Creation Explained

In the beginning God created the Heavens and the Earth with broccoli, cauliflower and spinach, green and yellow and red vegetables of all kinds, so Man and Woman would live long and healthy lives.

Then using God’s great gifts, Satan created Ben and Jerry’s Ice cream and Krispy Crème Donuts. And Satan said, “You want chocolate with that?” And man said, “Yes!” and Woman said, “and as long as you are on it, add some sprinkles.” And they gained 10 pounds and Satan smiled.

And God created the healthful yogurt that women might keep the figure that men found so fair.
And Satan brought forth white flour from the wheat and sugar from the cane and combined them. And woman went from size 6 to 14.

So, God said, “Try my fresh green salad.” And Satan presented Thousand-Island dressing, buttery croutons and garlic toast on the side. And Man and Woman unfastened their belts following the repast.

God then said, “I have sent you heart-healthy vegetables and olive oil in which to cook them.” And Satan brought forth deep fried fish and fried chicken steak so big it needed its own platter. And Man gained more weight and his cholesterol went through the roof.

God then created a light fluffy white cake, named it “Angel Food Cake”, and said, “It is good”. And Satan then created chocolate cake and named it “Devil’s Food”.

God then brought forth running shoes so that His children might lose those extra pounds. And Satan gave cable TV with a remote control so Man would not have to toil changing the channels. And Man and Woman laughed and cried before the flickering blue light and gained pounds.

Then God brought forth the potato, naturally low in fat and brimming with nutrition. And the Satan peeled off the healthful skin and sliced the starchy centre into chips and deep fried them. And Man gained pounds.

God then gave lean beef so that man might consume fewer calories and still satisfy his appetite. And Satan created McDonald’s and it’s 99-cent Double Cheese Burger. Then said, “You want fries with that?” And Man replied, “Yes! And super size them”. And Satan said, “ It is good”. And Man went in to cardiac arrest.

God sighed and created quadruple bypass surgery. Then Satan created HMOs.

Mother

My mother had only one eye,

I hated her as I was ashamed of her. She was a cook in the school cafeteria where I studied. One day, when I saw (still in a primary class), she came to visit me to see for herself that I was all right. I was very upset, how dare she do this to me? After that incident I ignored her & looked on her only with hateful eyes.

The next day, a fellow-student told me, “oohhh, your mother has only one eye!”
At that moment, I wanted to crawl under the floor and that my mother would be out of my life completely. The next day I went to meet her & to tell here,”Because of you I am the joke at school. Why don’t you die or go away?” But, she did not respond. I wasn’t thinking and did not know what I was saying, I was very angry. I could not imagine how she would react to my remarks. And, I left town.

I studied relentlessly and obtained a scholarship to continue my studies abroad. In fact, I completed my studies, got married, bought a house and set up my family. I lived a happy and a peaceful life.

One day, my mother comes to visit me. It has been many years since she had disappeared. She had never met here grand-children. She remained at the doorstep While my children were making fun of her.

I shouted at her,”How dare you come all the way here and frighten my kids?” With a calm voice she responded, “I apologize, I am at the wrong address.” And she disappeared.

One day, I received an invitation from my hometown school to attend a reunion under the “Close Family Ties” topic. I lied to my wife and made her believe that
I was traveling for business. After the reunion I stopped by the house where I grew up. The neighbours informed me that my mother had passed away. I did not shed even one drop of tear.

The neighbor handed me a letter that my mother had left for me:

“My Dear son, I always thought of you. I regret having visited you abroad and frightened your kids. I was very pleased when I heard that you would come to attend the reunion. The only thing was that I could not get up from my bed to come and see you. I am broken-hearted that I brought shame to you on numerous occasions. Did you know that, when you were a baby you had an accident and lost your one eye and, as any other mother would, I would not let you grow up with only one eye ? So. I gave you my eye. I was very proud and happy to know that my son would be able to see the world with my eye.
With all my love
Your mother

Qur’aan 17: 23 & 24
Thy Lord hath decreed that ye worship none but Him, and that ye be kind to parents. Whether one or both of them attain old age in thy life, say not to them a word of contempt, nor repel them, but address them in terms of honour. And, out of kindness, lower to them the wing of humility, and say: “My Lord! bestow on them thy Mercy even as they cherished me in childhood.”

