Libya! Here we come!!

With hindsight, my blog The Fall of the American Empire last February may have been a bit premature. I had underestimated the cunning and sheer ruthlessness of the USA Administration. The Americans, and their sidekick the NATO countries, are adept at turning a blind eye to the worst sort of barbarities so long as their interests are not threatened. Bahrain, the oil-rich state under the USA's thumb, is a good example where it is OK for the rulers to kill their own citizens without fear of condemnation by the USA or NATO.  Not so Libya, another oil-and-gas play not totally subservient to modern-day imperialist powers. 

I was taken by surprise at the speed with which the "conscience" of NATO countries has been aroused following the deaths of hundreds of Libyans at the hands of the tyrant Gaddafi. The hypocrisy of western governments and a lot of the comment in the newspapers is nauseating.

Not a mirage! Loaded with 'gifts' for Libya

French Mirage bombs Libya

  

      

The destruction

..... and the inevitable funeral

At this very moment the Indian Army in Kashmir is engaged in genocide - over 100,000 Kashmiris are said to have died over the last decade. Far from there being UN resolutions condemning the actions of India's government, the USA president and the British Prime Minister visit India so they can sell their goods and services there. They both act as if they are totally ignorant of the atrocities committed by the Indian army in Kashmir.

Israel continues to act against the Palestinians exactly as the German Nazis treated the Jews of Europe. As the recent Al-Jazeera/the Guardian revelations show, the USA is complicit in the macabre game of murder and humiliation in which the Israel government has been engaged for years.

For the last several years the USA has been regularly attacking Pakistan with pilot-less aircraft, the so-called drones, which rain down death and misery from the skies on the hapless Pakistanis. According to the USA journalists, over 97% of those who die are innocent citizens while fewer than 3% are "terrorists". The world is silent and Pakistan's puppet of a president declares he is "not worried about collateral damage"!

In Afghanistan routine killings of ordinary citizens are common, both by the foreign occupation forces and by the local Taliban. It is difficult to tell which of these two parties is more barbaric. The invasion of Afghanistan is a mystery, based on one-sided accusations by the USA. An Arab fugitive hiding in that backward country is said to have plotted, and successfully carried out, an ingenious and highly intricate attack on the "twin towers" of New York and on the Pentagon building! No one ever explained how the third tower collapsed mysteriously or why the evidence was removed from the scene of the crime and destroyed.

Then, there was Iraq, the oil producer. Its government was accused of possessing  weapons of mass destruction and the country was invaded. A million Iraqis have since died but the UN has done nothing to punish those who took the decision to invade. The war criminals Bush and Blair roam free!

When the dust has settled on the "liberation movements" of the resources-rich Middle East we'll probably find that the real winners are not the people of those lands but the governments of the USA and the NATO countries, who will somehow manage to install pliant yes-men as rulers. If you doubt this, take a good long look at the two stooges - Zardari and Gilani - who head the government of Pakistan. I still think the American Empire is heading towards a fall but it won't be a dramatic event similar to the breakup of the Soviet Union - it will be a slow collapse spread over a number of years. 

Tailpiece

Johann Hari is one of the foremost journalists in the UK. He writes for The Independent where his article, "We're not being told the truth on Libya", was published on 8 April. It is a compelling read, the link is:

http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/johann-hari/johann-hari-were-not-being-told-the-truth-on-libya-2264785.html

My own comment on this article was:
"Johann Hari, you are spot on. The ruthless honesty you show in your articles seems to frighten a lot of people because, in moral terms, the western democracies appear little better than dictatorships and police states. Can you turn your formidable intellect to the question of how the rotten western political systems can be improved? A system that can transform the fresh-faced candidate Obama into the duplicitous monster he is today 
is hardly worth preserving."

DAVIS FLIES OUT

So,’ Raymond Davis’ – or, whatever his name was – flew to safety on 16 March 2010! [for the full background, see the last blog post, The Fall of the American Empire]

This CIA spy – claimed by the twin liars, Obama and Clinton, to be a USA diplomat in Pakistan - had broken several Pakistani laws: carrying firearms illegally, engaging in activities harmful to Pakistan and killing two Pakistanis. On 16 March he was indicted in court just for the crime of murder.  Events then proceeded with the speed of lightning.

The lawyer who had previously represented the families of the murdered men was nowhere to be seen. A new face spoke on behalf of the families and he claimed that, under Pakistani law, the families had accepted “blood money” from  Davis. Documents showing how much was paid to each relative, duly signed by the relative concerned, were presented in court. All relatives showed up in court and acknowledged that the monies were safely in their bank accounts. In total, the amount paid out came to some $2.3 million, a huge amount by Pakistani standards. Davis was not charged for any other offences and was declared a free man, having paid the blood-money and served his sentence of “imprisonment” lasting all of 48 days. He was driven to an airport, where the Americans had conveniently flown in an aircraft the day before, and  was flown to the USA base in Bagram, Afghanistan. 

