The farce of Abbottabad, part 3 : the consequences

This blog post is a continuation of the issues discussed in the previous two - hence the words "part 3" in the title. 


What made the farce of USA's "daring" raid on Abbottabad - in which the hapless Osama died a second death - believable was not so much the brazen lies of the USA president as the humiliating response of Pakistan's President and the Prime Minister. It was as if both these puppets had been pre-programmed to utter nonsensical and demeaning words in response to a seemingly illegal act which violated Pakistan's sovereignty. The Chief Puppet Zardari described the operation as something which was "highly appreciated" while his sidekick Gilani called the degradation of Pakistan "a great victory". This was clear proof that the US held the Pakistan government by the throat, a dysfunctional government which had lost all notions of independence and sovereignty. No wonder the USA's Psychological Operation (PSYOP), targeting Pakistan's Army and its intelligence service, the ISI, had succeeded brilliantly. 


Over the last few years the CIA has succeeded in establishing a huge network of agents and local collaborators, including retired officers of Pakistan's armed forces with close links to serving officers. This was made possible by the Zardari-Gilani duo giving authority to Pakistan's ambassador in the US, Haqqani, to issue hundreds of visas to Americans without any checks whatsoever. This exercise was later repeated in Dubai when the Pakistan embassy was opened up in the evening for the sole purpose of freely issuing visas, bypassing the standard procedures of verification of personal data by the Foreign Ministry and by the ISI.


The rot began many years ago when the USA administration adopted a conscious policy of buying off influential people in Pakistan, starting with the top man Musharraf [see the blog post The case of missing persons ]. However, this policy of recruiting Pakistani traitors to assist with implementation of US policies in Pakistan has seen a huge expansion in recent years. Pakistanis who have sold out to the Americans can be found in all walks of life: the government, the civil service, the armed forces and the media. Pakistan's English language press, especially, is teeming with USA sympathisers who will never criticise US policies but they will virulently attack anyone and anything that offers resistance to the success of those policies. The Army, the ISI, Imran Khan and the Urdu language press (and patriotic Pakistanis writing in the English language press) are obvious targets.

Pakistan's tattered reputation
On Friday, 11 May, the Heads of Pakistan's Army and Air Force addressed a joint session of both the Upper and the Lower houses of Pakistan's Parliament. This session was a great disappointment. The assembled Generals could not summon the courage to clash head on with the Pakistani government and its USA masters, and sweep away the web of lies the two governments had erected. To do this the Generals would have had to admit that they, or a section of Pakistan's armed forces, had colluded with a foreign power to violate the country's airspace and murder a man in violation of Pakistan's laws. It is this sordid collaboration between the Pakistani leaders and the USA which is so hurtful. 


All the indications are that Pakistan's armed forces are infiltrated with traitors in powerful positions. There is immense pressure being exerted by the Americans and their Pakistani collaborators for Generals Kayani and Pasha (the Head of ISI) to toe the line. Pasha, especially, is being targeted and a way may be found to prise him out if he resists the expanding American influence in Pakistan. He appears to have been the driving spirit behind the unanimous Resolution that the two Houses of Parliament had agreed after a mammoth 10-hour session. This Resolution had 12 points, among them were:


* The USA's action in Abbottabad, constituting a violation of Pakistan's air space and sovereignty, was condemned.


* The USA's drone attacks on Pakistani territory were condemned. The USA was warned that if these attacks did not stop, the government would consider the closing down of routes used for the transport of supplies to the US and Nato forces in Afghanistan. Generally, Pakistan would review its working  relationship with the USA.


* An independent commission will be established to investigate the Abbottabad debacle. So far, not a single name has been announced as a possible member of that commission!


Three minor revelations - which people suspected anyhow - were made by the assembled military men:


* Pakistan's Shamsi airbase was not under the control of Pakistan Air Force! Apparently, it was owned by the United Arab Emirates and was sub-contracted to the USA, giving that country a free hand to fly aircraft from Shamsi for its nefarious designs. No one seems to have asked if the base will now be taken back into Pakistan's control!.