Sahih Al-Bukhari 8.4
“It is one of the greatest sins that a man should curse his parents.”

Failure Analysis for Success

Do not see failure as wanting to giving up but, in stead, redefine the failure. Take it as useful feed-back.
Do not let fear of failure to hold you back. Define and redefine reality.
Do not be bogged down by failure. Try to look in to purpose of your life.
Do not get distracted by everyday life’s trivial. Focus on what is important.

NGOs: conduits for external agendas?

That the state has lost part of its national operational space to the US since 9/11 has been highlighted by some of us since that time. Unfortunately, the gains, such as they were, have been transient while the costs have been more devastating and long lasting. However, it appears that we have yet to move towards reclaiming this lost space, although a beginning has been made with the commencement of dialogue between NWFP and one of the militant groups.

There are some in our urban elite who find any form of dialogue with militants unacceptable, but they are simply revealing their own intolerance and bigotry. Perhaps if one pointed out to them that states like Britain also shifted to dialogue with the same “terrorists” who had carried out killings of their soldiers as well as of public figures like Mountbatten, not to mention the innocent who fell victim to the sectarian war in Northern Ireland, our westernised elites may find dialogue between the extremists and the state in Pakistan more acceptable! In any case, the bulk of the Pakistani populace wants peace within through dialogue and accommodation.

Unfortunately, while at one level some positive moves are being made to gain control of our external environment as well as our internal one, at another level there is a bizarre trend that seems to be privatising foreign policy. This is the unchecked activities of certain NGOs who are being funded by external players. As discussed in an earlier column, we saw Pugwash trying to distort the dimensions of the Kashmir dispute as well as seeking to forward the Indo-US/NATO policy of pushing an Indian ingress into Afghanistan.

Where the US agenda unfolds one can be sure loyal Britain will follow. So one saw a Pakistani NGO, the Pakistan Institute of Legislative Development And Transparency (PILDAT) — it is all big business for NGOs here with scant regard for national priorities and interests — hold a conference on “Dialogue between the Muslim world and the west”. Such a value-laden title should have shown what was in store for the participants. If there was no hidden agenda or subjective labelling intended, then surely there should have been a dialogue either “between the Muslim world and the Christian world” or “between Muslim states and Christian or secular states” or “between Muslim civil societies and Christian civil societies”, and so on. And are there not Muslims in the “west” – whatever defines this vague entity at any given time? Yet to delink Islam from the west is to deny the existence of large and increasingly marginalised Muslim minorities living there.

More damaging is a workshop that it held on April 22 — again funded by the British government. At first glance it appears to be an excellent initiative – a bilateral workshop of Pakistani and Afghan parliamentarians. The German stiftungs in Pakistan only recently brought a team of Afghan academics to Pakistan. But the problem with the Brits is that they have hidden agendas. That is why, despite knowing the Pakistani state’s sensitivity on Afghanistan and on Indian efforts to ingress into that region – only recently we protested the Afghan defence minister’s visit to the disputed territory of Indian-occupied Kashmir – the British government pushed to have an Indian parliamentarian give one of the main speeches in the closing session of this supposedly bilateral workshop.

The fact that the Indian participant, Dr Najma Heptulla, is known to Pakistanis primarily for her rabidly anti-Pakistan utterances is not the main issue. The point is that this is yet another effort to have an Indian ingress into the Pakistan-Afghanistan equation, that has been more elaborately discussed in the column on Pugwash. But what is most disturbing is why a Pakistani NGO would undermine the Pakistani position by playing to Indian-US/NATO designs? Why would it seek to bring India into the Pakistan-Afghan interaction? Certainly ignorance or naïveté cannot be the reasons in this case. Who will hold NGOs accountable, or are NGOs in Pakistan going to continue to have the freedom to do exactly as they please even in the sensitive external policy issue area, where their actions undermine Pakistan’s position?

