First Muslim in US Congress and Bigotry

On Dec. 22, Michael McElroy wrote an interesting post on the political blog of the New York Times, "The Caucus", regarding the announcement of the newly elected first Muslim member of US House of Representatives, Keith Ellison, who have said that he would take oath on the Quran in a private ceremony in January, and the bigoted reaction the announcement received from Rep. Virgil Goode, Virgina Congressman and others. "Blogtalk: The Koran Debate".

Then I stumbled upon this blog and found it thought-provoking so I put my two cents in the comments section. My comment was published on Dec. 24th and was numbered 213 on the comments list. Then next day, on Dec 25th, someone named C. J. MacAlpine quoted my comment and commented on it and the original blog. It was nunbered 241.

I am reproducing the blog, my comment and C. J. MacAlpine's comment:

Blogtalk: The Koran Debate

In an age of instantaneous electronic mail, text messages and video-conferences, a typed letter has caused a political frenzy. The letter sent by Rep. Virgil Goode of Virginia warning his constituents about Keith Ellison, the first Muslim elected to Congress, has stirred up dust on both sides of the street, with Mr. Goode getting his fair share of derision from left-leaning blogs. But, some conservative sites supported the Representative.

While many of the more prominent conservative blogs and bloggers — Redstate, Michelle Malkin, and the former Congressman, Tom Delay, veered away from the issue — Powerline took it on.

The blog qualified a bit — “I personally don’t think that the issue of Ellison taking his oath of office on the Koran is a good one for conservatives to emphasize” — but broke down for its readers the important parts of the letter. “The key point here is the MSM’s unthinking acceptance of Ellison’s reassurance that the separation of church and state applies to Muslims just as naturally as it does to members of other faiths. The problem is that, to my knowledge, there is no significant branch of Islam that recognizes anything like a separation of church and state.

The Virginia based Nova Town Hall tackled a couple of issues raised by Mr. Goode.
“As to the question of whether one should be allowed to take an oath on the Koran rather than the Bible, … the Koran appears to permit quite a few additional behaviors one would not hope to see in a courtroom.”
The blog then questioned why any religious text should be used in the swearing in of public officials at all.

Later, the blog addressed Mr. Goode’s fears of Mr. Ellison’s influence on immigration.

My Comment

213.December 24th, 2006 1:21 pm

Is it going to be another “Muhammad Ali Episode”, this time in politics, all over again? I hope not. Is Keith Ellison going to be the one who will break the barriers against Musllim’s involvement in mainstream political process in America as Muhammad Ali did in sports? I hope he is.

There were Virgil Goodes of Muhammad ALi era who nobody cares to know about. I believe this Virgil Goode will be just a foot note in the book of American political history while Mr. Ellison will claim at least a chapter in it.

— Posted by Khalid Masood Butt

C. J. MacAlpine's Comment

241.December 25th, 2006 11:43 pm

“Is it going to be another “Muhammad Ali Episode”, this time in politics, all over again? I hope not. Is Keith Ellison going to be the one who will break the barriers against Muslim’s involvement in mainstream political process in America as Muhammad Ali did in sports? I hope he is.”

This is hardly an enlightened viewpoint. Someone whose spiritual axis lies with a religion who approves of killing non-believers, throwing black African children alive into fire and committing gang rape upon their mothers does not bode well for assuming any kind of political power in this country. You may not want to admit it, but there really are people in the world who do not like you and you need top recognize them for what they are. I have no problems with Mr. Ellison’s religion, I have problems with it assuming political power in my country. I doubt that he or any other Muslim would appreciate myself - a descendant of New England Puritans seeking political office in their country.

— Posted by C. J. MacAlpine

Pakistanis and Manto's Sakeena!

Sakeena is a 17 years old girl in Sa'adat Hassan Manto's masterpiece short story "Khol Do" – Open!. She falls victim to communal riots on her way from Amritsar to Lahore and gets separated from her father and mother.

Sirajuddin, her father finds himself alone in the refugee camp of Mughalpura and cannot recall where he had seen her last time. He remembers, however, his wife dying with her guts out on the road to Pakistan.

When he can't find her for many days and is at the verge of total disappointment he finds eight gun carrying volunteers who vow to find his daughter. It turns out that they do find her but never bring her back to her father. They rape her for so long and so often that she loses all consciousness and they abandon her to die next to the rail tracks.

Her body is found by some good people and Sirajuddin sees them carrying it to the camp hospital not knowing this is his own daughter, Sakeena. Still he follows them hoping that she could be her.

When she is left on a gurney in a dark hospital room he approaches her to find out. At the same time a doctor walks into the room and turns the light on. Sirajuddin recognizes her from a black mole on her cheek. The doctor asks him who he was and he says he was dead girl's father.

Doctor while checking her pulse for any sign of life asks him to "open the window". Sakeena recognizes the now familiar words "Khol Do" so well that her hands unconsciously but limpidly move, untie and lower down her 'Shalwar'. Doctor is mortified with shame but Sirajuddin is happy to see her alive.

Now read the following news piece and think why it has conjured up Sakeena's image in my mind. Is there any resemblance in the characters on the political scene of Pakistan and the ones in this eternally poignant short story, or it is just me?

Six out of 10 Pakistanis favor army rule while people in other South Asian countries overwhelmingly support democracy.

The Third Deadliest Country for Journalists - After Iraq & Afghanistan

Gen. Musharraf’s Pakistan has earned another dubious distinction. According to a report compiled and released by a US-based “Committee to Protect Journalists”, Pakistan has become the third deadliest country for journalists who dare to reveal official corruption, crimes, extra-judicial killings and human rights violations. Iraq and Afghanistan were the first and second deadliest countries respectively. Some other courtiers that made the list are Philippines, Russia, Mexico and Columbia.

But Pakistan, I believe, has been deprived of the first position it rightfully deserved as far as the manner of the crime committed is concerned. Unlike Iraq or Afghanistan where almost all the journalists have been targeted, kidnapped, and executed by insurgents for working with the organizations affiliated to the Iraqi government or sponsored by the US, in Pakistan it is the government or its agencies or its allies who have targeted, kidnapped, and executed journalists.

Though apprehensible and unacceptable even in Iraq and Afghanistan I fail to understand why Pakistani government has become an enemy of truth and wish to wrap up its citizens in a blanket of ignorance if it is not committing any corruption or crime? We don’t have the insurgents or the foreign occupiers in Pakistan at least in the recognized sense of the terms. Why would, then, an indigenous military junta become an enemy of pen and its holders in Pakistan?

In Iraq the journalists, at least, have a green zone to work from. Where is that green zone in Pakistan where the journalists can go if they feel threatened? But reporting the truth can be fatal Ask 38-year-old Dilawar Wazir Khan who works for the Urdu language service of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) and Pakistan's English daily the ‘Dawn' and was kidnapped from Islamabad, the capital, blindfolded, fettered, and tortured for 30 hours before he was released. His fate was different from his colleagues who had been murdered after they were similarly kidnapped because protests from journalists' unions been launched for his release. The journalists in Islamabad had threatened to boycott parliamentary proceedings. International media organizations also raised an outcry. The BBC Urdu service carried the story of his abduction for two consecutive days and World Service director Nigel Chapman called on the Pakistani government to ascertain his whereabouts. He was released but he says: "Many of my colleagues have given up their profession and others have left the area."

Dilawar had escaped two earlier attempts on his life in which two of his colleagues, Allah Noor Wazir and Amir Nawab, were left dead. His 15-year-old brother Taimur was kidnapped and murdered in 2005. At that point Dilawar moved out of his hometown of Wana, in South Waziristan, to Dera Ismail Khan.

After his abduction he said, he did not "know where to find refuge. No place seems safe enough. This time I was lucky and came home almost unscathed but I am not sure if I'll be this lucky the next time."

Joel Simon, executive director of the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), said in a statement on Nov. 21, after Dilawar's release: "The disappearances and deaths of several Pakistani journalists have gone unexplained, uninvestigated, and unreported by the authorities. Police and courts must bring to justice the people who harm and intimidate journalists." But unfortunately it is the police, government agencies and courts who have become partners in these crimes.

Hamid Mir is a well-known Urdu language columnist for the Jang newspaper and anchor of a popular Geo TV current affairs talk show 'Capital Talk'. He has been termed, in his words, "an anti-state element" by the Pakistan army and has been receiving numerous threats for his coverage of the insurgency in Balochistan province and for writing about the assassination of his friend Hayatullah Khan, another journalist from North Waziristan. He said about Dilawar Khan that: "Dilawar was abducted because his story in Dawn about the peace deal in North Waziristan proved that it was signed by militants not by local tribal elders. He was released because Dawn published the vehicle number that belonged to the ISI in which he was taken away."