The Brown Sahibs of Pakistan

Thus ended the saga of “Raymond Davis”, which had gripped the Pakistani nation for the previous one-and-a-half months! This shameful ending shows what is truly wrong with Pakistan: its corrupt and spineless “westernised” Establishment - comprising the federal government, the provincial government, the army, the judiciary and the bureaucracy – is so used to aping the Americans in all sorts of ways that it has lost the moral courage to stand up for justice and for the honour of Pakistan. For the Brown Sahibs and Memsahibs of Pakistan this state of unending servitude to the Americans co-exists with the perpetuation of the colonial system left behind by the departing British in 1947.

The Brown Sahibs speak English Pakistani-style, secure in the knowledge that the "Berlin Wall" of English they have erected around themselves cannot easily be breached. Standing high up on that wall, they look down on the “natives”, who speak the national language Urdu or one of the regional languages. Notwithstanding Urdu’s status as the national language, the official language remains English, which is at best poorly understood by some 97% of the population of Pakistan.

The suffocating hold of English on national life is a primary reason for the widespread illiteracy of our nation. We simply do not have the resources to teach the whole population a foreign language which the corrupt and grasping  Brown Sahibs use as a status symbol and as a tool to keep the natives subdued. The consequences have been terrible: the illiterate or badly educated Pakistanis have taken a liberating religion like Islam and turned it into a monstrosity which is unrecognisable from the Qur’an that I read. The Brown Sahibs, on the other hand, are too busy aping the ways of their American masters to have the time to read and understand the Qur’an. Since they get their education through English-speaking foreigners, they are mostly ignorant of Islamic history and they do not know, for example, that the greatest centres of learning in medieval times, and the most tolerant societies on earth, were to be found in the Islamic world.

Thus it is that we, as a nation, are unable to have a sense of pride in our history (the Sindh civilisation stretches back thousands of years, though our Muslim identity was acquired much later), our Deen, our languages and our culture. We have sacrificed too much at the altar of gaudy westernisation. If only we could learn from the West instead of copying its worst aspects thoughtlessly!

I have written at length about Pakistan’s language problem, which you can read here. You might also be interested to read Mushfiq Ahmad's article published in The News recently: The bill to 'kill' Urdu

Closing the stable door after the horse has bolted

Following the shameful capitulation of Pakistan’s Establishment to the Americans, the usual chest beating and protests and demonstrations have begun. If nothing else, these actions will allow the dispossessed Pakistanis to vent their anger at the Brown Sahibs’ betrayal, who had focused on the personal aspect of this case and ignored the issues of national importance. The British newspapers, and several Pakistani newspapers, have revealed the sort of activities that Davis was engaged in.

Right now a petition has been presented in a Pakistani court which says that the judgment relating to Davis must be considered null and void because it was based on partial justice at best, and did not take into account the issues of vital importance to the Pakistani nation, for example, Davis’s espionage activities and his links with established terrorist organisations. Ironically, the largest terrorist organisation, the CIA, is never referred to as one! 

There is also a debate going on about the dirty tricks used by Pakistan’s Brown Sahibs to get the relatives of murdered men to co-operate and accept the blood-money. In a comment on my last blog post I had given a link to a report about the forcible poisoning of a relative of Fahim, one of the men murdered by Davis, to serve as a warning to all the other relatives to toe the line and not to press charges against Davis – which you can read here. Subsequently, relentless pressure was applied and astronomical sums of money were offered to win the relatives’ co-operation. The icing on the cake was the offer of USA visas! All the relatives have disappeared from view and may have been flown out to their new abodes in Obamaland. The judge who had hurriedly allowed Davis to go free has disappeared, too, perhaps fearing a violent backlash from the public. Wonder if he, too, has a one-way ticket to Obamaland?

The desperate lengths to which the Americans have gone simply highlights the immense importance that the Americans attach to the knowledge possessed by Davis, who appears to have been one of their key men in Pakistan. In these circumstances, the Brown Sahibs’ collusion in Davis’s escape amounts to treachery - but it will go unpunished because they are the ones who control Pakistan. I am reminded of the dying words of Fahim's young widow Shumaila, who committed suicide. As she lay dying, she said wistfully that she wanted a life for a life and wished to see Davis hanged. But she also knew that in today's  Pakistan it was impossible to have a fair trial against an American, who would be protected by the Pakistani rulers. Subsequent events have proved her right.

Lastly, there is a good deal of uncertainty about the treatment meted out to the relatives of the young man who had been crushed to death when a vehicle from the USA’s Lahore consulate drove the wrong way up a one-way street in a failed attempt to rescue Davis after he had committed the murders. I expect details will emerge in the coming days.

Tailpiece

The following day the Americans celebrated winning their man's freedom by launching a drone attack on a meeting of tribal elders in North Waziristan. Over 40 innocent Pakistanis died in the tragedy. The Brown Sahibs have issued the usual condemnations. However, as we know from WikiLeaks revelations, what goes on behind the scenes is something else altogether. Is the latest condemnation simply a ruse to deceive the Pakistanis into giving up their protests and demonstrations? The weasel words these people utter never go as far as saying the Pakistan Air Force will be ordered to shoot down the drone if the Americans attack again.  


