Nawaz Sharif’s Test is How Will He Treat Musharraf

The news from Pakistan is often terrible. There was violence leading up to the parliamentary election. At least Pakistan did manage to have an election in which about 60 percent of voters participated and has achieved a peaceful transition of power in a country where coups have predominated. The election was a welcome repudiation of militants who are trying to overthrow the state.

Pakistanis deserve credit for their courage, and the military for allowing the election to go ahead and deploying 73,000 troops to keep order. And while serious charges of vote-rigging must be investigated, it appears that most Pakistanis are willing to accept that former PM Nawaz Sharif and his party will dominate the next Parliament.

Sharif, who lives in his palatial home outside Lahore, replete with stuffed lions and gilded furniture, faces staggering challenges.

With the economy in a death spiral, he wisely made his finance minister his first appointment, selecting Ishaq Dar. Mr. Dar held that job twice in the 1990s. Mr. Sharif is a fiscal conservative who favors free-market economics. His tasks are to reduce a bloated public sector, end energy shortages and persuade Pakistanis to pay taxes, without which the government cannot hope to stabilize the economy.

Making peace and fostering trade with India would advance that goal.

A major obstacle to effective civilian rule in Pakistan and peace with India, has been the military. Sharif returned from exile in 2007 to build a new political movement. The Army has since withdrawn from an overt political role, yet it remains a potent force.

Repairing badly damaged relations with the United States will be another major test.

Sharif has major differences with the American government, including his tendency to coddle terrorist groups and his opposition to drone strikes, but he has worked with the United States in the past and should try again.

Ultimately, the success of democracies and the politicians they produce depend on good governance. It is up to Sharif to prove that strong civilian leadership can turn things around in Pakistan.

The last time that Nawaz Sharif had close dealings with the Pakistani Army, soldiers handcuffed him and imprisoned him in an ancient fort overlooking the Indus River, physically dragging him from office in a coup.

The success of his relationship with the generals will revolve around two related questions: Has he changed? And have they?

He has new tools at his disposal. Much of the hopeful talk surrounding his landslide victory is focused on how Mr. Sharif seems different — more mellow, less authoritarian — than during his two previous stints as PM in the 1990s. And he returns to power with a mandate from Pakistani voters who have apparently given his party a near outright majority in Parliament.

When the military deposed him in 1999, he had earned the displeasure of its leadership for his outreach to India — which this week he promised to renew — as well as his clumsy attempt to fire the army chief, Gen.Musharraf. Since then, the military has faced several humiliations, including the American commando raid that killed Osama bin Laden in 2011, that have hurt its public image. And under Gen. Kayani, the army has shown little public appetite for openly meddling in politics, much less mounting another coup.

Against that backdrop, the success — and perhaps length — of Sharif’s tenure will be determined by how he negotiates the relationship with Pakistan’s unelected power players. They include the United States, an ally with whom he has a long and sometimes unhappy history and that has worried about his vigor in fighting Islamist militants.

There is a newly crusading judiciary to gauge.

And above all loom the generals, and his tense history with them.

His career was midwifed in the mid-1980s by Gen. Mohammad Zia ul-Haq, the military dictator, then cut short by the 1999 coup that brought General Musharraf to power. Mr. Sharif spent years in exile in Saudi Arabia.

Bitterness from that painful episode was widely believed to have colored Mr. Sharif’s attitude to the army after he returned to Pakistan in 2007. For a time, he regularly hurled rhetorical broadsides at the military that made even members of his own party, who are pro-military by inclination, uncomfortable.

In recent months, Mr. Sharif has adopted a more conciliatory tone. Now he glosses over any differences, telling reporters that his problem had been with General Musharraf’s coup, not with the military as a whole.

“I think the rest of the army resented Mr. Musharraf’s decision,” he said. “So I don’t hold the rest of the army responsible for that.”

Still, there are hints that Mr. Sharif will insist on asserting his authority in ways that could put the generals on edge.

In interviews with the Indian news media in recent days, Mr. Sharif stressed his desire to normalize relations with New Delhi — a subject that the army, which has fought three major wars with India — views as its central concern.

On a different front, the country’s newly assertive Supreme Court also presents Mr. Sharif with a challenge, and perhaps some opportunity.

The previous government found itself embroiled in legal battles with the buccaneering chief justice, who conducted his longstanding rivalry with President Zardari and his PPP through a series of high-profile court cases.

At the same time, judges have been relatively lenient with Mr. Sharif. Cases related to bank loans that his family defaulted on in the 1990s, and payments that Mr. Sharif received from military intelligence about the same time, all received relatively light treatment.

“The Supreme Court only had one eye, and it was trained on the Peoples Party,” said Ayaz Amir, a former lawmaker from Mr. Sharif’s party.

But now that he is in power, Mr. Sharif’s cozy relationship with the courts could come under strain. Under Justice Chaudhry, the courts have amassed new powers, hauling senior government officials before judges to account for their failings on matters ranging from blatant corruption to the weaknesses of the traffic system.

Sharif, who also has a stubborn streak, could find himself drawn into a clash with Justice Chaudhry.

Sharif might look at this court and find it a bit too activist for his liking, with its tendency to push government up against the wall. Still, the potential for conflict may be limited: Justice Chaudhry is set to retire in December, which leaves relatively little time for a battle between the courts and Sharif.

On the campaign trail, Mr. Sharif played to populist sentiment by condemning drone strikes in the tribal belt and suggesting, in vague terms, that he would seek to avoid bowing to American dictates. But the perilous state of Pakistan’s economy means that he may require American support for a bailout by the IMF — one that economists believe will be necessary in the coming months.

Behind the scenes, American diplomats are likely to pressure him for stronger action against militants.

Sharif was measured in the campaign in his criticism of the Taliban, which notably did not attack his party’s election events as they did those of more secular parties. Indeed, the perception that Mr. Sharif had an ambiguous view, at best, toward militants was a constant source of tension with American officials during his first stints in office.

Sharif may now come under pressure — from the army as well as the United States — to clamp down on militant havens in his home province of Punjab, parts of which have become hotbeds of sectarian violence led by Sunni extremist groups.

But in foreign policy, Mr. Sharif has another source of support: his close relationship with Saudi Arabia, where he whiled away his exile. King Abdullah helped broker Mr. Sharif’s return to Pakistan in 2007, and Sharif maintains close ties with Riyadh. That relationship, although discreet, could provide an alternative source of economic aid, as well as a powerful ally.

His old nemesis, General Musharraf, is under house arrest at his villa outside Islamabad over several judicial prosecutions. The Supreme Court has decreed that Mr. Sharif’s administration will have to decide whether the former army ruler should face treason charges, which carry a possible death penalty.

A steel baron by background, and conservative by inclination, Mr. Sharif has long had a reputation as a man who does not forgive or forget. The Musharraf case presents him with an obvious opportunity for revenge. But even critics say he has softened over the years, and is more likely to take a lenient approach in the interest of avoiding an unnecessary confrontation with the army.

He’s a more mature person now, less impulsive than before. It would be foolish to start settling scores. The Musharraf case will be a major test of that.

 

Was Osama Dead Before the Attack?

By Raqib  Shah

In August  2010 after Pakistani authorities shared intelligence with US about the  compound in Abbottabad, US  after its own intelligence gathering ascertains that the compound is  occupied by Osama’s children. Compound surveillance continues through the next year in anticipation of capturing Osama bin Laden.

In January 2011 the young CIA contractor who is given the charge of Pakistan Station Chief works “extra hard” to gather clandestine information related to ISI and Al Qaeda relationship.

The  contractor, now  infamous as Raymond Davis the “American Rambo” receives a call from one of  his assets, early morning on January 27 about a high value target. But the  asset refuses to lay out details on phone or to leave the Lahore city,  where he had gone underground. Raymond Davis hires a rent a car and drives to Lahore, while his embassy’s security detail follows him in a  bullet proof Land Cruiser.

Raymond  Davis is able to loose his Islamabad’s ISI “detail”  by leaving in an unmarked  rented car.  The ISI agents falling for his trap follows the embassy’s Land Cruiser. Raymond Davis arrives at Lahore one hour earlier than his detail and meets with the asset. The asset gives him some pictures of an intelligence building at Tarbela and recording of a phone call. Listening to the phone call, Raymond  Davis realizes the gold mine he had struck, and  immediately calls his security detail which had also reached Lahore,  knowing if ISI reaches him first, he would not leave Lahore alive.

Next hour when the security car catches up with Raymond Davis, the ISI bosses realize that Raymond Davis had given them a slip earlier in the morning and in couple of hours he may have done in Lahore, he might have got some important information.  Resultantly, they put two contractors on his tail. Raymond Davis seeing a tail fears the worst and shoots them both in the back, at a traffic stop, without logically realizing that there was no way ISI could have known what he was holding.

His security detail which was close behind rushed to his “rescue”. However, by this time police had chased and  arrested Raymond Davis, while the security Land Cruiser running over  pedestrians escapes towards US consulate compound  in Lahore. ISI officers quickly reach the scene and confiscating the memory sticks realize Raymond Davis has unearthed a deep secret which even their immediate bosses didn’t know about.

The sensitivity of information rattles the entire echelons of the ISI and even its own officers are sent under house arrest while the relevant cell steps forward. At that time even some of the top intelligence officers of ISI outside the relevant cell did not know that Osama bin Laden had died and  his body was kept frozen at Tarbela. Young Raymond Davis had  unearthed the biggest secret of the century, somehow. But now the  Pandora’s Box had been opened. Pak top brass knew it had only a few days or weeks at best to capitalize Raymond Davis’ arrest before US get the intelligence.

In the next six weeks Pakistan plugs all leaks related to Osama’s death and makes sure that maximum gains are made for Raymond’s release. However, when  Raymond Davis is released on March 16, his debriefing results in a tsunami  of US policy, personal agendas and fueling of political rivalries. Everyone in the US chain of command now wanted to use the information to  further personal goals from General Petreaus  to President Obama. On March 17, knowing that Pakistan had lost its trump card General Kayani releases a press statement in which he criticizes drone attacks, first from him. From then on Pak Military raised its stance against drone attacks, fearing that US now might target its nuclear assets.

While in USA, politics was at its full swing. General Petreaus wanted to get the buckle for Osama bin Laden’s death on his belt for his future political ambitions, while President Obama wanted the credit to help his sliding popularity. While the tussle continued, the other issue still pending was how to confirm Osama’s death.

In the  next one month, nearly every week a top US official visited Pakistan,  everyone meeting with General Kayani trying to convince him to hand over  Osama’s body. While the stance from Pakistan remained, “Osama, Who?” It  was a first in the history that so many US top officials had visited and  met with a military chief of a foreign country in such a short time.  Seeing nothing getting through the top military brass of Pakistan, US  started a political and media campaign on the sides to put extra pressure  on Pak Military.

Politics within Obama Administration was also at its full swing. Petraeus was pulling all the strings to take the credit, while trying to lay out a plan to get Osama bin Laden’s body out of Pakistan. President Obama on the  other hand in one smooth move decided to “promote” Petraeus to the head of  the CIA. The news got out in the first week of April that Petraeus was  being transferred to the CIA. While at the main front, Obama continued to pressurize General Kayani and General Pasha and on April 5, Obama Administration submitted a report to the Congress that Pakistan government  had no clear strategy to triumph over militants. Alongside the report the media campaign against Pak Military and the ISI continued.

The second week of April began with a bang for top Pak Military brass. On  April 7, Bruce Riedel, former CIA officer and White House advisor wrote a  report arguing that Pakistan’s nuclear weapons are not only a deterrent to  India but also to USA. The obvious had now become clear that Obama Administration has indirectly sent a clear threat to Pakistan’s nuclear assets. The timing of the report was perfect with Centcom Chief Gen James  Mattis meeting with General Kayani next day. In the meeting General Mattis asked about Pakistan’s cooperation in capturing Osama bin  Laden.

