Pakistan: Are They Our Leader Or Criminals?

By Mahboob A. Khawaja, PhD. (Opinion Maker)

Leaders with No accountability and No Shame

Pakistan is in ruins. The nation and its imagery, law and justice, commerce, thinking hubs, political governance all appear dysfunctional and self-contradictory. Eroding freedom of thoughts and action speaks of missing accountability of political elite. The nation is fast becoming victim of a US planned blue-print being used in Iraq. Vengeful sectarian killings and dismantling of economic, political and moral infrastructures to incapacitate the nation by its own sadistic rulers. All fighting against all to end the very existence by collective madness. The paid Pakistani political and security agents are instrumental in carrying out heinous crimes. Increasingly and without any logical redress, common citizens are the targeted aim of the political cruelty. No wonder, once conditions favorable to cruelty are established, it spreads like frightening wildfire. The governance demonstrates dead-ended political conscience of the interest of the people. After decade-old American entrapment in the bogus war on terrorism, the country has lost the energies and capacity to deal with any major problems of security and national unity. The foreign agenda is focused on breaking the moral and spiritual lifelines of the Pakistani nation by its own agents of influence. There are no brave and proactive politicians to stop the continuing political stagnation. The nation faces colossal disaster day in and day out but nobody is held accountable for the crimes. The Generals are convenient spectators and Nawaz Sharif is happy, the herd is politically manageable to complete his inherently fraudulent term of office as prime minister.

Daily blood baths of civilians go unabated adding to statistical record for lack of adequate security. The latest cold blooded murder of 55 innocent people at Wagha border and 100 or so injured adds nothing new to grieving citizens belief that Pakistan is governed by most inept, incompetent and corrupt people ever witnessed by an informed nation. No politicians assume responsibility for the protection and safeguard of life and property of ordinary Pakistanis. There is obvious disconnect between the people and the political rulers constantly hated and feared by the masses. The conflicting time zones are widening in which ordinary people suffer versus the ruling elite breathe as daily civilian casualties continued to rise because of the Taliban attacks and targeted massacres of the ordinary citizens. Who is a failure and who should be held accountability? Is the Pakistani security apparatus so incompetent and ill equipped that it cannot ensure public safety? Given the lack of accountability and lack of shame, there is nothing to prevent these political criminals from repeating their crimes. So the killings of the innocent civilians go unabated. Strange as is, opposition activists raising voices against the Sharif regime are conveniently arrested and jailed but not the Sharif brethren who kill the citizens at random and implement planned massacres. Those facilitating crimes against the people occupy positions of political leadership and even law and justice cannot question them – abetted by the political class, committed the greatest heist in history.

Little Angels Attacked by Devils in Peshawar-Pakistan

16th December 1971 – Pakistan was stabbed in the back by its enemies with the help of Mukti Bahini and once again on December 16, the nation gets stabbed by the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan; the handlers in both cases being the same, those who never accepted Pakistan as a sovereign country.

A bloody Taliban raid on an army-run school in Peshawar ended last night. According to sources, 9 attackers were killed, 3 soldiers martyred and 7 special security personnel sustained injuries during the operation. The assault on the school martyred at least 145 people and injured 114, majority of them children.

SSG’s Zarrar Company commandos were air lifted to Peshawar from Tarbela via helicopters. The soldiers went block by block and room by room to clear the building, starting from the Principal’s office. The terrorists were wearing suicide vests, most of them blew themselves during the operation. The ISPR says that all the four blocks of the school have been cleared by security forces.

The Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan accepted the responsibility for the attack, saying they had ordered the target killers and suicide attackers to shoot the older students but not the small children.

The students saved by the security forces later told that the militants were speaking Arabic and children were killed at point blank range. Students added that the attackers came from the backside of the school building. First they opened aerial fire and later started targeting students.

Nuclear Deterrence – Necessity or Compulsion?

Zain Ul Abedin Qasmani – PKKH

Sometimes we have to perceive things from an entirely contradictory point of view of the general opinion. Pakistan’s nuclear capacity is one of the highly debated issues in the world both inside and outside the country. A recent report from an American think tank about Pakistan’s growing nuclear arsenal has brought the issue further criticism and denunciation. According to the report, Pakistan has the world’s fastest growing nuclear arsenal with enough fissile material to increase its existing stash of 120 missiles to over 200 by the year 2020. Ironically, this report has come from a country that has an existing arsenal of over 8,000 warheads. But let us move on to the bigger picture and discuss the reasons, as to why the Pakistani military is relatively inclined towards improving its nuclear arsenal instead of giving the conventional argument.