20 March 2011 : I am glad that Pakistan's press, especially the Urdu press, is echoing similar views to those I have expressed in relation to the role played by Pakistan's elite in the Raymond Davis drama. Those who feel at home with Urdu will particularly like reading the following articles:    
غیرت  کی ڈولی    "Ghairat ki doli" by Ali Mas'ood Sayed:
 http://www.jang.com.pk/jang/mar2011-daily/20-03-2011/col10.htm

آج دل بہت اداس ہے   "Aaj dil bohat udaas hai" by Hina Khwaja Bayat:
 http://www.jang.com.pk/jang/mar2011-daily/20-03-2011/col9.htm

الله اس ملک کی حفاظت کرے   "Allah Ta'aala is mulk ki hifaazat karay" by Javed Chaudhry: http://express.com.pk/epaper/PoPupwindow.aspx?newsID=1101196304&Issue=NP_LHE&Date=20110320

Some sections of the English press, on the other hand, are making fun of such deeply held convictions by the Pakistani nation. The small minority of Brown Sahibs and Memsahibs laughingly refer to the rest of the nation as "ghairat brigade"! Are these dishonourable people totally bereft of any notions of honour as Pakistanis?

The Fall of the American Empire

The current turmoil in the Arab world that shows no signs of ending has an extra dimension which is usually glossed over in the stirring debates about the valiant Arabs' determination to free themselves from dictatorship. It is the simple fact that most Arab dictators are indebted to successive American governments for their hold on power. At the height of the Egyptian uprising, when Tahrir Square was filled to overflowing with fearless men and women, and the fall of Hosni Mubarak looked imminent, it was sickening to see the faces of the hypocrites Obama and Clinton suddenly pop up on TV screens, babbling on about an orderly transition of power. The distress they felt at the impending loss of their puppet oozed out of their hypocritical words and it was obvious that their primary concern was to get the spent Mubarak quickly replaced by another yes-man. No one brought out this ugly reality better than Robert Fisk, writing in The Independent. It was a marvellous period, watching the intrepid Egyptians taking on the brutal and cunning Mubarak, and reading Robert Fisk's lucid and perceptive reports. 

So, what is happening in the Middle East today is both a push for freedom by the long-suffering Arabs and a weakening of the USA's grip on its client states. Eventually, as true democracy begins to take shape in the Arab countries, a direct clash with the Americans looms on the horizon. That kind of clash has already taken place in Pakistan, which has exposed the USA's ugly face and will, inevitably, lead to a loss of American influence in Pakistan.


Robert Fisk




The Pretender fails to get himself crowned in Pakistan


For the last three weeks an American contract killer has been languishing in prison, having murdered two young men in a run down area of Lahore, Pakistan, on 27 January.  This is an astonishing development,  coming from the land where Queen Anne [ see Queen of Pakistan ] ruled with such aplomb just three months ago. This shows that the pretender to her throne, Cameron Munter, has failed abysmally to get himself crowned king. In the space of three short weeks he has moved rather quickly from heir apparent to a figure of fun: the fool, whose job it used to be to keep the monarch entertained. Only, the people being entertained are the poor, dispossessed people of Pakistan!


But the Pakistanis have paid a heavy price for witnessing the spectacle put on by the American clowns (yes, Munter is not the only fool around!). Apart from the two men shot dead by the hired killer - who, on being arrested, described himself as a 'consultant' to the American consulate in Lahore - another young man was crushed to death as a US consulate vehicle sped to the scene of crime in a vain attempt to snatch the murderer to safety. The upshot was that the hired killer, whose name has been given as Raymond Davis, is in police custody while the would-be rescuers who crushed an innocent Pakistani have been whisked out of Pakistan, beyond the reach of law. To rub salt into the wounds, the American Consulate General in Lahore refused to hand over the rescue vehicle to the police.


In the meantime, the young widow of one of the murdered men committed suicide when it appeared that Z, Gilani, and their henchmen were up to their usual tricks of completing an underhand deal with their American paymasters at the expense of hapless Pakistanis. Married six months earlier, the dying bride told the doctors fighting to save her life that she did not expect to receive justice from the pack currently ruling Pakistan. If only she could have foreseen the public's backlash that hit the Americans and their stooges shortly after her death!


The clowns of North America


The rising public anger rattled the Pakistani government, which was under immense pressure from the Americans to offer retrospective blanket amnesty to the hired killer, effective from a date well before the murders on 27 January. The Foreign Minister, Shah Mehmood Qureshi, dared to speak the truth that diplomatic status had never been extended to Davis for the simple reason that he did not qualify as a diplomat [ever heard of a diplomat roaming around, armed with hi-tech weapons and pumping bullets into the backs of peoople?]. The response of the upstart Qureshi incensed Munter, who immediately contacted his boss, the formidable Clinton. She came down like a ton of bricks on the bewildered Qureshi who, to his credit, held firm. The angry woman cancelled her scheduled meeting with Qureshi and threatened him with serious consequences. True to her word, she and her boss Obama, got their puppets Z and Gilani to get rid of Qureshi. He was summarily kicked out as Foreign Minister and offered an inferior ministry, which he refused. Outside the government, he is proving a formidable hurdle to the machinations of the appalling Z, Gilani and their fellow conspirators.


