Loud Thinking

Archive for the ‘Politics’ Category

In order to neutralize Indian double game, Pakistan must emphasize that ICP (integrated check post) working at Wagah border can’t be allowed (for which India & USA are dying to start its working to allow flow of 2000 trucks per day movement from present rate of 200 trucks per day movement) till such time India restores full fledged cricketing ties with Pakistan (as per the commitment of MMS) and must first send Indian cricket team to Pakistan, for a full fledged tour of 3 Tests, 5 ODI’s & 3 T20 matches series.

We must understand that why even after the commitment of MM Singh with our PM last year in Mohali, for the restoration of cricketing ties between the two countries, what are the Indian motives to back out on their commitment? If they can back out, we can also do the same and this must be very clearly told by our PM to Barack Obama (who has a big stake in restoration of India -Afghanistan trade link through Pakistan, in facilitating India as per the US end game plan of Afghan war), when he meets him in the next few days.

First, they sent terrorists to attack Srilankan team players and then blame us on security issues. Enough is enough. If security for players is an issue, then let it be an issue also for the Indian goods and transports going to and fro to Afghanistan.

Now it’s high time this joke with Pakistan, is stopped forthwith.

Daily the Nation reported today under a head line, that “Pak nuclear asset unsafe as its military penetrated by extremists: Gingrich” link :-http://nation.com.pk/pakistan-news-newspaper-daily-english-online/Politics/08-Dec-2011/Pak-nuclear-asset-unsafe-as-its-military-penetrated-by-extremists-Gingrich

In this regard,  Leading Republican Presidential candidate Newt Gingrich has reported to have said that the Pakistani Army is so penetrated by extremist elements, its nuclear assets of about 100 weapons are not safe.

Mr. N Gingrich should leave the phobia of Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal and purge his own military killing machine, which has killed in recent years, millions of Muslims in Iraq, Afghanistan & Pakistan, on the wrong inte…lligence of WMD’s (as admitted by Bush, Blair and Powel) and false war on terror.

America has specialized in killings of innocent Muslims and the latest example is it’s attack on Pakistani check post on 26/11, at Pak-Afghan border killing our 28 troops, who were there to protect American and NATO soldiers, from the attacks of Taliban.

This has reference to the news published on November 04, 2011 in the daily “Pakistan Today” under the heading ” Pakistan going after extremists will be a ‘real wild card’: Rice” Link :-  http://www.pakistantoday.com.pk/2011/11/pakistan-going-after-extremists-will-be-a-real-wild-card-rice/

Ms Condoleezza Rice let me tell you that your words Calling Pakistan “a continuing problem” for both the US and Afghanistan are very offensive, uncalled for and an insult for a nation, who gave more sacrifices in men and material, than combined losses of 49 NATO countries, fighting your sown and harvested terrorism in Afghanistan.

And don’t forget Ms C. Rice that Pakistan and this region is suffering, just because your agencies failed to stop 9/11 plotters, who got training in aeroplane flying right inside your country; and none of them belonged to Pakistan.

America has a habit of waging wars on innocent people on false pretexts.

We in Pakistan wonder, what wrong we have done over the last 64 years, in looking after your needs and helping you as a friend e.g. in Korean war era under various pacts, allowing overflights for your U2 planes to spy over USSR, connecting USA with China, bringing down USSR in Afghanistan war in 80s, saving American soldiers from being lynched by Somalian war lords, saving US staff from burning Islamabad Embassy,  making America a single super power and fighting so called American war on terror  imposed on this region that too because of sheer incompetence of US intelligence agencies, in stopping 9/11 attacks in the first instance.

Ms Condoleezza Rice, the fact is that America has time and again proved, with its betrayal in its friendship with Pakistan, that you people are and never were worthy of Pakistan’s friendship and all the sacrifices we gave for you. Moreover, now there is no doubt that you understand one and only one language, learnt in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan wars.

And the moral of the story is, that a nation may survive being not a friend of America but, it can’t survive, being a friend of America. 

The news reported in the daily “Pakistan Today” (link:- http://www.pakistantoday.com.pk/2011/09/pakistan-has-97-billion-dollars-in-swiss-banks-director-swiss-bank/#IDComment194865889) that Swiss banks have 97 billion dollars, is a smoke screen to mislead the general public. By no means this figure can be less than 200 billion dollars i.e. more than three times the existing foreign debt of Pakistan.

Leaving aside the exact amount of Pakistan’s money in the Swiss banks, our civilian government & parliament, military establisment, bench and bar & the media must devise some mechanism (following the US government’s successful initiative with the Swiss government) to very strongly take up the issue with Swiss government, to immediately return back our money deposited in Swiss banks.