* Pakistan Air Force has the technology to shoot down the US drones which have killed well over two thousand Pakistani citizens. It is up to the government to give an order for shooting down the drones if the US continues to violate Pakistan's sovereignty [as the readers of this blog know well, Pakistan is a willing party to this arrangement].


* Raymond Davis was freed on the order of the central government - but the ISI top man, Pasha, declined to provide further details relating to that mysterious case.

The USA's hammer blow
The show of defiance by Pakistan's National Assembly was too much for the American masters. Scarcely had the ink dried on the 12-point Resolution than the world's only Superpower delivered a hammer blow by launching drone attacks on Pakistan and daring it to implement its worthless Resolution. Separately, the USA's creation, the Pakistani Taliban, launched a suicide attack which destroyed almost a hundred Pakistani lives (most died on the spot, others in hospital later). Further terrorist bombings followed on a smaller scale, culminating in a sophisticated assault on the Mehran Naval base on 23 May, which destroyed reconnaissance aircraft on the ground and inflicted immense damage. This was not a random act of terrorism. The attackers had precise instructions about the layout of the naval base and the targets to destroy. This attack came a couple of days after the announcement by Pakistan's Defence Minister, Ahmed Mukhtar, to the effect that China would be asked to build a new naval base in Gwadar and the  operational control of Gwadar port would be transferred from a dubious Singapore company to reliable Chinese hands.


With the exception of those who have sold themselves for dollars, Pakistanis are coming to a realisation that the sophisticated weaponry supplied to the terrorists through Afghanistan and, more importantly, the timing of attacks which coincides  with American warnings to Pakistan, can only mean one thing: the mastermind behind this human slaughter is the world's foremost terrorist state (aided and abetted by other arch enemies of Pakistan). Having terrorised Iraq and destroyed the spirit of its people through indiscriminate killings, the USA is engaged in similar bloodletting in Afghanistan (which it already occupies) and Pakistan (which it occupies through its proxies). This immoral superpower will go to any lengths in pursuit of its selfish policies.

A glimmer of hope
The government and the opposition are both silent, having already forgotten the brave wording of the 12-point Resolution. No orders were given to shoot down the drones and the supply routes to Afghanistan remained open. It fell to Imran Khan to stage a sit-in in Karachi over the two days 21-22 May, which resulted in the temporary suspension of USA/Nato supplies. Imran is expected to announce a long march in protest against the USA's drone attacks on Pakistan's citizens and the US's interference in Pakistan's affairs.


In the midst of the destruction unleashed on Pakistan following Parliament's  Resolution, Imran Khan's dharna (the sit-in) has been the only show of defiance. The day after his dharna ended,  John Kerry, chairman of the US Senate's foreign relations committee, came to Pakistan, wagging his finger and telling the Pakistanis that he had not come to apologise for the raid on Pakistani territory. The sheer arrogance of his words and his body language, and the way the Pakistani leaders cowered before him, may have been the last straw for the long suffering Pakistani nation. More and more people, including the judiciary, are able to see that Pakistan's fake democracy - effectively, subjugation to the USA - needs to be replaced with the genuine article. The first priority is to clean up the electoral register which contains no less than 37 million bogus names (some 44% of the eligible voters). Millions more who are eligible to vote need to be added to the voting lists. Free and fair elections in the near future are needed desperately to get rid of the criminals and traitors who rule Pakistan.

The Tojan Horses in Pakistan
In the blog post The Fall of the American Empire I mentioned the American-financed newspaper, The Express Tribune, which defends the policies of the US government irrespective of the harm they inflict on Pakistan. The online version of that publication had censored my comments on its editorial relating to the notorious Raymond Davis case. More recently, I offered comments on ET's story relating to the discussions in Pakistan's National Assembly. People were being provoked to demand that "heads must fall" - a euphemism for the heads of Kayani and Pasha - but my comments, which opposed that view, were censored. My unpublished comments are given below, which also show how badly my judgement was affected at that time by the "tsunami of lies" unleashed by the Americans:


Are the Americans taking the Pakistani nation for a ride? Why do so many people echo the Americans' sentiments and accusations?