Dilawar says that he has "been threatened with dire consequences" if he divulges who had kidnapped him. He says that he has "caused enough trauma and pain" to his family because of his profession and he has "fear for their lives". He thinks it was because of his journalistic work that his brother was killed. "It was to teach me a lesson and to bring me down to my knees", he says.

Mazhar Abbas, secretary of Pakistan Federation of Unions of Journalists (PFUJ), said the first kidnapping incident took place in the 1990s when a senior Islamabad-based reporter Humayun Fahr was detained by the ISI for "working against the national interests". Humayun was sentenced to death by court martial. He was released when his health deteriorated but died shortly after his release.

Kamila Hayat, joint director of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) calls these abductions as "harassment and intimidation", and says "it is part of a broader campaign to stifle dissent, opposing opinions and embarrassing news through intimidation."

While the government boasts of giving media freedom of expression but it has subjected journalists to kidnappings, tortures, executions and other terror tactics for reporting the truth. Hamid Mir says that initially Musharraf gave full freedom to the media so it may criticize the prime minister Nawaz Sharif he had overthrown. "But the situation changed after 9/11, when Musharraf became an ally of the United States and he was given a free hand by the West", says Mir.

The hoax of media's freedom of expression is exposed when you see that Geo and ARY (another private TV channel) have their transmission centers not in Pakistan but in Dubai where they have bear heavy expenses to keep their freedom away from the clutches of eve present government agencies. Hamid Mir gives the reason for these TV channels being out of Pakistan: "... they don't have permanent uplinking license for Pakistan. They get an uplinking license on monthly basis. The government can ban any channel anytime, like they banned Sindh TV recently."

Is it the legacy Gen Musharraf promised when he illegally took over power in 1999?
The journalists used to be considered neutral observers and portrayers of the facts but in foreign occupier-run and dictator-run countries such as Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan they have become an endangered species.

The state terrorism and murder is not the only tool Pakistan’s dictator is using in its war against truth. The courts and the laws are also being brought to the fore in this war of words against guns. A coalition partner of the military junta, MQM, filed a criminal, rather than a civil, case under the highly controversial 'Pakistani Criminal Defamation Law', and the district and session court in Karachi on Thursday indicted three journalists of evening daily The Star, Kamal Majidullah, Syed Saleem Shahzad and crime reporter Ralph D. Cruze. They could face imprisonment because their paper ran a front page story last year about the alleged linkage of Shoaib Khan, a underworld crime king pin and MQM. The 53-year-old newspapers was shut down on 2 December, 2006, under pressure from the government coalition partner MQM.

The case, the indictment, and the law have been criticized by national and international journalist and human rights organizations.

How far military is willing and able to go in deteriorating the situation in Pakistan? I know it has the wherewithal, the will and weapons. Why it does not have a consciousness, a rein, a check, on its un-opposable, unbridled power?

Pakistanis deserve to know the vital story, the truth. A free press is the only window to the facts and its ability and freedom to report the news as is vital to maintain an informed and aware public and a check on officials to make responsible decisions. If the government wants to limit its ability to provide the real story what recourse, the citizens of Pakistan have left than to leave the pen and pick up the gun? Why government wants to leave the press crippled and on its mercy to operate? By declaring an unannounced war on journalists the military government and its callous allies are working together to create an environment of fear and setting a dangerous precedent in this tormented nation to prevent the factual reporting.

Rubbing Elbows with Gouty Kings

I can only write this post because the pain in 'my left foot' is not at its peak level at this time. Thank God! The indomethecine capsule I have taken with a full glass of water couple hours ago has somehow choked some of cells in my brain somewhere and they are not transmitting their signals. To be more precise, the cells meant to transmit may still be, foolishly, sending their signals not knowing that no one is receiving them on the other end.

The numbness induced by Indomethcine may also be the reason for the thought coming to my mind of writing a lighter post about, of all things, gout. But I don't know how long the humor will last.

When I read the biography of Benjamin Disraeli a years ago I found out that he was a gouty. Today when I was surfing internet I came across some other celebrities who were also gouties. I feel a kind of pride that, after all, the company I keep is not a bad one.

But that does not mean that I will be known by the company I keep because probably gout is the only characteristic I have common with them.

Actually the first book I ever read about any American was the autobiography of the First American, Ben Franklin. It was an abridged little book whaich I had bought from Hero's Old Book Shop in a side alley of New Anar Kali Bazar, Lahore, sometime in late seventies.

At that time, somehow, I did not notice that Ben had gout. May be it was the part abridged. Publisher did not deem it important? Too painful? It is impossible Ben himself abridged it. Gout is too painful to ignore. It assumes centrality and every thing else kind of recedes to the peripherial spaces, especailly when it flares up.

May be it was there. It did not register because I had no clue at that tender age that one day I will be rubbing elbows with him and other celebrities of past.

Later on when I read Disraeli's life only thing which stuck out was gout.

Matter of fact, gout was known as the “Disease of Kings” due to its association with rich foods and alcohol consumption and kings. Henry VIII, Charles V, and George IV had it.

So did Nostradamus, John Milton, Isaac Newton, Samuel Johnson, , Pablo Neruda, Alfred Lord Tennyson, Thomas Jefferson, William Pitt, 1st Earl of Chatham William B. Finneran, Kirk Reuter and Benjamin Franklin.

The Weakest as the Most Popular

Two amazing, back to back, pieces of news in two days about the same person: General Musharraf. Both from America. One, a survey conducted in Pakistan in September by the research wing of the US Republican Party says
Musharraf is ahead of Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif in popularity among Pakistanis.

No wonder the Republican Party was routed in recent American elections. Its research wing must have been doing surveys of American voters and finding the Republican candidates more popular than the Democratic candidates.

The second news piece contradicts what the first one claims. The American magazine 'National Journal' in its current issue quotes some observers that Musharraf is at his weakest he has ever been and the "only friend in the world" Musharraf has is US President George W. Bush.

Even More interesting piece of news is hidden in the first one. The survey found out that 70 per cent of the Pakistanis said their personal economic conditions remained unchanged or worsened over the past four years; and they want both exiled former prime ministers to be allowed to return home to contest the next general election. Majority of the respondents also said that Pakistan was heading in the ‘wrong direction’.

I don't know which one of the two statements Musharraf is going to believe. I hope he believes the first one and in his excitement sheds off his uniform and runs in some kind of election, such as a Nazim of some Union Council.

According to the survey, the PML-Q is at the top in Punjab, followed by Nawaz Sharif’s PML-N. I hope ruling League also believes in the first statement as it always follows "his master's voice". I see good signs. On Saturday, Punjab's Law Minister Basharat Raja applauded the survey's findings.

Is Musharraf more popular for taking Pakistan in the wrong direction, not improving or making worse the lot of an overwhelming majority of Pakistanis?

The Journal says that Musharraf's core constituency is the military, and there are indications that he has started to lose that as well. "There's a lot of anxiety about Musharraf's reckless behavior", one of experts says.

There is a little bad news for Musharraf too. Analysts have advised that Washington should abandon the tendency to support the military "strongmen" and instead have more faith in civilian leadership. They have also asserted that even if Musharraf were to leave the scene, "Pakistan is not likely to descend into anarchy nor will its nuclear weapons fall into terrorist hands, or its government come under the control of mullahs and militants". South Asia expert Marvin Weinbaum who says that if Musharraf is "taken out tomorrow, there would be strong continuity" because the vice chief of the army would step up.

Pakistan's ambassador to the US Mahmud Ali Durrani is quoted acknowledging that the military is growing weary of ruling the country. Freedberg writes: "Sooner, not later, he will lose his footing".


According to Alexis Debat, a former French counter-terrorism office, who quotes Stephen Cohen of Brookings Institute that "there’s a lot of anxiety about Musharraf’s reckless behavior".

All Set To Surrender Kashmir

President General Pervez Musharraf told a private Indian TV channel NDTV on Tuesday, December 5, that Pakistan would give up its claim over Kashmir if India accepted his "four-point solution" to the long-festering Kashmir disputed between India and Pakistan. Asked whether he was really prepared to give up his country's claim on Kashmir, he reassured the interviewer: "We will have to, yes, if this solution comes up."

This is not the first time Gen Musharraf has made "out of the box" proposals on Kashmir in media interviews. Ever since he toppled the democratically elected government of Nawaz Sharif, he, in all his impetuous urgency, has been spewing out in a rapid-fire mode what the Pakistani Foreign Minister called "endless proposals".