This was ironically one of typical Hollywood thriller scene. Pakistan knew that US knew that Pakistan knows  that US knows that Osama is dead. But Pakistan continued the naive game of “Osama Who?” while US continued to play the game that “Osama must be captured”. General Mattis leaves with veiled threats and stresses that Pakistan must do more to against the Al Qaeda and Taliban, or indirectly saying that Osama bin Laden must be handed over.

For the  next ten days US waits and sees how Pakistan responds to the threats, but  Pakistan acts by burying its head in the sand – see no evil, hear no evil.  Obama Administration ups the ante and on April 18 on Pakistan’s Geo TV, Adm. Mike Mullen said ISI “has a  longstanding relationship with the Haqqani Network. That doesn’t mean  everybody in the ISI, but it’s there.” Again, international media had its field day against ISI and its links with Taliban.

After putting pressure on General Kayani, Adm. Mike Mullen meets with Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee General Khalid Shameem Wyne and General Kayani on April 20. Admiral Mullen again demands indirectly that Pakistan needs to help USA in locating Osama bin Laden. Pakistan’s response was again, “Osama, Who?”  Admiral Mullen however, left with another threat that if they came to know about Osama bin Laden’s location they would go ahead and take unilateral action. This is the same message which President Obama repeated in his announcement of Osama bin Laden’s death, when he said, “We will take actions in Pakistan, if we knew where he was.”

In response to continued threats from USA, Pakistan starts taking back its air bases from US in an attempt to avoid launching of any operation from its own soil. As a result on April 22 the news appears that Pakistan had taken back Shamsi Airbase from CIA/US  forces. While Obama Administration was piling pressure on Pakistan,  General Petraeus visited Pakistan on April 26 and met with General Kayani  openly asking him to hand over Osama bin Laden, otherwise get ready to  face the consequences. Same day Washington also critically attacked Pakistan Army’s counter-terrorism efforts. General Petraeus left with a clear message that unless Pakistan hands over Osama, US forces would be forced to  take action over Pakistani soil. Pakistani Military knowing that US knew that Osama bin Laden was dead couldn’t understand Obama Administration’s continued stance on capturing Osama bin Laden. General Petraeus left with the ultimatum that either Pakistan handed over Osama or US would get him.

Same day meeting of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee (JCSC) is held at Rawalpindi, one week ahead of schedule at the Joint Staff Headquarters. The top brass discussed the Osama issue and decision is reached to work out the Obama’s strategy leading to continuous threats for capturing Osama bin Laden alive, even after knowing that he was dead. While in Pakistan intelligence community starts using all of its sources to reach to the bottom of US’ demand of capturing Osama bin Laden. On April 28 President Obama signs General Petraeus’ transfer to CIA and next day signs the orders to attack the Abbottabad compounds. Thus Osama bin Laden’s credit is assured to President Obama.

On 29 April after President Obama signed the orders to “bring back” Osama bin Laden, Pakistani security agencies get a report that another order had been signed which had authorized US forces to neutralize Pakistan’s nuclear assets, if needed. The report was nothing short of seeing a death angel for the top Pak Military brass. Seeing the imminent threat, General Kayani tried his last shot when on 30 April 2011 he clearly stated in his Youm-e-Shuhada address: “Pakistan is a  peace-loving country and wants friendly relations with other countries and  our every step should move towards prosperity of the people. But we will not compromise our dignity and honour for it”. However, it didn’t stop what was about to come 24 hours later.

As night fell on Sunday, 1st May four choppers from a US Afghan base at a low altitude towards its destination in Abbottabad, to the same compound where Osama’s children  were in the hiding. Without any detection courtesy of their latest stealth technology and Pakistan’s outdated technology the choppers continued over the Pakistani territory. Ironically, ten years ago a Pak Air force air commodore had raised concern about the  outdated radar technology citing that US or worse India could fly  helicopters into the country and take out nuclear installations and in  reply he was shown the boot while no upgrades to the systems were  made.

Anyway, the four choppers made it to the compound in Abbottabad. It is then that Pak Army was notified that they have a choice. Either face an entire barrage of US choppers attacking Pak nuclear assets or hand over Osama’s body. In the meanwhile the small gun battle at the Abbottabad compound continued and to give the drama some authenticity the US forces torched one of their own choppers. Pressed for time a Pakistani helicopter flew from Tarbela carrying dead  body of Osama bin Laden which was stored in a cold storage there. While at Abbottabad Pak Army soldiers encircled the entire area around the compound within five minutes of the start of fire fight. The firefight continued  for 35 more minutes, waiting for the Pakistani helicopter. Once the  Pakistani helicopter reached the compound the three US choppers and the  Pakistani helicopter flew towards the Afghan border, this time without the need to fly below the radar detection altitude.

Next day, the world woke up to the news that Osama bin Laden was dead and President Obama had delivered what President Bush and Dick Cheney couldn’t. But the Pak Military brass did not wake up, because they never slept the night before. Last night they had woken to the realization that US could fly under the radar and take out Pakistan’s nuclear assets at any time.

 

American Drone Strikes Declining But Who Will Now Handle the Pakistani Terrorists

There are signs that the Obama administration be running out of high-level targets.

After a sharp rise in Mr. Obama’s first two years, the total number of drone strikes is now in sharp decline.

In Pakistan, strikes peaked in 2010 at 117; the number fell to 64 in 2011, 46 in 2012, with 11 in 2013, according to The Long War Journal, which covers the covert wars.

In Yemen, while strikes shot up to 42 in 2012, no strikes have been reported since a flurry of drone hits in January.

Mr Obama has pledged more transparency for the drone program, and he and his aides have hinted that change are coming. It remains unclear what the administration has in mind, but the president has spoken of the treacherous allure of the drone.

Decisions on targeted killing are “something that you have to struggle with. If you don’t, then it’s easy to slip into a situation in which you end up bending rules thinking that the ends always justify the means,” Mr. Obama said. “That’s not who we are as a country.”

What Was This Asshole Doing When Posted in Pakistan?

Pakistan’s Precipitous Decline

By William Milam

NYT/ April 4, 2013

Pakistanis are celebrating the accomplishment of an elected government — for the first time in the country’s history — serving in office for the full five years of its constitutional term.

Never mind that this is the only accomplishment of that government, or that the news is drowned out by the horror stories that continue to emanate from Pakistan. These only serve to solidify the impression of an increasingly dysfunctional, fragmented, very troubled state, on which much depends, but in which fragility and instability continue to mount.

Atrocity builds on atrocity. Minorities are targeted and murdered — with seeming impunity — by extremists who brag publicly about doing so. And the violence is not limited to minorities. Anyone who does not meet a narrow and exclusive definition of “Muslim,” as defined by religious fundamentalists, has come under increasing attack. The ubiquitous Sufi shrines, revered by perhaps half of the Sunni population, are assaulted by extremists who regard them as apostate. Humanitarians delivering social and medical services to the poor are gunned down in cold blood — witness the murder of polio vaccine and other health workers, and that of Parveen Rehman, the head of Pakistan’s celebrated urban social service NGO, the Orangi project of Karachi. And now we learn that, with an election coming, the political parties are wooing the perpetrators, rather than pledging to defeat them.

Predictions about Pakistan, a growth industry today but one that has kept scholars and pundits busy for decades, has often produced insightful and unsettling analyses. Almost all observers come to the same conclusion — Pakistan will muddle through for the foreseeable future. We view Pakistan either through “a glass half full,” meaning that there is hope that someday, in some way, the country will turn around, or through “a glass half empty,” meaning that its long-term trajectory is toward failure, but that it will hold together during our lifetime (glued by the army).

But the increasingly grim news out of Pakistan forcefully reminds me of what my dear friend, the late Sir Hilary Synnott, former British high commissioner to Pakistan, argued a few years ago. The half-full or half-empty glass was not, he said, the appropriate metaphor. Analysts should, he insisted, look at Pakistan through the image of “a glass too large,” by which he meant a country constantly overreaching.

I think Sir Hilary was on to something. Pakistan has historically tried to punch above its weight. This derives mainly from its historic regard of India as its existential threat. This elevated the army, gave it a public imprimatur above the politicians, and allowed it to take — almost as its right — most of the state’s resources to maintain an imagined parity with India. To add to its arsenal, the army recruited religious militants to fight as proxies against India and in Afghanistan. The irony is that the army has lost control of these proxies, and it is they who are now carrying out the attacks against the state and its citizens.

In addition to the army, Pakistan inherited its other political and economic institutions from the British (and to some extent the Moguls) and, as in almost all ex-colonial countries, these were taken over by indigenous elites and the state, for the benefit of those elites and the state. This suited the army just fine, as these institutions were soon dwarfed vis-à-vis the army, and remain so. Had its society remained so structured, over time those political and economic institutions might have become stronger and more independent, and Pakistan more modern. Sometimes that happens, but infrequently. The addition of these now-autonomous militant proxies to an already unpromising mix made that mix even more toxic, and modernization much less likely.

Before our eyes, the Pakistani state, which seems to have given in without a murmur to the exclusionist narrative of the fundamentalists, may have begun to unravel. Sir Hilary’s metaphor of “a glass too large” may have even wider application and meaning. How can a state continue to muddle through when it has lost the fundamental requisite of a state, its monopoly on the use and definition of legitimate violence? How much longer before Pakistanis conclude that the basic protection their state is supposed to provide its citizens — of life and property — is absent.

The feeling comes that the inflection point of the “muddle through” curve is being reached, that in effect, the too-large glass we should look through has now filled to overflowing with problems that Pakistan cannot handle — a weak state under attack from the monsters it created, with mostly dysfunctional political and economic institutions, going in a vicious circle, and showing no promise or hope of transformation. The West, as well as Pakistan’s regional neighbors, should be thinking about the political and strategic implications of an accelerated decline toward state failure in this key, nuclear-armed country.

William Milam is a former U.S. ambassador to Pakistan and a scholar at the Woodrow Wilson Center.

 

Drone Attacks Started with the Army’s Consent

On a hot day in June 2004, the Pashtun tribesman was lounging inside a mud compound in South Waziristan, speaking by satellite phone to one of the many reporters who regularly interviewed him on how he had fought and humbled Pakistan’s army in the country’s western mountains. He asked one of his followers about the strange, metallic bird hovering above him.

Less than 24 hours later, a missile tore through the compound, severing Mr. Muhammad’s left leg and killing him and several others, including two boys, ages 10 and 16. A Pakistani military spokesman was quick to claim responsibility for the attack, saying that Pakistani forces had fired at the compound.

That was a lie.

Mr. Muhammad and his followers had been killed by the CIA, the first time it had deployed a Predator drone in Pakistan to carry out a “targeted killing.” The target was not a top operative of Al Qaeda, but a Pakistani ally of the Taliban who led a tribal rebellion and was marked by Pakistan as an enemy of the state.

In a secret deal, the CIA had agreed to kill him in exchange for access to airspace it had long sought so it could use drones to hunt down its own enemies.

That back-room bargain is critical to understanding the origins of a covert drone war that began under the Bush administration, was embraced and expanded by President Obama, and is now the subject of fierce debate. The deal, a month after a blistering internal report about abuses in the CIA’s network of secret prisons, paved the way for the CIA to change its focus from capturing terrorists to killing them, and helped transform an agency that began as a cold war espionage service into a paramilitary organization.

The CIA has since conducted hundreds of drone strikes in Pakistan that have killed thousands of people, Pakistanis and Arabs, militants and civilians alike. While it was not the first country where the United States used drones, it became the laboratory for the targeted killing operations that have come to define a new American way of fighting, blurring the line between soldiers and spies and short-circuiting the normal mechanisms by which the United States as a nation goes to war.

Neither American nor Pakistani officials have ever publicly acknowledged what really happened to Mr. Muhammad — details of the strike that killed him, along with those of other secret strikes, are still hidden in classified government databases.