Firstly, it is surprising to see that most of the Pakistanis themselves are against Pakistan’s growing nuclear stockpile. Rightly so, because there are certain aspects that need to be addressed before the military further expands its nuclear cache. Some of the key grievances of the common populace about the aforementioned issue are highlighted as follows:

Excess military budget
The threat of a nuclear war
The danger of warheads falling into the hands of radical terrorist organizations
Unneeded focus on improving military equipment instead of concentrating on socioeconomic and political ills in the country

Let us try to discuss and answer all the queries from the above issues with a neutral approach.

From Kabul to Wagha to Dehli: A Plot for #Terror Consortium

After a lull of a few months, the country was once again rocked by a deadly explosion on November 2nd, at the border village of Wagah. The target of the attack was the border post closing ceremony, held routinely at the only land crossing between Pakistan and India. This was not the first targeted terror attack since the commencement of the military operation in North Waziristan but the most deadly, nonetheless, as regards the number of civilian casualties incurred.

The attack in which 62 people lost their lives and around 200 got injured occurred on the 8th of Muharram – a time when the security arrangements across the country are beefed up generally, due to sensitivity of the Ashura days of the holy month of Muharram. The attacks that occur during Muharram are customarily sectarian in nature but in case of the Wagah attack, no sectarian link was established or claimed.

Three different militant outfits claimed responsibility for the attack, the first being Jundullah; soon afterwards, the TTP splinter group, Jamat-ul-Ahrar and later a lesser known outfit called the Mahar Mehsud group accepted responsibility. It is interesting to point out that it is not the first time that the responsibility for a terror attack was claimed by two or more different terrorist organizations. Most terrorist outfits are merely names to achieve different ends. The assertion over terrorist activities serves many different purposes for these militant organizations. It can be a recruitment gambit to attract or engage new members and/or to avoid backlash from sympathizers that are ever present within our society.

As far as the Jundullah is concerned, it has often represented the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan in the past, especially the Mohmand faction of the TTP, that has now splintered to form the TTP Jamat-ul-Ahrar (TTPJuA), headed by Omer Khalid khorasani. These two groups are similar in the sense that they have same ideology, goals, involvement in targeted sectarian activities and have close ties with the Al-Qaeda. They have simultaneously accepted responsibility for terror attacks previously also, such as in the case of  the ISI-Sukkur headquarter attack, the Peshawar church blast and the Gilgit tourist killings, to name a few.

DAESH Or ISIS: America’s Terrorist Mercenaries

America’s Newest Terrorist Mercenaries

Author: Tony Cartalucci / Opinion-Maker

Generally historical revision takes place long after events unfold and the victors attempt to bury humiliating or inconvenient truths.

Today, in the age of information, these would-be victors are finding it increasingly necessary to revise history in real-time through a strategy of increasingly repetitive, but decreasingly effective propaganda.

Phase I: Justifying Chaos
It was only in 2007 that US foreign policy openly sought to pursue war against Iran, Syria, and Lebanon’s Hezbollah, while undercutting pro-Iranian factions in Iraq which at the time the US was still occupying. Failing to accomplish this directly, the US planned a not-so-covert proxy war that would include funding, politically backing, and even arming groups ranging from the Muslim Brotherhood to militants aligned with Al Qaeda itself.

This is perhaps best summarized by the prophetic 2007 report “The Redirection: Is the Administration’s new policy benefiting our enemies in the war on terrorism?” written by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Seymour Hersh and published in the New Yorker.

 It stated (emphasis added):

To undermine Iran, which is predominantly Shiite, the Bush Administration has decided, in effect, to reconfigure its priorities in the Middle East. In Lebanon, the Administration has coöperated with Saudi Arabia’s government, which is Sunni, in clandestine operations that are intended to weaken Hezbollah, the Shiite organization that is backed by Iran. The U.S. has also taken part in clandestine operations aimed at Iran and its ally Syria. A by-product of these activities has been the bolstering of Sunni extremist groups that espouse a militant vision of Islam and are hostile to America and sympathetic to Al Qaeda.

Hersh would also go on to chronicle American political and financial support that was being provided to the Muslim Brotherhood, even then under then US President George Bush. In all, the supposedly “spontaneous” uprisings referred to by the Western media as the “Arab Spring” in 2011 were being engineered years ahead of time – not in an attempt to promote peaceful pro-democratic aspirations, but to serve as cover for ultra-violent foreign-backed inssurections that would leave a trail of destruction stretching along Africa’s northern coast, all the way to the borders of Iran, Russia, and even China.