General Musharraf has done this diplomatic drill so often that it has become a well-rehearsed routine.

This is how he does it: he comes up with a novel proposal, presents it in some media interview, preferably in India. He waits India to accept it. India ignores it; makes a demand of some kind; or an unimportant official in India's foreign ministry makes an ambiguous sound. He expects and asks some US or other foreign government to pressure India to accept his proposal. He expresses his frustration at the lack of any response from India or any pressure from US. In frustration makes another proposal, more novel than the previous one which, coincidently, happens to be a little closer to India's position. Same lack of Indian response or US pressure; another Indian pre-condition or demand; or an ambiguous sound. His frustration grows. In desperation he makes another proposal a little more closer to India's position. And the cycle starts all over again.

Now, I believe, he doesn't have to do it any more because his drill has brought his position on Kashmir to coincide with India's position to such an extent that an Indian analyst C. Raja Mohan calls, Musharraf's latest proposal "closest to India's negotiated position". India has dexterously brought, by a combinations of myriad diplomatic maneuvers, Pakistan's position very close to its own without showing its hand or offering any quid pro quo.

Mushahid Hussain Sayed, the ruling Muslim League (PMLQ) general secretary, on Friday said that General Pervez Musaharraf’s recent offer for resolving the Kashmir issue has put the ball in India’s court.

Mushahid should know it is not India's court where General Musharraf has put the ball. He has given it in Manmohan Singh's hands. All he has to do is to run with it.

Musharraf is all set to surrender Kashmir.

The question is why Musharraf in his dual capacity as a chief of army staff and the president is striking at an issue that has been used by the army as its raison d'etre and an excuse for ever increasing defense expenses?

A couple of reasons: the army is so entrenched in every aspect of the civilian, political, and business life of Pakistan that it does not need Kashmir as an excuse any more; greatly improve economic relations with India could help the army retain its position as the dominant power in Pakistan; General Musharraf faces elections next year and would want to present himself as the architect of a new India-Pakistan accord and a statesman.

Standing With The Losers

The voice of the youth is the voice of future. An overwhelming majority of them now believe the 'war on terror' is already lost. At least in their minds, the real battleground!

The BBC World Service hired a research agency to conduct a survey. 300 or more youngsters aged 15 - 17 were interviewed October this year in ten cities of the world: New York, Nairobi, Cairo, Lagos, Rio de Janeiro, Baghdad, Delhi, Jakarta, Moscow and London.

71% of respondents said the US-led wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were making the world not a safer place. Only 14% of said they were. The remaining 15% did not know or declined to answer.

Negative views of the "war on terror" were strongest in Baghdad (98%) and Rio (92%). Nobody asked Afghanis or Pakistanis.

Had Lahore, Karachi or any other Pakistani city been included in this list I don't think the result would have been different.

The writing on the wall is very clear for anyone willing and able to see. But the lucre-blinded military junta in Pakistan, the 'proud' but forced partner of the aggressors, cannot see.

The war is already lost. The resistance in America against this unnecessary war is growing every day. Even the most adamant proponents and supporters of this war are slowly but steadily crumbling. Rumsfeld left for Bush a 'cut and run' memo only one day before he resigned. The neo-cons, the sires of this foolish war, who had pushed Bush towards this hell are now hastily scurrying of this sinking ship and are turning on Bush. Kennedy was right when he said victory has many fathers but defeat is an orphan.

Kofi Annan is saying that the life for ordinary Iraqis is now more dangerous than it was under Saddam Hussein and the country has descended into violence "much worse" than civil war.

How long will it take for Musharraf and his partners in crime to realize that they will be standing with losers once the fog of war evaporates? Or, are they already pulling their hand out gingerly by giving mixed signals to NATO to make deals with Taliban and htting hard on Madrassahs?

Who Will Trace The Chief Justice If He Goes Missing?

I think the Supreme Court Chief Justice, Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, is entering the dangerous territory now.

Locating the missing girls is a different matter altogether. Their kidnappers and abductors are lowly lawless individuals or groups. They can be brought to the book with impunity. But asking the Eternal Ruling Party of Pakistan (the military) to go find the missing Pakistanis is not a course I will recommend anyone who does not want to go missing himself. Especially if the military agencies (Inter Services Intelligence and military intelligence) are the ones who made these missing Pakistanis disappear in the first place.

Now the Chief Justice is asking the agencies, actually the military, to go fish the missing Pakistanis out of the damp, dreary and dark dungeons run by the agencies.

If military can rule Pakistan uninterrupted why it has no right to make the irritating or “marked” Pakistanis vanish. After all it is military’s Pakistan. Not the other way around.

The army colonel and the Operations Director (simultaneously) of the Interior Ministry who had to provide a list of the missing Pakistanis showed his claws a little when he asked the court “to close the case”. But the chief justice did not listen and rather “rebuked” him saying: “Who are you to tell us to dispose of the case? It’s a question of our authority. You are responsible for tracing out the missing people”.

What about the military authority or the martial law? Or lack of any law for that matter? Lawlessness, in other words?

Come on Chiefie! You know the game. They can wrap you up real fast. Who will locate you when you go “missing”. Who do you have on your side? They have Bush and his extra-legal powers. You say it is the government’s duty to trace the missing people and the Interior Ministry should contact all intelligence agencies to know the whereabouts of people taken by the agencies. Which government you are talking about? You must have some school book, idealistic ideas about governments which listen and respond to people. It is military, dude! This is no ordinary political government. Not in Pakistan.

Who the hell are provincial home secretaries or the Interior Ministry? They have no power to contact intelligence agencies and ask them questions regarding whereabouts of people abducted by them.

You are asking the agencies to “find” them. They don’t have to find them. They “have” them. Who are you to order them around? Be careful. I am telling ya!

Do you know what they have told the 10 people they have set free? They had been warned not to talk to newsmen about their detentions, or else they will be arrested and never freed.

By the way, did you ask them where the 10 they have not released are? What do they mean they have “traced” them? Ask them who had abducted them in their own country? Where they had been in the intervening years? Why were they abducted? What was their crime? What about those who are still missing? What do they mean when they say they were able to locate only 20? Do you think they will “trace” the rest in two weeks? I mean release them?

You are already stepping on their toes. It is their territory. Their Pakistan. Muhammad Ali Jinnah just worked for them. Millions of people gave up their homes and hearths for them to enjoy the choice lands and perks in and out of service so they can make millions. Now the same people, or their descendants must pay with their freedom and liberty.

If you want to be free and live the rest of the days of your life out of some military dungeon then stay out of their way. Go locate missing girls. Don’t mess with them.

Don’t you know this is war of terror? Why do the people ask for their basic rights? Don't they know Military comes first. And its rights start with the right to rule Pakistan. Pakistanis are just their chattels. They can do whatever they want with them.

Don’t take any action against their military abductors as some people are urging you to. You may go missing too, if you do. Who will trace you if that happens?

'Progressive' Fundamentalism of Musharraf

Without paying any heed to the opposition's hue and cry, the Senate of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan on Thursday approved the so-called Protection of Women (Criminal Laws Amendment) Bill 2006 to amend an Islamic law. The National Assembly had done the same on November 15. Now the bill will be sent to General Musharraf for his signatures.

He will certainly affix his approval stamp to it because he was the force behind this bill’s ramming through both houses of the parliament. In fact, he had been itching, for a long time, to push the circle of morality wide enough to accomodate a Playground of Passions where he and the people of the same hue, can play out their orgies unhindered. By passing and signing this bill into law they will try to convert Pakistan from an Islamic state to a "Free-Sex Zone" for lust-bitten, sex-crazy demons of debauchery who will be free to follow the dictates of their unfettered sensual pleasures.

The secularists and progressives liberals of Pakistan who want to be known as the champions of women rights are, in fact, haunted by the Islamic laws and practices, which they believe to be restrictive and thus harsh, subjugating and inhumane.

Their mental-cousins in Europe have the same Islamophobia. Every week new headlines announcing moves to crack down on Islamic norms such as veil pour from almost all European countries. The Europeans think, according to the Time magazine, veil to be the “most alienating symbol of Muslim faith” and “subjugation of women”, “a subordination of women”, which challenges or threatens "more progressive Muslim women who decline the veil”. They don’t want the Muslim women to wear their Hijab or Niqab or Burqa in French public schools, British government buildings or out in public in the Netherlands or in certain German states. Belgium is preparing a similar ban on veil.

