Our ‘cutie’ coup – By: D Asghar

Excerpt;

It seems like all eyes are waiting for a messiah to descend from the earthly heaven nicely tucked in Rawalpindi, and mistakenly called the General Headquarters …

… .To those who think a coup is the ‘be all end all’, and to hell with the constitution, I ask a simple question: has any prior coup eradicated any of the problems this nation faces? If the response is in the affirmative, then I rest my case. Do not just ask for a coup then. Order a super size coup. Heck, add jumbo size ‘sense’ and a gallon of ‘sensibility’ to the order as well.

Read more » Daily Times

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Pakistan scandal’s latest twist: naked wrestling

To watch Mansoor Ijaz, Click here

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B0QvR1eP2yg&ob=av3e

Pakistan scandal’s latest twist: naked wrestling

By CHRIS BRUMMITT

The Associated Press – ISLAMABAD : A scandal over a secret memo to Washington that could bring down the Pakistani president took a strange turn Wednesday when a music video surfaced featuring the chief accuser acting as a commentator for a naked female wrestling bout.

Opponents of Mansoor Ijaz, an American of Pakistani origin, said the clip damaged his credibility ahead of his scheduled appearance at a Supreme Court commission in this conservative Muslim country. The Florida-born businessman has pledged to provide damning evidence that the Pakistani government sent the note seeking U.S. help preventing a military coup in the aftermath of the American raid that killed Osama bin Laden on May 2, 2011.

Others were simply amused at the latest twist in an affair that has transfixed the media and raised tensions between the government and the powerful military to dangerous levels. Dubbed “memogate” in the Pakistani media, one Twitter user suggested it should now be renamed “booty-gate.”

Ijaz, who boasts of close friendships with the U.S. security establishment and past back-channel diplomatic roles in Sudan and Kashmir, claims the unsigned memo was authored by the then-Pakistan envoy to Washington, Husain Haqqani.

Ijaz says that at Haqqani’s request, he delivered the memo to Adm. Mike Mullen, the top U.S. military officer at the time. Mullen’s spokesman confirmed that his boss did receive the memo from Ijaz but that he did not find it credible and ignored it.

Haqqani denied any role in the memo but resigned last year amid pressure from the outraged military. Ijaz has said that he gave computer records implicating Haqqani to Pakistan’s spy chief, Lt. Gen. Shuja Pasha, who he says flew to London to meet with him in October. Pasha has told the court that he found the evidence credible.

The country’s top court is now probing the affair, which some believe could result in treason charges against Haqqani. President Asif Ali Zardari could also be vulnerable if — as Ijaz’s lawyer claims — it can be proven he also knew about the note. The investigation comes as Pakistani-U.S. relations are at an all-time low.

It was unclear why the wrestling video, which was made in 2004 and has been viewed for years on the Internet, came to light only now. Ijaz’s role was apparently spotted by a blogger late Tuesday and spread quickly through social media.

Ijaz told The Associated Press he thought the video’s emergence was part of an effort by Haqqani to discredit him ahead of his testimony but conceded he had no evidence of this. He confirmed that the video was not a hoax. ….

Read more » AJC.COM

http://www.ajc.com/news/nation-world/pakistan-scandals-latest-twist-1306699.html

Mr Prime Minister, I am proud of you

By Zainab Imam

After years of ambivalence towards him, I am now proud to call Yousaf Raza Gilani the prime minister of my country.

I admit that when he took oath, I was just as dismissive as anyone else. I thought he was another one of the pack — corrupt, incompetent and disloyal. And, on top of that, he seemed compliant.

And now, when the honourable Supreme Court has called him “dishonest”, I stand up and say that he is the prime minister and that he should not stand for this kind of treatment.

There is speculation that he will resign. Political uncertainty is such that between the time I take to write this and this comes into print, he may not be the prime minister. Who knows? And who cares?

After all, who cares that the world’s number one terrorist Osama bin Laden was in our midst for years, living a stone’s throw from the Pakistan Military Academy, where Army Chief General Kayani delivered a speech to graduating cadets weeks before Bin Laden was killed? Who cares that hundreds of terrorists who have killed and maimed thousands of Pakistanis are roaming free on the soil of this country? Who cares that another country, which calls itself our strategic partner in a long-drawn-out war that we’re losing, regularly kills our fellow countrymen, women and children in the tribal areas? And then some days, that same country kills our soldiers, too. Who cares?

Perhaps the honourable Chief Justice does. He who is correctly demanding that letters be written to the Swiss authorities and the money of the people is brought back to them. He who has held the prime minister responsible for failing to keep his oath but appears not to notice when the army and intelligence chiefs fail this country. He who takes suo motu notice over an individual carrying two bottles of alcohol in her travel bags but failed to do the same when Bin Laden was found and killed by foreign forces comfortably ensconced inside our territory, or when terrorists stormed the Pakistan Army’s headquarters in plain sight, or when American drones kill our own in our own backyard, or when hundreds go missing — and turn up dead — in Balochistan.

It took Prime Minister Gilani some time to find his voice. But now that he has, I stand by him. I do not know whether or not he will resign, but I know this that he does not need to until those whose job it is to secure Pakistan step down for failing to arrest the pervasive insecurity in this country; and until those whose job it is to be impartial conduct themselves in a manner that respects their oath.

Courtesy: The Express Tribune, January 18^th, 2012.