So, the mighty Clinton had failed, too. What was left? The senators and members of the Congress in the USA, of course. A stream of warnings issued forth, telling Pakistanis to toe the line or face dire consequences. The tremulous gang of Z and Co found itself in a quandry. The case was being decided on by the courts over which the government had no control and, in any case, the people were out in force demonstrating against the suspected deal between Pakistan's puppet govenment and its puppeteers in Washington. Eventually, the super clown Obama appeared on American television and told the Pakistanis that they MUST release Davis because he was protected by "diplomatic immunity" under the Vienna conventions, murders or no murders.


Obama and the rest of his team seem quite ignorant of the new realities in Pakistan where the Judiciary is now free, and independent of the Executive. Eventually, the group of American clowns realised that if all the threats that they had issued were carried out, the harm to the USA's Afghan war would far outweigh anything they might inflict on Pakistan. That called for a change of strategy, of course! So, Senator John Kerry was despatched to Pakistan with a high-level delegation to "knock sense" into the Pakistanis. Kerry was fully aware of his government's ridiculous position - the poor man was reduced to clutching at straws by quoting from the statements of the scatter brained Fauzia Wahab who, until yesterday, was the ruling party's Secretary of Information. Kerry and his team left Pakistan with a better idea of the ground realities but still without their man.


In the comments section of my blog post "The End of Conspiracy Theories", I have given links to articles which explain the background to the lengthening spat between the USA government and Pakistani people. To learn about the latest developments, click the links below:


The Raymond Davis Fiasco
Raymond Davis - the facts
'The News International' editorial


A Trojan horse in Pakistan


Supplementing the shrieks and threats of the Clowns of North America, there have been the activities of men and women sitting in a Trojan horse stationed in Pakistan.  This group is a mix of Americans and their Pakistani stooges. For example an American-controlled publication, The Express Tribune, has started publishing biased editorials and articles which distort facts and poke fun at the Pakistani nation. Let us look at this editorial, which shamelessly distorts the facts and looks for support to the laughable Fauzia Wahab of the ruling party! 


The Tribune editorial   In the comment box I offered my observation to the effect that it was indeed a comical sight to see the editor dangling from the apron strings of Fauzia Wahab! My comment was censored.


An example of an article by a Pakistani lackey: Not for the court to decide


I left a comment wondering if some Pakistanis were determined to prove the Americans right when they humiliate Pakistanis by declaring that the latter would sell their mothers for American dollars. Again, this comment was censored.


Then there are the brainwashed and westernised Pakistanis, educated by foreigners and ignorant of their own history, culture and language. For these people, devoid of any sense of self-esteem as a Pakistani, the concept of honour - 'ghairat'  غیرت -  exists only for foreigners but not for Pakistanis. Here is one example where the writer supports the American position on Davis by poking fun at her own people:


http://tribune.com.pk/story/119878/ghairat-and-other-issues/


This article is a good example of the sort of trash that people churn out when they write for money or to please others. I did leave a comment on some of the author's manic pronouncements - my comment escaped the censorial scissors presumably because my target was no longer the USA.


Was Raymond Davis taking part in a sophisticated "false flag" operation?

                                                                                         

According to a seemingly anti-USA website, Davis's arrest has averted another "9/11" that the American CIA had conspired to launch: 
         
Stranger than fiction?





Tailpiece (added 3March 2011)


An article by Craig Murray, published in The Guardian on 28 February, exposes the reality of Raymond Davis with brutal clarity:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2011/feb/28/cia-agent-diplomat-pakistan-raymond-davis?

I tread with some caution in discussing the case of Raymond Davis, the CIA agent facing charges of double murder in Pakistan and the threat of the death penalty. I add my plea to the voices urging the Pakistani government to ensure Davis does not hang.

But one thing I can state for certain: Davis (as we will call him for now) is not a diplomat and does not possess diplomatic immunity. There is some doubt as to who he really is, with the charges against him in Pakistan including one that he obtained documents using a false identity.

Watching Barack Obama's presidency has been a stream of bitter disappointments. His endorsement of Davis as "our diplomat" and invocation of the Vienna convention on diplomatic relations was, in its sheer dishonesty, as sad an Obama moment as any.

As a general rule, international treaties are written in very plain language and are very accessible. That is certainly true of the Vienna convention. Unfortunately I can see scant evidence that any journalists have bothered to read it.

Leaving aside staff of international organisations recognised by the host country as having diplomatic status (and there has been no claim yet that Davis was actually working for Unicef), in bilateral diplomatic relations the provision for diplomatic immunity is tightly limited to a very small number of people. That makes sense when you consider that if Davis did have diplomatic immunity, he would indeed be able to avoid detention and trial on a murder charge. The world community is not going to make that impunity readily available.

Full diplomatic immunity is enjoyed only by "diplomatic agents". Those are defined at article 1 (e) of the Vienna convention as "the head of the mission or a member of the diplomatic staff of the mission". Helpfully the diplomatic staff are further defined in the preceding article as "having diplomatic rank". Those ranks are an ascending series of concrete titles from third secretary through to ambassador or high commissioner. Davis did not have a diplomatic rank.