The Time magazine exposes the “hypocrisy” and “subtle bigotry” of the European liberals who attack Islamic laws and practices, saying, that,

“Beneath all the reminders of secularist tradition and progressive discourse cited in Europe's headscarf debate lies … a broader sentiment wafting across: it's fine to be Muslim, just don't remind us about it by the way you dress.”

The real message to all Muslims is to start acting more like Europeans "and less Muslim".

The magazine writes:

“The promised Dutch ban is only the most recent and bizarre in a spate of assaults by European democracies that appear to be targeting the veil as a proxy for what they see as a dangerous spread of Islamic culture in Western Europe. In Britain, former Foreign Minister Jack Straw last month groused that the niqab created unnecessary barriers between people, and prevented communication because meaningful exchange ‘requires that both sides see each other's face’. Prime Minister Tony Blair later added that it created a divisive ‘mark of separation’.”

The problem with the secularists and liberals and progressives of Pakistan is that they look at Islamic laws and practices as they are “interpreted, characterized, and frequently skewed from non-Muslim perspectives” of Europeans.

Time magazine calls the reverse fundamentalism of secularists and liberals of Europe “progressive fundamentalism”. They in their fervor to free Muslim women from socio-cultural coercion of veil presume that “they can dismiss as misguided or deluded the conviction of women who say they wear hijab by choice and who argue that the only coercion they feel is coming from opponents of these symbols of their faith”.

Are Musharraf and his cronies Progressive Fundamentalists? I think they are.

Indian Army Opposes Expected Siachen Demilitarization

The Indian newspaper,The Hindu, has reported that the Indian "has set its face against the demilitarisation of the Siachen Glacier, arguing that India would lose its strategic advantage if the troops are ordered to vacate the icy heights" because "the power which controls Siachen will have military advantage since it looks over the Shyok and Nubra valleys of Ladakh" and the Indian "military presence would eliminate Pakistan's design on Ladakh" and "it projects our military strength and capability in operating in such a difficult terrain. It also shows our national resolve to protect national sovereignty and territorial integrity," .

"The Army said maintaining a full-scale presence in the Siachen Glacier — wedged between Shaksgam Valley (China) and Baltistan (Pakistan-occupied Kashmir) — could govern future boundary talks with China on the Shaksgam Valley.

The Army articulated its views a few days before the Indo-Pakistan Foreign Ministers' meeting to discuss, among other issues, dates for the Defence Secretary-level interaction on demilitarising the glacier.

The roots of the Indo-Pakistani conflict lie in the non-demarcation of the ceasefire line on the map beyond a coordinate known as NJ 9842. While signing the Karachi Agreement on the ceasefire line in 1949 and later during the Shimla Agreement in 1972 both sides felt that it was not possible to conduct military operations at such heights.

Army officers also referred to the prognosis that half a century later wars would be over water to argue for a continued military presence in the region. "The Siachen Glacier is basically a 5,000 square km water reservoir. We already have problems with Pakistan over the Kishanganga barrage. This could become another trouble spot if we vacate the area."

The Army said it occupied the surrounding heights in 1984 to thwart Pakistani designs on the area. Since then the saga of "Operation Meghdoot" continues in which 600 soldiers have died due to bad weather and enemy firing. One of the longest sustaining operations by the Indian Army and also the costliest ever.

The region has seen several instances of super-human feats in a place where walking is a challenge. In 1987 soldiers scaled a 1,500-foot ice wall at night to dislodge the Pakistanis from a 21,753-foot post that had made it difficult for the Indian Army to survive and sustain operations at the lower heights. The post has since been named Bana Post after the leader of the platoon which was the first to engage the Pakistani soldiers. Since retired, Bana Singh was awarded the Param Vir Chakra.

An officer cited an old Ladakhi saying to make his point about the region: "The land is so barren and the passes so high that only the best of friends or fiercest of enemies would like to visit us."

Are Pakistanis ready for more bloodbath?

Musharraf's agreement with Taliban-friendly tribesmen has proven to be just as bad as Afghanistan warned.

The Los Angeles Times said in its November 6, 2006 editorial.

There is no doubt in my mind that Afghanistan is going to be soon upgraded from a back-burner to a center-stage issue once Bush succeeds in camouflaging American defeat in Iraq into a face-saving, gradual retreat and call it a "victory" under the cover provided by James A. Baker III's bipartisan Iraq Study Group. Preventing Pakistan's western neighbor from falling into the hands of a resurgent Taliban will become a top priority for the Bush administration. To succeed, Bush will demand more and more cooperation from General Pervez Musharraf.

Even though Musharraf is trying his best, by killing innocent Pakistanis and destroying madrassahs, to prove to his masters that he is their trusted ally the editorial still casts a lot of doubt on Musharraf's claim that he had "stopped supporting the Taliban after its 2001 ouster". Citing Jane's Intelligence Digest, the editorial says that

Musharraf's agreement with Taliban-friendly tribesmen has proven to be just as bad as Afghanistan warned. The evidence is now overwhelming that the Pakistani security service — the Inter-Services Intelligence, or ISI — and probably the senior military leadership are tolerating, if not backing, Taliban forces. Washington has been turning a blind eye to this problem, reluctantly concluding that there is no alternative but to support the flawed but friendly Musharraf as the only practical bulwark against a radical Islamist takeover of a crucial nuclear state. Islamabad is clearly hedging against what it sees as a hostile, pro-India government in Kabul and an inevitable Western abandonment of Afghanistan by keeping its old Taliban ally as a viable option.

It confirms

what Afghan President Hamid Karzai has been fuming about for months, that ISI sponsors Taliban training camps and jihadist madrasahs have multiplied along the Afghan-Pakistani border.

The editorial blames Musharraf for selling "out Afghan and U.S. interests" by signing an agreement with tribal leaders in North Waziristan on Sept. 5.

The editorial also mentions that Musharraf has not told Washington the truth about the other party in the deal.

Perhaps he didn't expect his Western friends to read the agreement in the original Urdu. According to those who have, Islamabad's official representative signed an agreement not just with Waziristan tribal leaders but with the "local mujahedin" — a vague term — and with the Taliban. The agreement spells the plural of the word "Taliban," which means students, in the Arabic way, as "Talaba".

The editorial is urging Bush that if he

has any red lines left, he should be furious that Pakistan is legitimizing the very Taliban it has pledged to eradicate

and

the Taliban has not kept its part of the bargain. Attacks have multiplied since the deal was signed.

The editoria is not satisfied with Musharraf trying

to make amends by ordering airstrikes on one Taliban-run madrasa last week, triggering a bloodbath

and insists that

it will take far more to persuade the American public and Congress of the wisdom of providing Pakistan with $3 billion in military and other aid each year while Pakistani territory, tribal or not, gives sanctuary to Taliban fighters who kill U.S. and NATO soldiers and destabilize the Afghan government.

Are Pakistanis ready for more bloodbath?

People power prevails in America - Give it a chance in Pakistan!

What an eerie silence? Musharraf and all his spokesmen, military and civilian, are conspicuously and strangely mum about the stunning defeat Bush administration has received at American voters' hands in the midterm elections on Nov. 7. Whole world is abuzz with greetings, jubilation or a sense of relief. But not a whispering sound uttered by political spin masters of Musharraf. Not even a comment on the defeat after deafeat: the dismissal of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. Bush had fired him and by doing so had implicitly admitted that he had followed failed policies for six long nightmarish years.

Does the absence of any sound from any government quarter in Pakistan also mean an implicit admission of its own failed policies? He was, as he has admitted after denying first, coerced into adopting those anti-Pakistan policies by American president. After all you don't need to be threatened to be bombed back to stone age if you want to do good to your own people and country.

Bush arrogance, belligerence and cockiness melted overnight in the heat of American people's votes. Sacking Rumsfeld was the first thing he did after his party lost both houses of Congress. Before the elections Bush had stubbornly refused to show him the door. But once the votes were counted and Bush found out that the people had rejected his coercive ways to wage wars in Iraq and in other parts of the world he was sensible enough to at least make suitable noises and go through appropriate motions to ensure Americans that he had gotten the message.

But then America is a democratic country and American people have the constitutional right to voice their opinions through ballot at regular intervals already determined by the constitution. They wait for elections and use them to force their leader to change the course if they don't like it. Or change their leaders.