Go back to 9/11 when the sole super power was hit at the heart of its military and commercial centres. Were there any resignations? Not one!

Let us, therefore, keep things in perspective and avoid shooting ourselves in the foot. No one is perfect and mistakes will always be made. After each mistake, we need to re-assess the situation and correct any weaknesses that come to light. If we weaken our military and the ISI at this time the obvious winners will be the USA and India.

Osama was supposed to have died some years ago as a result of kidney failure. That, I think, was the view of the ISI as well. However, it was obvious that the Americans were driven insane by their own obsession with Osama, but they wouldn't say why they thought he was alive and they wouldn't share with the ISI the underlying reasons for holding that view. That being so, ISI was simply passing on any information it picked up about Al-Qaeda to the CIA - which eventually succeeded in pinpointing Osama. All the time the CIA kept the ISI in the dark about the follow-up investigations based on the intelligence that the latter had made available.

It is clear that the Americans, our so-called "friends" and "allies", have stabbed Pakistan in the back and, very cunningly, rubbed our collective nose in the dust while the whole world stood watching aghast.

دیکھا جو تیر کھا کے کمیں گاہ کی طرف

اپنے ہی دوستوں سے ملاقات ہو گئی

Terrorising Pakistan: part 2

A guest post by Asif Haroon Raja 

In accordance with the chalked out plan, terrorism was intentionally pushed into Pakistan to destabilize the country. The two extreme flanks of Pakistan , FATA and Balochistan were inflamed to make things difficult for Pak Army, fundamentally poised to guard eastern border. Apart from CIA and FBI gaining a strong foothold in Pakistan under the pretext of chasing and nabbing terrorists’ right up to Karachi , the US Administration increased its influence inside Pakistan so comprehensively that Boucher and Negroponte started to micro manage its domestic affairs including local bodies’ elections and 2002 general elections and reduced the parliament into a rubber stamp. American intelligence agencies helped RAW to make inroads in trouble spots.    

Pakistan was first harried on account of nuclear proliferation in 2004. Hue and cry was made over AQ Khan Network, and Iran and Libya put under intense pressure to establish a connection. Although Pakistan refused to make available Dr AQ Khan for interrogation after he made a public confession under duress, Pakistan inadvertently accepted that nuclear proliferation had taken place. It assured USA and IAEA that network had been effectively disabled. Pakistan thought that the matter was closed but it was never let off the hook and its nuclear program came under unceasing vicious smear campaign.

After 2005, The US began to change colors and became more intrusive and difficult. This change occurred because of resurgence of Taliban in southern and eastern Afghanistan , development of Gwadar Port with Chinese assistance, Iran-Pakistan gas pipeline project, and Pakistan economy getting robust. Pakistan was whipped by USA , India and even landlocked Afghanistan holding it responsible for their difficulties in Afghanistan. Pakistan bore the pain of whips and degradation to ensure US support and flow of US dollars. Pakistan kept chasing the faceless enemy without a comprehensive plan, intelligence, low intensity conflict training, counter terrorism equipment and motivational program. These shortcomings became serious impediments in tackling terrorism and allowed the Tehrik-e-Taliban to gather strength and expand its influence.

Having sufficiently embroiled the Army in war on terror and weakened its institutions the US started to inch closer towards achieving its goals and became more demanding. It repeatedly asked Pakistan to do more without compensating it for the immense sacrifices it was rendering. Instead of rewarding Pakistan for taking the main brunt of war on terror, the US rewarded India in the form of lucrative civil nuclear and defence deals, well knowing that instead of curbing terrorism India had inflamed it through covert means. Ironically Pakistan didn’t raise even an eyebrow on this grave development. Its lackadaisical stance resulted in materialization of Indo-US nuclear agreement in 2008.

