Allah, the Army and America

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By Anatol Lieven

mush.jpg The survival of Pakistan in its existing form is a vital U.S. security interest, one that trumps all other American interests in the country. A collapse of Pakistan — into internal anarchy or an Islamist revolution — would cripple the global campaign against Islamist terrorism. Strengthening the Pakistani state and cementing its cooperation with the West have thus become immensely important to Washington.

So far, Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf appears firmly committed to the U.S.-led coalition, and he seems to have the solid support of his military high command. In the short term, the defeat of the Taliban in Afghanistan will strengthen Musharraf’s domestic position. Most of the causes of Pakistan’s decline over the last few decades, however, remain in place and have not been changed by the war against terrorism. If these serious flaws in Pakistan’s governance remain unaddressed, the country will sooner or later slip into a profound state of crisis. Even in the shorter term, growing unrest as a result of economic crisis could well prompt Musharraf’s military colleagues to shunt him aside in favor of a civilian government less supportive of the United States. Musharraf’s power depends very much on the will of the military, and if faced with its disapproval it is unlikely he would stay in office very long.

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Son of a Lion

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pust.jpgAustralian filmmaker Benjamin Gilmour’s debut movie, Son of a Lion, tells the story of a young Pashtun boy who wants to escape working in his father’s weapons workshop and go to school. Gilmour speaks to Spiegel Online about his attempt to combat negative stereotypes about the Pashtun people.

For most people in the West, Pakistan’s remote tribal region bordering Afghanistan held little interest - until Osama bin Laden and his fellow Al-Qaeda fanatics decided to hole up there. The tough terrain and the Pashtun people’s tribal code of hospitality has provided them with protection ever since the US-led invasion of Afghanistan over six years ago.

Australian filmmaker Benjamin Gilmour visited the region before the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks and was captivated by the local Pashtun people. Horrified by the post-9/11 negative images of the tribal areas in the Western media, he decided to go back secretly and make a film about the people that showed them in their true light. He and his local assistant director managed to shoot a story about a young 11-year-old boy who dreams of escaping his father’s weapons workshop and going to school. The simple story, which was co-written by the local people in the village of Darra Adam Khel, is a delicate portrait of a father-and-son relationship, which portrays the local people as well-informed about politics and far from supporters of the Taliban.

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Welcome to the Badlands

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What must never, repeat never, be done is to negotiate a treaty with these elements from a weaker position. A Pathan despises weakness as much in himself as in any one else. Such treaties are not worth the paper these are written on.

By Anwaar Hussain

oie_talibanselected4.jpgThe badlands were not always badlands.

The Federally Administered Tribal Areas of Pakistan, or FATA as these are more commonly known, are an amazing place with a fascinating history. This unique region of pine-scented vales, tall mountains, deep gorges, harsh topography and even harsher demography has traveled a tortuous path throughout its known history.

Starting from 500 BC to date, the region which includes Afghanistan and the North-West Frontier of Pakistan has seen perhaps more invasions in the course of history than any other country in Asia, or indeed in the world. However, during most of this period when the plains surrounding this region had been dominated by great powers of the times, these hill tracts and the tribes that inhabited these remained fiercely independent.

The people of Pakistan’s North-West Frontier Province (NWFP) and FATA as well as the adjacent eastern regions of Afghanistan are overwhelmingly Pathan, or Pashtun as they are alternatively called, with a total population of around 40 million. About 18 million of these are living on the Pakistani side. Within the NWFP province, geographically, FATA runs north to south, forming a 1,200-kilometer wedge between Afghanistan and the settled areas of the NWFP. The Durand Line supposedly divided Pathan tribes between British India and Afghanistan in 1893. Supposedly because the line has never been effectively able to divide these tribes and since then this delineation has been viewed with great contempt and bitterness by Pathans on both sides of the line.

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My country, ’tis of shams

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All of a sudden Maulana Fazl ur-Rahman that unabashed political acrobat, a man who somersaults in the name of God and on whom one can spot thick folds of lard even from a distance but nary a spine from up close, has started to appear most angelic by comparison

By Anwaar Hussain

pk1.jpg What a country my country has become. Let us start from the very top.

It is a country where an Army Chief can take over the country, hold its constitution in abeyance, suspend the basic rights of its citizens, beat up and imprison at will an enlightened section of its society, have a sitting Chief Justice of Supreme Court manhandled by lowly cops then fire him from his job, sack dozens of other judges who refuse to play to his tunes, shut down all private television channels daring to show his truth to the nation, compete in bogus elections and address public rallies in full uniform, hobnob with the vilest of the vile politicians to prolong his rule, appoint high school qualified military generals as Vice Chancellors of universities, sacrifice hundreds of his soldiers in the wild goose chase of Kargil, ‘disappear’ scores of Pakistanis in the phony ‘war on terror’, wilt like candle wax on a single phone call from Colin Powell despite commanding a nuclear armed 8th largest army in the world, admit to selling scores of his countrymen to other countries for bounties, claim tongue in cheek that none can undo what he has done and rather than having to pay for his crimes, goes on not only to become the President of Pakistan but also cling to that appointment for dear life.

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Lingering in Jalozai Camp

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By Zaigham Khan, Thursday, April 24, 2008

jalo.jpgIt was like a tumour on the body of Peshawar, a cancer that had to be removed sooner or later. The surgeon’s knife is working swiftly to eliminate the last traces of the Jalozai Camp, a mini-Afghanistan, from the soil of Pakistan. Its graveyard, where the dead are buried in the order of the Afghan provinces, may be allowed to stay on. In today’s world, dead Afghans have some privileges that living Afghans do not enjoy.