And Pakistan is in the life-threatening grip of dictatorship - military dictatorship: the worst kind imaginable. The people constitution has been mutilated and mangled. The poverty is pushing people to ever diminishing circle which starts at hand and ends at mouth and does not leave any energy or time for voicing their opinion. The whole society is polarized into preys and predators. Extortionism has become the best business. Thugs and murderers, protected by those in high places, are running rough shod scaring citizens into paying ransom or face death. Those who have wherewithal to leave Pakistan for those places where they think their lives, lives of their loved ones and their hard earned money are safe have already left, or are at the verge of leaving.

They can neither change the course of the country nor the leaders who have usurped power to empower the powerful and kill the powerless and those who speak up and try to expose their deeds. Their voice are stifled, their votes denied, or rigged. The only way out of their miserable lives is death by suicide, death by starvation.

Do you wonder why the otherwise vocal spokespersons have lost their voices all of a sudden? They want the people of Pakistan to get infected by the ballot virus. They don't want them to know that in the same world they live in there are some nations which have un-mangled constitutions. They have the right to vote. The most powerful man on earth cannot them their votes or rig them.

The glib spokespersons of military government are mute because they don't want the people of Pakistan to rise up for their rights. They know if people power can prevail in America, if given chance it will also prevail in Pakistan and then dictator and his cronies has to go.

What a dream! May be not!!

From Chingai to Dargai to Civil War?

The suicide attack on the army training camp in Dargai is really a very dangerous and worrisome sign. In fact it should be taken as a wake up call that the strategy or lack thereof adopted by Musharraf is rapidly unraveling. It is imperative that generals around Musharraf pay attention. They should make him shed off all his pretentions. Instead of enjoying his role as a mercenary in America's war he better think of Pakistan and its people first.

This carnage in Dargai and one in Chingai are clear and vivid symptoms of the fatal course the country has been put on since 9/11. Now things have started spinning out of control at a mind-boggling speed. I am afraid they are on their way to spiral downward to a civil war if the generals don't take heed to the sirens going off all around them. It is a shame that the Pakistani military is losing its respect and prestige, it once held in the civilian eyes, due to junta's policy of kowtowing to every item on every wish list they are handed by the foreigners.

The sense of helplessness in the face of daily growing prices and pitious situation of law and order taking its toll. The demon of poverty and despair is pushing people to think about carrying the gun. Up to now it was blind military might against the people. Only last week Major General Shaukat Sultan was caliming massacring what turned out to be innocnet kid students as young as five years old.

The people have already been pushed too far. What they are supposed to do when they see their lives going up in smoke?

Give them reason to live with dignity. Make them partners in peace instead of casting them as enemy within. Would someone around Musharraf listen?

The Predator General's Predicament

The Monday Massacre in Bajaur was staged to show the destructive and overwhelming power of the state and to raise a smoke screen to hide the true nature of the madrassahs from Prince Charles and through him from the western world. But, in fact, it ended up exposing its haplessness in the face of growing restiveness in Pakistan against the policies of Musharraf and Bush governments.

The carnage of Chingai was also vivid proof of rapidly diminishing options for Gen. Musharraf. His abrupt and sudden shifts in policy towards pro-Taliban Pakistanis in the NWFP, and his vacillation between capitulating peace deals and pitiless massacres also show he is under a lot of pressure and is losing control.

The American news channel ABC has reported that it was the a U.S. unmanned fixed-wing drone aircraft - Predator - that initiated air raid on Madrassah in Bajaur in which 80 innocent young students were killed.

Three Pakistani helicopter gunships joined the operation 15-20 minutes later to mow down 15 men who survived the two hellfire missiles fired by the drone. The rest of the dirty mop up work was done by the Pakistani ground troops. This Madrassah was the only educational institution of any kind in the village of Chingai. The government has refused to release the names of those killed to the public and has thrown a strict cordon around the area, to prevent the mainstream media from knowing the truth. Some local journalists who managed to smuggle out video footage showing burnt copies of the Muslim holy book, the Koran, desks reduced to rubble, and the charred remains of students and teachers, have been arrested by the army. They had also reported that most of the victims were under the age of 15, including a six years old.

If it was indeed an American operation and the Pakistani forces just joined it to cover up then, I believe, the American target was the nascent peace deal, between Musharraf's military and the Taliban of Bajaur. The attack came only hours before tribal leaders and Pakistani military officials were scheduled to sign the peace agreement. Pervez Musharraf had been under increasing pressure from the United States to to stop the movement of Taliban and al-Qaida militants into Afghanistan whcih had increased threefold after a similar deal was signed by the Pakistani military with the Taliban of North Waziristan back in September. The peace agreement, had it been signed, would have resulted in the grant of a pardon to the two most wanted militants, Maulana Faqir Mohammad and Maulvi Liaqat. Both had been charged with harbouring and providing shelter to Al Qaeda operatives. The latter was killed in the attack.

Musharraf was under a lot of pressure from within the army to make deals with local militants, whose power is on the rise, to save Pakistan from sliding into the same situation as we have in the southern Afghanistan.

Washington, on the other hand, does not like those deals.

A congressional report was prepared by Alan Kronstadt, an Asian specialist at the Congressional Research Service which does research for the US Congress at the same time when the Madrassah was destroyed and 80 innocent young – some as young as 5 years old – were murdered.

Nato’s top military commander General James Jones at the end of his three day visit to Afghanistan was telling reporters at the Bagram Air Base, two days before the Monday Massacre, that the movement of militants from Pakistan into Afghanistan has increased since Islamabad signed a deal with tribal elders along the border last month. ISAF (Nato-led International Security Assistance Force) commanders were due to meet with the Pakistan military in the coming weeks, he said, with the Nato-led force wanting to remove militant sanctuaries in the region and stop the crossborder movement of fighters.

America's ambassador to Afghanistan Ronald Neumann, in an interview with the British newspaper the Daily Telegraph on October 25 (five days before the attack), was criticizing the British peace deal with the Taliban of Afghanistan in Musa Qala in Helmand province.

How will Musharraf get out of his predicament? Does he want to?

Scrificial Lambs for Prince Charles

Pakistani President General Syed Pervez Musharraf's spokesman Major General Shaukat Sultan has callously claimed that the military helicopter gunships, with the help of ground troops of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan destroyed a Masjid/Madrassah and killed 80 innocent Muslim students and their teachers before dawn today in the Bajaur tribal area of Pakistan’s North West Frontier Province.

The students had just resumed their Quranic studies after getting back from their homes where they had celebrated the Eid holidays with their loved ones – for the last time. They belonged to poverty stricken but religiously devoted families who could only afford to send them to a Madrassah because there they could get free education along with a free meal and a slice of straw-mat to sleep on. Their parents wanted them to learn what they believed to be the Word of God and the Ways of their Prophet so they may live successfully, both here on this earth and in the hereafter.

But obviously they did not know, or did not believe, that a Madrassah, in the post 9/11 world, has become a very dangerous place. It is not their Muslim parents or Islamic religion, any more, which dictate what kind of teachings and what sort of ways the Muslim kids should learn and follow. This power has been usurped by Bush and his Muslim (in some cases Prophet's descendants) cronies. They decide now who is a persona non grata and what is a bad teaching. And they have spoken: the Madrassahs are filling stations of venom; the Quranic teachings are lethal and destructive; and the ways of the Prophet are violent.

This is not the first time and, I am sure, it is not going to be the last that a country whose military calls it a citadel of Islam and calls itself its sole custodian and defender has claimed the dismal distinction of killing its own citizens and destroying a house of worship, a house of God, a Masjid and a teaching facility in the name of “war on terror”.

But my question is why Musharraf chose his heinous crime to time with Charles, the Prince of Wales and his consort, Camilla, the Duchess of Cornwall’s six-day visit?

Consider the following:

On their first visit to the Islamic republic Charles and Camilla were keen to visit a Madrassah in Peshawar “one of the most radical areas of Pakistan” an area “renowned for its conservative approach” where Charles wanted to speak with religious teachers, Ulema and students about the issues of moderation and understanding in Islam and all faiths. He wanted to break with protocol during his visit and venture into some of the country's most politically sensitive areas known for their ultra-conservative approach to Islam, including the strongly pro-Taliban territory in the north-west of the country where Osama bin Laden is thought to be hiding.

Prince Charles is known to have a long-held interest in Islam and has previously urged the west to overcome its "unthinkable prejudices" about the this faith, its customs and laws and its adherents. He has established over the years a strong reputation among Muslims and is therefore uniquely positioned, more so than a politician to command respect from his audience.

Actually last month, the Sunday Telegraph revealed that the prince has plans to make his coronation a "multi-faith" event. Charles has also said he wishes to be known as "Defender of Faith" and not "Defender of the Faith" - meaning Christianity only -when he succeeds to the throne. He is deemed a key figure in bridging divides between Islam and the West.