But there is a second category of "administrative and technical staff" of a mission. They enjoy a limited diplomatic immunity which, however, specifically excludes "acts performed outside the course of their duties". (Vienna convention article 37/2.) Frantic off-the-record briefing by the state department reflected widely in the media indicates that the US case is that Davis was a member of technical staff covered by this provision.

But in that case the US has to explain in the course of precisely which diplomatic duties Davis needed to carry a Glock handgun, a headband-mounted flashlight and a pocket telescope. The Vienna convention lists the legitimate duties of an embassy, and none of them need that kind of equipment.

It appears in any event unlikely that Davis ever was a member of the technical staff of the embassy or consulate. Under article 10 of the Vienna convention the host authorities must be formally informed – by diplomatic note – of the arrival and departures of such staff, and as embassies under article 11 are subject to agreed numerical limits, that in practice occurs when another member of staff is leaving. If this was not done Davis was not covered even in the course of his duties.

Pakistani senior ex-military sources tell me there is no note appointing Davis as embassy or consulate staff, and that appears to pass a commonsense test – if the note exists, why have the Americans not produced it?

Finally, possession of a diplomatic passport does not give you diplomatic status all over the world.

I hope this helps clarify a position that the US government, and the media it influences, have deliberately muddied. Sadly this whole episode reflects the US's continuing contempt for the basic fabric of international law. It sits with its refusal to sign up to the international criminal court so that US citizens may not be held accountable for war crimes, with its acknowledged overseas assassination programme, its one-sided extradition treaties and claims of extra-territorial jurisdiction over offences committed outside the US.

We hoped it might get better under Obama. It is not.

"We've got a very simple principle here that every country in the world that is party to the Vienna convention on diplomatic relations has upheld in the past and should uphold in the future, and that is, if our diplomats are in another country, then they are not subject to that country's local prosecution," Obama said in a press conference. "We expect Pakistan, that's a signatory and recognises Davis as a diplomat, to abide by the same convention ... I'm not going to discuss the specific exchanges that we've had [with the Pakistani government], but we've been very firm about this being a priority."

No Way Out for Pakistan?

The pretender to Anne Patterson’s throne

So far as Pakistan is concerned the WikiLeaks’ disclosure of our rulers’ sell-out to the Americans appears to have been a bubble that burst all too soon. Initially frightened out of their wits, the Americans have dropped any pretence of showing respect towards their factotums who occupy the highest offices of state in Pakistan.

Cameron Munter, the new pretender to the throne vacated by Anne Patterson, has bluntly told the Pakistani puppets installed by the USA that the Americans will interfere in Pakistan’s “financial and governance” matters because, he boasted, the US was Pakistan’s largest aid provider. He said nothing, of course, about the terrible destruction wreaked on Pakistan by the Americans’ insane pursuit of their political objectives through warfare. The so-called “aid” is mere peanuts compared to the human and material losses suffered by Pakistan as a direct result of America’s nefarious activities in Central Asia and the Middle East.

Cattle, Puppets and Puppeteers

You might think that that the reaction to Munter’s humiliating remarks would be an outcry in Pakistan’s National Assembly and strident calls to the nation to unite against the American arrogance. Nothing of the sort happened. Pakistan’s Mafia-like leadership of criminals and fraudsters, whose darkest secrets are known to the American CIA, simply slunk away with bowed heads, their tails between their legs. In fact, the top dog dutifully flew all the way to Washington to attend a memorial service – and deliver a typically sycophantic eulogy – for Richard Holbrook, an oafish American diplomat who used to take particular delight in visiting Pakistan and bluntly giving a piece of his mind to the puppets who presented themselves before him.

The gentlemen and ladies who sit in Pakistan’s National assembly mostly owe their privileged positions to the patronage of the leaders of their respective parties. The MNAs dare not oppose any decision of their leader, however inimical to the interests of Pakistan, for the simple reason that the leader has the power to sack them on the spot. In practical terms, these “leaders” are the effective owners of the political parties they lead. Last summer these “leaders” conspired to give themselves autocratic powers by changing Pakistan’s constitution by means of “the 18^th amendment”. This was a complex amendment which introduced several changes to the constitution, some good, some bad and some totally repulsive. In the last category fall such monstrosities as revoking the clause that requires political parties to hold elections, and allowing convicted criminals to stand in national elections! The way is thus open for revolting individuals such as Z and NS to remain party leaders for life and to pass on the succession to members of their families irrespective of what crimes they may have committed. It is said that the 18^th amendment, which contained over a hundred amendments, was nodded through without discussion, the entire process taking no more than a couple of hours!

The sad fact is that Members of Pakistan’s National assembly are little better than a herd of cattle. They merely go where they are goaded by the puppets who, in turn, have their strings pulled by the puppeteers sitting in Washington. Democracy, Pakistani-style, is merely a form of dictatorship mixed in with unbridled corruption and abuse of power.