CIA Chief Mr. Brennan, who began his career at the CIA and over the past four years oversaw an escalation of drone strikes from his office at the White House, has signaled that he hopes to return the agency to its traditional role of intelligence collection and analysis. But with a generation of CIA officers now fully engaged in a new mission, it is an effort that could take years.

Today, even some of the people who were present at the creation of the drone program think the agency should have long given up targeted killings.

Ross Newland, who was a senior official at the CIA’s headquarters in Langley, Virginia., when the agency was given the authority to kill Qaeda operatives, says he thinks that the agency had grown too comfortable with remote-control killing, and that drones have turned the CIA into the villain in countries like Pakistan, where it should be nurturing relationships in order to gather intelligence.

From Car Thief to Militant

By 2004, Mr. Muhammad had become the undisputed star of the tribal areas, the fierce mountain lands populated by the Wazirs, Mehsuds and other Pashtun tribes who for decades had lived independent of the writ of the central government in Islamabad. A brash member of the Wazir tribe, Mr. Muhammad had raised an army to fight government troops and had forced the government into negotiations. He saw no cause for loyalty to the ISI that had given an earlier generation of Pashtuns support during the war against the Soviets.

Many Pakistanis in the tribal areas viewed with disdain the alliance that President Musharraf had forged with the United States after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. They regarded the Pakistani military that had entered the tribal areas as no different from the Americans — who they believed had begun a war of aggression in Afghanistan, just as the Soviets had years earlier.

Born near Wana, the bustling market hub of South Waziristan, Mr. Muhammad spent his adolescent years as a petty car thief and shopkeeper in the city’s bazaar. He found his calling in 1993, around the age of 18, when he was recruited to fight with the Taliban in Afghanistan, and rose quickly through the group’s military hierarchy. He cut a striking figure on the battlefield with his long face and flowing jet black hair.

When the Americans invaded Afghanistan in 2001, he seized an opportunity to host the Arab and Chechen fighters from Al Qaeda who crossed into Pakistan to escape the American bombing.

For Mr. Muhammad, it was partly a way to make money, but he also saw another use for the arriving fighters. With their help, over the next two years he launched a string of attacks on Pakistani military installations and on American firebases in Afghanistan.

CIA officers in Islamabad urged Pakistani spies to lean on the Waziri tribesman to hand over the foreign fighters, but under Pashtun tribal customs that would be treachery. Reluctantly, Mr. Musharraf ordered his troops into the forbidding mountains to deliver rough justice to Mr. Muhammad and his fighters, hoping the operation might put a stop to the attacks on Pakistani soil, including two attempts on his life in December 2003.

But it was only the beginning. In March 2004, Pakistani helicopter gunships and artillery pounded Wana and its surrounding villages. Government troops shelled pickup trucks that were carrying civilians away from the fighting and destroyed the compounds of tribesmen suspected of harboring foreign fighters. The Pakistani commander declared the operation an unqualified success, but for Islamabad, it had not been worth the cost in casualties.

A cease-fire was negotiated in April during a hastily arranged meeting in South Waziristan, during which a senior Pakistani commander hung a garland of bright flowers around Mr. Muhammad’s neck. The two men sat together and sipped tea as photographers and television cameras recorded the event.

Both sides spoke of peace, but there was little doubt who was negotiating from strength. Mr. Muhammad would later brag that the government had agreed to meet inside a religious madrasa rather than in a public location where tribal meetings are traditionally held. “I did not go to them; they came to my place,” he said. “That should make it clear who surrendered to whom.”

The peace arrangement propelled Mr. Muhammad to new fame, and the truce was soon exposed as a sham. He resumed attacks against Pakistani troops, and Mr. Musharraf ordered his army back on the offensive in South Waziristan.

Pakistani officials had, for several years, balked at the idea of allowing armed CIA Predators to roam their skies. They considered drone flights a violation of sovereignty, and worried that they would invite further criticism of Mr. Musharraf as being Washington’s lackey. But Mr. Muhammad’s rise to power forced them to reconsider.

The CIA had been monitoring the rise of Mr. Muhammad, but officials considered him to be more Pakistan’s problem than America’s. In Washington, officials were watching with growing alarm the gathering of Qaeda operatives in the tribal areas, and George J. Tenet, the CIA director, authorized officers in the agency’s Islamabad station to push Pakistani officials to allow armed drones. Negotiations were handled primarily by the Islamabad station.

As the battles raged in South Waziristan, the station chief in Islamabad paid a visit to Gen. Ehsan ul Haq, the ISI chief, and made an offer: If the CIA killed Mr. Muhammad, would the ISI allow regular armed drone flights over the tribal areas?

In secret negotiations, the terms of the bargain were set. Pakistani intelligence officials insisted that they be allowed to approve each drone strike, giving them tight control over the list of targets. And they insisted that drones fly only in narrow parts of the tribal areas — ensuring that they would not venture where Islamabad did not want the Americans going: Pakistan’s nuclear facilities, and the mountain camps where Kashmiri militants were trained for attacks in India.

The ISI and the CIA agreed that all drone flights in Pakistan would operate under the CIA’s covert action authority — meaning that the United States would never acknowledge the missile strikes and that Pakistan would either take credit for the individual killings or remain silent.

A New Direction

As the negotiations were taking place, the CIA’s inspector general, John L. Helgerson, had just finished a searing report about the abuse of detainees in the CIA’s secret prisons. The report kicked out the foundation upon which the CIA detention and interrogation program had rested. It was perhaps the single most important reason for the CIA’s shift from capturing to killing terrorism suspects.

The greatest impact of Mr. Helgerson’s report was felt at the CIA’s Counterterrorism Center, or CTC, which was at the vanguard of the agency’s global antiterrorism operation. The center had focused on capturing Qaeda operatives; questioning them in CIA jails or outsourcing interrogations to the spy services of Pakistan, Jordan, Egypt and other nations; and then using the information to hunt more terrorism suspects.

Mr. Helgerson raised questions about whether CIA officers might face criminal prosecution for the interrogations carried out in the secret prisons, and he suggested that interrogation methods like water boarding, sleep deprivation and the exploiting of the phobias of prisoners — like confining them in a small box with live bugs — violated the UN Convention Against Torture.

The ground had shifted, and counterterrorism officials began to rethink the strategy for the secret war. Armed drones, and targeted killings in general, offered a new direction. Killing by remote control was the antithesis of the dirty, intimate work of interrogation. Targeted killings were cheered by Republicans and Democrats alike, and using drones flown by pilots who were stationed thousands of miles away made the whole strategy seem risk-free.

The Predator had been considered a blunt and unsophisticated killing tool, and many at the CIA were glad that the agency had gotten out of the assassination business long ago. Three years before Mr. Muhammad’s death, and one year before the CIA carried out its first targeted killing outside a war zone — in Yemen in 2002 — a debate raged over the legality and morality of using drones to kill suspected terrorists.

A new generation of CIA officers had ascended to leadership positions, having joined the agency after the 1975 Congressional committee led by Senator Frank Church, Democrat of Idaho, which revealed extensive CIA plots to kill foreign leaders, and President Gerald Ford’s subsequent ban on assassinations. The rise to power of this post-Church generation had a direct impact on the type of clandestine operations the CIA chose to conduct.

After Mr. Muhammad was killed, his dirt grave in South Waziristan became a site of pilgrimage.

A Pakistani journalist, Zahid Hussain, visited it days after the drone strike and saw a makeshift sign displayed on the grave: “He lived and died like a true Pashtun.”

Maj. Gen. Shaukat Sultan, Pakistan’s top military spokesman, told reporters at the time that “Al Qaeda facilitator” Nek Muhammad and four other “militants” had been killed in a rocket attack by Pakistani troops.

Any suggestion that Mr. Muhammad was killed by the Americans, or with American assistance, he said, was “absolutely absurd.”

Not All Drone Strikes Are Carried Out by the Americans

U.S. Disavows 2 Drone Strikes Over Pakistan

When news of the two latest drone strikes emerged from Pakistan’s tribal belt in early February, it seemed to be business as usual by the CIA.

Local and international media reports carried typical details: swarms of American drones had swooped into remote areas, killing up to nine people, including two senior commanders of Al Qaeda.

In Islamabad, Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry lodged an official protest with the American Embassy.

Yet there was one problem, according to three American officials with knowledge of the program: The United States did not carry out those attacks.

“They were not ours,” said one of the officials. “We haven’t had any kinetic activity since January.”

What exactly took place in those remote tribal villages, far from outside scrutiny, is unclear. But the Americans’ best guess is that one or possibly both of the strikes were carried out by the Pakistani military and falsely attributed to the CIA to avoid criticism from the Pakistani public.

E-mail and phone messages seeking comment from the Pakistani military were not returned.

If the American version is true, it is a striking irony: In the early years of the drone campaign, the Pakistani Army falsely claimed responsibility for American drone strikes in an attempt to mask C.I.A. activities on its soil. Now, the Americans suggest, the Pakistani military may be using the same program to disguise its own operations.

More broadly, the phantom attacks underscore the longstanding difficulty of gaining reliable information about America’s drone program in the remote and largely inaccessible tribal belt — particularly at a time when the program is under sharp scrutiny in Washington.

For the past month, John O. Brennan, President Obama’s counterterrorism adviser and nominee to lead the C.I.A., has been dogged by Congressional questions about the drone program’s lack of transparency, particularly when it comes to killing American citizens abroad.

The biggest obstacle to confirming details of the strikes is their location: the strikes usually hit remote, hostile and virtually closed-off areas. Foreign reporters are barred from the tribal belt, and the handful of local journalists who operate there find themselves vulnerable to pressure from both the military and the Taliban.

That murkiness has often suited the purposes of both the C.I.A. and the Pakistani military. It allows the Americans to conduct drone strikes behind a curtain of secrecy, largely shielded from public oversight and outside scrutiny. For the Pakistanis, it allows them to play both sides: publicly condemning strikes, while quietly supporting others, like the missile attack that killed the Pakistani Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud in 2009.

Still, the information vacuum also places American officials at a disadvantage when it comes to answering accusations that the drone strikes kill large numbers of innocent civilians alongside bona fide militants. State Department officials have complained that they cannot effectively counter civilian death claims they believe are hugely inflated because the program is classified — a subject of lively debate inside the administration, one official said.

The private controversy over the latest strikes, however, suggested another phenomenon at work: the manipulation of the actual drone reports themselves.

The two strikes, which took place on Feb. 6 in North Waziristan and Feb. 8 in South Waziristan, went unremarked on largely because they appeared so run of the mill.

Small Pakistani news agencies and international television networks, including NBC and Al Jazeera, carried common-sounding details: accounts of multiple American drones hovering overhead, estimates of the number of missiles fired, accounts of the rescue effort by local civilians and quotes from Pakistani military officials in the tribal belt or nearby Peshawar.

“The compound was completely destroyed. The militants had surrounded the area after the attack,” one official told Agence France-Presse after the second explosion, in Babar Ghar, near Ladha, in South Waziristan.

Some reports, attributed to Pakistani officials, said the dead included two Qaeda commanders, identified as Abu Majid al-Iraqi and Sheikh Abu Waqas. Other reports said four Uzbek militants had died.

“The Pakistan Air Force does not generally undertake stand-alone strikes such as these because it is not equipped with the appropriate strike weapons,” a Pakistani military source said.

The American narrative of those strikes is very different.

Two senior United States officials said there had been no American involvement in the attacks. A third official said the C.I.A. had not paid the reports much attention because no American forces had been involved. But that official said American intelligence pointed to the Pakistan Air Force as having conducted the first strike, probably as part of a military operation against Pakistani Taliban militants in the neighboring Orakzai tribal agency.

he second attack was more mysterious. “It could have been the Pakistani military,” the official said. “It could have been the Taliban fighting among themselves. Or it could have been simply bad reporting.”