After vainly trying to put the ISI under Ministry of Interior in August 2008, the US exerted extreme pressure on Pakistan leadership to let its military intrude into FATA. Several aerial raids, artillery fire and a ground attack in Angoor Adda in September 2008 were carried out. These blatant intrusions indicated American growing impatience and their desperation to directly meddle in Waziristan . While Pakistan gave its tacit approval to drone attacks since this understanding had already been given by Gen Musharraf, Pak military under new commander Gen Kayani did not agree to the proposal of joint operation or any unilateral action and took a firm stand. Had this proposal been ceded to, it would have amounted to allowing the head of a camel to enter the tent. Entry in FATA would have encouraged US military to keep creeping forward and to gradually envelope whole of Pakistan under the pretext of striking non-state actors. Mention of Quetta , Peshawar and Karachi as hiding places of high profile terrorists and main base of Al-Qaeda in FATA and Taliban Shura in Quetta exposed its intentions.

While attitude of US officials became belligerent, Indo-Israeli-US propaganda campaign became fiercer. Mumbai drama was stage managed on 26 November 2008 to give an excuse to India to heat up eastern border. Throughout 2009 India remained in a highly offensive mood. Pakistan’s policy of appeasement was taken as sign of weakness and subjected to unabated pressure to make Pakistan agree to Indian unfair demands of proceeding against suspects without evidence and to dismantle Indian specific terrorist network. The US instead of acting in a fair and unbiased manner brazenly supported Indian stance.

None of the accusers took into account the hard fact that Pakistan had suffered as no other country in the world had from foreign sponsored terrorism. Its economy suffered a loss of over $45 billion and it lost over 8000 lives in the blowback of the militants in retaliation to military operations. Pakistan bore maximum brunt of foreign sponsored terrorism during the years 2008-09 and is still suffering. After targeting Peshawar incessantly, Lahore is the current target of RAW. From March 2009 onwards, dozens of terrorist and suicide attacks have taken place in capital city of Punjab and hand of RAW was visible in each incident.

Slight change in Indo-US-Afghan belligerence occurred after Pak Army’s successful fight against well-entrenched militants in Malakand Division, Swat, Bajaur and South Waziristan (SW) at a heavy price. These successes were achieved at a time when nothing was going right in Pakistan . Political situation was in a mess, economy had become fragile, law and order had worsened and Pak Army’s image had been badly dented due to an orchestrated smear campaign. Pakistan was being viewed as a failing state unable to protect its nuclear assets. Stories of balkanization or break up were in circulation and a very gloomy picture was painted. It was propagated that Pakistan’s security forces were incapable of fighting the militants and protecting nuclear assets. US Special Forces started to fine tune their contingency plans to take away the nukes before falling into wrong hands. Indian strike formations had taken up a forward posture and Indian military had started beating drums of war.

It was under such daunting challenges that Pak Army fully supported by the government and the public turned the tide and blunted coordinated external and internal onslaughts and left the detractors gaping with wonder. CIA-RAW-Mossad supported Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) is on the run; its liberty of action is curtailed. During the operations, the Army came across irrefutable evidence of involvement of RAW in all the restive regions. Besides arresting Hindu RAW agents, some disguised as Taliban, heaps of Indian origin weaponry was captured. Israeli made Uzi weapons and telescopic rifles were also found. It was a surprise to find highly encrypted communication system in use of TTP which could not be intercepted but could jam and listen to Army’s telephone/wireless network. Mossad had provided Israeli made specially designed transmitters for FM radios to Fazlullah which played a key role in expanding his influence in Swat and Malakand Division?

In June 2009 when Pak officials confronted Washington with evidence that terrorists in Pakistan were using sophisticated American weapons, the US media quickly leaked stories about US weapons missing from Afghan National Army. The figure of losses ran into thousands and it couldn’t be that ANA soldiers were operating without weapons or with locally manufactured weapons without being noticed by superiors.

No sooner was TTP base routed in SW that the US started exerting pressure on Pakistan to mount another offensive in North Waziristan (NW), painted as epicenter of terrorism. Several RAW created terrorist groups including Asian Tigers and some runaways of TTP have sprouted in NW to create anarchic conditions. Gen Kayani has rightly remained firm that no further stretching into NW till full consolidation of Swat and SW, which includes rehabilitation of IDPs, rebuilding of destroyed infrastructure and transfer of power to civil administration. For this he needs expeditious delivery of promised funds. He has also desired speedy delivery of counter insurgency equipment for achieving long term tangible results.