This is all the more necessary for the very survival of Pakistan (Indian defense budget is going to increase from 36 billion dollars to 60 billion dollars in next few years versus Pakistan’s current defense budget of 4-5 billion dollars). Moreover, Pakistan’s economic growth and development is absolutely necessary to stabilize the country to successfully fight the war on terror for the entire world. And we will not be demanding any charity from the Swiss government.

This money belongs to the people of Pakistan and the entire nation (including ruling parties and the opposition) is fully united on this issue. Rather, it will be the biggest gift from the Asif Ali Zardari led PPP to the nation for which voters will elect them to serve the nation for at least 100 years. So come on PPP, rise to the occasion, it is the golden chance for you to re-build a new properous & peaceful Pakistan.

H’able CJ of SC has hit the bulls eye (in saying outdated laws must be repealed) as reported in the Daily “Pakistan Today” link:- http://www.pakistantoday.com.pk/2011/09/outdated-laws-must-be-repealed-says-cjp/#IDComment191800260. 

The fact is that panacea of Pakistan’s many ills lies in removing the out dated laws from the statue books of the country, where we have been made prisoners of our past.

Mr. CJ you and your honourable colleagues have done a lot for this country. Kindly do us another favour, for which our generations will be thankful to you.

Please find a solution to immediately replace the current election process (which is the mother of all problems) with a new one in which every party leader should stand to be elected directly, as head of the government. However, before the elections, each participating party will declare a list in advance of it’s assembly members (for the voters to know beforehand the qualifications, capabilities, character & mettle of their future public representatives). Now after the elections, the proportionate number of these advance named party representatives will be automatically elected, starting from the top of the list, according to the share of the votes polled in favour of the party leader.

In this way, very high quality members (who will be even confirming the appointment of judges) will come to assembly, Jagirdars hold on voters will lose its grip, election expenses will be drastically reduced, sale of votes will be eliminated, neat and corruption free governance will emerge, Biradari system menace will crack down, people’s frustration from the democracy will be minimized, parties will be forced to implement their manifesto and people’s say in direct selection of rulers will increase manifold.

Sir, the definition of insanity says “doing an act over and over again and expecting a different result.” There is also a saying in IT jargon that “Garbage in garbage out”. The existing system will never deliver in our circumstances. So, kindly help this nation come out of the clutches of the prevalent exploitive system, whereby, 3-5 % cruel minority is ruling & plundering rest of the suffering majority.

The change of system will also automatically stop the talk of dismemberment of Pakistan, so rampant these days.

Recently the defense Secretary briefed to a committee in parliament that Abbotabad incident happened because Pakistan had not perceived any threat from the west and that now Pakistan is fully prepared for any such eventuality. My question to the people in the government is that is this the preparation of Pakistani defense planning, that whenever Afghanistan wants, she can commit aggression against a nuclear armed Pakistan, kill its people in scores of dozens and then go back without being punished?
 
Let me tell that such unabated killings of Pakistani troops will happen again and again in future and can’t be curbed with protests with Afghan diplomats or NATO people. Now it is an international rule, albeit neither legal nor approved by the UNO, that countries make pre-emptive strikes for even any perceived hostile action against their people or country.
 
So, in my opinion, if at all we are serious in eliminating such future aggressions against our motherland, Pakistan must at least make retaliatory strike on Afghanistan in such a befitting manner, that it will think 1000 times before repeating in future, any such hostile acts. In fact, I believe that in such situations ” Qatal Moozi Qabal Eeza ” i.e. nip the evil in the bud.  
 
Here I am reminded by a quote of Ch. Shujaat Hussain wherein, he said, Pakistan has not made Atom bomb for firing on Shab-e-Barat. Moreover, we should also remember that saying ” Hay Jurm-e-Zaeefi Ki Saza Marg-e-Mufajat. “
 
                                          Pakistan Zindabad

 “I could end the deficit  in five minutes. You just pass a law that says that  anytime there is a deficit of  more than three percent of GDP all sitting members of  congress are ineligible for reelection. “

Why not put it up to Pakistani parliament!!!

The deadly terrorism violence in Karachi has reached the stage where even to think that any civilian government can control the situation will be a folly. Now restoration of permanent peace will not be an easy task even if civilian government calls the armed forces to help Karachi back to normalcy.

However, Karachi can not and must not be left at the mercy of warmongers & terrorists  who are hell bent in their nefarious designs to make this part of Pakistan another case for the world community to interfere with an excuse they made in the case of Libya.

The situation in Karachi is not grave rather it is ultra grave. The solidarity of the country is not just threatened, it is under a direct attack.

As such, the government is urgently advised to immediately order a full fledged military operation or impose limited martial law, whichever is allowed under the constitutation (without wasting a moment) in the selected areas of Karachi, which are badly affected in the ongoing lawlessness. In this regard, the military authorities may be given a fixed time frame to achieve peace, like they did in Swat, by getting rid of all such criminals, responsible for the current lawlessness and also to make the city an arms free area.