Few issues antagonize the relationship between Pakistan and the United States as much as the drone program does — or encapsulate the often contradictory, smoke-and-mirrors nature of the military-to-military relationship.

In public, both Pakistani military and government officials routinely and vehemently condemn the strikes. But in private, a handful of senior Pakistani generals are “read into” the program, according to American officials.

The United States gives the Pakistani military 30 minutes’ advance notice of drones strikes in South Waziristan. However, it gives no notice in North Waziristan, considered a bigger hub of Taliban and Qaeda militancy, and also a major base for the Haqqani Network, which carries out attacks in Afghanistan, one senior American official said.

If American claims are correct, the United States has not conducted a drone strike in Pakistan since Jan. 10, marking the longest pause of the campaign since November 2011, when the C.I.A. stopped strikes for 55 days after American warplanes killed 24 Pakistani soldiers in a disputed border clash.

Some analysts believe the lull may be connected to Mr. Brennan’s nomination, pointing to a similar slowdown in Yemen, the other major theater of American drone operation. Others point to more prosaic explanations, like intelligence delays or bad weather.

“The whole thing seems to be on pause at the moment,” said Chris Woods of the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, a watchdog group that tallies the drone strikes, mostly using news reports.

If one thing is clear about the drones, it is that all sides — Pakistanis, Americans and the Taliban — have an interest in manipulating reports about their impact.

Mr. Woods said he would take American claims of noninvolvement in the February attacks “with a pinch of salt,” citing the details about the Qaeda deaths as potential evidence of C.I.A. involvement.

But, Mr. Woods added, his group had earmarked reports of about a dozen drone strikes as suspicious in recent years, and had marked them as such on its Web site.

Viewed from Washington, a handful of erroneously reported strikes may seem inconsequential. According to most estimates, the C.I.A. has carried out about 330 drone strikes in Pakistan’s tribal belt since 2004, the vast majority of them in the past five years. (Though the American military also operates drones, officials insist that the program in Pakistan is solely conducted by the C.I.A.)

Yet in Pakistan, they carry greater significance, igniting huge and sometimes violent anti-American demonstration that make drones a toxic subject for generals and politicians alike. But the American claims about the two attacks this month suggest that they may, also, be trying to have the best of both worlds.

 

Could Pakistan Dump the US For ‘All-Weather Friend’ China?

Though Pakistan likes to play that card, analysts say, China could never replace the billions in aid that Washington provides. Nor is China likely to risk its own bid to become an economic superpower.

With every new trough in U.S.-Pakistan relations, talk among Pakistanis of paring down their dependence on Washington and throwing in with China grows louder.

Just days after the U.S. accused the ISI of aiding insurgent attacks against U.S. targets in Afghanistan, Chinese Vice Premier Jianzhu appeared in Islamabad reassuring Pakistani leaders that China backed Pakistan’s efforts to protect its sovereignty.

The vice premier’s comments apparently referred to Pakistani worries of a future U.S. airstrike or targeted ground operation against Taliban-allied insurgents in the tribal belt along the border with Afghanistan.

But could Pakistan ever afford to turn away from the U.S. as an ally and replace it with China, which Islamabad routinely calls its “all-weather friend?”

Such a move is highly unlikely.

With nearly $9 billion in annual trade with Pakistan, China is Islamabad’s biggest trading partner, as well as its leading arms supplier. But it could never replace the billions of dollars in economic and military aid that Pakistan gets from the United States, as well as billions more in loans from international lenders heavily influenced by the U.S., including the IMF and the World Bank.

If Pakistan thinks China will compensate for the loss of American ties, they are overestimating. The kind of economic assistance that Pakistan gets from the U.S. cannot be replaced by the Chinese. And the Chinese recognize that they cannot do it.

Yet even if the notion of China becoming Pakistan’s dominant foreign benefactor is unrealistic, Pakistan doesn’t hesitate to use its strong ties with Beijing — and the prospect of deepening those ties — as leverage against Washington. The tactic becomes particularly evident during moments of crisis in the U.S.-Pakistan relationship.

After the U.S. commando raid that killed Osama bin Laden in May 2011 in Abbottabad, a secret, unilateral operation that Pakistanis decried as a blatant breach of their country’s sovereignty, PM Gilani was welcomed by Chinese officials in Beijing with a gift of 50 JF-17 fighter jets. PM Gilani also heard comforting words from Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao, who advised the U.S. to respect Pakistan’s sovereignty.

Clearly Pakistan is playing that card, whether it’s the China card or the Saudi card. They would like to show themselves, and the U.S. and the rest of the world, that they have other friends if the U.S. seeks to make trouble with them.

Pakistan’s ties with China date to 1950, when Pakistan became one of the first countries to recognize the communist government of the People’s Republic of China.

Beijing has invested heavily in several major infrastructure projects in Pakistan. They include nuclear power plants, gold and copper mines, major highways and the construction of a deep-water port at Gwadar on the Arabian Sea, envisioned as a future strategic site for Persian Gulf oil destined for China.

China also sees its alliance with Pakistan as a valuable counterweight to its chief South Asian rival, India. For its part, Pakistan has looked for ways to ratchet up the relationship. In an unusual decision announced in September 2011, officials in Sindh province said they would require all students in sixth grade and higher to learn Chinese, beginning in 2013.

While Pakistan’s ties with China have grown stronger, its relationship with the U.S. has been weakened by deep mutual distrust.

Lawmakers in Washington have threatened to freeze all economic and military aid to Islamabad if Pakistan doesn’t act against the Haqqani. The network uses the North Waziristan tribal region along the Afghanistan border to launch suicide bombings and other strikes on U.S., NATO and Afghan forces in eastern Afghanistan and Kabul.

Some Pakistanis believe that with China’s backing, their country could withstand whatever punitive action Washington takes.

China has said it considers Pakistan as a core interest…. China has made it clear that Pakistan is a trusted ally. So anything done against Pakistan would be considered an act against China.

Other experts, however, say China’s ambitions to become an economic superpower supersede its relationship with Pakistan. Though Pakistan and its role in South Asia are important, China takes care to avoid undermining crucial, complex ties with the U.S. and the West.

China’s relations with the US are extremely important. They have investments in the U.S., and US multinational corporations are investing in China. And the Chinese have long-term goals of becoming an economic giant on a global scale. So they are not going to act in favor of Pakistan and in the process disrupt their relations with the U.S.

China also has its own counter-terrorism concerns involving Pakistan: Islamist Uighur separatists who Beijing says train in northwestern Pakistan and then slip across the border to carry out attacks in the Xinjiang region. China has been pressing Pakistan to clamp down on Uighur separatists training in tribal regions along the Afghan border. In late July, Uighurs conducted a series of ambushes on police and firefighters in the western Chinese city of Kashgar, leaving 22 dead.

The Pakistani government’s perception that China comes to do business without any preconditions and that it doesn’t have any counter-terrorism concerns is not altogether right.

Despite what the Pakistanis would wish to convey to the West, the relationship with China is not as deep or as free-ranging as Pakistanis would want the USA to believe.

 

Report on the CodePink Delegation to Pakistan October 2012

by Joe Lombardo, UNAC co-coordinator

I arrived in Islamabad at 2:30 am on October 3, 2012 with about 7 other members of our delegation after a grueling fight from New York.  We were part of the Code Pink anti-drone delegation to Pakistan.  On arrival in Islamabad, we were amazed to see a large group of people welcoming us from the Aafia Siddiqui movement.

This is a movement in support of Aafia Siddiqui who is in solitary confinement in a Texas prison serving an 86 year sentence.  Aafia, like other Muslims in prison in the U.S. as part of the phony “War on Terror,” is guilty of nothing.  I will explain more about her case later in this report.

After arriving at our guest house where the entire delegation was staying, I had about 1/2 hours sleep before meeting the rest of the delegation at our orientation.  Others on the delegation include Col. Ann Wright, who quit the military and her diplomatic post over the invasion of Iraq, Medea Benjamin, the dynamic leader of Code Pink, Leah Bolger, president of Veterans for Peace and UNAC administrative committee member, Judy Bello of the Upstate NY Coalition to Ground the Drones and End the Wars  and UNAC administrative committee member and a host of other wonderful activists and individuals, including 3 other members of the Upstate NY Coalition.  We were 31 people in all.

On our first day in Pakistan, we met with the acting U.S. ambassador, Richard E. Hoagland, who made the fantastic statement that no civilians have been killed by the drones since 2008 (the year Obama became president).  At another time he said the civilian casualties were in the 2 figures.

We also held a meeting with a leading human rights fighter and with Fowzia Siddiqui,  Aafia Siddiqui’s sister.

Aafia Siddiqui is a young Pakistani woman who was educated in the U.S. She did undergraduate work at MIT and got doctorate from Brandeis. She eventually returned to Karachi, Pakistanwhere her family lives. She had 3 children, 2 born in the U.S., making themU.S. citizens. In 2003, Aafia took her 3 children, ages 6 months to 6 years, on a trip to Islamabad and disappeared.  The U.S. and Pakistani government both denied having her in custody.  Five years passed and her family feared she and her children were dead when they got word from a reporter that she was alive and at Bagram Air base in Afghanistan.  NBC news also confirmed this and theU.S. government finally admitted they had her in custody.  She was taken to the U.S. and tried for assaulting a U.S. soldier in Ghazni, Afghanistan while she was in custody waiting to be interrogated. She was convicted and is now serving 86 year in solitary confinement at the notorious Carswell prison in Texas. Her family has had almost no contact with her and have been denied the right to visit. Her son Ahmed, a U.S. citizen, was found in 2008 in Ghazni, Afghanistan. He was then reunited with Aafia’s sister, who heads her defense campaign in Pakistan.  Aafia’s daughter, Maryum, also a U.S. citizen, was mysteriously dropped off in April 2010 near her aunt’s house in Karachi after being missing for 7 years. When dropped off, the only language she knew was English, which she spoke with a perfect American accent.  Aafia’s youngest child, a boy, remains missing and is feared dead.

At night, some of us met with members of the newly formed Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF) chapter of Pakistan.  We had a good discussion.  One of the themes that came out and that I have heard from others progressive people in Pakistan was that maybe the drones are not that bad.  They only hit the “militants” who are violent themselves, and if they were not used, the Pakistani military would have to attack the “militants” and many more would be killed.  We explained our view that the so called “militants” were there because of the war in Afghanistan.  If you want to end the “militant” actions, you need to stop the war.  This theme of the drones not being so bad is one that we heard a number of times in Pakistan from the secular progressive movement who is against the U.S. wars.  People we met from the left, such as the Labour Party of Pakistan (LPP), were clear that they were totally against the drones and the wars but they also held a position against the “militants.”  I had long discussions with them on this.  The secular left and the conservative Islamic movement, while agreeing on the need to fight U.S. imperialism, have been mortal enemies and, at times, have physically battled each other.  Our delegation got a hint of this at a meeting that the LPP set up for our delegation with the Bar Association of Islamabad, which I will report on later in this article.  The people from the LPP whom I spoke with understood why, in the U.S., our focus is totally on US imperialism.

On our second day in Pakistan, I spent a lot of time apart from our delegation.  In the morning, Judy Bello and I spoke at a press conference with Fowzia Siddiqui and people from the Committee of the Disappeared.  As in Latin American under various dictatorships, people inPakistan were disappeared as happened to Aafia Saddiqui. Judy and I spoke at the press conference along with Aafia’s sister, the woman who heads the Committee of the Disappeared and a couple of other people.  There were a lot of media, and they asked a lot of good questions. Outside the press conference, about 100 people, mostly women and children who are family members of the disappeared were waiting for us. We met with them. They wanted to be with us, many were crying.  They carried pictures of their loved ones in the hope that it would help them find them. It was one of those situations where you just feel helpless, and there is nothing that you can say.

After the press conference and our meeting with the disappeared, we met up with the rest of our group and attended a press conference with Imran Khan.  The press conference was huge and had media from all across Pakistan, from the US and around the world.  Medea spoke for our group.