He had also expressed that he did not want the security measures for his visit as had been imposed during the visit by President George W Bush in March.

But that was what Prince Charles wanted. Musharraf was not ready to take any chances to let him visit a Madrassah and gain first hand knowledge of what was the true nature of these religious schools. He was using all the tricks of his trade. On the surface Musharraf was going through all the appropriate and necessary motions to schmooze the royal couple. He bought the Duchess a pearls and silver decorated pink shalwar kameez, designed by Farah Leghari, one of Pakistan's top designers whose clients include Queen Rania of Jordan. The price tag was £600-£700. The Prince was presented with a white woolen chitrali cap, the same kind worn probably by a few of students killed in the Madrassah in Bajaur. The Prince and the Duchess were supposed to wear their respective wardrobe pieces during the visit to a Madrassah in Peshawar on Tuesday.

But secretly Musharraf was planning to prevent them from visiting any Madrassah in Peshawar at any cost. So anxious was Musharraf to make the royal couple feel leery of terrorist attacks by dangerous products of Madrassahs that he had drafted thousands of paramilitary troops and police for the security operation for the couple's "safety". To show them that they were in a really dangerous country and instill fear they were to travel mainly by helicopter with anti-aircraft batteries installed around all landing sites, and strict exclusion zones were to be rigidly enforced at every destination. In Islamabad, their activities were to be restricted to an area housing government offices and the diplomatic enclave.

General was afraid that the smoke screen of the danger posed by Madrassahs as training camps of terrorism, which he had so assiduously created over the years with his scare tactics, was about to be exposed with Prince Charles’ visit to one the Madrassahs. He was afraid that the façade of deception behind which he had raised his own edifice of military rule was about to be exposed.

Then he played his final cards. Their Peshawar visit which was supposed to be kept secret until a few hours before the event was leaked to the local news organization which published it in the newspapers. Then he decided to make these 80 innocent students, including some seven years old kids, sacrificial lambs to deter Charles from visiting the Madrassah.

This is how the Prince of Wales was forced to pull out of a visit to a Madrassah in Peshawar due on Tuesday. Clarence House said the decision was taken on the advice of the Pakistani government and the royal couple was disappointed for not visiting the Madrassah.

The Method In Musharraf's Madness

And thus I clothe my naked villainy
With old odd ends, stol'n forth of holy writ;
And seem a saint, when most I play the devil.

William Shakespeare

The way Gen. Musharraf has acted up and spewed venom all over, on his recent visit to the west, is, to say the least, embarrassing.

First, he termed what the Los Angeles Times called “a shameless ploy to sell books” an official visit and used state resources to promote his memoir.

Then, he successfully managed to bad-mouth his countrymen including his “national hero” and annoy, irk and vex every single person or country he ever came across in his professional and unprofessional life – with the notable exceptions of his book’s American publisher, and any military personnel, previous or present, and no doubt Bush.

He lobed the first verbal bomb at Richard Armitage, former US Assistant Secretary of State (who has been writing op-ed columns to urge the West to keep Musharraf on its side in the war of terror). He blamed him for rudely threatening him through former chief of Pakistan’s intelligence agency, ISI, General Mahmood Alam, to “bomb Pakistan back to stone age” if he did not join in the US war of terror.

It is interesting to note that he had succumbed, in 2001, without even a whimper. He had made the required volte face and had claimed that there was no pressure on him to change his Qiblah (direction of his face when worshiping). Now he is saying the threat was rude and he felt insulted. (President Bush said he is not aware of his country making such a threat to Pakistan and Armitage has denied the remarks attributed to him.)

That controversial disclosure was though good for his book but it was bad for his own image and for the image of Pakistan. It was also a breach of his oath as president and sitting Chief of Army Staff that he had divulged a state secret he was supposed to safeguard.

But why should he care about these little things as long he is raking in dollars.

He claimed he was/is making money some other ways too: he had become a swashbuckling bounty hunter and was kidnapping his country-men and foreigners in Pakistan and selling them into American captivity for millions of dollars. “We have captured 689 and handed over 369 to the United States. We have earned bounties totaling millions of dollars,” he says in his book.

He also spilled beans on another highly sensitive issue: security. He has said that Pakistan’s nuclear program was not fully operational in 1999 during the Kargil conflict.

He also sowed the seeds of potentially dangerous repercussions for Pakistan regarding nuclear issue. The New York Times has already started linking North Korean, Iranian and Libyan nuclear issues with Pakistan’s nuclear scientists and government. It says that, “he has admitted ‘that he now believes that the equipment sent to North Korea several years ago by Pakistan’s nuclear chief included some of Pakistan’s most technologically advanced nuclear centrifuges’”.

The paper further says: “In it (his book), he says for the first time that his suspicions about the activities of Abdul Qadeer Khan, the Pakistani nuclear engineer who built an illicit nuclear network that also supplied Iran and Libya, dated from 1999".

Then the said newspaper lays the blame saying that: “But Mr. Musharraf, who took over as president in 1999 in a coup, apparently never shared his suspicions with the United States…. Mr. Musharraf denies in the book that any senior Pakistani officials, himself included, knew about Dr. Khan’s illicit activities. He never explains how Dr. Khan was able to fly his goods to North Korea and Iran on Pakistani military aircraft”.

Then the paper quotes an American intelligence official saying: “It’s a significant admission, since the Pakistanis spent years denying that there was any evidence of dealings with North Korea and telling us, ‘No problem here.’”.

His admission is a mea culpa.

Then he taunted the Canadians for “whining” because they had lost some of their men in war in Afghanistan (while he had lost more than 500 cheap lives of Pakistani soldiers without any compunction). Canada has protested.

Then he pounced on the neighbors of Pakistan starting with Afghanistan and said about Karzai that "he doesn't understand Afghanistan". Musharraf also accused him of "concerned more about himself than about Afghanistan". He called Karzai an ostrich who had "his head buried in the sand”.(During Musharraf’s US visit an American official in Kabul also leaked the news that Taliban attacks in southern Afghanistan have increased threefold since Pakistan's deal with the tribes.)

Bharat was next of his targets. He degraded the former prime minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee, and current prime minister, Manmohan Singh, in his book. He made a startling claim about the 1999 Kargil war that it was sparked by the Bharati army which wanted to capture Pakistani territory. He also taunted India for losing Kargil war and lauded Pakistani army for the "landmark" performance in that conflict.

India's former national security advisor, Brajesh Mishra bitterly reacted and called his claims “a pack of lies”. He said about Musharraf that: “he attacked us and then lost. That's the reality”.

It is ironical that he has renewed this controversy over the Kargil conflict at a time when only a week ago the two countries had decided, in Havana, to resume the suspended peace talks and pledged to work together to resolve all their disputes, including Kashmir. They had also decided to set up a joint mechanism to fight terrorism. His antics put in jeopardy the prevailing positive mood for dialogue between the two nations.

From his tantrums you would think he has gone mad and has started flaunting his failures with fanfare. But no, he is just feigning madness. There is method in his madness.

Though this be madness, yet there is method in't.

But why is he doing it?

He says that he is doing all this because: "I thought that because of the world looking at me inquisitively, personally, I thought through me I could project the reality of Pakistan and what Pakistan stands for and clear all the misconceptions."

I believe, the reason he has created all this ugly commotion is that he has lost control. His popularity, by his own admission, has hit the rock bottom and he has been thoroughly discredited. The opposition parties are up in arms. Balochistan is boiling. Corruption, crimes, lawlessness are running roughshod. The country is at the verge of chaos and the ISI (Inter-Services Intelligence) is supporting terrorists as the official British intelligence report claims. Everyone was losing patience with him including President Bush.

He wanted to generate a sense of relief in the west that he was the only bulwark in Pakistan against the growing forces of terrorism. If he is not there chaos will prevail. So, the West has no choice but him. He is also telling everyone: stay away from me. I am dangerous and will hurt you if you come close. Don’t put pressure on me because I have screwed everything.

He is making it politically difficult for Bush and other western leaders to exert any real pressure on him for his killing of Bugti, not doffing the uniform, kidnapping and torturing his critics in politics or media, embracing JUI, making a deal with Taliban in North Waziristan. Not only that, they will be unable to pressure him for holding fair elections and keeping the leaders of the mainstream political parties out of the upcoming elections and whatever else he has up his sleeve for future.

Bush has taken the bait – for now. Because he knows he has gotten a lot out of him but still can squeeze him for some more. He is spending 70 to 80 million dollars a month to keep his body in one piece so he keeps on producing desired results a la cart.