Incidentally, when we talk of democratic India as a reference point, let it be remembered that not only did they prevent Pugwash from holding its conference in India last year, they even prevented Pakistani schoolchildren from attending an NGO activity in India last year. And for many years now, India has not allowed the International Crisis Group a presence in New Delhi which is why their Pakistani chapter was recently converted to the “South Asian” chapter!

One absurd explanation given by a Pildat member was that the Indian was there to “teach” the Pakistanis and Afghans from the Indian experience. But why couldn’t the donor have provided an example from their own country knowing Pakistani sensitivities and the political implications? In any case, Pakistan and Afghanistan have their own unique circumstances and the idea surely was to get the two countries parliamentarians together to facilitate better understanding – and here the Indian presence certainly has no role to play.

While it would be pertinent to have the state lay down some basic ground rules for NGOs, especially those working in sensitive security and foreign policy issue areas, one reason why the Pakistani state has been unable to do so is because it has itself been losing space in these areas to external actors since 9/11 – be it the war on terror or the A Q Khan issue. Even presently, we are seeing foreign governments’ officials coming to Pakistan and conducting relations with different political entities on their own, independent of the state institutions and processes. It is not the meetings per se that are the issue but the manner in which certain foreign officials conduct them. They seem to assume that they are above the diplomatic norms in their dealings with Pakistan?

It is in this context that we need to take note of the statement made by that diehard Indophile, the former US ambassador to India, Blackwell, who has suggested that India and the US needed to evolve a joint strategy to deal with Pakistan which he feels has a “highly uncertain” future. Although Pakistan’s high commissioner to India has given an official response to this intrusive remark of Blackwell’s, the reality on the ground is that the US along with its allies is already intruding all across Pakistan’s internal and external space and seeking an Indian ingress into the same is one of the agenda items. That is why we need to reclaim our space assertively and create some distance between ourselves and the US.

There is nothing uncertain about the state of Pakistan, which has shown a greater resilience than most states in a similar situation. But if the state continues to allow its space to be infiltrated by external actors, how can it prevent NGOs from also seeking to move into this space? Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani has stated that we will not be “blackmailed by militants”; equally, we should not succumb to the psychological terrorism and threatening agendas of more powerful external actors and their domestic conduits.

By: Shireen M Mazari
Director General, Institute of Strategic Studies, Islamabad.
Email: smnews80@hotmail.com
Published in The News on April 23, 2008

Two Best Friends

During journey through the desert two friends had an argument and one slapped the other.

The one hurt wrote in the sand:
TODAY MY BEST FRIEND SLAPPED ME IN THE FACE

Later they reached an oasis and decided to take bath. One who had been slapped got stuck in the mire and started drowning but the other saved him. Then he wrote on a stone:

TODAY MY BEST FRIEND SAVED MY LIFE.

The friend who had slapped and saved him asked, “After I hurt you, you wrote in the sand and now, you write on a stone, why?”

The other replied, “When someone hurts us we should write it in sand where winds of forgiveness can erase it away. But, when someone does something good for us, we must engrave it in stone where no wind can ever erase it.”

Prejudice Distorts Minds

Prejudice is like poison. Unless purged out of one’s mind in early stages, it can spread like cancer and make one incapable of differentiating between right and wrong. Of the many kinds of prejudice, the worst is to believe that one’s own religion is superior to all others, which may be tolerated but never taken seriously or accepted as equally valid as one’s own. The most misunderstood of the major religions today is Islam, which, after Christianity, is the second most widely practiced religion in the world. It also gains more converts than any of the other religions.