America’s “Terrorist Academy” in Iraq Produced ISIS Leaders

By Mike Whitney – Opinion Maker

“Since 2003, Anglo-American power has secretly and openly coordinated direct and indirect support for Islamist terrorist groups linked to al-Qaeda across the Middle East and North Africa. This ill-conceived patchwork geostrategy is a legacy of the persistent influence of neoconservative ideology, motivated by longstanding but often contradictory ambitions to dominate regional oil resources, defend an expansionist Israel, and in pursuit of these, re-draw the map of the Middle East.” Nafeez Ahmed, “How the West Created the Islamic State“, CounterPunch

“The US created these terrorist organizations. America does not have the moral authority to lead a coalition against terrorism.” Hassan Nasralla, Secretary General of Hezbollah

October 06, 2014 “ICH” – “Counterpunch” –  The Obama administration’s determination to topple Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is pushing the Middle East towards a regional war that could lead to a confrontation between the two nuclear-armed rivals, Russia and the United States.

Last week, Turkey joined the US-led coalition following a vote in parliament approving a measure to give the government the authority to launch military action against Isis in Syria. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan made it clear that Turkish involvement would come at a price, and that price would be the removal of al Assad. According to Turkey’s Hurriyet Daily News:

“Turkey will not allow coalition members to use its military bases or its territory in the fight against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) if the objective does not also include ousting the Bashar al-Assad regime, President Recep Tayyip Erdo?an hinted on Oct. 1…

“We are open and ready for any cooperation in the fight against terrorism. However, it should be understood by everybody that Turkey is not a country in pursuit of temporary solutions, nor will Turkey allow others to take advantage of it,” Erdo?an said in his lengthy address to Parliament.”..

“Turkey cannot be content with the current situation and cannot be a by-stander and spectator in the face of such developments.” (“Turkey will fight terror but not for temporary solutions: Erdo?an“, Hurriyet)

Pakistan’s Emerging Democracy or Hall of Shame

By Mahboob A. Khawaja, PhD. / Opinion Maker

The nation’s capital is under siege for over two weeks. People want political change and justice to their grievances that is nowhere to be seen. The demonstrators are not hired agitators but real people standing for hard core moral principles and democratic values. Islamabad depicts chaos, extreme insecurity and frightening trend of political mismanagement and failed governance. PM Sharif was already on a life support system of his own making. Now, the oxygen tank is fast running out of the life maintaining system. Nawaz Sharif  has lost sense of direction and political maturity to see the mirror and to resign from the powerhouse gained by rigging the 2013 elections. Undoubtedly, Sharif lives in a matrix of lies. He does not have the courage to encounter a truthful statement. Informed Pakistani masses can tell the difference between the truth and a lie. The millions Freedom March to Islamabad is self-evident of this public awareness.

According to the DAWN news media report of 1st September, 3 political activists were killed and 450 demonstrators wounded by the police action. In a knowledge-based 21st century age of reason and people’s rights, the people are met by brutal force to change their thinking and motives for political change.

A reality check filters out the truth that Pakistan’s democracy faces formidable turbulent challenges even at its infancy without moving forward. When elections were held in May 2013, it signaled a glimpse of a proactive change-making impulse away from the four military coups’ previously consumed precious time and opportunities to bulldoze the imperatives of systematic political change to take roots on its own. Conscientious new generations of educated and intelligent Pakistanis look for hope and are desperate to evolve a system of institutionalized political change to ensure protection of human rights, freedom and dignity and respect for law and justice and a sustainable future. Not so, the traditional elite comprising of the old feudal lords and most being the by-products of military coups are tantamount to dispel any signs of freedom and human dignity out of the box. At stake is the integrity of Pakistan and its future under the old echelons of the few thugs and political conspirators.

Those who sabotaged the political change process include the Bhuttos, Zardari, Sharif and few infamous Generals producing the junk history. The so called politicians have stolen few adhesive labels from the contemporary history to claim political parties: The Muslim League (N), The Muslim League (Q) The Muslim League ( H), The PPP, The National Awami Party, The MQM and lot more. Analyzing critically, these turn out to be just titles, names and fake images carved out by individuals and small vested interest groups who could not find a place in people’s thoughts and inspiration for the good of Pakistan. Across the Pakistani public mind, they are no more than transitory migrating birds that come to grab political powers through intrigues and backdoor conspiracies and in some case with foreign powers keen to make Pakistan a satellite for their own strategic priorities. All rational calculations point out to a new people’s spirit and movement demanding peaceful political manifestation for the good of the country.

Pakistani nation faces many critical perils in its search for a peaceful democratic future.

