Welcome to Washington Beat: A hard hitting talk show focusing on the latest news from and about Pakistan. This episode covers Pakistan and United States bilateral relationship. Host Dr Manzur Ejaz talks to Masood Haider, Dawn newpaper’s New York correspondent.
Courtesy: Dr Manzur Ejaz Show
Pakistani Christian Soldiers Laid Down Their Lives to Protect Their Homeland. They have been declared ‘martyrs’
By Ashfaq Fateh
The Pakistan Army has declared that all of the 139 soldiers buried alive by an avalanche at a high-altitude camp in the Siachen sector of Pakistan, as “shuhada” (martyrs).
A military statement declaring them dead came days after rescuers recovered three bodies from the remote glacier where a huge avalanche buried them in early hours of Saturday, April 7, 2012. …..
Read more » http://www.assistnews.net/Stories/2012/s12060018.htm
Courtesy: Film: Jodha Akbar, Music: AR Rehman
Fresh start awaited
Excerpt;
….. Pakistani politicians are notorious for saying one thing behind closed doors and something quite different in public. Be it fecklessness or an opportunistic streak that seeks to be on the right side of public opinion whatever the cost, Pakistani politicians have just not been able to tell the truth to the people, the ones whose interests they ostensibly represent. The truth is this: by closing the supply lines to Afghanistan, in boycotting Bonn and by succumbing to sundry other emotional responses since last November, Pakistan has put itself dangerously close to being definitively regarded as part of the problem in the ‘Af-Pak’ region and not part of the solution.
It’s not just the US that Pakistan has challenged, the mission in Afghanistan is still an international one and from Nato countries to other powerful states, all have a desire to prevent Afghanistan from descending into chaos and civil war again. Pakistan really cannot afford to be on the wrong side of that equation.
The problem is, with elections on the horizon and the right-wing mobilised and baying for blood, mainstream parties will not want to be seen to take the lead in restarting relations with the US, a relationship that is immensely unpopular after the active cultivation of anti-US sentiment over the years. Perhaps they may want to think about doing it in the national interest, the real, not perceived, one.
Read more » DAWN.COM
The Next Indo Pak Conflict
By Agha H. Amin
A brother human being Mr Giani 240 was a catalyst for this reflection on an IndoPak conflict.
At some stage historical forces, greater than main or key decision makers takeover and take states to war. This has already happened! no one can reverse the tide! how it happens and how many major cities may be destroyed is the question?
Mad men on both sides! Extreme suspicion and paranoia! Situation compounded by fear and ambiguity! The Pakistani military an army with a state versus India a state with an army makes the role of Indian army more limited than the Pakistani military who also control foreign policy and internal politics! The Pakistani military is not really qualified foreign policy nor are they statesman! But they think that they are both! This makes it far more dangerous! The Indian state is at a loss to decipher Pakistani intentions! Ambiguity leads to confusion and as the adage goes ” Fear made men believe in the worst “! The use of non state actors initiated by the Pakistani military and now in full use by both countries has already gone out of control!Non state actors now have many masters, both state and non state and this complicates apportioning of blame in any incident! Above all population, limited resources, a human psyche deforming rapidly into collective neurosis as well as psychosis is complicating the situation. With man basically irrational, decisions military and political are not made with rational reasons.This was discovered by Freud long ago and discussed in detail in his classic ” The Future of an Illusion“. As a historian with a unique insight based on personal contact with many key decision makers on the Pakistani side and some interaction with Indians as a contractor in Afghanistan convinces me that a major Indo Pak conflict is not far away. Now the process is in hands of a remote and unknown pilot. Even the major and the key decision makers on both sides cannot reverse it. Although they may decide on the time and space and choice of targets. Why states go to war? A detailed study of history proves that it is for reasons more irrational than rational but nevertheless compelling reason. All is understood if we start from the premise that man is irrational! One thing I know .The Indian and Pakistani nukes will not be wasted and rusted in secret storages! God help us all!