Prejudice against Islam was spread in Christendom from the time Muslims gained dominance in the Middle East, North Africa and Spain. Christian crusaders failed in their missions to crush Islam in its homeland but continued to vilify its founder, Muhammad (may peace be upon him). The emergence of militant Islamic groups like Al-Qaida and Taliban gave them reasons to do so. The attack on the World Trade Centre in New York and the Pentagon in Washington on September 11, 2001 provided fresh ammunition to vilifiers of Islam. Since then Islam-o-phobia has been deliberately spread throughout the non-Muslim world. The two principle contentions of the anti-Islamists are that Islam was spread by the sword and that its Founder-Prophet was not the paragon of virtue that Muslims make him out to be. It can be proved by historical evidence that Islam was not forced upon the people; it was readily accepted by millions because it offered them new values, principally equality of mankind and rights to women that were unheard of in those times. In countries like Indonesia and Malaysia, Islam was not forced on the population by Muslim invaders but by Muslim missionaries.

Muslims are extremely sensitive to criticism of their Prophet. A popular adage in Persian is: ba khuda diwaana basho, ba Muhammad hoshiar! - “say what you like about God, but beware of what you say about Muhammad.” They regard him as the most perfect man who ever trod upon the earth, a successor of Adam, Moses, Noah, Abraham and Jesus. He was the last of the prophets. If you honestly want to know how Muslims see him, you ought to take a good look at his life and teachings, which had been revealed to him by God. It would be as wrong to judge him by the doings of Al-Qaida and Taliban or by the Fatwas periodically pronounced by Ayatollahs and half-baked mullahs. You do not judge Hinduism of the Vedas and Upanishads by the doings of Hindus who, in the name of Hindutva, destroy mosques, murder missionaries and nuns, vandalize libraries and works of art. You do not judge the teachings of the Sikh Gurus by the utterances of Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale and by the murder of innocents by his hooligans. Likewise, judge Muhammad by what he taught and stood for and not by what his so-called followers do in his name.

Muhammad was born in Makkah in 570 AD. He lost both his parents while still a child and was brought up by his grandfather and uncle. He managed the business of a widow, whom he later married. She bore him six children. He took no other wife until she died. He was 40 years old when he started having revelations while in trance. They proclaimed Muhammad as the new messiah. Such revelation kept coming at random, sometimes dealing with problems at hand, at other times with matters spiritual. They were memorized or written down by his admirers and became the Qur’aan, which means recitation. It should be kept in mind that Muhammad was not preaching ideas of his own but only reiterating most of what was already in the Judaic creed. Allah was the Arabic name for God before him. Similarly, Islam was ’surrender’ and salaam was ‘peace’. Makkah was the main market city of the Bedouin tribes. They gathered at the Ka’aba, the huge courtyard with the black meteorite embedded in it during two pilgrimages - the bigger Haj and the lesser Umrah.

Muhammad accepted Judaic traditions regarding food which is Halaal (lawful) or Haraam (forbidden, such as pig meat), names of the five daily prayers and circumcision of male children. Muhammad only asserted the oneness of God that did not accept of any equal such as the stone goddesses worshiped by different tribes. Muhammad never forced people to accept his faith and indeed quoted Allah’s message of freedom of faith. “There must be no coercion in matters of faith - la ikrah f’il deen.” Further: “And if God had so willed, He would have made you all one single command; but He willed otherwise in order to test you by means of what He has vouchsafed unto you. Vie, then with one another in doing good works!”

As might have been expected, Muhammad’s mission roused fierce hostility. Many attempts were made to assassinate him but he had miraculously escaped. Ultimately, in 622 AD he was advised to flee from Makkah to Medina. This is known as the Hijra (emigration) and recognized as the beginning of the Muslim calendar. Makkans made a few attempts to capture Medina but were ousted. Muslim armies led by Muhammad triumphed and returned to Makkah as conquerors. By the time Muhammad died in Medina in 632 AD, the Arabian peninsula was united as a confederacy of different tribes under the banner of Islam.