Wave of Revolution and Pak Army

By Maheen Akhtar / Opinion Maker

Since PMLN made its government after winning the most controversial elections in the history of Pakistan the Party members started a campaign on the very next day that everybody should work to strengthen the democracy in Pakistan. In last government of PPP Pakistan Army joined hands with the civil government to work for the democracy but that government was failed to achieve the targets they set before elections e.g. basic necessities of life and also the promises they made. When PMLN came into government they also promised to bring a revolutionary change but that came just in dreams. People of Pakistan had too many expectations that the new government will take some good steps but nothing was done in their favor and as a result of that people started protests against them and opposition parties launched a proper campaign against the sitting government.

Pakistan Tehreek Insaaf and Pakistan Awami Tehreek started protests in several cities against the wrong steps and misuse of public money. Pakistan tehreek.e.Insaaf is the victim of the May, 2013 elections and they claim that they lost almost 35 seats. Nationwide rallies were conducted and huge number of supporters gathered to support the cause and to bring down the government. Government kept on saying that the deep state is trying to bring down their government but reality is different from that. All the members of PMLN used media and gave statements against the Army and Intelligence agencies that they are trying to impose Marshal Law but military leadership extended full support to the civil government. Load shedding, Inflation, CNG issue, Election rigging and high rate of religious extremism were the issues that PMLN was unable to solve and without bothering about them they kept on visiting the foreign countries in public money. Pakistan Army was deployed in Islamabad under the article 245 to control the security situation of Capital City.

Cry, My Beloved Country

By Dr. Haider Mehdi: Opinion-Maker

Public disillusionment with Pakistan’s nascent democracy has rarely run higher than it is at the moment.  The PMLN ruling leadership has been unable, in the last 14 months (just as its predecessor, the Zardari PPP, was unable in its 5 year-long term) to act even in areas where there has been widespread agreement that measures were absolutely necessary to save this nation from being drawn into a destructive socio-economic political abyss.  It appears that the PMLN leadership is being justifiably condemned as ineffectual, incompetent, and mismanaging national affairs by failing to appreciate the top national priorities and the real short- and long-term pressing challenges and how to address and resolve them.  The Sharif political regime (more of a plutocracy than a democracy) has failed Pakistan in the similar manner in which the Zardari PPP regime (more of an oligarchy than a parliamentary democracy) failed this nation.  The so-called democratic era (2008-present) seems to be one of the most dismal periods in this nation’s history.

The fact of the matter is that Pakistan’s present-day democracy is virtually without democratic substance.  The political “Superheroes” of a “Muk-Muka” democracy (the PMLN-PPP leadership) are in ideological agreement that the doctrine of vested interest politics and its relentless exercise is the only option that is suitable for a democratic Pakistan.  In other words, what is good for them (PMLN-PPP plans) is good for the nation – nothing else can work or can be allowed to work.  You, as an ordinary citizen, already know that – so do I.  It is not knowledge of their intentions that we lack. What has been missing so far today is the courage to draw substantive conclusions from what we know – and to act.

Kingdom of the Sharifs in Pakistan – Do You Agree?

By Sabena Siddiqui – Opinion Maker

Pakistan has begun to look like a kingdom of the Sharifs , where family members are like royalty and are entrusted with the administration of various areas sans qualifications or experience. Living in Saudi Arabia for an extended time has left some imprint of the royals on the Sharif mind and they assume everything they do is right. Promises made at the time of the election campaign are long forgotten and the main concentration is on attaining as many luxuries as possible.

Their election victory is quite controversial to begin with , a parties-demanded Election Commission probe recently found vote fraud favouring Nawaz Sharif , and some politicians demanded that he must resign from his position of prime minister.

An ECP official said a typing mistake had increased the count by 7,000 more votes. Meanwhile, the controversy got worse as it also revealed vote fraud favouring Nawaz Sharif in his winning constituency. If this is what happened in the Prime Minister’s own constituency and he won by rigging , what would have happened in other constituencies.

What has been achieved in these 14 months? The ground realities of the last 14 months are an absolute contrast to the favorable impression given by improvement in the ranking of Pakistan by Moody’s. It is not easy to wait another 4 years for the turnaround of the country under PMLN’s rule. There is hardly any change in the power load shedding situation if you compare the PPP and the PMLN government. The same amount of electricity is being provided but at 100% increased rates. What makes it even worse than the PPP era is that the power is supplied at as low as 170 volts, in PMLN’s time . A lot of unwarranted extravagance has taken place on purchases of latest model BMW’s, costly foreign tours, purchase of expensive dogs, free five-star meals being served to their parliamentarians in the National Assembly cafeteria. There is a total disconnect between the ruling elite and the general public.