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.

Talibanization of Musharraf

Musharraf's Cadmean victory in Balochistan and the turmoil in its aftermath have so enfeebled him that he finds himself in retreat on every front. Some incurable optimists may call it a ruse. But name it a retreat or a ruse, in the process of his 'hocus-pocus manoevers', he has already become a Taliban. May be a grudging and reluctant one. But a Taliban is a Taliban.

First front he has retreated from is North Waziristan. After wasting two years, men and materials in pacifying the local Taliban he has signed a 16 clause peace agreement with them in which he has conceded more than he has received. The army has to pull out of the tribal areas; release all the militant prisnors; halt all ground and air operations; pay compensation for lost lives and properties; and let the foreigners stay. Tribal forces called Khasdars will replace army at the checkposts. All the Taliban, in return, have to do is stop running a parallel administration and accept that 'the writ of the state will prevail in the area'.

The person who has been instrumental in ending this conflict is the chief patron of the Taliban: Maulana Fazlur Rahman of JUI, his coalition partner in the governments of the restive provinces next to Afghanistan, NWFP (North West Frontier Province) and Balochistan.

The second front from which he has pulled a retreat is the National Assembly of Pakistan. Women can wait. So can Benazir Bhutto whose Pakistan Peoples Party, was helping him pass a bill called Protection of Women (Criminal Law Amendment) Bill. A special select committee consisting of ruling party parliament members and members of PPP had approved a draft. It was the very first item on the islative agenda of the National Assembly session slated to begin on Thursday. Then came the MMA's meeting in which the supreme council decided that Bugti's murder was not reason enough for MMA National Assembly, and provincial members to resign from their seats or to leave provincial governments as coalition partners. They would only do so however, they threatened, if the assembly passed the bill into law.

On Thursday the assembly did no such thing. Its speaker on a cue let, rather encouraged the members to indulge in internecine bickeringbly over Seraiki rights and influx of Gujrati employees into local governments of the districts of Seraiki Suba. They were alos free to speak on as many points of order as they desired; complain about the sale of human organs; tender their resignations from assembly seats and other such trivial matters.

The first item on the agenda never came up. The Big Chaudhry of Gujrat, Shujaat Hussain met with the Conquorer of North Waziristan, the Opposition leader, Maulana Fazlur Rahman and negotiated a deal with him to make another select committee consisting of eight people, four from government and four from MMA. The new committee would supercede the first select committee and override its draft and postpone the debate on the Protection of Women and let the Ulema decide if the bill was according to the Quran and Sunnah or not. And if not, then amend it to bring in line with the same.

At the same time, over a dozen parliament members of the ruling PML (Q) party were encouraged to come up with any of their reservations about the bill. Then it was leaked to the media that there were some other members of the party who had same kind of reservations but were not saying so publicly.

PPP that was enjoying their brief and short-lived moment in the sun and was anxious to kill two birds with one stone by helping the ruling party pass the bill into a law and put a wedge between the goverment and MMA was disturbed with this coup de grace said so.

Instead, Interpol warrants were requested to be issued for Benazir and her husband's arrests.

Another front from which Musharraf retreated was the provincial autonomy issue. The issue for which he had murdered Bugti and was threateneing to kill the other duo of the 'axis of evil' of Balochistan: Sardar Ataullah Mengal and Khair Bukhsh Marri.

On Tuesday, at the precise moment the Protection of Women bill was supposed to be brought up in the NA, a private member brought up, instead, the provincial autonomy issue. Dr Sher Afgan jumped at the opportunity provided and declared with all sloemnity he could muster that the provincial autonomy was "the need of the hour".

Now, while Musharraf is beating a retreat from every front, and becoming Talibanized by the minute, I am wondering what happened in the corps commanders' meeting the other day?

Hafiz Hussain Ahmad

I never thought he was not a gentleman.

I certainly know he is a politician. A good and shrewd one at that. He knows the game. Inside out. He has been playing it for too long not to know it.

