The charge of a Pakistani caretaker minister that the United States and some other countries have been harbouring terrorism in Pakistan has raised several questions in the minds of tribesmen. Now they are asking the question, why are we being killed?
Now it is time for the United States to clear her position. In the US there is feeling that their government had been doing a good job of eliminating terrorism. But here in Pakistan an impression is being given that the US is supporting terrorism.
In its editorial Daily Times discussed the issue. The caretaker interior minister, Lieutenant General (Retd) Hamid Nawaz Khan, has done the predictable thing that he learned in PMA by saying on Saturday that India, Afghanistan and the United States had a hand in the terrorism in Pakistan. He admitted he had no proof of this involvement but that "people" had this perception. His "rational" explanation did not go further than the "circumstantial evidence" that the Taliban-Al Qaeda offensive in Afghanistan had gone down in the same measure as incidents of terrorism had gone up in Pakistan. He said suicide-bombings and other acts of organised violence needed big funding and this could come only from states unfriendly towards Pakistan.
The manner in which the charge was made was meant to be disingenuous; but it reflects lack of intellectual depth. The argument on offer is that that it was the "people's" perception that these foreign powers are behind the trouble. But the framing of the sentence suggests that the establishment is once again ready to spread the evil rumour and make the political environment of Pakistan more toxic. Earlier, a similar charge was made in relation to the uprising which the Musharraf establishment faced in Balochistan. But in that instance, there was some proof in hand and there were some people - definitely excluding the Baloch - who were willing to buy the line.
Some of the national brainwash may accept the India angle contained in this newly refurbished "revelation", but, more dangerously for Islamabad, the entire national psyche is also dying to believe that the United States too is deceiving Pakistan in its overtures of friendship while in fact it is pursuing the agenda of annihilating Muslims wherever they may be found. Since the Afghan government of President Hamid Karzai is seen as a useless appendix of the American military dominance in Afghanistan, there is easy access to the domestic mind through an accusation of this kind.
What is the spokesman of the establishment trying to do? Is he expressing the anger of his establishment over the newborn tendency in the Washington establishment to speak with many voices, some of them not as loyal to President Musharraf as they used to be? Is he reacting to the change of tack in the State Department as expressed by its deputy secretary Mr John D Negroponte recently? By tilting at India again, is he reaffirming that Pakistan is miffed at India for not budging on Kashmir? If that is so, then he should know that the military point of view in the policy on Kashmir is passé, and it will bring no kudos to him from anyone who wants Pakistan to survive and grow.
Now let us look at the sub-text of what was said on Saturday. Since three countries are hounding Pakistan through terrorism, it was implied, it becomes incumbent on Pakistan to take countervailing action. But no one knows how our establishment will strike against the United States and deter it from making mischief in Pakistan. At the most we can withdraw the hundred thousand Pakistani soldiers away from the Durand Line and the Tribal Areas, which will of course compel the Americans to switch off the funds to Pakistan that sustain these operations (and possibly others not mentioned, as reported in the foreign media recently) and go after the terrorists directly. Or our establishment can set on feet conspiracies to create chaos in Afghanistan as it did in the 1990s in the name of "strategic depth". In parallel to that, of course, it can teach India a lesson by reviving the old jihad there!
If the news has not reached the relevant quarters then let us inform them for the nth time that in the case of both India and Afghanistan, our "strategic" policies in the past have brought Pakistan nothing but a sense of defeat. These policies of jihad and strategic depth are discredited and Pakistan can adopt them again only at the risk of certain isolation and censure at the global level. It is a blunder of comprehension on the part of such disseminators to think that their message will resonate with the people of Pakistan or the politicians. The people of Pakistan may err now and then in welcoming military rule, but they certainly don't love defeat.