Way forward : the path of Iqbal and Jinnah

We need to look at any system of government and make an effort to understand how it operates. Thoughtlessly mouthing slogans such as “democracy” hides the monstrous fact that the Jamhoori Tamasha, the Democratic Circus, we have in Pakistan is one where layers of dictatorship exist, the uppermost layer being the dictatorship exercised from afar by the Americans, who determine the rulers of Pakistan and the policies that they are going to follow. Iqbal:

جلال پادشاہی ہو کے جمھوری تماشہ ہو

جدا ہو دیں سیاست سے تو رہ جاتی ہے چنگیزی

Absolute power of a monarch, or Democratic Circus, both are equally futile;

There will be just tyranny and oppression if Deen is separated from politics.

To Jinnah, “Deen” was a Code of Conduct that we had to follow in life – see Dialogue with a Giant

Pakistan’s Jamhoori Tamasha پاکستان کا جمھوری تماشہ

All Pakistani political parties that pay homage to their Americans masters - refer to WikiLeaks to identify those parties - agree that the current PPP government, up to its neck in unbridled corruption, must be allowed to complete its 5-year term of office because that is the wish of their masters sitting in Washington! At the end of that term Washington will presumably award points for good behaviour, and one of its stooges will be selected to rule Pakistan for the following 5 years.

This Jamhoori Tamasha, the Circus of Democracy, must be brought to an end if Pakistanis are to be released from the grip of corrupt thieves and robbers controlling the reins of power. Toppling the government is straightforward because of the wafer-thin majority it has in Parliament. However, none of the political parties represented in National Assembly will dare to upset the apple cart for fear of offending their masters in Washington. So, we have the macabre political dance being performed by the likes of Nawaz Sharif (the creator of the disreputable 'Friendly Opposition', which guarantees the survival of Z & Co), Altaf Hussain and Fazlur Rehman. What, then, is the solution?

A solution which could spark a constitutional crisis

At this critical juncture in Pakistan’s history, the Supreme Court could play a decisive role. In view of the indiscriminate murders and targeted killings of Pakistan’s citizens that the PPP government is powerless to do anything about, galloping inflation and no-holds-barred corruption of the rich and the powerful, the Supreme Court could declare that the government is unable to fulfil its obligations under the constitution. Apart from the government’s inability to maintain law and order, it seems to be gripped with paralysis when it comes to implementing the Supreme Court judgments relating to the ex-convict who happens to be the president of Pakistan. The Supreme Court could conceivably dismiss the government for sheer incompetence and drag Z, kicking and screaming, before the Court to answer criminal charges against him. This would pave the way for mid-term elections and the formation of a new government.

Should the Chief Justice, Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, take the bold step outlined here, the one thing that can be forecast with absolute certainty is a flood of damning articles by heavily bribed Pakistani hacks in a section of Pakistan's English language press. Expect endless talk of the judges exceeding their powers and creating constitutional chaos.

Seems to me that a revolution, Tunisia-style, could be another possibility. Are the people of Pakistan ready to explode? The sooner we end the bastardised parliamentary system we have in Pakistan the better it will be for the nation.

نہیں ہے ناامید اقبال اپنی کشت ویراں سے
ذرا نم ہو تو یہ مٹی بُہت زرخیز ہے ساقی

Tailpiece

Religion, as commonly understood, is a mix of ideas and rituals, including unhealthy influences which defy common sense. Invariably, “religion” branches out into a multitude of sects headed by hidebound clerics at war with each other. Al-Quran speaks of Islam as DEEN, which I wrote about in the very first post in my blog. I ask my readers to read it, please, by clicking this link

 http://sakibahmad.blogspot.com/2009/10/islam.html

The religious parties which are so active in Pakistani politics today had, in fact, opposed the creation of Pakistan. More, they had declared both Iqbal and Quaid-e-Azam to be “kaafir”/infidel. One particular party stooped so low in its disparagement of Jinnah that it attached the label “Kaafir-e-Azam” to him. These religious parties deserve nothing but contempt from the people of Pakistan for their mischief making.

What we need in Pakistani politics is honesty, justice, and courage to resist tyranny and oppression. That was the DEEN or CODE OF CONDUCT that Iqbal and Jinnah talked about. Without that quality in politics we will end up with immoral political systems such as those we have in the USA and Pakistan. In some ways the USA political system is worse than Pakistan’s, because it denies genuine democracy to nations which are not yet considered “developed” and it allows the American government to launch murderous attacks on them, killing hundreds of thousands of their citizens with its hi-tech weaponry.

The End of Conspiracy Theories

In global terms the single most significant event of 2010 may have been the WikiLeaks disclosure of the USA diplomatic cables. I am not surprised at the merciless hounding of Julian Assange by the USA government. Assange has committed the unpardonable sin of whipping away the fig leaf of “conspiracy theories” with which successive US administrations tried to discredit people who dared to uncover their illegal and criminal actions throughout the world. In the past, when everything was kept strictly under wraps, away from prying eyes, it was easy for the formidable publicity machine of the USA government to laugh away any accusation of USA involvement in monstrous activities as “conspiracy theories”. But not any more.