Our tour raised the profile of the drone issue in Pakistan, the U.S. and other places.  It was a big blow to U.S. war policy and put the U.S. on the defensive on this issue.  It happened at the very time that a study from Stanford and NYU and another study from Columbia on the use of drone warfare came out condemning drone warfare.  Since then, there have been a number of articles in the corporate media questioning the use of drones.

On our third day in Pakistan, we met with a number of men who had had family members killed in drone attacks.  They all were from North Waziristan.  Before they came, our hosts told us that they may be uncomfortable in a room with both men and women and may not make eye contact with the women out of respect.  Most of the talking was done by one man who lost his son and a brother in a drone attack.  He was a Malik, a tribal leader.  (On the way back from Waziristan I was able to spend over an hour talking to this man one-on-one.)

According to the introduction to the FATA given by our hosts, these are areas that are part of Pakistan but are autonomous.  They have their own governing bodies.  The highest governing entity is the jirga, which is a meeting of tribal officials.  The main language in Pakistan is Urdu, but in this area the main language is Pashto.  The FATA areas of North and South Waziristan are where the drone strikes have taken place, two-thirds of them in North Waziristan.

We learned that drones fly overhead 24 hours a day.  People are afraid to congregate, fearing they we be seen as a gathering of “militants” and will be attacked.  Children no longer go to school because of fear that they will be attacked.  This has caused a lot of psychological disorders in this area, and for the first time in their communities they are seeing instances of suicide.  At one point, the regional jirga was targeted and 54 people were killed.  Typically, theU.S. and Pakistan don’t give compensation when someone is killed by the drones, but in this case they offered $6,000 for each family.  This is a lot of money for these people, but it was refused by everyone.  They said they want justice, not money.

Also at the meeting was a journalist from North Waziristan who has been documenting the drone strikes.  When there is a strike, he gets notified and goes to the site and records who is killed and takes pictures.  Some of these pictures were blown up and put on our busses as we rode towards Waziristan the following day.  Because of their customs, he is unable to take pictures of women or even record their names, but he has recorded the time and place where 670 women have been killed by the drones.  This is far different than what we heard from the ambassador.  I tend to believe the journalist from North Waziristan rather than our government who lied to us about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

After this meeting, we went with these men from North Waziristan to a rally against drones organized at a close-by shopping area by the youth group of Imran Khan’s Justice Party.

We then went back to our hotel to get ready for our journey north to Waziristanthe following morning.  Before leaving for Waziristan, the U.S. government made one last attempt to stop us.  The ambassador called and told us that they had received “creditable reports” that if we were to go to Waziristan, we would be attacked.  To me, this indicated the power of our march to Waziristan.  All three tribal leaders in South Waziristan wanted us to come.  They said we were their guests and would be protected.  This march included Americans and Pakistanis and was supported by those in the tribal areas.  It indicated that we all want peace, so it raised the question, why do we have war?

On Saturday morning we boarded our busses to meet up with Imran Khan’s convoy to head north.  Almost immediately, everything fell apart.  We were supposed to by right behind Imran Khan, but never quite got into that position. At times on the way north, we seemed to lose the caravan and then would meet up with it again later.  The caravan went through poorer rural areas and beautiful landscapes.  At times when we were separated, our hosts got concerned and asked us to close the curtains on the buses and make sure that the women had their heads covered.

As we passed through towns on the way north, we were met by crowds of members of Imran Khans party.  The convoy stopped at several of these towns and held anti-drone rallies. Because we were not up front near Imran Khan in the convoy, we did not hear or participate in these rallies, but the crowds remained, knowing that our buses would pass by them.  When we did pass them, they cheered and flashed peace signs.

We reached our destination for the night very late, around midnight.  We stayed in the compound of a big farm about 10 km (around 6 miles) from the border with Waziristan.  Outside and inside the compound were crowds of people spending the night, getting ready for the trip across the border.  As we walked from our buses into the compound, we were treated like heroes.  People shouted welcome and peace.  Everyone wanted to take a picture with us.  We were fed a meal at midnight and held a meeting.  Some were concerned that the security that we were supposed to have on our ride north never materialized and wanted to make sure that it was rectified in the morning.

That night we learned that the military had blocked the roads into Waziristan with big storage containers and would not let us cross the border.  They said that this was for our own safety.  Imran Khan was determined to make an effort to cross the border despite the containers.  In the morning he met with our group and leaders of his party, and our hosts encouraged us not to go with him the extra 6 miles to the border.  If we were stopped by the containers, they understood that it would be difficult to turn all the cars in the large caravan around, and there would be a massive traffic jam.

In this situation our safety might be of concern.  Instead, before leaving they organized a big rally at the compound where Imran and Medea spoke to cheering crowds shouting “Welcome,” “Peace,” and “Stop, stop, stop drones attacks.”  This rally was held on October 7, the 11th anniversary of the invasion of Afghanistan as demonstrations were taking place in the U. S. and other parts of the world.

It was understood that the political power of this trip with our delegation had already been achieved, and therefore, the risk was not worth it at this point.  So after the caravan cleared out of the compound heading north, we left and headed south accompanied by a police escort all the way back to Islamabad.

After returning to Islamabad, we did have a follow-up meeting with the Ambassador.  Only six of us, including me, attended this meeting.  We asked him to hear the evidence we had of Pakistani civilian deaths from U.S. drone attacks.  He said he would.  Some people in our group felt the Ambassador opened up to us more on this occasion than is usual.  At times, he asked us to turn off the recording devices so he could say something off the record.  However, he stuck to the line that there were almost no civilian deaths and that if there were, they were anomalies.  I did not have much hope that our talk with the Ambassador would advance our cause at all.

On Tuesday and Wednesday, Judy Bello and I separated from the group to spend a day in Karachi with the Aafia folks and another in Lahore with the LPP folks. When we got off of the plane in Karachi, we were met by a group of people holding a big banner stating, “Welcome to our distinguished guests, Joe Lombardo and Judy Bello.”  We were taken by car to Aafia’s home to meet her mother and children.  All along the road, we saw banners and wall writing in honor of Aafia Siddiqui.  My favorite sign said, “86 years – bullshit.”  At one point, there was a truck in the middle of the road surrounded by people and cars.  The truck had speakers on it that were playing a song sung in Urdu.  It was a popular folk song written about Aafia.  Our car fell in behind the sound truck and started a caravan to Aafia’s house.

As we got closer to Aafia’s home, her entire street had been plastered with huge pictures of demonstrations held across Pakistan and in other countries demanding her release.  There was one picture of a demonstration in Pakistan that we were told was attended by over a million people.

We held a well-attended press conference at Aafia’s house and met her mother and her son and daughter.  As always, they fed us till we could not look at food anymore.

After meeting the family, we were taken to the University of Karachi, where Judy and I spoke to a lecture hall full of students and answered questions. It was a very good exchange, and they were friendly and happy to see us, but the questions brought home once again how much people hate the U.S. government and don’t understand why it does such terrible things.

After the University meeting, we were taken to meet the Pakistani 1%.  We were brought to an exclusive club on the ocean and sat at a table with the big owners of the textile mills and other industries in the industrial city of Karachi.  Aafia’s sister, Fowzia, explained that they hoped to get money from these people for their campaign. These people knew about our delegation and the trip to Waziristan with Imran Khan.  They were very interested in what we had to say, and they too expressed confusion and anger towards the policies of the U.S. government.

On the way back from this meeting, we were taken to a commercial area near the docks.  There we found the sound truck again playing Aafia’s song and a crowd of young men demonstrating for her freedom.  Once again, we were greeted like heroes.  We all got out of the car and marched with the protesters.  We carried lit torches through the streets.

On the last day of our trip, October 10th, we flew to the city of Lahore, near the border with India.

But the meeting had to be cut short because, as the world knows, on this last day of our trip, which had gotten daily headlines in the Pakistani media, a 14 year old girl, Malala Yousufzai, was shot by the Taliban.

Demonstrations against the shooting were quickly organized.  Judy and I attended two of them organized by the LPP and other groups in Lahore.  At the same time, the rest of our group attended a similar demonstration back in Islamabad.

One other incident occurred with our group back in Islamabad while Judy and I were in Lahore.  Lawyers who are members of the LPP organized a meeting for the group at the Bar Association in Islamabad.

There had been some tension among members of the Bar Association, some of it centered around a case that some of the lawyers were defending.  A while ago, the governor of Punjab province came out publicly for getting rid of Pakistan’s blasphemy laws.  After this, he was shot and killed by a police officer.  The police officer was caught and is now on trial.  Some of the conservative lawyers supported the action of the police officer and are defending him.  These lawyers decided that Americans should not come to the Bar Association and tried to block the group.  There was a verbal confrontation but the backed down and the meeting went on over their objection. 

While we were on our way to Waziristan on October 6th and 7the, there was a meeting held in Lahore with 100 representatives of progressive secular groups from Pakistan and Afghanistan.  There were around 80 people from Pakistan and 20 from Afghanistan at this meeting.

The trip to Pakistan was very important, in my opinion, in building the U.S. and Pakistani movement against the drones and the wars.  It showed people in Pakistan that not all Americans are bad.  We got tremendous publicity throughout Pakistan and were even able to break into the U.S. corporate media as well as media around the world.  Drones are now on people’s radar (no pun intended) as never before inside the U.S. and Pakistan.  Our 31 activists can now bring this message of peace and no-drones back to our communities and build a stronger movement.

Code Pink is to be applauded for organizing this trip, and we all need to read Madea Benjamin’s book about drones to further arm ourselves for the struggle ahead.

 

Imran Khan on His Waziristan March Against Drone Attacks

When I first floated the idea of the Peace March to Waziristan, there were many sceptics who were apprehensive as to its impact. But, within a short span of time, I have been amazed at the increase in support that the idea has generated.

There are now tens of thousands of ardent supporters who want to be part of this peace odyssey to protest against a kind of barbarity that has no parallel in the international domain encompassing moral, legal and human benchmarks.

The drone strikes reflect an arrogant mindset that does not distinguish between the guilty and the innocent, between the perpetrator and the afflicted, and between the criminal and the aggrieved. Banishing all trappings of justice, this mindset is criminally oblivious to the sufferings of the peace-loving civilians of the tribal areas.

The strikes leave behind a trail of dead women, dead children and dead old people with no one held accountable. The remote-controlled flying machines are programmed to decimate them all brutally and indiscriminately.

What a shame that a country that was known for its pioneering values and its unparalleled commitment to human freedoms should stoop low to annihilate all symbols of civilised coexistence and, in the process, violate the inherent need for establishing a paradigm whereby one could go after the guilty without making the innocent suffer.

Instead of winning over the hearts and minds of the inhabitants, the US is out to drive fear in every soul that walks the earth and to make people live in awe of the mammoth killing machines that it commands. The strategy is totally counter-productive and, being a warrior race, the people of the tribal areas only end up joining the militants.

A recently-released report by the researchers at the New York University School of Law and Stanford University Law School, titled “Living under Drones: Death, Injury and Trauma to Civilians from US Drone Practices in Pakistan,” states that “the people in the areas targeted by the drone campaign are being systematically terrorised.

It is a campaign of terror-highly effective terror.” The report goes on to say that “the drone campaign terrorises men, women and children” and that “even funerals of drone victims have been targeted.” Forty Maliks holding a jirga were burned in an indiscriminate attack.

Old people and young children have been equally traumatised as a consequence of the inhuman drone campaign which has “discouraged average civilians from coming to one another’s rescue and even inhibited the provision of emergency medical assistance from humanitarian workers.” Along with so many other luminaries around the world, former US president Jimmy Carter has condemned Obama’s drone policy.

Another reprehensible factor is the complicity of the government of Pakistan in these barbaric attacks, of which there are cognisable indications. According to Wikileaks, former PM Gilani approved the US drone strikes saying: “I don’t care if they do it as long as they get the right people. We’ll protest in the National Assembly and then ignore it.”