148,000 troops are already committed in FATA and Swat. Army cannot afford to further thin out troops from eastern border as long as Indian intentions are hostile. India has so far not closed training centres and Pakistan specific consulates in Afghanistan wherefrom covert operations are being launched. The US has been told that Pakistan would not like any military role for India in Afghanistan including training of ANA after the departure of US-NATO troops. Kayani prefers training of Afghan security forces by Pakistan Army. This has been partly agreed to and hopefully Afghan officers would be sent to attend training courses in various schools of instructions.

Pakistan has also been urging Washington to facilitate settlement of disputes with India . While little headway has been made on Pakistan ’s requests, the US is relentlessly asking Pak Army to speedily jump into boiling cauldron of NW irrespective of consequences. Hilary Clinton, Holbrooke and Adm. Mike Mullen are fixated on NW and have hinged successful outcome of Afghanistan war on neutralization of NW. All three in quick succession have issued tough statements to maximize pressure on Pakistan . They see Osama hale and hearty living in Pakistan . Minuscule Haqqani network and diminutive Lashkar-e-Taiba are being portrayed as most dangerous monsters. As a super power, the US should have felt ashamed in even making a passing mention of these insignificant entities. But such are the ways of bullies who by design project a Lilliputian into a Gulliver.

The US rules out scope for negotiations with Haqqani network in NW whereas it has given a blank cheque to Karzai to hold negotiations with Taliban and has not put any pressure on Gen Petraeus as to why he is not expediting operation against Kandahar. Instead of making some headway, visitors from 27 countries in Kabul were given fanciful news that ISAF would be able to hand over security of Afghanistan to ANA by 2014. While remaining fixated on NW, the US is least concerned about fast deteriorating security situation in Balochistan and Karachi where RAW and Blackwater in concert with local anti-state elements are actively involved in target killings. It betrays US sincerity of intentions.

Brig Asif Haroon Raja is Staff College and Armed Forces War Course qualified, holds MSc war studies degree; a second generation officer, he fought epic battle of Hilli in northwest East Bengal during 1971 war, in which Maj M. Akram received Nishan-e-Haider posthumously. He served as Directing Staff Command & Staff College, Defence Attaché Egypt and Sudan and Dean of Corps of Military Attaches in Cairo . He commanded the heaviest brigade in Kashmir . He is multi-lingual and speaks English, Pashto and Punjabi fluently. He is author of books titled ‘Battle of Hilli’, ‘1948, 1965 & 1971 Kashmir Battles and Freedom Struggle’, ‘Muhammad bin Qasim to Gen Musharraf’, Roots of 1971 Tragedy’; has written number of motivational pamphlets. Draft of his next book ‘Tangled Knot of Kashmir ’ is ready. He is a defence analyst and columnist and writes articles on security, defence and political matters for numerous international/national newspapers/websites. Email: asifharoon7751@yahoo.com

Tailpiece


This article was first published at the 'People of Pakistan' blog on 26 July 2010. This article touches on some of the issues I raised in my last blog post and it introduces some new ones. I do not necessarily agree with everything that Brig Asif Haroon Raja says but I do think that he raises important issues which need to be more widely known. 


You can see the original article by clicking here.

The self-destruction of Pakistan....

.... by religious fanatics and USA lackeys.

Religious fanatics

The catalyst for this post is the massacre of Qadianis (Rabwah Ahmadi group) in their mosques in Lahore on 28 May, 2010. About 90 people, including children, died. The responsibility for the killings has been claimed by “Pakistan Taliban”, a monstrous organisation that sprang up suddenly some five years ago. Its origins are steeped in mystery – it is widely suspected of having been a creation of CIA with active support from India. The TTP monster (“Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan”, to give it its full title) has now grown out of control – while it still concentrates mostly on self-destruction within Pakistan, it has begun to threaten American interests as well.