Courtesy: Scribd
http://www.scribd.com/doc/28060478/The-Next-Indo-Pak-Conflict-Agha-H-Amin
Via » Twitter
Q&A – Ayesha Siddiqa, Political Commentator
PAKISTAN IS in a political crisis, again. Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani is openly targeting the army. The army and ISI are digging up dirt against the prime minister on Memogate and are angry with his statements. The judiciary is adamant on pursuing corruption cases against President Asif Ali Zardari and is charging the prime minister for contempt. Amidst all this chaos, talks of a possible coup are doing the rounds. Gilani has been summoned to appear before the Supreme Court. Controversial Pak-American businessman Mansoor Ijaz, the man who claimed to have delivered the controversial memo to the Americans, is to visit Pakistan on 24 January. Kunal Majumder spoke to Ayesha Siddiqa, Pakistan’s leading authority on civil-military relations, about her assessment of the changing equations between the army, judiciary and the government.
Excerpts From An Interview
A lot of commentators are suggesting that a coup is not possible in Pakistan anymore. Do you agree with this assessment?
I wouldn’t agree that it is impossible, but at this moment, it doesn’t seem likely. A coup will happen only when the army runs out of options. Now, the military has other options available. It has a fiery judiciary ….
Read more » Tehelka
The language of the program is urdu (Hindi).
Courtesy: Geo TV (Aaj Kamran Khan Ke Sath), YouTube
via WICHAAR.COM
Pak atomic program not safe in Zardari presence: Qureshi
GHOTKI: Former foreign minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi Sunday alleged that Pakistan’s atomic program was not safe as long as Asif Ali Zardari was the President of the country.
Addressing a large public gathering here, Qureshi said: “Pakistan’s atomic program was not safe in the presence of Zardari …. I would make more disclosures on the threat posed by Zardari to the atomic program at Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf’s rally in Karachi (on Dec 25).”
Earlier, Shah Mehmood Qureshi formally announced joining Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf in the presence of its Chairman Imran Khan.
He claimed that government’s rhetoric of reconciliation is nothing but a programme to save their term, calling it a ‘kursi bachao program’.
Qureshi regretted that the successors of Benazir Bhutto buried her legacy and vision. ….
Read more » The News
“In the foreseeable future, Islam will remain a factor in Pakistan’s politics. Musharraf and his likely successors from the ranks of the military, promising reform, will continue to seek U.S. economic and military assistance; yet the power of such promises is tempered by the strong links between Pakistan’s military-intelligence apparatus and extremist Islamists”.
Pakistan: Between Mosque and Military— Husain Haqqani
By Omar Ali
The rise of Imran Khan and memogate have enthused those who dream of a “reformed” democracy under the guiding hand of the army.
A few days ago, I was planning to write about Imran Khan. Pakistan’s most successful cricket captain and philanthropist had been trying to add “successful politician” to his resume since 1996, but after many years in the political wilderness he finally seemed to make a breakthrough with his large public meeting in Lahore. Pakistan’s educated youth, in particular, appeared to be very excited about a politician for the first time in their young lives. But they were not alone; even the ageing British Marxist, Tariq Ali, threw caution to the winds and announced that Mr. Khan’s gathering was a sign that the “Arab Spring” had finally made it to Pakistan and was even larger than the huge rallies of Benazir Bhutto and her father in days gone by. Comrade Tariq seemed to have forgotten that the Arab Spring had come to Pakistan many decades before it belatedly reached the Arab world and never mind the size of the rally, which bore no comparison to Benazir’s historic 1986 rally. But, Tariq Ali’s flights of fancy notwithstanding, the rally was clearly large and the arrival of Mr. Khan as a politician with crowd support was a major event.
But then President Asif Ali Zardari called his U.S. ambassador Hussain Haqqani to return to Pakistan to explain his role in “memogate,” the still mysterious affair in which he apparently gave international fixer Mansoor Ijaz a memo that was passed on to Admiral Mullen. It is not yet clear who was behind the memo and what he hoped to accomplish; did the Zardari regime really fear a coup at a time when the army was on the back-foot and faced real public humiliation in Pakistan in May 2011? And if it did, why pick this circuitous route to look for American help? And how would a regime that is unable to control the army and fears a coup be able to turn around and completely defang the same army with U.S. help a few days later? Is there more to the story? We don’t know, and may never know, but the story is not over yet.
