'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!