Most of the ill-founded criticism against Muhammad is directed towards the number of women he married after the death of his first wife, Khadijah. This has to be seen in the perspective of Arabian society of the time. Tribes lived by warring against each other and looting caravans. There were heavy casualties of men, creating serious gender imbalance. Widows and orphans of men killed had to be provided with homes and sustenance. Otherwise, they took to prostitution or begging. So they were given protection by being taken in marriages. Also, matrimonial alliances were a good way of creating bonds between different tribes. Muhammad did nothing not acceptable to his people. He went further: he was the first teacher to proclaim that the best union was a monogamous marriage and fixed the maximum limit to four, provided a man could keep all of his wives equally happy - which was most unlikely. The pertinent verse in the Qur’aan reads: “And if you have reason to fear you might not act equitably towards orphans, then marry from among other women who are lawful to you, even two or three or four; but if you have reason to fear you might not be able to treat them with equal fairness, then only one.” Bear in mind that at that time polygamy was the norm in patriarchal societies all over the world.

To make a beginning in clearing your mind of anti-Muslim prejudices, I suggest you read Karen Armstrong’s Muhammad: A Prophet for Our Time. Armstrong is the leading writer on comparative religions today. She is not Muslim.

This article by Khushwant Singh was published in The Telegraph, Calcutta (India)

Everything we say and do in life has consequences. Just like throwing a stone into a pond sends ripples across the water.
We are free to say and do as we choose but the consequences of our words and actions are our responsibility.
How many times have hasty words been spoken making a wedge between once loving friends or spouses?

Sometimes we think something bad about a person and in anger or when emotions are high, we make those thoughts vocal. If we could have waited a little, these negative thoughts may well have been replaced with more kindly ones.

To speak or act while in a state of anger is really a mistake. It is a good idea to hold your tongue and wait until the next day. If the same level of emotions is present, then speak out, but most chances are you will have forgotten why you were angry.

[The good deed and the evil deed cannot be equal. Repel (the evil) with one which is better (that is, Allah directed the believers to be patient at the time of anger, and to excuse those who treat them badly), then verily he, between whom and you there was enmity, (will become) as though he was a close friend.] [Sura 41 Fussilat, Verse 34]

Are Human Being Better than Animals?

After witnessing what India is doing in Jammu Kashmir, Israel in Palestine, America and her partners in Afghanistan, Iraq and border tribal area of Pakistan, when I see the following pictures, I am forced to think that animals are better than the human being of the present-day-world. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The dream team

Pakistan sighed with relief at the formation of the PPP-led four-party coalition government amidst fears that the presidency’s intrigues could succeed in breaking-up the PPP-PML shindig. Our despondent soothsayers now insist on giving the PPP-PML duo no more than a few weeks before they fall apart over the restoration of the judges. One hopes that cynics end up eating their words yet again, and the PPP-PML marriage lasts a bit, as this bodes well not only for the country but also for both parties. In our current political milieu the distinction between objective analysis and wishful thinking is indeed clouded. But the desire to see the PPP-PML partnership survive the establishment’s mischief is rooted in the fact that this coalition is a product of Pakistan’s intrinsic democratic needs and realities, and must be fortified.

The present coalition government has been formed not in the absence of contrary wishes and efforts of the presidency and our foreign friends, but despite them. Only a few months back General Musharraf and his patrons in Washington were busy cooking up a coalition of the willing to continue his rule, but with a quasi-democratic facade. The idea was to orchestrate an alliance between “moderate” forces in the country to press forward the national agenda single-handedly forged by the general, especially vis-୶is the US war on terror. Such a “dream team” led by the general was to include the PPP, the ANP and the MQM, together with the King’s League. Had the design succeeded, it would have been a disaster of gigantic proportions for multiple reasons ? not only for Pakistan, but also for medium- to long-term Pakistan-US relations.

First of all, like all moderate nations, Pakistan’s majority falls at the centre of the ideological spectrum. At a time of significant international turmoil due to the war on terror and the level of distrust within the Muslim world, contriving a leftist government in Pakistan would have polarised the nation further. It would have pushed the centre-right PML-N further right towards the religious parties. Come the next elections, the pendulum of state power would have swung in the other direction, with the PML-N and the religious parties firmly committed to a more rightwing and openly anti-US agenda. Second, the political decisions reached by such a leftist alliance would neither have been consensual nor effectively enforceable. For, as an implementation arm with a representative face, a leftist government beholden to the general could possibly fare no better than the general’s own all-powerful government of the last eight years.

