?

Bhutto had been critical of what she believed was a lack of effort by Musharraf's government to protect her.

Two weeks after the October assassination attempt, she wrote a commentary for CNN.com in which she questioned why Pakistan investigators refused international offers of help in finding the attackers.
Others believe that Musharraf was behind the murder. Bhutto had emerged as a threat to his government as she returned to Pakistan, making accusations about election rigging and the dangers of martial law along the way. And Bhutto herself had sent an e-mail to journalist Wolf Blitzer -- through a friend -- that was to be released only if she were killed, which affirmed that she would "hold Musharraf responsible" for her death because she had been "made to feel insecure by his [Musharraf's] minions."

Further, there is evidence that Musharraf was increasingly angry at Bhutto for criticizing his regime so severely after having engaged in negotiations to secure a deal with him. In an interview only days before her death, Musharraf evidenced his acrimony toward her, complaining that, although there were "many things" he had negotiated with her, those agreements "[had] been violated." Seeming to resent U.S. and British pressure to accept Bhutto as an ally, Musharraf said, with undisguised sarcasm, "It appears in the West that if a person speaks good English, it's very good. A person who doesn't know good English is quite unpopular in the West. And if he or she happens to be good-looking, then it's better.""Š

more at

Heraldo Munoz | Behind the Investigation into Benazir Bhutto's Assassination | Foreign Affairs

 

[bennedose]

Whoever could turn than around would become a historical figure.

Could Benazir Bhutto have done it?

Is it why she was assassinated?

I believe that no single person could have done anything about Pakistan. if you delete the influence of radical Islam that has suffused Pakistan ever since the country split in 1971, Pakistanis are Indians. Fractious and prone to want and do their own thing. India is a republic where every Indian state does its own thing, with a covenant that the federal government looks after certain things across the country. There is also an agreement that the constitution is paramount - and this is where India has done a good job. Those who framed the constitution framed it with broad and inclusive consensus- so even perceived faults in the Indian constitution are discussed with a consensus that the constitution must not be rejected for its faults but amended as per the laws laid out within the constitution.

Pakistan on the other hand rejected and kept amending its constitution and leaders could never agree whether they should have a constitution separate from the Koran. In a declared Islamic nation, ostensibly set up for the welfare of Muslims primarily and everyone else secondarily, the toss up between the Koran as constitution and any other man made constitution is a no brainer. The Koran wins hands down and anyone who disagrees must be killed because God said so. Even today Pakistanis claim to respect a much raped and amended constitution but Koranic rules trump that constitution at any time. This "bi-archic" state of affairs has typically been kept in control by the armed forces, who have swallowed anything between 25 and 40% of the national budget for the last 60 years.

The London Independent had an article comparing the Pakistan army with the rest of the country

Outside in the street, Afghan refugees and Pakistan's
urban poor root through garbage tips and crowd on to
soot-pumping buses to work in sweatshops and brick
factories. Inside, behind the ancient, newly painted
cannons and battalion flags, rose bushes surround well-
tended lawns and officers' messes decorated with polished
brass fittings. No rubbish litters this perfect world of
discipline. Why should anyone living here want a return
to corrupt democracy?

But the wealth of the army was not simply squeezed out of Pakistan. The army found a great partner in the US starting from the 1950s. The US has always looked for pliable oligarchs to implement US foreign policy and Pakistani generals were great suckers for that. If the 50s and 60s Pakistan was pumped full of arms and money as a cold war ally. Much of that was expended uselessly in the 1965 and 1971 wars with India - when the country broke up. After 1971 Pakistan under despot Yahya Khan and his successors garnered Nixon's gratitude for serving as a loyal courier between Nixon and Zhou en Lai to bring about US-China detente. After 1979 the Pakistan army used its own people as the Taliban in Afghanistan, in exchange for US arms and money. After 9/11 they got US money and arms while pretending to fight Al Qaeda.

I think that Pakistan is a country on life support and that life support is the US. The US needs to pull the plug and let Pakistan wallow in its own muck before the Pakistan army can take a back seat. But Pakistan will likely break up.

The only problem is I think the US is now being blackmailed by Pakistan. In some ways Pakistan has the US by the balls and the US is caught like a monkey whose hand is inside a narrow-necked peanut jar. The Pakistan army has developed such close personal links with the US over such a wide spectrum that the US now come to believe that Pakistan army's favourite theme "apres moi le deluge". So that army is fed by the US and the army holds tenuous and incomplete control over parts of Pakistan giving the impression that everything will be fine. Perhaps it would be if they used condoms and schoolteachers rather than F-16s and jihad.