President Zardari went even further by saying that he did not care about the “collateral damage.” Admiral Mullen, while testifying before a Senate hearing committee headed by Sen Levin, confirmed that the government of Pakistan was on board regarding the drone attacks. The government has failed in its principal responsibility to safeguard the lives and properties of its citizens as enshrined in Article 4 of the Constitution, as well as Pakistan’s security and sovereignty.

Over 40,000 citizens have been sacrificed because the government sold its soul to forces that facilitated its advent into power in Pakistan. Thanks to the ongoing military operation, most of the schools in Waziristan remain closed, depriving a generation of children of the avenues of education.

The road to peace in this part of the world goes through restive Waziristan. In spite of rendering countless sacrifices in the face of indiscriminate and barbaric drone strikes, their resolve remains paramount. While they continue to seek peace, they are not willing to compromise their honour and self-respect, no matter how daunting the challenges that they may have to confront.

The PTI’s Peace March to Waziristan is an effort to recognise the resolve of the people of the area and initiate an international drive to make the dream of peace possible.

Alongside hundreds of thousands of other people, we are joined in this endeavour by the leading human rights activists of the US, including Clive Stafford Smith from Reprieve, former US envoy Mary Ann Wright from Code Pink and Leah Bolger from Veterans for Peace.

They’ll all meet the affectees of the drone campaign and the tribal leaders of Waziristan and see first-hand the kind of trauma and terror that this inhuman campaign has unleashed. This Peace March will also reiterate the resolve that there is no submitting before the barrel of the gun.

At a different level, the PTI’s Peace March is also an effort to end the alienation of the people of Waziristan who have been unjustly bracketed with the bands of extremists.

The true face of their inheritance and the proud traditions that they are the custodians of should be brought forth to the notice of the people of the world so that they could together pursue the dream of peace with honour. This will happen once we disengage from this so-called “war on terror.”

That’s when Pakistan will no longer be perceived as fighting the US war and the local militants will stop thinking of the conflict as a jihad against foreign intervention. Peace will come when the tribal people, in the hundreds and thousands, move over to our side and then proceed to take care of a few thousand militants.

The drone strikes constitute a flawed policy which has only increased anti-US feelings and extremism in Pakistan. The US has tried to subjugate the proud people of the area by using all its killer machines, but has failed. That’s why it is now contemplating withdrawal from Afghanistan by 2014.

I believe that the date should be advanced substantially so that the US is able to avoid leaving behind an unmistakable trail of animosity that may continue to haunt it for generations.

The PTI Peace March will provide the US a chance to change course that will not only benefit the people of the area, but also the US in nullifying considerably the hate-filled legacy that it has nurtured for over a decade of inhuman presence here.

Together, let’s all give peace a chance – a genuine chance!

Ways to Eliminate Terrorism From Pakistan

Addressing the 65th Independence Day parade at the Pakistan Military Academy Kakul in Abbottabad, General Ashfaq Pervez Kayani underlined the need for uprooting terrorism.

Pakistan Army Chief, General Kayani said, “We will have to put the past behind us and look ahead, no one is perfect, everyone made mistakes, some less and some more”. General Kayani also emphasised that “the army cannot succeed in its endeavours against terrorists without support of the people”. It was an indication that terrorists did enjoy support from within, besides getting enormous funds from outside – a fact which is now well-established.

General Kayani, while making out the difference between extremism and terrorism at length, expressed the concern of the armed forces about the dire situation in the country, deteriorating state of the economy, bad governance, corruption, lack of civic amenities and the host of other issues, made the following significant points in his Independence Day speech:

• Pakistan can only prosper if all the institutions of the state, including the executive, the judiciary and the legislature work together in unity.

• If militancy is not eliminated, the country will be at risk of civil war.

• No state can afford a parallel military apparatus, or a system of government.

• The most difficult task for any army is to fight against its own people. But this happens as a last resort. Our real objective is to restore peace in the troubled areas so that people can lead normal lives. The ultimate solution is political settlement.

• The fight against extremism and terrorism is our own war and we are right in fighting it. Let there be no doubt about it, otherwise we will be divided and taken towards civil war.

• The war against extremism and terrorism is not one that should be fought by the army alone. It is imperative that the entire nation is united in this context, because the army can only be successful with the co-operation of the people.

• Special laws should be enacted to deal with the terrorists as was done by other states facing this grim challenge.

• No country can afford to live in instability, thus it is important that everyone follows the rule of law – principles by the Constitution and laws made thereunder.

It may be remembered that General Kayani’s speech was delivered in the backdrop of a statement of US Defence Secretary, Leon Panetta, that “Pakistan has assured US officials that it will attack militants in North Waziristan”.

There has been long-standing US insistence and demands for a “Pakistani ground offensive in this area”. According to US, the region – close to the Afghan border-is the hub of Taliban and al Qaeda activity. Nick Childs, BBC defence and security correspondent, in his analysis observed: “But, in some ways, the issue of what to do in the tribal areas is becoming more critical as the clock ticks down towards the end of the US and NATO combat mission in Afghanistan. The same is also likely to be true of the US/Pakistani security relationship”.

General Kayani later said that “no final decision is yet taken for military operation in North Waziristan”. Earlier a series of meetings were held between General Kayani and his US counterpart General John Allen.

According to analysts, the recent visit of new ISI Chief to US was also important to remove “misunderstandings” prevailing in relations between intelligence networks of both the countries.

The US government officials and analysts keep on accusing ISI for supporting the Haqqani Network and some other “sympathetic” groups. This needs to end now. Pakistan must come up with a firm and consistent policy and demonstrate to the world what General Kayani has uttered at length and discussed widely in columns and media talk shows. The uprooting of terrorism should be our first national challenge and top priority, if we have to survive and progress. The process should also not to be selective as well; it must be across the board – all religious outfits have to be banned to take part in politics as was done by Bangladesh in 2010, in the wake of the judgement of its Supreme Court and no party or group should be allowed to use religion for politicking.

Pakistan, as General Kayani pointed out with great concern, is facing the most critical phase of its existence due to rise of militancy, extremism and insurgency, besides complete failure of state organs to deliver.

Conflicts of all sorts — economic, political, judicial, social, regional, ethnic and religious — are multiplying and intensifying.

This is a logical outcome of the wrong policies of the past and present, lack of governance at all levels and clash of institutions controlled by vested interests. Though General Kayani has rightly stressed the need to “look ahead”, but forgetting the past and not learning any lessons from history—keep on repeating the same mistakes time and again — would not help to define and shape the desired future either.

We lost our East Wing (Mushraqi Pakistan) in 1971 due to the sheer short-sightedness and highhandedness of the ruling military junta and its political cronies. Tragically, no one was punished. On the contrary, the populist political party of the day decorated the key persons behind this shameful dismemberment, awarded them state lands and even gave them high political posts in the PPP. In the wake of that humiliating defeat, no war tribunal was constituted and the military complex was allowed to flourish with even greater zeal. The powerful military soon joined hands with the mullahs [clergy that is financed by tajirs (traders)]  and forced Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto to push Pakistan towards a theocratic state — his announcements after meeting the head of Jamaat-i-Islami at Zaildar Park, Ichhra, Lahore, were grave political mistakes that destroyed the secular character of the 1973 Constitution.

On July 5, 1977, Ziaul Haq, strongly supported by religious parties, overthrew the elected government, and later eliminated his benefactor Zulfikar Ali Bhutto in connivance with the judiciary — a judicial murder without any doubt. Zia’s 11-year-rule brought “Islamic McCarthyism” to Pakistan, instigating witch-hunts and eliminating political opponents on the allegation of being ladeen (infidels). He was a US stooge and supported its proxy war by hiring mercenaries (dubbed as Mujahideen) against erstwhile USSR. Our problems of terrorism, drugs and arms spring from that era—this legacy of Ziaul Haq is still haunting us. General Kayani must be aware of it and one hopes doing something to undo it.

Both Pakistan and Bangladesh since 1971 have been facing multiple problems in establishing democratic institutions. Bangladesh witnessed many military coups and counter-coups, but luckily in politics, the junta kept its distance from the mullah. In Pakistan, the military-mullah onslaughts, using religion as a tool for Jihad in Afghanistan, Kashmir and elsewhere have torn apart the very fabric of this society and the process is still going on. Perhaps General Kayani referred to this mistake in his speech—at least one hopes so as in Pakistan, the army has no tradition of confessions. If it is true, it would be important to see what action is taken against Hafiz Saeed Ahmad and many of his likes, who stress and practice the use of arms against kafirs (infidels) and spread hatred against neighbouring states.

Certainly, like all other nations we have a right of defence if victim of outside aggression and for this purpose, we are maintain a large army and are spending billions every year to safeguard our boundaries. But acts of terrorism by our own Jihadi  (holy warriors) and militant groups across the border or on internal military civil targets undermine the authority of the state and earn titles like ‘terrorist state’ and ‘hub of militants’. Such actions and utterances by militants groups and their support by religious parties and organisations are the main stumbling block in the way of the peace process with all neighbours — Afghanistan, India and Iran, even now China has started accusing us of attacks by Muslim separatist in Kashgar and elsewhere. We have every right to ask for a just solution of Kashmir and Afghanistan free of foreign occupation, but it should be done by the government, using established international norms and not by militant groups resorting to cross border armed assaults.

Since the time of bringing religion into politics, Pakistan has been facing a perpetual crises of all sorts, bigotry being the worst amongst them. The increasing role of the clergy in politics is culminating in genocide of the minority Shia sect and forced conversion of people of other faiths. If this trend is not countered immediately, Pakistan may lose the battle for survival, especially due to the increasing insurgency in Balochistan which is the direct result of military operations, highlighting the failure of leadership to settle the issues politically through negotiations — why can’t the provinces be given the full autonomy, with the Centre keeping only four subjects: Defence, Currency, Foreign Affairs and Communications. Why are outlawed religious entities, openly killing Shias, not dealt with the same iron hand in Balochistan as nationalists by FC and other paramilitary law enforcement agencies? This question baffles many minds.

Economically in deep trouble and politically shaken, Pakistan really needs unity as pleaded by General Kayani. But it should not be a mere cliché or rhetoric. Is our political and military leadership capable of understanding the root-cause of the problems created by them since the inception of Pakistan? Do they have viable solutions and the necessary consensus for them? Are they willing to forge unity on fundamental issues rising above petty party and institutional interests? Are they ready to reform all State institutions and forgo their elitist characters? These are the fundamental questions that need to be addressed. Secondly, unity cannot be forged with the use of force in Balochistan or elsewhere, or without establishing a just socio-economic order. If the elite is not ready to provide even basic facilities to the weak and poor how can it even think of achieving unity? People are denied fundamental rights and are exploited ruthlessly. About 85% resources of the country are enjoyed by the ruling elite — indomitable military complex, high-ranking civil bureaucracy, businessmen-cum-turned politicians — and yet we talk about unity. National unity cannot be forged against terrorists unless we make Pakistan an egalitarian and secular state.

Our leadership has acted irresponsibly throughout history, culminating in what is today a country driven by hate. Wages of bigotry are now showing its ugliest tentacles, where zealots are taking the lives of fellow citizens in the name of religion. After 63 years of nationhood, there is mayhem, chaos, anarchy and total collapse”. Nobody took notice of our warning. On the contrary, our highest Court has also started bringing “religion” in its written orders. Terrorism cannot be viewed in isolation. It is a mindset. It is not restricted to militant groups; it also manifests in the thinking of people and becomes lethal when employed by those who take vital decisions for nations. We cannot term terrorism as an issue simpliciter – militancy and extremism are just some of its dimensions. We cannot analyse it in isolation. The rise of terrorism is intrinsically linked with an unjust world order (called globalism and the New World Order by neocons), bigotry, violence and intolerance. In Pakistan, it has a direct connection with our history that is the role played by civil-military leadership and institutions controlled by them.