I like to think that the farce of 9/11 that the American neoconservatives staged nine years ago to provide an excuse for their foreign adventures would not have been possible in today's world where whistleblowers abound and rebels like Julian Assange are there to welcome them with open arms. The devilish tactic of repeating a lie endlessly and using the phenomenal powers possessed by the US government to banish reasoned arguments from the mainstream media which expose that lie, has had its day. I look forward to the day when it will not be necessary to call my blog "Reality and Illusion", a reference to the post-2000 world where reality is buried under a heap of lies thereby creating an illusion of a manufactured pseudo-reality.

What WikiLeaks has revealed no one has denied for the simple reason that the evidence is in the form of diplomatic cables sent by America’s so-called “diplomats” (read: spies and conspirators). The evil scenario that emerges is one of the USA government, and its diplomatic missions abroad, being enmeshed in an intricate worldwide web of intrigue and conspiracy, the full extent of which few had suspected. The core activities of USA diplomatic missions appear to consist of spreading lies and disinformation, deceiving the host nations, bribing and blackmailing local biqwigs, the sordid details of whose lives are well known to the CIA, facilitating ruthless military action by the USA in someone else's name, removing local leaders unacceptabbe to the US government and installing puppets controlled from Washington, etc.

In Iraq we witnessed wanton murder on a massive scale, coupled with the use of torture and sexual humiliation as tools to destroy those who dared to oppose American designs on their country. The policy of treating non-American/ non-European human lives as being in some way sub-human, mere “collateral damage”, whose destruction is necessary in the grand American Design, is being pursued with manic ferocity in Afghanistan and Pakistan. As increasing numbers of innocent Pakistanis die as a result of unmanned “drones” raining death and destruction from the skies - with the Pakistani puppets comprising the president, the prime minister and the army commander in chief nodding their heads in agreement – it seems only a matter of time to me before the American masters and their Pakistani slaves lose their seemingly impregnable positions.

The Pakistani puppets

[Gilani, Kayani, Z, NS]

The foreseeable future

The Hitlerite disregard that the Americans have shown for human lives, and the contempt with which they have trampled democratic principles underfoot in order to install their puppets as rulers in their client states, have generated an upsurge of hatred and disgust for the American governments. A steady decline in the USA’s influence in the world is inevitable, to go hand in hand with its economic decline.

As for Pakistan, I do not see the American puppets surviving very long. Zardari, Gilani and Nawaz Sahrif are goners, while the reputations of people like Kayani, Altaf Hussain, Asfandyar and Fazlur Rehman have taken a direct hit, from which they will find it difficult to recover.

Pakistan needs new leadership, which may take a little time to emerge. Right now, Imran Khan looks to be the one potential leader around, the only one who has the guts to look the Americans straight in the eye and outstare them. His integrity is beyond question and his popularity in the country, especially among the young, seems to be growing exponentially.

He faces two dangers:

* the discredited civilian and military leaders ganging up against him, to spread disinformation and to deny him publicity in the media

* the provincial governments, especially the PML(N) government in Punjab, misusing the province's administrative machinery to prevent Tehreek-e-Insaf Party holding public meetings and to sabotage its efforts to prepare itself for elections in the foreseeable future.

Imran himself is not entirely risk-free. My impression is that he may be influenced to an unhealthy extent by people who subscribe to what Iqbal called "Ajami Islam" [عجمی اسلام ]. However, this is a risk worth taking in view of Imran's qualities as a leader. Let's hope he shares with Iqbal the latter's insight into the charade of madrassahs and khanqahs.

اٹھا میں مدرسہ و خانقاہ سے غمناک

نہ زندگی، نہ محبّت، نہ معرفت، نہ نگاہ

I rose in sorrow from the madrassah and the place where sufis gather

Lifeless, loveless places, devoid of Higher Experience, without insight

Anne Patterson, Queen of Pakistan

In her small womanly frame Anne Patterson packed a punch that the manliest of men would feel proud of. Thanks to WikiLeaks disclosures, it is public knowledge that during her 3-year sojourn in Pakistan as the USA Ambassador, she was effectively the uncrowned queen of Pakistan, before whom the half-men at the top of Pakistan’s power structure humiliated themselves shamelessly.

By an odd coincidence, I have recently been reading Fahmida Riaz’s collection of poetry, titled “Main mitti ki moorat hoon”. Two couplets struck me as particularly apt in describing the character and inner nature of those who kowtowed before Queen Anne. Though they appeared to possess the outward form of men they were, in reality, devoid of manhood.

فہمیدہ ریاض ؛ میں مٹی کی مورت ہوں

لب ہیں مصروف قصیدہ گوئی

اور آنکھوں میں ہے ذلّت عریاں

With utter degradation dancing nude in their eyes, they laid their personal and national honour at the queen’s feet! And who were ‘they’? Why, none other than our President, our Prime Minister, the leader of the main opposition party, the commander-in-chief of Pakistan’s army, and many lesser names – including a “maulana” who came bearing his religion on a tray, to be traded for personal gain.