Things could still stabilize in Pakistan, but the army brass, which is pro-US will have to lose power and influence.

 

[thakur_ritesh]

Anything that helps undermine the Pakistan Army is fine by me. The irony, one of the most revered man in Pakistan, Imran Khan, has single handedly done what the collective political leadership of Pakistan couldn't do all these years, manipulated the sentiment on the streets in ways that runs completely contrary to the wishes of the GHQ, for once Lt. General (retd.) Pasha must be scratching his head on what a huge blunder he and his subordinates committed by propping up and pretty much making the PTI, that it is today, and in all this the Pakistan Army propaganda seems failing, also losing the turf to the politicians, and about time it did.

Thanks to IK alone, someone like Syed Munawar Hassan gets more credence and appetence, and quite successfully the narrative of a martyr in Pakistan has started to see a shift from the past, once Pakistan's enemy number 1, now gets termed as a martyr and their supposed defenders, the PA no more get to have their martyrs, seriously who could have served the Indian interests better than these 2 gentlemen, and as a trade off, we now have more radicalized people across the border in love with their terrorists who are busy undoing whatever ethos they once had. The way IK and his far-right alliance partner are headed, they would leave a far more radicalized lot than Zia-ul-Haq could have ever dreamt of.

About the hostage situation, those happen to be self-inflicted in nature and those who dare raise a voice against the mentioned "fear-factor" they end up being termed as fascist liberals, so it's okay since as usual sensibility gets kicked aside!

May I finish by suggesting, if you show utopia to hardcore elements in Afghanistan, don't hallucinate people in the back streets of Pakistan wont dream the same, and by waging a jihad against the very people who raised them, they are simply making that utopia a reality in Pakistan. The best part in all this, the Afghan Taliban called out Hakimulla a martyr, and irrespective of all the logic, a Pakistani will as usual defend those terrorists.

 

[W.G.Ewald]

I did not realize US support of Pakistan was significant so far back. I had thought it was more recent (post-2001).

Is ISI more of a threat to India and other countries than the Pakistani Army is, or are they both basically one faction?

 

[bennedose]

I did not realize US support of Pakistan was significant so far back. I had thought it was more recent (post-2001).

Is ISI more of a threat to India and other countries than the Pakistani Army is, or are they both basically one faction?

They are both one, but the ISI gives deniability to Pakistan army action - so when the army is dealing with political leaders of other countries - say the USA, the ISI implements covert Pakistani policy. It is no coincidence that the people who reach top positions in the Pakistan army are either ex-ISI or Rawalpindi corps - the command that usually conducts coups. If you look back at the Bin Laden saga - Pakistan claimed to be hunting the man but he was holed up within shouting distance of a major Pakistani army establishment

Pakistanis are smart and the ISI has learned well from the CIA with whom they worked. The ISI uses CIA type tactics to run proxy wars - but the CIA has money but Pakistan does not. The ISI has had its wildest successes against the Soviets with US money.

I reviewed the book by Pakistani pilot Air Commodore Sajad Haider - the review is online here. Let me quote a paragraph from the review:

In the period before the 1965 war, the Haider shows how deep American influence ran in the Pakistan Air Force. By 1958 there were already four squadrons of F-86 Sabres in the PAF. Haider says that American aid provided about 100 Sabres and a "handful" of bombers in exchange for "selling our sovereignty"

I am currently halfway through a recently released book called the "Blood Telegram" in which the author Gary Bass uses hundreds of sources including the White House tapes to show how Nixon and Kissinger ignored and stonewalled East Pakistani consul Archer Blood's desperate and impassioned accounts of genocide by the Pakistani army in East Pakistan. They did that because they did not want to antagonize Paki dictator and the author of the genocide, Gen. Yahya Khan who was carrying secret letters between Nixon and Chou en Lai. And the money and arms kept pouring into Pakistan. The army promptly lost half the country and got away with it. After that Benazir's father Zulfikar Ali Bhutto promised that Pakistanis would eat grass but make nuclear weapons. They seem to have reached the grass eating stage now.

 

[Ray]

Whoever could turn than around would become a historical figure.

Could Benazir Bhutto have done it?

Is it why she was assassinated?

Pakistan cannot be turnaround or to the left or right.

It can only be kicked around!

 

[bennedose]

This book review says pretty much what i wrote on this thread - the review is by "Richard Leiby, a Washington Post staff writer, was the paper's Pakistan bureau chief from 2012 to 2013."
Book review: 'Magnificent Delusions ' by Husain Haqqani, on U.S.-Pakistan relations - The Washington Post