He is also a hafiz. I don't know how good is he as hafiz. I have not been blessed to have him recite in taraaweeh. His memory must be excellant, to start with. You can't memorize the whole Holy Quran if you don't have a good memory. But it is a different matter altogehter if you have retained it after being in politics for so long.

It also means that he is only hafiz and nothing more. Not an alim, or qari, or mufti, or maulvi. Just a hafiz. May he is one of such things. O r all of the above. But he won his spurs as hafiz and became known as hafiz before he moved up on the totem pole of religiosity.

Nobody would know him he was hafiz or Hussain Ahmad if he would not have entered the political arena though. So being politician is more important for him than to be just a hafiz.

And he is also very witty. His best retort, which I came to know about, was to Big Chaudhry of Gujrat. Not the smartest sounding of all people. But smart enough to know where the center of power lies. He also knows how to get the dubious distinction of becoming, probably, the biggest defaulter in Pakistan's history. He also knows how to make and keep what he makes or his father made.

HHA of MMA via JUI and the Big Chaudhry of Gujrat were in ameeting. Doffing of the uniform of a uniform person was being discussed. For obvious reason it was not a subject to the Chaudhry's liking. He wanted to sweep in under the rug. The expression he was using to drop it off was: "vardi tey mitti pao jee" (throw dirt on the uniform or bury it - meaning it is a dead issue, no need to discuss). When he said it more that a few time, as it is Chaudhry' normally does when he is emphasizing something earnestly, HHA said: "before you start throwing dirt on the uniform to bury it, make sure you take the man out of it first".

Is he witty or not? Memory that is a different matter.

Only day before yesterday he declared that if the MMA does not decide in their September 5 meeting to resign from the Balochistan government he will resign. Looks like the announcement was made without prior approval of his chief. Not The Chief. But second-in-command to The Chief. I mean, the chief of his party, Maulana Fazlur Rahman Khan, who has kept his cool after Bugti's murder and have been conspicously absent from the media radar.

But today he proved that his memory is selective. He retains in his brain cells what he wants to. And not what he doesn't want to. You can turn it on and off on your discretion. You have the control. Even if you lose your control over your tongue you still have the control on your memory. What a blessing to have such a memory.

I don't know what happened once he blurted it out. We can only imagine from his statement today. He is saying MMA and, no doubt, he too, will resign if the parliament passes the Hudoor bill.

The message is forget about Bugti. His murder is not important. Nor is Balochistan. Neither is Pakistan. Staying in power is. Staying close to the center of power is. Consciuous is not important. Nor is Memory. Neither the truth or to keep your word.

Keeping Benazir Bhutto from getting too close to the center of power through her stance on Huddod bill is the most important thing for MMA. One B is dead. Other B is nipping at their heels. She needs to be kept out.

But for how long you can stay in power even if you lose your honor. Voters will decide if he is a gentleman anymore or not.

Musharraf's Cadmean Victory

Only time will tell if General Syed Pervez Musharraf will ever become Cadmus of Balochistan and will succeed in building the port city of Gawadar into another Dubai on the north coast of the Arabian Sea. There still lies an ocean of fire, blood, disfigured and rock-crushed bodies with spilled guts and broken bones between his ambition and his economically throbbing and pulsating Eden.

But, no doubt, one thing he has already achieved: a Cadmean victory.

Cadmus was a prince of Phoenicia, present-day Syria and Lebanon. He founded in ancient Egypt, on the Nile, the great city of Thebes, on the site of modern Luxor and Karnak. The city flourished from circa 600 BCE until its destruction in 336 BCE.

But Thebes was not his only contribution. He also enriched English language by leaving behind an idiom connected with his name: a Cadmean victory - a victory won with great losses to the victor. They say he killed a dragon and sowed its teeth in soil from which grew many armed men who fought each other, until only five left to help him build his city.

Musharraf is a man who loves to keep his grudges well-fed. Cities are not built without harboring grudges and squelching opponents.