The military-mullah-tajir alliance (many allege that it was sponsored by the CIA to make a horrible example of Bhutto in Kissinger’s words for his insistence to continue with the nuclear programme) in the form of Nizam-e-Mustafa campaign against Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto in 1977, laid the grounds for sectarian and communal warfare all over the country. The 1980s and the 1990s witnessed sectarian violence that spilled over the borders of religious belief into those that separate political ideologies, as well as ethnic, racial, linguistic and tribal identities. It undermined an assiduously nurtured, barely credible, Pakistani nationalism and breathed fresh life into separatist movements. Unfortunately, the situation is persisting since then, in fact going from bad to worse every day. Those at the helm of affairs, as mentioned by General Kayani, will have to take remedial measures without wasting any time, if we have to halt further disaster and destruction of our society.

According to many rightist thinkers, the two-nation theory, based on the foundation of religious divide of Hindus and Muslims, was the real motive behind partition of the Sub-continent. The radical camp argues that economic interests of Muslim feudal class paved the way for the establishment of Pakistan. While this debate will continue, the fact remains that proponents of two-nation theory received an irrecoverable setback when the Bengalis, maltreated by the ruling elite of West Pakistan, decided to part ways.

Division of Pakistan — in fact further sub-division of the Sub-continent — proved that economic interests have always played a decisive role in politics. Religion has been just one of the ploys used by schemers to achieve political and economic gains for perpetuation of their control. Abuse of religion by military dictators, vested interests and their cronies in the wake of partition of the Sub-continent played havoc in both the eastern and western wings of Pakistan.

Dr Ajeet Jawed in ‘Secular and Nationalist Jinnah‘ has presented incontrovertible documents that Quaid-i-Azam never wanted to make Pakistan a theocratic state. Throughout his political career, Muhammad Ali Jinnah struggled against both Hindu and Muslim extremists. After independence, the feudal class with the help of its cronies – the bureaucrats, clergymen and men in khaki — managed to hijack the new state and for their selfish motives, converted it into the so-called Islamic Republic — a mere nomenclature whereas the entire system remains Anglo-Saxon. Islam does not permit sectarian divisions, feudalism, economic exploitation, theocracy and authoritarianism. The main stress of Islam is on the empowerment of the have-nots and creation of an egalitarian welfare state — this aim is also enshrined in 1973 Constitution that lost its value after insertion of so-called Islamic provisions by General Ziaul Haq as self-styled Shariat Court declared lands reforms of Bhutto’s era as Un-Islamic.

From the very beginning, the vested interests in Pakistan tampered with the famous speech of the Quaid, but failed to do so as Dr Ajeet revealed in his book: “it was allowed to be published in full only after Dawn’s editor, Altaf Husain, threatened those who were trying to tamper with it to go to Jinnah himself if the press advice was not withdrawn”. For building a democratic Pakistan, Dr Ajeet writes, Quaid sought the help of Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan, because, as he said in his letter to Badshah Khan, he was “surrounded by thieves and scoundrels” through whom he could do nothing. With credible evidence, Dr Ajeet has established that the Quaid remained an anti-theocracy and constitutionalist democrat up to the last moment of his life.

The ideas of the Quaid echoed in the decision of the Bangladesh Supreme Court in 2010 rather than in any judgement of the apex Court of remaining Land of the Pure. Bangladesh’s Supreme Court barred the use of religion in politics and reaffirmed the ideology of the founder fathers. It restored the original constitution of the People’s Republic of Bangladesh. In the wake of this verdict, the Election Commission of Bangladesh on January 26, 2010 asked the three Islamic parties — Jamaat-i-Islami, Bangladesh Khelafat Andolan and Tarikat Federation — to amend their charters being in conflict with the supreme law of the country. Just as the Quaid was betrayed by the feudal class in his party, the founding father of Bangladesh met the same fate. Sheikh Mujib’s Awami League gave the nation its first constitution within one year of independence, based on four cardinal principles – secularism, nationalism, socialism and democracy. Bangladesh became the third major Muslim country to officially embrace secularism after Turkey and Tunis.

Successor of Sheikh Mujib, Moshtaque Khondkar, selected Chief Justice, Abu Sadat Mohammad Sayem, as President. Deriving power through martial law proclamations, he abolished secularism from the constitution by amending Article 38. Lifting the ban on religion-based politics paved the way for theocratic parties to campaign in the name of religion. Abu Sadat transferred powers to Ziaur Rehman on November 26, 1976 after a deal that he would indemnify his illegal take-over, all actions taken between August 15, 1975 and April 9, 1979, passing of the Fifth Amendment that ratified martial law proclamations including the desecularisation of the constitution. Ziaur Rehman was assassinated at the hands of junior army officers and General Ershad took over the control, declaring martial law on March 24, 1982.

General Ershad, like General Ziaul Haq of Pakistan, used religion for the perpetuation of his unlawful rule — Islam was made the state religion. In the wake of popular democratic movement, the military rule came to an end and democracy was restored in 1991. In 1996, the Awami League once again won elections and abrogated all the unconstitutional amendments to sanction the trial of the assassins of Mujibur Rehman. In 2005, the Fifth Amendment was struck down by the High Court. The Court emphasised secularism as the guiding state policy. The Court held that religious non-discrimination, protection for all faiths, even for non-believers, should be the main responsibility of the State. It explained that secularism means ensuring religious tolerance and freedom of faith without any favour or discrimination. The Court, in unequivocal terms, condemned actions of the military junta to convert secular Bangladesh into a theocratic state. Our apex Court and Parliament on the contrary, validated all acts of General Ziaul Haq taken in the name of Islam that mutilated the supreme law of the land.

The court’s ruling was contested by Bangladesh National Party (BNP), led by Ziaur Rehman’s widow, Khalida Zia. The Court granted a stay order that was ultimately vacated on January 3, 2010. Resultantly, original Article 38 of the Constitution became operative barring the use of religion or communal connotations in politics. This was termed as a major development not only in Bangladesh but in the entire Muslim world. Secularism requires that at the State level there should be no propagation of religion — it should be the personal matter of citizens. The clergy in Pakistan and elsewhere and many rightist thinkers not knowing the real import and historical evolution of the word “secularism” dub it as kufar or ladeeniat, whereas in historic perspective it only signifies separation of clergy from running of state affairs.

In Pakistan and elsewhere in the Muslim world, religion has become a tool in the hands of the vested-interest. The mushroom growth of so-called Islamic political parties is a cause for concern for all. These parties, backed by forces of obscurantism, exploit the masses in the name of Islam. Their power base is not masses but religious schools (madrasahs) that also serve as recruitment centres for militants. Militants are their front men, terrorism is their weapon and they themselves are the pawns of neo-imperialism. Late Neo-colonialists want to keep the Muslims in the dark ages and use the forces of obscurantism effectively for this purpose. In the face of these realities, the Supreme Court of Bangladesh took a bold stand and upheld High Court’s ruling delivered in 2005 declaring the Fifth Amendment in the constitution unlawful that allowed religion-based politics, not envisaged by the framers of the original document. Since we have not done this, the difference between Islamic Republic of Pakistan and People’s Republic of Bangladesh since 1971 is clear — before that both were one country.

Article 41 of the Constitution of Bangladesh guarantees freedom of religion. The same position prevails under Articles 20, 21 and 22 of 1973 Constitution of Pakistan that guarantees religious freedom for all, no taxation of a person for the propagation or maintenance of any religion other than his own and safeguards as to educational institutions in respect of religion. In the presence of these Constitutional provisions, there should be no room for religious-based politics and parties in Pakistan as is the case in Bangladesh. The concept of the theocratic state is alien to the injunctions of holy Quran — the clergy-monarch model of the West before modern democracy though is still prevalent in many so-called Muslim state. These are Muslim states and not states based on Quranic ‘consultative model’ that eliminates divisions and ensures true representation of all the stakeholders for taking collective decisions. The clergy-brand ‘Islam’ creates divisions, rather than unity of Ummah, which is the central message of the holy Quran.

The verdict of Bangladesh Supreme Court restoring the true character of the country’s Constitution promises progress and democratisation of the society and sets a good example for other Muslim states, especially for today’s Pakistan. It is high time that legislators restore the original Constitution of Pakistan and remove the patchwork made by military dictators to hoodwink the people in the name of Islam to perpetuate their undemocratic rule. The Quranic concept of governance is on a much higher pedestal compared to western democracy as it gives no immunity to the head of State. Quran emphasises that decisions should be taken by consultation and not by imposition as propagated by the clergy. True Islamic democracy is essentially an anti-thesis of theocracy. An overwhelming Muslim State, Bangladesh, has proved it! If Pakistan wants to come out of the prevailing mess, it should follow suit, otherwise we cannot get rid of terrorism and bigotry.

The above was the domestic perspective and suggested remedies may be considered by all the stakeholders in the wake of General Kayani’s speech. From the international perspective, the challenge is also grim. It is closely linked with our policy to follow the US and its allies without any meaningful public debate and reaching national consensus. The policy option may be right, but it lacks support of the people. The anti-American sentiment in Pakistan is essentially due to the fact that US always supported military regimes and gave funds to elite and fundamentalists rather that for the welfare of the masses. Secondly, the policies of the US, especially the undue favour to Israel and support of unpopular Muslim rulers, have always been viewed as unjust in global context, which is also a dominant factor for anti-Americanism in Pakistan.

Since 2001, the United States and its allies are engaged in ‘war on terror’ (sic) without much success. The recent reports of negotiations with Mullah Omar are shocking — after 13 years of war spending trillions of dollars of taxpayers, instead of uprooting the causes of terrorism, the mighty States are bowing before the merchants of death. The obscurantists want to impose their way of life on others. They are giving permits to paradise to their followers and condemning to hell their opponents. This thinking is the root-cause of conflict. They have no jurisdiction to pass such edicts — Allah in Quran has not delegated any such authority to anybody. It is self-assumed jurisdiction which, if not surrendered voluntarily or taken away from them by law, will keep on creating fas’ad-fil-ardh — the Quranic term for disorder on Earth. It is termed by Allah as the most heinous crime against humanity and the State is ordained to punish miscreants with full force. General Kayani is right in saying that as a nation we must unite on this point and collectively work to defeat terrorists. For lack of consensus and the support of certain elements for militants, as pointed out by General Kayani, Pakistan is suffering. But then General Kayani will have to assure all the concerned that there is no support for these elements within ISI.

General Kayani in his speech aptly pointed out that it was the duty of all the States to counter terrorism. In the aftermath of 9/11, use of force by US and its allies against innocent civilians is as condemnable as are the unabated shameful attacks all over the world by terrorists – both posing great threat to global peace. The war against al Qaeda and the Taliban (who enjoying networking with many Jihadi groups—having hubs in Afghanistan, Pakistan and elsewhere, however, cannot be won unless their financial lifeline is destroyed. These networks, in the name of religion, are minting enormous money, even if it comes from organised crime. This aspect needs proper investigation and debate. Since al Qaeda and its allied groups have not been uprooted financially, they are becoming stronger, using money power. The questions that irk everybody’s mind are:

• Where do these terrorists get so much money from?

• Why are the governments not serious in cracking down on the unlawful transfer of funds?

• If banking channels are used, then why can’t remitters and recipients be traced?

• If hawala and hundi are used for unlawful cross border transfer of funds, why are persons engaged in these unlawful activities are not arrested and punished?

• Who are financing these terrorist networks?

• Who provides these terrorists with sophisticated arms and military training?

It is a well-established fact that the terrorist networks remit millions of dollars every year from bank accounts maintained in various countries in fictitious names. This money in their hands makes them invincible.