By: General Mirza Aslam Beg

Former Chief of Army Staff

On 17^th August 1988, I didn’t consult any of my Corps Commanders or Principal Staff Officers (PSOs) and called-upon the Naval and Air Chiefs, discussed the matter briefly, and within three hours of General Ziaul Haq’s death, restored the Constitution and handed over power to Mr. Ghulam Ishaq Khan, It was an unprecedented decision in favour of democracy and rule of law. Similarly General Kiani, took the ‘command decision’ of keeping the army out of the election process of 18^th February 2008, defeated Musharraf’s sinister design of repeat of 2002 elections and put democracy on the right course. 

      In May 1990, President Ghulam Ishaq Khan gave me a ‘non-paper’, listing serious lapses on part of the Prime Minister, Benazir Bhutto. I made the mistake of discussing this matter with the Corps Commanders and the PSOs. The ‘consensus decision’ was conveyed to the President, that “remaining within the constitutional limits, the President may take action as deemed necessary.” Benazir Bhutto’s government was soon dismissed and a care-taker government was formed to hold elections in 90 days, thus setting the bad precedence of ‘Presidential Coup’, during the period 1990-1998. In the retrospective, I regret having consulted the senior military commanders on such a vital issue. My ‘command decision’ would have been very different. 

      Similarly, General Kiani’s recent decision to consult the Corps Commanders and the PSOs, on the present critical national issues, and the declaration of 10th June 2011, carries all the weaknesses of a ‘consensus decision’ as it has failed to address the main issues, which matter to the people of Pakistan and the country, as highlighted in my recent article, titled “Our Wuthering Sovereignty” published on 15^th May 2011. I said: “The Pakistani nation has had such high expectations from the democratic government to deliver a sovereign parliament, an independent judiciary and an above board accountability, which are the pillars of national sovereignty, but unfortunately these institutions have been so methodically suppressed to render them ineffective. In fact, our national sovereignty has been debased and humiliated by one and all who mattered in Pakistan.”

      The GHQ Declaration of 10^th June, 2011, has passed-on the entire responsibility of correcting the course, to the government, which itself is responsible for creating this calamity. This declaration won’t help establish the civilian supremacy over the military. Rather it shirks responsibility, to support the state institutions to perform. In fact, it is a repeat of General Jehangir Karamat’s action of 1997, who failed to respond to the call of the Supreme Court, that led to the assault on the Supreme Court and the political turmoil, thus paving the way for Musharraf’s take over. And if past declarations of this kind are any guide, this declaration also falls short of achieving the main objective, that is, establishing the supremacy of the civil authority over the military. Let us re-count a few episodes, preceding Gen Zia’s coup of 1977:

•  
  • In 1976, Prime Minister Bhutto was visiting Multan. The then Corps Commander Lt Gen Ziaul Haq called-on him and pledged loyalty to Mr. Bhutto, on the Holy Book. Mr. Bhutto was so impressed that he appointed General Zia, as his COAS.
  • In 1977, Mr. Bhutto was visiting Murree. Commander 12 Division Maj Gen Akhtar Abdur Rahman lined-up his officers and their wives, on the reception-line and in an exclusive meeting he also pledged loyalty to Mr. Bhutto on the Holy Book, establishing the nexus with General Zia.
  • In 1977, when the political agitation against Mr. Bhutto’s government had reached a dangerous level, the top military commanders, such as the Chairman JCSC and the three service Chiefs, pledged to the nation, their loyalty and unflinching support for the government, but, within days, Gen Zia struck and dismissed the government.

      General Kiani has time to correct the course. Civilian supremacy over the military can be established only by a sovereign parliament and an independent judiciary as we witness today in Turkey – the example to follow. General Kiani should support the Parliament’s resolution demanding cessation of drone attacks, which the American flouted and the parliament was helpless, while the Pakistani armed forces have full capability to deter and defeat such violations of our sovereignty. The will to use this capability is ‘a function of command decision, of the person in authority’ as demonstrated in 1990, by the then Prime Minister, Benazir Bhutto. She sent the foreign minister to Delhi, with a strong message, and ordered a squadron of F-16s fully armed, ready to strike targets deep in the South of India. This bold command decision, deterred the enemy. Then, we had the F-16s and now we have the submarines, missiles and guns, which can engage targets upto a range of 30 KMs to 3000 KMs. Whereas we enjoy distinct superiority on ground, i.e., the men and missiles and the conventional weapons support. Our men belong to one of the best fighting machine of the world, supported by the hard core tribal fighters of our border regions. Based on Men and Missile, we can effectively deter and defeat aggression directed against Pakistan from Afghan territory. Let there be no ambiguity about it. 