And finally, a west-sponsored leftist political alliance would have been psychologically disempowering for this nation. It would have strengthened the conspiratorial view that the establishment, together with our foreign masters, continues to hold the sovereignty of the people of Pakistan hostage. And in this regard the present coalition led by centre-left and centre-right mainstream parties is the best thing that could have happened to Pakistani politics. It is irrelevant that all members of the US envisioned dream-team are now also a part of this coalition (with the recent inclusion of the MQM) because (1) the terms of reference of this coalition are indigenous and not dictated by the establishment or Washington, and (2) it includes the PML-N, which will ensure a centrist balance of such a coalition.

The street wisdom of the day suggests that a PPP-PML-N alliance is unnatural and its future bleak. The argument is that (1) these parties are archrivals and the next electoral contest will also be between them, and (2) they will either part if the judges are not restored, or, once the judges are restored and the president removed, the PML-N will have no reason to remain in government any further. But such simplistic logic does not hold if one delves deeper. Let us return to the fault lines threatening our polity: the civil-military divide, the extremist-moderate divide and the centre-province divide. The reality is that neither a PPP government nor a PML-N government can by itself make progress vis-୶is these divides.

The institutional imbalance between the civilian democratic institutions and the military — the bane of democracy and constitutionalism in Pakistan — cannot be fixed so long as mainstream parties are engaged in vicious confrontationist politics. If democracy is to be strengthened and the military kept out of the political fray, as agreed in the charter of democracy, the mainstream political parties need to forge a united front. Both the PPP and the PML-N have suffered due to the military’s kingmaker role. Before returning to competitive politics they must ensure a level playing field where neither party is tempted to use khaki crutches for political aggrandisement. So if the PML-N decides to quit the government once its immediate goals are achieved, it would be imprudently regarding only sheep as its competitors while not thinking of the wolf that endangers the entire herd.

Also, in devising an effective policy and strategy to confront extremists and suicide terrorists in Pakistan, there exist no perfect solutions. Difficult decision will have to be made based on political compromises and ground realities. Unless all political forces and stakeholders consensually settle upon a policy to fight extremism and a strategy on how to implement such a policy, neither will the policy be uncontroversial nor its implementation effective. It will be all too easy for any mainstream force left out of the loop to poke holes in the policy for partisan political gain. Further, if they are sagacious enough, both the PPP and the PML-N will realise that they also need to stay together for purposes of party reconstruction.

The PPP needs to re-establish itself in Punjab, without which it is not possible to run an effective government at the centre. And the PML-N has once again been reduced to a Punjabi party, with pockets of support in the NWFP and Balochistan. Just as the PPP’s choice of ministerial portfolios highlights its focus on the need to reconstruct its support base in Punjab, the PML-N needs to utilise its share of public authority in the centre to build itself up within the smaller federating units. And such a reconstruction will take time. Thus, if the PPP-PML-N leadership wishes to institute lasting pro-democracy structural changes in the polity, as opposed to going back to the era of electoral musical chairs of the ’90s that ended up discrediting representative politics itself, they need to conscientiously invest in their alliance.

Let the coalition government create a level playing political field, so that from here on neither party is completely routed when caught at the wrong side of the establishment. And then, with the rule of law upheld, an independent judiciary in place, a sovereignty of parliament entrenched, and broad bipartisan consensus existing on how to erase the fundamental fault lines threatening the polity, we can return to fair yet competitive partisan politics. During this critical phase of restoring democracy and constitutionalism, the coalition partners must keep the deal-making mindset and political wheeler-dealers at bay.

Apart from the few controversial advisers appointed by the PPP, the cabinet choices have been praiseworthy and logical. Almost a decade of opposition politics had separated the wheat from the chaff. Many erstwhile top-tier leaders of the PPP and PML-N had blown along in the direction of the wind like opportunists always do. Consequently, there were no questions about the political integrity and loyalty of those who had braved the general’s intimidation. The federal cabinet is a bipartisan talent pool as it includes the most competent people of integrity our representative politics has to offer at the moment. But the parties must remember that while integrity, common sense and loyalty are the more required traits among those capable of holding cabinet positions, competence and independence along with integrity are the virtues to be sought among top bureaucrats.