Both stories may even be related; there are suggestions that Mr. Khan’s sudden rise is not just spontaneous combustion but involves some help from “the agencies.” Circumstantial evidence in favour of this suspicion includes the obvious sympathy he is receiving from pro-military websites and the fact that his extremely “liberal” and reasonable interview with Karan Thapar has not ignited any firestorm of protest in the “Paknationalist” community — a community generally quick to jump on anyone who talks of improved relations with India or admits that we do have militants and that they do need to be eliminated. Memogate is even more obviously a story about the civilian-military divide in Pakistan and it is no secret that it is the army that is asking for his removal. Is this then the proverbial perfect storm that will sweep away the current civilian dispensation and replace it with that old favourite of the army and the middle class: a “caretaker government” that will rid us of “corrupt politicians” and “unpatriotic elements” and make Pakistan the China of South Asia?
I have no way of knowing if the time is nigh, but the dream of a new start is not a figment of my imagination. The military and its favourite intellectuals (and large sections of the middle class) seem to be in a permanent state of anticipation of the day when the military will sweep away this sorry scheme of things and then we will have order and progress. If pressed about the nature of the system that will replace the current system, the naïve foot soldiers may think of the late lamented (and mostly imaginary) caliphate if they are on the Islamist side of the fence; or of “reformed” and real democracy, the kind that does not elect Altaf Hussains and Asif Zardaris, if they are on the smaller westernised liberal side of the fence. But the army’s own house intellectuals are more likely to point to China. That the history of China and the ruling communist party has no resemblance to GHQ’s own history of inept and retrograde interference in Pakistani politics is something that is never brought up; apparently this time, the GHQ will start where the Chinese are today, having conveniently skipped an intervening century of mass movements, civil wars and revolutions, not to speak of 4000 years of civilisation and culture.
Of course, the system as it exists is unnatural. Either the army has to be brought to heel under an elected civilian regime or civilians have to be pushed aside for a more efficient form of military rule (even if it is in the garb of a civilian “caretaker regime”). The current “neither fish nor fowl” system will have to evolve in one direction or the other, or crises like memogate will continue to erupt. Since most people think the army has the upper hand, the second outcome appears more likely to them. It could be that Mr. Khan offers them the chance to have their cake and eat it too; he is genuinely popular and if his party wins the elections and comes to power, the army may have the regime it wants in a more legitimate manner. But this middle-class dream outcome also seems unlikely. It is hard to see how the PTI can win a majority in a genuine election. And with no plan beyond simplistic patriotic slogans, any such regime will soon face the same problems as the one it replaces.
That brings us to the second prediction: the current atmosphere of crisis will continue unabated no matter what arrangements are made by the army. The really critical problem in Pakistan is not “corrupt politicians.” In that respect, we are little different from India, Indonesia or many other countries not thought to be in terminal existential crisis. The real problem is that an overpopulated third world postcolonial state has not yet settled even the most fundamental issues about the nature of the state and its institutions. The “hard” version of the two-nation theory and its associated Islamism have helped to create a constituency for millenarian Islamist fantasies. And 20 years of training militants for “asymmetric warfare” against India has created an armed force and a safe haven for that force. These two streams have mingled to the point where the state faces civil war against its own creations. It is also a war for which the deep state lacks an adequate narrative, having spent decades nurturing a virulent anti-Indian and Islamist ideology that glorifies the very people they are now forced to fight. But fight them it must because its own interests lie with globalised capitalism, not militants. They may imagine they can again direct the war outwards to Afghanistan and Kashmir, but the militants have other ideas, and will not go quietly into the night. Even if they did, the legitimacy of the 1973 constitution and its institutions within the elite remains low and so the crisis of governance would continue.
So, after this doom and gloom, a faint “positive” prediction: There are better than even chances that eventually the deep state will be compelled to claw its way past all these problems to defeat the militants, make peace with India and establish a straightforward near-secular democratic system to run the country. All of that may look less than the paradise many Pakistanis are waiting for, but it’s what the world has to offer at this point in history and it is unlikely that the intellectual resources of GHQ will somehow produce an alternative that the rest of the world has not yet found. It will not be pretty, but it will be done.