کس سے اب آرزوے وصل کرے

اس خرابے میں کوئی مرد کہاں

When men lose their inherent manliness, what are poor women to do? Oh, the futility of longing for physical union when manliness has vanished from the scene!

After the storm

Nothing much seems to have changed. Those shameless men appear to be as busy as ever in their wheeling and dealing. If anything has changed it is an awareness that they need to "unite" so they can better serve themselves by deceiving the nation and lying to it! Fahmida Riaz, again:

اور دیس کے سب چوروں کو

ان پٹے ہوۓ مہروں گو

پھر جشن مناتے دیکھیں

شہنائی بجاتے دیکھیں

WIKILEAKS’ ROLL CALL OF SHAME [added 22 Dec 2010]

ZARDARI (President)

A glimpse of Z’s self-abasement before Queen Anne in January 2008: the loyal servant claimed the US was “our safety blanket”, and he reminded his queen that Benazir Bhutto had only returned to Pakistan because of “clearance” from the US. He begged: “I need help, especially from the US”. Anne’s assessment, cabled to her superiors in Washington, was that Z had designs to be PPP’s candidate for Prime Minister with Washington’s blessing. For once the Queen had underestimated the stupendous levels of her underling’s ambitions and his low cunning!

Zardari had no qualms humiliating himself before visiting Americans. At a meeting with two US congressmen in May 2008, he blurted out: “We are here because of you... We won’t act without consulting you.” The faithful servant has lived up to his word: he has been consulting the American Ambassador regularly on policy questions and political appointments (the governor of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, the Senate chairman, the National Security Adviser, etc).

In Zardari Anne had found a perfect stooge to serve American interests in Pakistan. She recognised that Zardari’s government was “weak, ineffectual and corrupt”, but that was neither here nor there. What mattered was the value of that deeply unpopular Pakistani to the USA interests in Pakistan: “Zardari is our best ally in the government,” Anne cabled from Islamabad. A cable sent by her in February 2009 recommends: “we should help the Zardari/Gilani government complete its full five-year term in office”.

GILANI (Prime Minister)

This sorry specimen of humanity vies with Z to plumb the depths, to see who can sink lower. If it is possible to imagine a man entirely devoid of principles, the image of Gilani would come to mind (unless your favourite hate figures happen to be Z or Mush). Anne knew him inside out: ‘Gilani knows his place and will toe Zardari’s line’.

Gilani and Zardari are the only two people who showed extreme willingness to deceive the Pakistani nation and Pakistan’s National Assembly and to promote USA interests by sacrificing Pakistan’s. While loudly condemning drone attacks in public, they tell the Americans to carry on and not to worry. “We’ll protest in the National Assembly and then ignore it” Gilani told Anne in August 2008. Zardari, for his part, has been uncovered by American journalists: this sick man is reputed to have told the Americans that the heavy loss of innocent Pakistani lives that accompanies each drone attack does not bother him in the least – which he brushed away as “collateral damage” : wanton waste of human life treated in the same way as loss of property!

These two inhuman monsters, held in virtual bondage by the USA, have kept up with their sickening stream of incessant lies to the Pakistani public to this day.

ASHFAQUE KAYANI, Chief of Army Staff (C-in-C)

He was fond of sharing state secrets of the most sensitive kind with Queen Anne. He confided in her his distrust of Nawaz Sharif and the selection of a successor to Zardari after his possible removal from the Presidency!

At the time Musharraf was kicked out in August 2008, and in February/March 2009 over the restoration of the judiciary, Kayani nudged his Queen – possibly, also the British High Commissioner - to interfere in Pakistan’s domestic politics.

NAWAZ SHARIF (leader of the main opposition party)

Nawaz Sharif tried as hard as anyone to convince the Queen of his “pro-Americanism.” Freely joining the self-abasement ritual in January 2008, Nawaz reminded Anne that he had overruled his army chief and had contributed Pakistani forces to the US coalition in the first Gulf War. Nawaz expressed “hurt” that the US did not remember the valuable service he had performed in the face of PPP’s defiance: organising street demonstrations against the policy of Pakistan joining the coalition!

Nawaz also thanked the US for having arranged the appointment of Kayani as the army chief! So, was Kayani’s appointment the result of a USA act of benevolence or was it a USA conspiracy?

These gems came from a former Prime Minister of Pakistan who has ambitions to control the reigns of power once again!!

“maulana” Fazlur Rehman (leader of a divisive politico-religious party)

In November 2007, he requested Patterson for her backing to become Prime Minister, no less! He hoped to visit the US because, according to his party’s political principles, “all important parties in Pakistan have to get the approval of the US.” Anne’s dismissive comment was that F had made it clear to her that “his still significant number of votes are up for sale.”

LAST WORD

Where do we stand today? On August 14, 1947, we thought we had found freedom, but it has turned out to be another kind of slavery. The Wikileaks dispatches make it abundantly clear. The independence of Pakistan is a myth. Pakistan is no longer a free country. Today it is not just a “rentier state”, not just a client state. It is a slave state with a puppet government set up by Washington.

[taken from http://thenews.com.pk/TodaysPrintDetail.aspx?ID=20219&Cat=9 ]