A desirable bureaucrat is one who can highlight sensible policy choices for the decision-makers, assemble effective strategies and get them implemented ? indeed, a rare combination these days. And to that end our democratically elected decision-makers need sensible thinking heads, and not yes-men. Prudent policies and effective implementation are two mandatory ingredients of good governance, which cannot be ensured unless considerations of merit trump those of loyalty. The federal cabinet should borrow a page from Shahbaz Sharif’s success story in Punjab. He made the Punjab government a sponge for bureaucratic talent by refusing to surround himself by sycophants, by encouraging dissenting opinions, and, finally, by infusing his team with the discipline to implement policies.

If the PPP checks its urge to dole out public office to loyalists with thoroughly tainted public image and the coalition government makes senior bureaucratic appointments on merit, the new federal government could indeed become a dream team.

Babar Sattar, a lawyer based in Islamabad, LL.M from Harvard Law School and a Rhodes scholar
E-mail: sattar@post.harvard.edu
Published in The News on April 05, 2008

Who says this is our war?

It isn’t and never was and if our newly-inducted political leadership is dumb enough to swallow all the fiction about the so-called ‘war on terror’ that our American friends (friends?) seem keen to push down its throat, God help us.

This is George Bush’s war. This is the war, or a front in the war, orchestrated by those strategic crazies going by the name of neocons, the same geniuses who wanted to reshape the world – beginning with the reshaping of the Middle East – and gave their own people, the American people, two un-winnable wars: in Iraq and, wait for it, Afghanistan.

Afghanistan was supposed to be the more ‘doable’ affair, the one they thought they had wrapped up in 2001. But it is proving as tough and intractable as Iraq, with the Taliban, alas, not finished and the war, far from being over, stretching into the remote distance.

This is not even America’s war because most Americans who care to have an opinion about their country’s foreign policy – and there are millions of Americans who don’t give a damn, this section of the American population having a hard time deciphering a map of the world – are opposed to Bush’s adventure in Iraq. And although Afghanistan doesn’t loom as large across American radar screens as Iraq, it is beginning to assume a larger presence.

Indeed, the one thing saving American and NATO forces from utter disaster in Afghanistan is the Pakistan army on this side of the Durand Line. This is the buttress shoring up the American position and that is why, with new winds blowing across Islamabad, our friends in Washington are alarmed.

Their policy towards Pakistan was shaped around one man: their favourite general, Pervez Musharraf. And now that after the recently-concluded elections his position has crumbled, and is visibly diminishing by the day, the war party in Washington is worried that Pakistan may not be as zealous as it has been in taking American orders in the ‘war on terror’.

Small wonder John Negroponte, deputy secretary of state and holder of many dark secrets about American policy in Latin America, and Richard Boucher, assistant secretary of state and a familiar face in Pakistan, were so quick to descend on Islamabad, basically wanting to get a feel about the new guys about to enter the corridors of power.

Despite what some of the headlines have been suggesting Negroponte and Boucher shouldn’t be too worried because while the new guys may have waxed eloquent about ‘parliamentary sovereignty’ – very much the new buzzword in Islamabad – no one has suggested that Pakistan is about to cut its strings with America or is about to change course dramatically.

Pakistan is hardly in a position for a radical shift all at once because the Americans are all over the place and there are so many things tying us to America that a sudden application of the scissors is simply out of the question.

Let’s not forget that the army is the key player in this equation and any rethinking of the American alliance will have to come as much from General Headquarters as from the new National Assembly. Would the army like to forego American military assistance, the five-year ‘aid’ package which has enabled it to go on an extended arms’ shopping spree? Would it like to forego the nearly hundred million dollars a month it gets for services rendered in the ‘war on terror’? Where does this money go? Does anyone even know?