Or they will fail, with unpredictable dire consequences for their own people and the region. Either way, India would do well to help positive trends and resist negative ones without losing sight of the big picture. I think Manmohan Singh realises that, I hope others do too.
– The village was small and the entire community was tied together like a family, with common cultural values and traditions evolved over hundreds, if not thousands of years. They were farmers and knew very well as to how to work in the fields and love and sing together, but had poor understanding of the political realities of their times.
One day, they saw the sunset as one community but at the dawn, realized that the village is divided by an invisible line created not by Hindus and Muslims, but by few British advisors called Radcliffe commission. And so was the territory of 88 million people of the subcontinent. ….
Read more » ValueVersity
» → YouTube
by Saibal Dasgupta
BEIJING: A jihadist group has released a video on the recent violence in western Xinjiang province while providing China new evidence that terrorists involved in the bloodbath were trained in Pakistan. The violence in two towns in Xinjiang bordering Pakistan left 40 dead.
But the Chinese foreign ministry refrained from naming Pakistan in its closely calibrated response to a question about the 10-minute video showing Turkestan Islamic Party leader Abdul Shakoor Damla claiming responsibility for the violence.
“I haven’t seen the video you mentioned. Our principled position is that at present, a small handful of terrorist forces..,out of motives of splitting China, are conducting rampant violent terrorist activities within China’s border [to] seriously undermine China’s national unity, and regional peace and stability,” Liu Weimin, the spokesperson, said. ….
Read more → TOI
by Amir Qureshi
It was only a matter of time anyway. A few days ago, a police officer along with his squad burst into the Nairang Art Gallery and beat up the female curator for wearing a sleeveless dress and interacting with men. The police officer, a SHO, was perturbed by the ‘fahash’ ambience of the place.
After being assaulted the woman and her colleagues who came to her rescue were taken to the police station and booked under an obsolete ordinance.
Nairang Art Gallery is a work of devotion to art, literature, music and design by the iconic architect Nayyer Ali Dada. Some say it’s the modern day’s equivalent of the Pak Tea House – where left-leaning intellectuals come to spend their time. They have a small cafeteria which pays for part of the operating expenses of the art gallery; the rest of the funds are put up by Nayyer Ali Dada. ….
Read more →THE EXPRESS TRIBUNE BLOG
This is something to watch twice – son of Maududi talking about the monster his father created….. The language of the interview is urdu (Hindi).
→ YouTube
– France halts heavy military equipment sale to Pak
New Delhi, May 27 (ANI): France has said that it has put the sale of heavy military equipment to Pakistan on hold.
French Defence Minister Gerard Longuet told reporters in New Delhi that France it would only sell light defence hardware to Pakistan.
“This point was raised during the bilateral meeting with Pakistan Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani in Paris recently. I can tell you that only military equipment that are being sold to Pakistan at the moment are interception electronic means to fight against terrorism,” Longuet said.
“In fact, at this stage, heavy military equipment are not being sold… because we want to have certainty that we can intercept light communication equipments used by terrorists… In fact, we have discouraged any request [from Pakistan] for heavy equipment,” he added.News on New Delhi.
Syed Farooq Haider, a son of Maulana Maududi. The language of the talk show is urdu (Hindi).
Courtesy: The Express TV (Front Line with Kamran Shahid and Farooq Haider)
The language of the discussion is in urdu/ Hindi.
Courtesy: Aaj News TV ( Aaj Ki Baat – 26th March 2011 – Shahid Ameen & Sohail Warraich)
Islamabad : Pakistan will buy Chinese air-to-air SD-10 missiles and avionics to arm its 250 JF-17 Thunder fighter fleet, the country’s air force chief has said, amid signs that the French had spurned offer to equip them. “Islamabad is seeking to deepen military cooperation with Beijing”, Air Chief Marshal Rao Qamar Suleman Chief of the Pakistani Air Force told the Global Times revealing that his country may also opt to acquire other advanced defence missile systems including Chinese Surface to Air Missiles (SAM) systems. …
Read more : Wichaar
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