However, there is a problem. He does not know how to deal with a contentious situation except the only way he has been trained as a military man: by using force - overwhelming force - when and if he perceives to be confronted by a force that is only very much inferior to his own.

Since he was a major serving in the army's previous war against the Pakistanis of Balochistan he had been itching to settle scores with the Sardars and Nawabs of Balochistan and their ignorant followers and to teach them a lesson for not letting him build a road without interrupting him. It did not matter if his adversary this time around was Nawab Akbar Khan Bugti - army's erstwhile supporter and collaborator against other Sardars and Nawabs in that Buhtto era war.

In his confrontation with Bugti, who was demanding share in his province's wealth and opportunities for him / the Balochis, Musharraf screwed in every which way he could possibly screw. From the get go he made it a text book example of turning a political dispute into a big time brutal, barbarous and bloody fiasco.

He called Bugti names, rattled sabers, and tried to humiliate him and other proud sardars and people of Balochistan. He never called him Nawab even, he says. He threatened him and the other two members of his own local version of 'axis of evil' with dire and disastrous consequences reminding them what Bhutto had told them a couple of decades earlier: with the grace of America the army has so sophisticated, lethal and sneaky weapons in its arsenal that they will not even know what hit them. They didn't.

In the high voltage atmosphere after Bugti's tragic death, he could not restrain himself from showing another layer of the dark side of his character when he congratulated the armed forces for incinerating an arthritic, invalid octogenarian politician who had been for 40 long years, off and on, a loyal state minister, governor, and chief minister. Musharraf also kept the holy tradition of the armed forces of Pakistan of not handing over the dead bodies of the politians they murder to the bereaved families.

Musharraf and his Nau Ratan, accomplices or partners in crime – or you may call them Nine Corps Commanders - did not expect this much brouhaha from the people of Pakistan in reaction to Bugti's death or the death of a bunch of his rough, rowdy and ragtag medieval followers in a cave who they had killed with the help of a “friendly state’s satellite signals and intelligence”. Before operation the incomprehensible Chaudhry of Gujrat must have mumbled in their ears what he muttered in public about the limits of Bugti’s influence in the country. Their military intelligence must also have given them to go ahead and shoot.

After the flare up, they started recanting what they had gleefully announced first. The cave that was claimed to be bombarded into extinction had, instead, all of sudden crumbled and imploded on itself under its own weight mysteriously. The naive warriors had taken off their rings, watches and eye glasses and neatly lay them down with crores of rupees and about a hundred thousand US dollars at a convenient place where the brave Jawans and able offices of Pakistan’s great army could easily retrieve them intact.

Has he gotten what he wished for? No. It is just a Cadmean victory.

For some time, there will be some contrived huffing and puffing, some vociferous groaning and moaning, some vehement whining and complaining along with some sheer hypocrisy. A few dogs will not bark. Some will want to eat their cake and have it. Some will be conspicuous in their absence. A few will offer paltry resignations, or give never-meant-to-be-fulfilled threats to do the same. After a flurry of mob-like rallies, defanged resolutions, toothless protests, senseless burning, killing and mayhem people will have their pent up anger vented and will head home to worry about feeding their families. The grumbling hunger of the belly will win over the anguish of soul eventually.

But the teeth of the slain dragon Musharraf has sowed in the barren soil of Balochistan will give rise – sooner or later - to some armed Pakistanis who will train their guns against their own motherland and brethren who have no power or means to cover all bases as military men have since 1947. Some will kill, others will die.

When it is time to reap the whirlwind, Musharraf and some of his Nau Ratan will have their plane ready in the compound of a “friendly state’s “ embassy and their mansions waiting in Chicago or Boston suburbs where they will join their already-there family members and cool their heels. One of their own kind who is waiting in the wings will come forward and in the interest of national security will take over in a “bloodless” coup and once again the dark night of military rule will extend its long and grim shadows on this miserable land called Pakistan and will engulf its poor people.