According to James Petras, Professor of Sociology, Binghamton University, New York, there is a consensus among the US congressional investigators, former bankers and international banking experts that the US and the European banks launder between $500 billion and $1 trillion of dirty money each year, half of which is laundered by the US banks alone. These yearly inflows surpass all the net transfers by the major US oil producers, military industries and aircraft manufacturers. The biggest US banks derive a high percentage of their banking profits from serving these criminal and dirty money accounts. The big US banks and key institutions sustain the US global power via their money laundering and managing of illegally obtained overseas funds. The first thing to note about the money-laundering business, whether criminal or corrupt, is that the most important banks in the US carry it out. Secondly, the practices of bank officials involved in money laundering have the backing of the highest level of these banking institutions.

All the big banks specialising in international fund transfer are called money centre banks, some of the biggest, process up to $1 trillion in wire transfers a day. For the billionaire criminals, an important feature of the correspondent relationship is that they provide access to international transfer systems — that facilitate the rapid transfer of funds across international boundaries and within countries. The most recent estimates (2011) are that 90 offshore jurisdictions around the world licensed about 9,000 offshore banks that control approximately $85 trillion in assets. This is the ground reality whereas we daily hear from official quarters in USA, and elsewhere, big claims about the ‘War on Terror’ (sic). This is all eyewash! In reality, all the financial institutions and even the State structure are subservient to these billionaires. The ruthless arms and drug barons, who know how to move money from one part of the world to another, buy government functionaries, control politicians, law enforcement officials and use terrorists to cripple the State structures.

The US government knows how trillions are laundered through banks in America, yet it does not take any action. The reason is obvious: it would dismantle its economic might. Professor James Petras in ‘Enormous By Any Measure’ has revealed that “Washington and the mass media have portrayed the US as being in the forefront of the struggle against narco-trafficking, drug laundering and political corruption: the image is of clean white hands fighting dirty money. The truth is exactly the opposite. US banks have developed a highly elaborate set of policies for transferring illicit funds to the US, investing those funds in legitimate businesses or US government bonds and legitimating them. The US Congress has held numerous hearings, provided detailed exposés of the illicit practices of the banks, passed several laws and called for stiffer enforcement by any number of public regulators and private bankers. Yet the biggest banks continue their practices, the sum of dirty money grows exponentially, because both the State and the banks have neither the will nor the interest to put an end to the practices that provide high profits and buttress an otherwise fragile empire”.

The official stance of US is that it has taken steps against terrorist networks. Recently, the US Department of the Treasury targeted the financial and support networks of al Qaida, the Taliban and the Haqqani Network leadership by designating Said Jan ‘Abd Al-Salam and Khalil Al-Rahman Haqqani, two Afghan individuals, as Specially Designated Global Terrorists (SDGTs) under Executive Order (E.O.) 13224. Al-Salam was designated for acting for or on behalf of al Qaida and for providing support to the Taliban; and Haqqani was designated for acting for or on behalf of the Taliban, for providing support to al Qaida and for acting for or on behalf of Sirajuddin Haqqani. As a result of this action, US persons are prohibited from engaging in any transactions with these individuals, and any assets they hold under US jurisdiction have been frozen. “Khalil Al-Rahman Haqqani, who is among the Haqqani Network’s most important figures and fundraisers, and Said Jan ‘Abd Al-Salam have engaged in activities in support of the Taliban and al Qaida,” said Under-Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence Stuart Levey. “These actions exposes two consequential sources of financial and tactical support for these terrorist organisations and is part of a larger US and international effort to degrade their capabilities,” claimed Stuart Levey. But the reality is that many banks are still providing facilities to these and other groups – latest report by Peter Gretchen, http://www.ctc.usma.edu/posts/haqqani-network-financing.

Many militant groups in Afghanistan and Pakistan, in the garb of “Islamic ideology,” are engaged in criminal activities: from smuggling to kidnappings, narco trade to arm deals. They are not only fascist in their outlook but are also money-hungry. Terrorism is their main tool to capture power for more money and control. Terrorism, like fascism, is a self-destructive ideology. To fight terrorism, it is necessary to understand it. Wishful thinking about military might and invincible air-strike-power (drone etc) will not help to win the war against something that relates to human behaviour and lust for money and quest for control. Use of ill-directed force against a few groups without eliminating the main causes leading to “terrorism”, would be merely a self-defeating exercise.

There are vested interests that want to push mankind towards the dark ages when inalienable fundamental rights were denied by the authoritarian rulers. There are debates inside the US and elsewhere, pinpointing to the erosion of civil liberties on a massive scale in the name of defending the ‘Frontiers of Freedom’. Terrorism, surfaced as a reaction towards growing “fascism” on the part of certain states, and is a human problem, which needs to be understood in its sociological perspective. The analysis of the character structure of a man is at the core of understanding the rising phenomena of extremism, fascism, fanaticism, fundamentalism and terrorism [which includes state terrorism].

The economic imbalances within a society as well as globally, revival of religious movements (primarily a camouflage to manifest certain political aims) and imposition of will of the mighty on the weak, all culminated in the shape of 9/11 in 2001 and events thereafter, which have created world-wide turmoil and unleashed a reign of fear. Behind this trail of terrorism is dirty business – drug trade, human trafficking, smuggling, kidnapping for ransom, arms trade and all other activities relating to organised crime. This aspect of terrorism has been well-documented by Gretchen Peters in her brilliantly-researched book, Seeds of Terror and now in her latest report titled ‘Haqqani Network Financing’. Earlier, we exposed this horrific aspect of the ‘Jihadi bonanza’ in Pakistan: Drug-trap to Debt-trap, sequel to Pakistan: From Hash to Heroin.

Freedom of expression per se has been considered as sufficient fulfillment of the need to achieve a democratic society. The fallout of this fulfillment appears to be a misconceived notion on the part of individuals and groups that freedom of speech ipso facto gives them an authority or a license to impose their own ideas on others using money, media, power and physical force as means. They are not only intolerant towards others’ views, but also suffer from the misconception that their ideas are the only truth through which the world can be changed into a wonderful place. The terrorists, engaged in criminal activities, profess self-assumed ideological obligations as the only way of life and the so-called defenders of freedom are of the view that they hold the ultimate truth. Neither side is ready to open a dialogue. Both the sides have a non-comprising attitude when matter comes to money and control, camouflaged under some ideology.

Lack of responsibility on the part of the powerful to be fair towards the powerless has converted our world into a place full of misery, destruction and unhappiness. General Kayani, General John Allen are not political decision-makers but they must realise that the frustration of the powerless has always been taken advantage of by criminals – they use their anger and deprivation that vents in the form of ghastly acts of terrorism and destruction. If we want to change this situation drastically, a balance has to be struck between the powerful and the powerless. If a large segment of the world lives in a state of powerlessness, the powerful will always remain the target of hatred and attack. The powerful want to transform human beings into a machine where all cogs function as per command of the master. Human beings are not machine cogs — they find ways to develop all sorts of malfunctioning, depriving the master of his absolute control.

Highhandedness on the part of the powerful and tactics adopted (e.g. imposing economic sanctions etc) cannot win the war against fundamentalism and terrorism. The oppressed and powerless have their peculiar ways of reacting, which by no means can be expected to be according to the norms of internationally agreed principles or legal norms. Their destructive tendencies (suicide bombings) are symptomatic of a sick world order.

Our world is fast emerging as an authoritarian state reminiscent of fascist systems of the last century’s practices in Germany and Italy where the dominant role of the authority in the social and political structure rested with the dictators. The Anatomy of Human Destructiveness, a remarkable book by the great psychologist and thinker Erich Fromm, should be read by all the world leaders, especially those heading the powerful states in G-8, to understand the basis of the ongoing conflicts giving rising to terrorism. Terrorism cannot be supported on any ground whatsoever, but economic exploitation is equally unjustifiable.

Revival of dictatorial state orders in the name of security needs is a step towards a fascist world order. On the global level, there are now open expressions of superior and inferior statuses while entering into relations with different states and blind admiration of the unipolar force. This is like pushing the entire world to Ground Zero. In devising military strategies to fight forces of fanaticism and terrorism, the people at the helm of affairs should not overlook the human side of the whole problem. Freedom and democracy are inseparable. The right to express one’s thoughts clearly means something only if we are able to have thoughts of our own. If the media and state machinery is shaping everybody’s thoughts, then where does freedom of expression exist? If one does not have his own thoughts what does democracy mean? If the shape of the world is to be determined by a handful of people, having known economic interests [who want to redesign oil and political maps], then what is the need of freedom for the common man? In the wake of 9/11, there is skepticism and cynicism towards everything.

James Petras and Dr Henry Veltmeyer in their book ‘Globalisation unmasked: Imperialism in the 21st Century’ have remarkably exposed the tactics of the imperialists in the 21st century. They argue that “globalisation is propagated not to bring a better and more just world to the masses of the people but, as has always been the case with imperialism, to advance the interests of those who already enjoy power and privilege”. They have concluded that “anodyne rhetoric of ‘globalisation,’ ‘markets,’ ‘democracy,’ and other pleasant and apparently neutral terms, conceals realities that are far better understood within the framework of imperialism and class conflict”. The wide-ranging and penetrating inquiry by Petras and Veltmeyer provides insight into the core structural features of the evolving forms of domination and control, their severe human costs, and the popular resistance engendered. This book is a contribution of unusual value for those who hope not only to understand the world, but also to change it, drastically, for the better. Fighting terrorism is a global issue and requires deep understanding of the prevailing unjust world economic order.

Looked at superficially, people in various societies may appear to be functioning satisfactorily in their economic and social life: yet it would be dangerous to overlook the deep-seated unhappiness behind that comforting veneer. Loss of substantial human lives in brutal attacks in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, India or elsewhere and the atrocities committed by drone bombings in various parts of the country, resulting in the death of innocent civilians are interlinked, painful action-reaction chain. Human despair in the wake of these gruesome happenings is not an isolated individual experience of a community, but a world-wide feeling on a political scale where dominant thought is losing freedom at the individual level at the hands of the forces of obscurantism and fanaticism, which lack sanity and respect for human life. Those who are encountering it with military might are equally mindless of the fact that suppression of individuals and governments cannot win any agenda against terrorism. One hopes that Obama, Hillary, General John Allen and Leon Panetta are mindful of it.

Erich Fromm in Free of Freedom rightly concluded, “The victory over all kinds of authoritarian systems will be possible only if democracy does not retreat but takes the offensive and proceeds to realise what has been its aim in the minds of those who fought for freedom the last centuries. It will be triumph over the forces of nihilism only if it can imbue people with a faith that is the strongest that the human mind in capable of, the faith in life and in truth, and in freedom as the active and spontaneous realisation of the individual self.” The same is true for victory against terrorism. In order to secure triumph over the forces of destruction and disruption, General Kayani has righty stressed that “the people will have to unite” to express faith in life and its respect. It is the government’s duty to protect the lives of the citizens, but larger responsibility lies on all political parties and civic organisations to educate and convince their followers of faith in life, freedom and truth as the active and spontaneous realisation of the individual self.

Humanization of world societies is the only effective tool to eliminate terrorism. Use of force and denial of peoples’ legitimate rights on the contrary, is bound to increase extremism and fundamentalism that may lead to more terrorist assaults around the world. The violent incidents in Syria, Egypt, Libya, Bahrain, Iran, India, Afghanistan, Spain, England, Ireland, Iraq, Palestine, Chechnya and elsewhere testify to this. Use of force or the right of pre-emptive strikes is only a short-term solution. In the long-term, the governments of the world will have to sit down and chalk out a comprehensive strategy to ensure that miscreants are dealt with a strong hand without disturbing the peace and tranquillity of individual societies and the world as a whole. We need to stress humanism in Pakistan, but it can only be practised if there is true democratic polity with responsible governance, judicial propriety and justice for all, an end to bigotry, authoritarianism, exploitation and injustice. Humanism, it needs to be emphasised, can be an effective tool to defeat global terrorism and restore world peace provided a Just World Order is established and hegemony of the few over resources and politics is abolished.