The day, 28^th May, itself is highly significant. This day is celebrated in Pakistan as the Day of Takbeer, in commemoration of Pakistan becoming a nuclear power in 1998 by successfully setting off nuclear explosions. Those who masterminded the massacre last Friday may have been thumbing their noses at Pakistan, ostensibly a nuclear power but, in reality, little more than a client state of the USA ever since the infamous dictator Musharraf signed away Pakistan's sovereignty in return for American backing to keep him in power. Following the end of Musharraf's long reign, the motley gang of convicts, criminals and fraudsters that succeeded him as the government of Pakistan has done little to improve matters.

Thus, while it is right that we should condemn the massacre of our fellow Pakistanis we should not lose sight of the wider picture. Before targeting Ahmadees, the TTP had been complicit in the mass murder of Shias and in the killings of personnel belonging to Pakistan’s security forces, not to mention indiscriminate bombings of hundreds of fellow Pakistanis of all religious denominations. The ever widening ripples of terror through Pakistani society indicate how the ignorant, ill educated religious fanatics in Pakistan are being used cynically – indeed, in an inhuman, thoroughly diabolical manner – to spread terror and to destabilise Pakistan.

In parallel with the atrocities committed by the religious fanatics, a vastly bigger horror is going on largely unchallenged, resulting in the deaths of thousands of Pakistani citizens.

USA lackeys

The horror referred to in the preceding paragraph comprises the massacres and abductions of Pakistani citizens carried out by ‘educated’ Pakistanis who have seemingly taken an oath of allegiance to the USA. There are three aspects to this obscene collaboration of our westernised Pakistanis with their paymasters in the USA:

1   1. Pakistan’s government and its military are both equally guilty in allowing the USA to launch attacks from the air on Pakistan’s citizens. The ostensible reason for these “drone attacks” (see the fourth paragraph of my my last blog post) is to destroy ‘Taliban’ but the widespread mayhem results in killing mostly the innocent citizens (the death toll splits as 97% innocent citizens, 3% suspected ‘Taliban’). This wanton waste of human life is given the obscene name “collateral damage”!

2   2. By giving birth to the Frankenstein of “Pakistan Taliban” the USA managed to create conditions of civil war in Pakistan, which forced Pakistan’s military to invade the north western areas. This was part of the USA’s ‘do more’ strategy for Pakistan, designed to force this hapless country to sacrifice itself for USA’s war aims in Afghanistan. As a result of military action in populated areas of Pakistan, large numbers of innocent Pakistani citizens have died at the hands of its own military while the damage to property, and the destruction of infrastructure, is incalculable. Flourishing cities, towns and villages have been reduced to places of utter desolation where ghosts might roam. To understand the full horror of what has happened, please click this link:

http://www.thenews.com.pk/editorial_detail.asp?id=240313

Quite apart from civilian deaths, the deaths of Pakistani soldiers are many times the number of deaths reported by the USA and British occupying forces in Afghanistan.

        

3. Pakistan’s government meekly issues visas in accordance with the demands it receives from the USA, with little effort being made to check on the people for whom visas are issued. The result is that the country is teeming with USA “contractors” and CIA agents, who come into the country as “advisers” and "diplomats". Over the last several years thousands of Pakistanis have simply disappeared, believed to have been abducted by the ISI (Inter Services Intelligence), many of whom have been handed over to the USA. More recently, though, the ISI’s body snatchers are probably keeping people imprisoned in secret locations in Pakistan, where the Americans are given free access. I have previously written about this shameful episode in the history of Pakistan, which you can read here. 

In summary, this is the reality of Pakistan today: anarchy, civil war, religious intolerance in a public environment where true Islamic principles are non-existent, an unholy civil-military alliance beholden to the USA, and an uncertain future for its citizens.

All is not darkness, though. Two rays of light remain: Pakistan’s Judiciary, which refuses to bow to the Executive or the Military; and a group of courageous and patriotic journalists who are prepared to criticise the forces which have conspired, knowingly or through foolish acts, to destroy Pakistan. Those who can read Urdu might like to click on the link below to read about the enormous pressure that Pakistan’s press is subjected to at the moment.

Black sheep


Earlier blog posts relevant to this topic
The Muharram massacres
The day of the vampires
Single issue warriors