Located about 20 miles southwest of Peshawar, Jalozai was set up in 1980 to receive refugees fleeing from Afghanistan. It was a time when Pakistan under Zia-ul-Haq was a champion of the free world’s struggle against the evil empire occupying Afghanistan. Dignity and human rights for Afghan people were high on the agenda of the Pakistani government even though Pakistanis were living in indignity and ignominy. Jalozai was a significant square on the huge chessboard laid out to give a bloody nose to the Soviet Union. It was the centre of Arab fighters, who flocked to it to participate in the holy struggle, and seven Afghan jihadi organisations, generously supported by the CIA. It was here that the foremost jihadi ideologue of our times, Abdullah Azzam, founded a Jihad University, which promoted a new and radical interpretation of the Islamic concept of jihad. Abdullah Azzam and a number of other prominent jihadi leaders now lie in peace at the Jalozai graveyard.

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Stoning of the Songbirds

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By Anwaar Hussain

The story below has been inspired by the news of a recent stoning of a man and a woman in Northern Pakistan. It is a work of fiction.

songbirds.jpgThe first stone whizzed way above her head missing her exposed torso by a wide margin. She was half buried into a hole dug the previous day. Wrapped in a white shroud with her hands tied to her sides, only her face was uncovered. She was able to see the throng of devout people who would stone her till death. She was hysterical with fear and it showed on her beautiful face.

The next one found its mark. She was struck on her chin. It was a medium sized, sharp stone thrown by the lead mullah, the man who had passed the verdict on them. Pain shot through her body forcing a whimper of agony from her dry lips. With that, she started crying uncontrollably. Crimson drops of blood started to drip on to the white cotton shroud on her chest. “God is great!” shouted the mullah and waved on his followers with a renewed fervor. The crowd reached for the stones lying in heaps in front of them. Collected a day earlier, it was made sure that these would be of just the right size; neither too small as to be ineffective, nor too large as to finish the person with just a few hits. The barrage would start soon.

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The War of Drones

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By Pervez Hoodbhoy

dynamite.jpgDRONES, machine and human, have drenched Pakistan with the blood of innocents. On the one side are US-made drones such as the MQ-1B General Dynamics Predator - a remote controlled, self-propelled, missile-bearing aerial system. On the other side are the low-tech human drones, armed with explosive vests stuffed with ball bearings and nails.

These lethal engines of destruction, programmed by remote handlers, are very different. But neither asks why it must kill, nor cares about the death and suffering it causes.

On Jan 13, 2006, a bevy of MQ-1Bs hovering over Damadola launched a barrage of ten Hellfire missiles at the village below. They blew up 18 local people, including five women and five children. Such cold statistics say nothing about the smashed lives of the survivors, or the grief of the bereaved. The blame was put on faulty local intelligence.

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Who says this is our war?

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By Ayaz Amir

mushy-1.jpgIt isn’t and never was and if our newly-inducted political leadership is dumb enough to swallow all the fiction about the so-called ‘war on terror’ that our American friends (friends?) seem keen to push down its throat, God help us.

This is George Bush’s war. This is the war, or a front in the war, orchestrated by those strategic crazies going by the name of neocons, the same geniuses who wanted to reshape the world - beginning with the reshaping of the Middle East - and gave their own people, the American people, two un-winnable wars: in Iraq and, wait for it, Afghanistan.

Afghanistan was supposed to be the more ‘doable’ affair, the one they thought they had wrapped up in 2001. But it is proving as tough and intractable as Iraq, with the Taliban, alas, not finished and the war, far from being over, stretching into the remote distance.

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Stopping the Suicide Bomber

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We have to condemn with loud voices, open speech and fearless thinking as much the terrorists as the system that spawns them

By Anwaar Hussain

bloody_hand_print.jpgYoung men, full of youth’s vigor, pumped up and brainwashed by patriotism or religious zeal always have, and always will, kill and be killed. That is a no-brainer. The question is why such sudden spates come in nations’ histories in which atrocities spike up sharply tainting every denizen of that state.

In the past, we heard people refer to the strong link between terrorism and poverty. According to recent studies done by political researchers however, the data does not support this fact any more. Why rich Saudi young men would blow themselves up, they ask. Political researchers now agree that terrorism is more linked to levels of political freedom a nation allows to its citizens, especially in those countries that are experiencing transition from autocracy to political freedom.

There is a flaw in this argument.

The researchers forget that it is in the soil of these politically repressed societies that the seeds of want, ignorance, squalor, disease and idleness sprout. A single factor of these by itself or any combination thereof can trigger the birth of the hydra-headed monster called terrorism. Pakistan is a case in point.

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The People Speak

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By Aasim Sajjad Akhtar

pakistan-elections.jpgPakistan has not had many elections in its 60 year history, and those that have taken place have typically been mired by various irregularities. Arguably this election has been the most dubious of all; for almost a year the sitting regime has attempted to coerce, co-opt and manipulate its way to an outcome of its liking. On election day, it became apparent just how elaborate pre-poll rigging was — many who went to vote found that they were among the approximately 15 million registered voters who were arbitrarily removed from official rolls; meanwhile 7 million enjoyed duplicate votes. Then there was the relatively low turnout. Whether because of fear or disillusionment, a majority of Pakistanis did not come out to vote (although it is worth noting that in recent elections low turnouts have been the norm.

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Anwaar’s articles appear simultaneously here at Truth Spring and at Soul Vibes in The Pakistan Tribune.


US loses its status as economic world power
DAVOS, Switzerland, 2008
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