The retort to this line of propaganda has come from the co-chairman of the PPP Mr Asif Zardari who has "de-linked" Kashmir from the process of normalisation of relations with India. In his latest statement delivered on the day the interior minister was delivering himself of his "anti-everybody" wisdom, Mr Zardari gave priority to the pursuit of bilateral trade, giving everybody "time to grow up" in India and Pakistan. The only elements who will buy the line fed by the establishment are the people who are carrying out terrorism in Pakistan, simply because it exonerates them.
The End
Muhammad Khurshid, a resident of Bajaur Agency, tribal areas situated on Pak-Afghan border is journalist by profession. He contributes articles and news stories to various online and print newspapers. His subject matter is terrorism. He is also (more...)
The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of this website or its editors.
The seeds of today's terrorism were actually sown by Richard "The Lion Heart," King of England, who in 1191 led the third Christian Crusade against the Muslim leader, Saladin, in an attempt to retake Jerusalem.
Saladin had conquered Jerusalem from the Chistians who had taken it in a previous crusade. But while Saladin had been merciful to all the Christian prisoners he took, Richard in fact slaughtered thousands of Muslim prisoners he had taken in 1191. That has not been forgotten.
It has also not been forgotten that in 1917, after the Palestinians enabled Lawrence of Arabia to drive the Turks out of Palestine, the British then betrayed the Palestinians and occupied and ruled Palestine. Most Arabs and Muslims remember that betrayal.
They also remember the betrayal of the U.N. in 1948, when the new State of Israel was authorized, and millions of Palestinians had their homes and land taken away from them.
Many Muslims all very aware of all that history, and of all the betrayals and injustices perpetrated by England, America, and Israel.
If you are interested in some relevant history, read the two articles titled, The Crusades for Jerusalem, and Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, at:
US intel destabilizing Pakistan with false-flag terror
The Bush Administration has made false-flag terror the policy of first resort. After blowing up the World Trade Center, the US-intel-linked false flag terrorists went on a rampage, hitting Bali, Madrid and London and carrying out most of the big anti-civilian bombings in Iraq. The same people are now destabilizing Pakistan in hopes of breaking off Baluchistan. The people and leaders of Pakistan need to stand up against US-British-Israeli false-flag terror. A huge, visible 9/11 truth movement in Pakistan -- thousands of demonstrators surrounding the US embassy, for example -- would help Americans in their effort overthrow the Bush regime and return the USA to something resembling democracy. I hope Pakistani officials will join Castro, Ahmadinajad, Fujita and others who have spoken out about the 9/11 inside job and the war of terror it launched.
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Kevin Barrett (6 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 19 comments) on Tuesday, Mar 4, 2008 at 10:46:27 AM
Not a political entity. Terror is practiced upon the defenseless members of an open society in order to close it and control it. Terror is practiced by insurance companies that won't pay for life-saving procedures. Terror is practiced by fuel companies that create price pressure on the food grains of millions of hungry people.
We are held hostage by our human needs for food, clothing, medicine, shelter and information-- knowledge and understanding.
Control of those human needs enables control and exploitation of populations. This terror is practiced by political leaders as well as religious extremists, by corporations and bankers as well as tyrants. In the short term, control enables immense profits. In the long term it causes social and political instability, which creates excuses for war. Even though war solves no problems except extending the profits of the controlling authority, many people are swept up in violent actions they are led to believe will relieve some imagined crisis often created by their own leaders in order to control society.
In science, business, and other actual realities like driving a car, control is essential. In human relations, control is short-sighted and self-defeating because one loses the supreme survival characteristic of humanity: multiple input, teamwork, community-- in other words, humanity. War is inhumane. Control by violence has never worked for long. That's why we have evolved laws that enable us to conduct our lives without violence or its threat. That's why murder is illegal unless by order of "patriotic" nationalists who will profit, not die. They are willing to employ mass murder to accomplish ends that could be met without loss of life simply because they are they entrenched interests, attempting to control wealth.
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martinweiss (41 articles, 6 quicklinks, 13 diaries, 503 comments [3 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Tuesday, Mar 4, 2008 at 12:18:19 PM
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