God save Pakistan from this mad general!

Selling Cock & Bull Stories

Musharraf has been selling his cock and bull stories ever since he has appeared in Pakistan's public life.

It is not something about the subject matter of his stories that separates him from his lot. All dictators and tyrants reach and stay in power by selling stories. It is the brazenness with which he promotes them.

In 1999 he sold his Kargil stroy. He first tried his shtick on his then Prime Minister. When he failed to sell it to him he went ahead any way and started his ill-conceived and half-baked adventure and pushed Pakistan and Pakistanis to the brink of what could have been the first nuclear war. He did it just to create optimum circumstances for his military coup.

Then his fertile and kinky mind fabricated and tried to sell the story of plane highjacking to cover his guilt for toppling the elected Prime Minister. He promoted the story by using newspappers and other media outlets when he issued photos showing only 3 minutes' jet fuel left in the tank to create suspense in the story.

Now he has taken his shop to the American airwaves and the white house and has recruited the services of another salesman adept at selling his own Dick and Bush stories.

But this time around he is not only selling a single story but a whole book of stories. Simon & Schuster has already paid him quite a big chunk of lucre. Now he wants to make some more in royalties by using every trick, stratagem and maneuver he has the ability to conceive.

To sell his book, first, he created some shockwaves by undiplomatically announcing on a CBS television programme to be broadcast tomorrow, that after the September 2001 attacks the then deputy secretary of state, his friend, Richard Armitage, had threatened him through Pakistan's intelligence director to bomb Pakistan "back to the Stone Age" if he did not throw his lot with Washington in its war of Terror.

(This is the same friend who has been writing ed-op columns in New York Times to urge US leaders to keep Musharraf on their side.)

Musharraf says the language used was rude and he felt insulted so decided to cooperate. Five years back when he was joining what Bush then called the "crusade" he had denied that he was doing so because he was cowed into it by threats, insults and hoodwinking. It turns out to be another story he had sold then.

Whatever suits him.

Now at the White House yesterday, he declined to elaborate his earlier startling statement, citing an agreement with the publishers of his book that is due out next week. This is what he said sheepishly, "I am launching my book on the 25th and I am honor-bound with Simon & Schuster not to say anything about the book before that date". This was another baldfaced way of saying what his partner in trade, Bush said: "In other words,'buy the book', that is waht he is saying".
Watch the video clip.

I wonder how low he can stoop and how much he can degrade himself and his country to get what he wants for himself. Does he pay any attention to what happens to the image of Pakistan while he is hawking and peddling his literary wares in what he has made into a book promotion tour? Does he even bother to think how many "long woes are to succeed his short pleasures"?

It Is Not Confidence, General! It Is Shamelessness!!

Musharraf is on what he himself calls the "longest trip". He also calls it "roaming around". He thinks it shows his "confidence". Personally, I think it shows his shamelessness.

Here is why.

He still has blood on his hands. He just killed an 80 years old arthritic invalid. The person he got murdered was a strong supporter of Quaid-e-Azam for achieving Pakistan as an independent country. He was an active, patriotic, prominent Pakistani political leader who had been a federal minister, a governor, and chief minister during his 60 years long political career. His crime was that he was demanding the political, economical and cultural freedoms and liberties the constitution of Pakistan had guaranteed to the people of his province, Balochistan.

He still has fury in his eyes and and grudge in his heart against two other political leaders of Balochistan who he wants to have killed. He has publicly threatened to murder Khair Bukhsh Marri and Ataullah Megal with lethal weaponry and dead-right technology and intelligence equipment and signals his military has received from his masters in Washington with the money his military has stolen from exploiting the natural resources of their province.

He has lied to Pakistanis about his intensions and his plans. He has never kept his promises. He has changed his positions often. He has sold his soul to buy the wavering loyalties of the biggest defaulters of Pakistani banks. He has black mailed the corrupt politicians for his own political gains.

He has made a mess of Pakistan. Law and order is virtually non-existent. Prices of commodities have gone sky high. Lack of employment and opportunities is pushing people to commit suicides just to get out of the miseries of daily grind.

He has mangled and mauled the constitution of Pakistan by hiring the corrupt efforts of religious and secular politicians of MMA and MQM. He has joined hands with proven murderers and thugs to give a few days extension to his corrupt rule.

He has made his whole military corrupt. They are looting Pakistan from left, right and center. NAB has become the most sought after Johns Company for Extortion among the top military brass.

He is siphoning and sucking money from Pakistani treasury to military establishment (Pakistan is among top 25 countries) while infant mortality rate, and literacy rate are among the bottom 25 countries in the world.

He initiated a war with India in Kargal to embarrass his civilian leader. He disobeyed and disrespected him for not showing at the welcome reception of Vajpai. And now he is brown-nosing the Indian leadership to gain peace he so abhorred when his Prime Minister was doing it without losing Kashmir which he has almost lost.

He had deposed an elected Prime Minister of Pakistan just for personal reasons. His alibi had more holes in it than a sieve.

He has become self-proclaimed and self-appointed Chief Executive of Pakistan without any right to do so. He has no competency, other than raw ambition only a man with gun can have, to show in his credentials for seeking this post.

He has morphed himself into another Tiger Niazi by surrendering to the Taliban of North Waziristan after calling them terrorists for years. His military could not win even this war.

I don't know how he can claim himself to be confident. It is only callousness towards and pure indefference to the real problems Pakistan and Pakistanis face. I call it shamelessness!

Crisis Group's Premonition about Balochistan: Would the Military Listen?

The International Crisis Group - an independent, non-profit, non-governmental organization that works through field-based analysis and high-level advocacy to prevent and resolve deadly conflicts all over the world - has on September 14 issued an alarming report on the worsening situation in Balochistan.

In its press release, issued from Islamabad and Brussels simultaneously, the Crisis Group has called the Balochistan "situation deteriorating" and has predicted that "the insurgency will not recede until Islamabad ends its heavy-handed, armed response to legitimate Baloch grievances and negotiates matters of political and economic autonomy" and "the "conflict will escalate further if the government continues to insist on a military solution to what is a political problem".

The press release also blames "the military government" for "perpetuating this conflict by using indiscriminate force" and "by choosing confrontation over negotiation". It says, "the government of Pervez Musharraf bears responsibility for the state of the conflict".

The question here is: would the military junta listen?

The lure of lucre and lordship is so tempting. In six decades of their continuous direct and indirect rule they have crawled and crept into every powerful position, prime land, lucrative job and post-retirement perk. They eat up majority of Pakistan's budget at the expense of people's education and health. They are eating the country up and sapping its foundations from within. They are strangulating the people by depriving them of representative participatory institutions and exploiting their natural resources.

They are drunk with power, aggrandizement, and megalomania. They don't see a nation of deprived, powerless, ignorant, sick, hungry and unrepresented people. They see only a few honorable people still standing in their way to more power and more lucre and who need to be subdued or killed.

The people who have any honor left in their bones, like Balochis, have no choice left but picking up the gun if they know their grievances will remain unaddressed and their demands for constitutionally guaranteed political freedoms and rights will stay unmet. Given a choice between deprivation and death what they will choose?

Imagine if the people were organized or armed enough to wage a war against the military as the Bengalis did in 1971 with India encouragement and empowerment.

I hope I am wrong but if we are willing to see the handwriting on the wall, it is only matter of time, I don't know how long, before rest of the Pakistanis see their deliverance from their daily miseries in destroying the military's overwhelming dominance in body politic.

Ambition and greed have pushed most of the political parties, especially, JUI, MMA, MQM to military pockets and they are helping it stay in power as long as they are thrown a few bones their way and pick up some crumbs. They have dexterously diverted the attention from Balochistan conflagration to Hudood Ordinance to give the military the breathing space it so desperately needed after Bugti murder fiasco.

The Crisis Group has made some recommendations such as ceasing military action; ending the political role of intelligence agencies; ending intimidation, torture, arbitrary arrests, disappearances and extra-judicial killings; refocusing policies towards human development; implementing constitutional provisions for political, economical and administrative autonomy; holding free and fair elections in 2007.

But Musharraf or military would ever listen? They don't have to. They are averse to sharing power. Why would they like to be brothers when they can be masters. Why would they opt for political engagement when they have coercive might to hoist military solutions.

There are some other recommendations for the Pakistan National Assembly, the Supreme Court and the International community. The former two are unable to implement those recommendations and the latter one is unwilling to.

Would the military listen?