      The Armed Forces must support the ‘Supreme Court of Pakistan, to ensure that the judgments passed by the apex court are implemented, which is the constitutional responsibility of the armed forces and there is no going back on it. The armed forces must also help re-establish, above board accountability, to punish the corrupt and the unscrupulous. The political parties also have the shared responsibility to help the military, establish the supremacy of the civilian rule and also have to remain mindful of the bloatings and blusterings of the opposition leaders, against the military, which is counter-productive. They better draw on the political wisdom of Mr. Erbogan of Turkey, who has achieved harmony between the seculars/liberals and the Islamists, has established the supremacy of the civilian rule over the military and has taken the country to unprecedented economic heights.

      If the military high command remains content with the 10^th June declaration, that would mean waiting for the collapse of the system and military take-over. It is the time now to act, remaining within the framework of the Constitution, and support the present government, to build a sovereign parliament, an independent judiciary and the institution to deliver above board accountability. This would be the greatest gift, the armed forces could offer to the nation – an unprecedented move, “to willingly accept the supremacy of the civilian rule.” 

This is our rendezvous with history. And to make history, one has to rise above the level of the ordinary.

LINK:http://pakpotpourri2.wordpress.com/2011/06/18/waiting-for-the-command-decision/

The article by Noam Chomsky reproduced below was published in Guernica magazine on May 6, 2011(http://www.guernicamag.com/blog/2652/noam_chomsky_my_reaction_to_os/) is a master piece analysis on not only the death of OBL but also sheds glaring light on the 9/11 terror acts in USA as well. It is being reproduced below particularly for the benefit of policy makers in Pakistan to charter the future course of nations policy on war on terror.  

                                                      Article

“It’s increasingly clear that the operation was a planned assassination, multiply violating elementary norms of international law. There appears to have been no attempt to apprehend the unarmed victim, as presumably could have been done by 80 commandos facing virtually no opposition—except, they claim, from his wife, who lunged towards them. In societies that profess some respect for law, suspects are apprehended and brought to fair trial. I stress “suspects.” In April 2002, the head of the FBI, Robert Mueller, informed the press that after the most intensive investigation in history, the FBI could say no more than that it “believed” that the plot was hatched in Afghanistan, though implemented in the UAE and Germany. What they only believed in April 2002, they obviously didn’t know 8 months earlier, when Washington dismissed tentative offers by the Taliban (how serious, we do not know, because they were instantly dismissed) to extradite bin Laden if they were presented with evidence—which, as we soon learned, Washington didn’t have. Thus Obama was simply lying when he said, in his White House statement, that “we quickly learned that the 9/11 attacks were carried out by al Qaeda.”

Nothing serious has been provided since. There is much talk of bin Laden’s “confession,” but that is rather like my confession that I won the Boston Marathon. He boasted of what he regarded as a great achievement.

There is also much media discussion of Washington’s anger that Pakistan didn’t turn over bin Laden, though surely elements of the military and security forces were aware of his presence in Abbottabad. Less is said about Pakistani anger that the U.S. invaded their territory to carry out a political assassination. Anti-American fervor is already very high in Pakistan, and these events are likely to exacerbate it. The decision to dump the body at sea is already, predictably, provoking both anger and skepticism in much of the Muslim world.

It’s like naming our murder weapons after victims of our crimes: Apache, Tomahawk… It’s as if the Luftwaffe were to call its fighter planes “Jew” and “Gypsy.”

We might ask ourselves how we would be reacting if Iraqi commandos landed at George W. Bush’s compound, assassinated him, and dumped his body in the Atlantic. Uncontroversially, his crimes vastly exceed bin Laden’s, and he is not a “suspect” but uncontroversially the “decider” who gave the orders to commit the “supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole” (quoting the Nuremberg Tribunal) for which Nazi criminals were hanged: the hundreds of thousands of deaths, millions of refugees, destruction of much of the country, the bitter sectarian conflict that has now spread to the rest of the region.

There’s more to say about [Cuban airline bomber Orlando] Bosch, who just died peacefully in Florida, including reference to the “Bush doctrine” that societies that harbor terrorists are as guilty as the terrorists themselves and should be treated accordingly. No one seemed to notice that Bush was calling for invasion and destruction of the U.S. and murder of its criminal president.

Same with the name, Operation Geronimo. The imperial mentality is so profound, throughout western society, that no one can perceive that they are glorifying bin Laden by identifying him with courageous resistance against genocidal invaders. It’s like naming our murder weapons after victims of our crimes: Apache, Tomahawk… It’s as if the Luftwaffe were to call its fighter planes “Jew” and “Gypsy.”

There is much more to say, but even the most obvious and elementary facts should provide us with a good deal to think about.” (By Noam Chomsky)

Copyright 2011 Noam Chomsky