Such ‘aid’ once you are hooked on it becomes an addiction. Vested interests develop and lifestyles come to depend upon this bonanza. Overcoming such an addiction is not easy.

Islamabad is a town of dealers, fixers and commission agents anyway: well-off parasites living off the inflow of American dollars. Any talk of cutting the American connection and this razzle-dazzle crowd will point accusing fingers at the new guys in town and say that they are acting ‘irresponsibly’. Deep pockets after all are not easy to fight.

Let’s not also forget that parliamentary sovereignty in this country is a bit of a fiction. We may like to think parliament is a sovereign institution but when was the last time parliament took a sovereign decision?

All our great foreign policy adventures, our various jihads and wars, never had anything to do with parliamentary debate or approval. We must rethink our American connection, and as a result of that connection the sentry and bag duty our army performs along the Afghan frontier, but for anything to come of this exercise the rethink has to be a joint undertaking between the army command and the new guys in town (actually all old guys but making a reappearance on the national scene after the extended disaster of the Musharraf years… indeed after Musharraf anything, even recycled stuff, would look new).

Unless the army command is re-educated, unless it gets rid of the strategic and war-on-terror-related nonsense which under American tutelage has become part of its collective thinking, Pakistan will know neither peace nor harmony.

Yes, there are elements in Pakistani society keen on turning the clock back, who believe passionately that the way to go forward is to return to biblical times (biblical here a metaphor for their overdrawn simplicities about the fundamentals of life). Yes, there are elements in the tribal areas who think that it is their holy duty to come to the aid of the Taliban, or anyone fighting the Americans, in Afghanistan.

We should be discouraging such elements, interdicting their movement across the border. On no account must Waziristan, north and south, become a Taliban sanctuary, a staging post for the anti-American resistance. But we shouldn’t let the Americans tell us how to go about this business. Because there is a whole history of American interference—from Vietnam and Cambodia to Iraq and Afghanistan – which testifies to that great American talent for touching a problem and turning it into a first-rate catastrophe.

Let the Taliban fight their own wars. By the same token let the Americans also fight their wars. We should have nothing to do with either of these undertakings. The Lord knows we have enough of our problems of our own to settle.

Musharraf was America’s loyal ally, Pakistan’s Ngo Din Diem and Pinochet rolled into one, and because he acted under American orders and in his zeal to please his American protectors paid no heed to the sentiments of his own people, this whole terrorism business, far from being squashed, has ballooned out of control. A problem (or call it a virus) confined to the tribal areas has spread to other parts of Pakistan. There were no suicide bombings in 2001. Now it is a phenomenon we are all familiar with.

This entire strategy, if one can dignify it thus, has backfired. Pakistan is now in the crosshairs of terrorism precisely because Musharraf hitched his wagon, and the nation’s, to Bush’s failed and imploding star. Across the globe, and this includes America, Bush is considered little better than a moron. And to think that because of one man – Musharraf – Pakistan and its army have been tied to the apron strings of this moron.

We don’t need to court American hostility. We should be friends with America but not its lackey or satellite. We should learn to live without the high of American ‘assistance’. At any rate, it is the parasitic classes who have benefited the most from this assistance, not the majority of the Pakistani people. So what are we talking or complaining about?

If terrorism has to be fought we must do it on our own. The Americans, as we have seen, will make the problem worse. Thus the first condition of fighting terrorism is getting rid of American advice and assistance. The Frontier Corps doesn’t need to be recast by the Americans (as they propose to do). Is the new Iraqi army any better for being outfitted by the Americans?

There is even – and this is really silly – a USAID programme for the ‘capacity-building’ of MNAs and MPAs. As part of this programme there is a ‘capacity-enhancing’ centre (with newspapers and computers, etc.) right in the Parliamentary Lodges in Islamabad. Madam Speaker, your urgent attention please.) Goes to show how busy our American friends have been, and what unlikely corners they have penetrated, these past seven years.

By Ayaz Amir, Email: chakwal@comsats.net.pk
Published on Friday, March 28, 2008 in The news