Debate on the Definition of the ideology of Pakistan

The humongous uproar of the Hudood Ordinance debacle was staged to bury the unceremonious, locked burial of murdered Bugti, and its aftermath. A profoundly important story also got intered in this ludicrous commotion. I want to exhume it from its august sepulture and give it a proper postmortem or resuscitate it, if possible.

M P Bhindara is a minority Member of National Assembly from the Pakistan Muslim League (Q). Last Tuesday he sought a debate on Ideology of Pakistan. But his request was considered so drastically out of sync with the sensitivities of both opposition and government benches that, even in one of the most heated moments of NA history of bickering, it was unanimously and vociferously rejected.

I assume he had no ulterior motives to bring this "sensitive issue" up. I don't believe he was playing an agent provocateur. I don't think he was drunk either. He just wanted to be on the safe side of the law.

He siad he wanted either a clear definition of the ideology of Pakistan or the deletion of Article 62(h) and Article 63 (g) of the constitution from the book. He claimed that the ideology of Pakistan had not been defined anywhere in the constitution or in the Objectives resolution. He said:” I am not saying that a definition of ideology should not exist in the constitution. Tell us exactly what the ideology of our country is."

As an MNA from PML ruling party he has to be a member of the Pakistan Muslim League (Q), a party that takes credit for achieving a separate country for the Muslims of sub-continent
and have just finished celebrating the centennial birthday of their party. PML must have a
constitution of its own that should explain the ideology of Pakistan, if there is such a thing, to its members before they fill out their membership forms. Why the party officials did not let him read the constitution of the party to familiarize himself with the ideology of Pakistan?

Let us suppose the Big Chaudhry of Gujrat did not do his job to educate MP Bhindara. But now when he had requested that he should be told where exactly the ideology of Pakistan had been defined in the constitution, I guess his request must have been given some weight.

But unfortunately for me and, may be some other, if not all, Pakistanis who want to know what exactly is the ideology of Pakistan and where it is defined, his request was rejected by all and sundry. He insisted that since the ideology had not been defined anywhere so the above mentioned articles be deleted until a definition was inserted in the constitution.

Again, I guess he is being careful or is plain scared. He may know his limitations. He may be disqualified from his hard earned seat as a member of parliament or may not run in the next election if absent-mindedly or in a stupor he steps in this explosive terra incognita.

These two articles, respectively, warn that a candidate for a seat in the parliament "must not have opposed the ideology of Pakistan" and a member of parliament could be disqualified if "he is propagating any opinion, or acting in any manner prejudicial to the ideology of Pakistan".

I think MP Bhindara is within his rights to know the definition of the ideology of Pakistan so that he does not, inadvertently, oppose, voice an opinion against, or act, in a prejudicial manner to something which turns out to be an ideology of Pakistan and end up losing his seat.

He said different people had different ideas of the ideology and he wanted a consensus reached through a debate. It seems to me, from reading the statements made by some able and rather witty members of the Parliament in opposition to his move, that he was right on that score.

Liaqat Baloch said Article 2 of the constitution established that Islam was the state religion of Pakistan.

I think Baloch missed the point and confused between religion and the definition of the ideology of Pakistan.

Hafiz Hussain Ahmad found another Article to resolve this dilemma: he said under Article 227 all Pakistan’s laws must be in accordance with the Quran and Sunnah. He said the ideology of Pakistan was based on that principle.

Hafiz Hussain Ahmad lost Bhindara too, when he confused laws and ideology.

Riaz Hussain Pirzada, another MNA of PML (Q) who made a timid effort to come to Bhindara's rescue by saying a debate was needed to educate the new generation and urged his fellow members not to "drag religion into every minor issue".

I don't think knowing the definition of ideology of Pakistan was a minor issue for M P Bhindara though.

Another Pirzada, Mujeeb, found the ideology somewhere else. He said the Supreme Court had defined the ideology of Pakistan several times as based on democracy, federalism, the parliamentary form of government and Islamic mode of the constitution. He also claimed the Objectives Resolution provided the basis of the country's ideology.

Even the parliamentary Affairs Minister Sher Afgan Niazi, who one would believe to be well versed in the Constitution of Pakistan if not the constitution of the PML (because he has not joined it yet as a formal member and would be excused for not knowing the ideology because he has been in the PPP all his life), was of ho help.

Niazi said: "The oath of parliamentarians and the president explains that they must 'strive to preserve the Islamic ideology which is the basis for the creation of Pakistan'".

Niazi was showing Bhindara the Islamic ideology, without any definition no doubt, while Bhindara was interested in the definition of ideology of Pakistan somewhere in the constitution.

Sher Afgan Niazi asked the National Assembly Speaker, another Chaudhry, not to allow a debate.

"Baloch feared a crisis if a debate was allowed on the sensitive subject".

What about the crisis of M P Bhindara? Or for that matter, what about the identity crisis of Pakistan? Let there be a debate on this “sensitive subject”! Why not?

Musharraf: A Champion of Women Rights or A Revamped Taliban?

Musharraf wants to visit Washington as a born again ‘enlightened moderate’. To earn some extra good will points, this time around, he is not using his usual approach of conveniently nabbing couple of home-grown or foreign ‘terrorists’ in Pakistan and timing the delayed release of their names and misdeeds in the media at a precise moment while he is on his visit to USA. Instead, he has opted for a different and novel approach.

To refurbish his tarnished credentials after strained relationship with the West on several accounts, he is anxiously waiting to take baptism in the murky waters of the National Assembly and the Senate by passing into law what his able advisers have deftly euphemized as Protection of Women’s Rights (2006) Bill.

An ‘enlightened moderate’ has to be an ardent champion of women’s rights after all.

But he is frustrated and is running out his scanty supply of patience and time because his appointees to the highest posts of the king’s party and government are not giving him results he wants. His schedule to fly to the USA is fast approaching and his ducks to pass the bill have stubbornly refused to get in line.

When the Hudood Ordinance issue came up for discussion for the first time in a meeting, Musharraf asked about the options to deal with it. He was presented with three: (i) not to touch the law and leave it as such (ii) to repeal it altogether, or (iii) to amend it. Musharraf himself was for scraping it altogether through an ordinance and gave orders to the law ministry to do so. But then the Prime Minister met with him and persuaded him to change his mind about repealing it. So it was decided that it must be amended.

Then the pressure started building up from MMA and PML (N) as well as within the ruling party regarding some of the provisions of the bill. The bill was yanked from the national assembly agenda at the eleventh hour, twice. Clause 496(B) was taken out, inserted and then removed again within days of each other under enormous pressure from different sides.

MMA and PML (N) boycotted from day one the select committee of the National Assembly members, calling any effort to temper with the Hudood Ordinance un-Islamic. At least 35 ruling party MNAs including some ministers have expressed their strong reservations to the draft, so far. Fifteen of them have already filed their objections in writing. Even Senator Wasim Sajjad and Senator SM Zafar have spoken against scraping some clauses of the law.

All the players of this latest political circus have aligned themselves into two major factions: Musharraf, ruling PML (Q) minus 35 or so members, PPP and MQM and some other motley liberals and secularists are united on one-point agenda of gaining freedom from any restrictions against their hedonistic proclivities.

The other faction is consisted of the ultra-conservative parties led by MMA who wants to keep a tight lid on all segments of society, especially women, by rigid and ironbound interpretations of all the commandments of the Quran and Sunnah to bolster themselves as the champions of Islamic causes. The whole political spectrum is totally polarized, if not the whole society.

MQM has announced that it will not accept the 'back-door amendments' proposed by ‘an extra-parliamentary' committee - meaning the Ulema c.ommittee. PPP is saying it will wait and see what is in those recommendations before making their next move. PML (N) has already dissociated itself from MMA’s decision to resign if this bill passes into law.

Now, to get it over with, Musharraf has summoned the seaaion of the senate for Tuesday, Sept.12. The National Assembly is to meet one day prior. He will try to ram the bill through both houses within two days, what has Mr. Sher Afgan Niazi has said, ‘at all costs’.

It means, if the draft of the bill is amended from its original form as approved by the PPP-included select committee then MQM and PPP may not vote for its passage. If it is not, then MMA will vote against it. If MMA’s efforts fail to stop this bill passing into law then they will have no choice but to resign or find another excuse not to do it.

Looks like Musharraf, in his attempt to divide the opposition by bringing up this very issue before no-confidence vote against his Prime Minister, ended up dividing its own house against itself.

Now all we have to see is if Musharraf’s effort to revamp himself into a champion of women rights will please his masters in Washington or he will have to face criticism from US media for his recently signed humiliating peace agreement with Pakistani Taliban.