Gaddafi Loses More Libyan Cities

GADDAFI DROWNING

TRYING TO CATCH A STRAW

Muammar Gaddafi, Libya's long-standing ruler, has reportedly lost control of more cities as anti-government protests continue to sweep the African nation despite his threat of a brutal crackdown.

Amid Apparent Power-Preserving Concessions, is Mubarak Trying to Exit Quietly to Germany?

Hosni Mubarak is hanging on to his presidency with a death grip, making every proverbial concession he can think of without actually doing what the people of Egypt want him to do -- step down entirely.

The creep heading for Baden Baden!

by Julianne Escobedo Shepherd

Hosni Mubarak is hanging on to his presidency with a death grip, making every proverbial concession he can think of without actually doing what the people of Egypt want him to do -- step down entirely. He has fired his cabinet, appointed a new one, deployed the army, killed the internet, detained journalists and resigned from the top position in the ruling party -- all futile efforts to quell the protests. His latest efforts: Mubarak set up a committee today to propose constitutional amendments that would impose presidential term limits -- a real ironic Bloomberg move, after Mubarak's 30-year reign -- and relax eligibility requirements for candidacy. Amid this announcement, the Obama Administration continued in its typically ginger fashion and said it supports a slow transition out, rather than an outright resignation.

Christians, Muslims “One Hand” in Egypt’s Youth Revolution

CHRISTIANS, MUSLIMS

“ONE HAND” NOW

 IN EGYPT

by Juan Cole

Sunday saw a return to Egypt of themes of national unity across the Christian-Muslim divide that recalled the heyday of early Egyptian nationalism in 1919, when the modern nation was formed in the cauldron of mass demonstrations against British colonial rule.

Big trouble in Tunisia for America’s Mideast Raj

Demonstrators shout slogans against President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali in Tunis on Friday. As protests escalated, Ben Ali fled the country on Saturday for Saudi Arabia.

BIG TROUBLE IN TUNISIA

FOR AMERICA’S MIDEAST RAJ

by Eric Margolis

Oops! Something has gone terribly wrong with Washington’s plans for regime change in the Mideast. Wasn’t there supposed to be a US and British engineered revolution against Iran’s mullahs, followed by installation of a cooperative pro-western government and a bonanza for western oil companies?

THE GENERATION THAT FAILED

OURS IS NOT A FAILED STATE, IT’S FAILED LEADERSHIP

Roedad Khan

Like Russians, we Pakistanis remain obsessed by two great questions formulated by 19th-century Russian writers Alexander Herzen and Nikolai Chernyshevsky: who is to blame and what is to be done?

Many nations in the past have attempted to develop democratic institutions, only to lose them when they took their liberties and political institutions for granted, and failed to comprehend the threat posed by a powerful military establishment and corrupt political leaders. Pakistan is a classic example.

As he left the constitutional convention of 1787, Benjamin Franklin was asked by an admirer: “Dr Franklin, what have you given us?” Franklin replied, “A Republic, if you can keep it.” Not too long ago, we too possessed a great country earned for us by the sweat of the brow and iron will of one person. We have done to Pakistan what Lenin’s successors did to the Soviet Union.

On Oct 7, 1958, democracy was expunged from the politics of Pakistan with scarcely a protest. The result is the mess we are in today. As a direct consequence of military intervention in October 1958, we lost half the country in 1971. A weak political system and corrupt political leaders allowed the Generals to manipulate events and hijack the state.

There are, in my view, two factors that, above all others, have shaped our history during the last 62 years. One is the growing power of the military in running the affairs of state. The other, without doubt, consists in the total failure of the politicians, the intelligentsia, the intellectuals, the civil servants — in fact, the entire civil society — to comprehend the threat posed by a powerful army to the country’s fragile democracy, and to devise ways and means to thwart it. “Military coups,” Alexis de Tocqueville warned more than 200 years ago, “are always to be feared in democracies. They should be reckoned among the most threatening of the perils which face their future existence. Statesmen must never relax their efforts to find a remedy for this evil.” Sadly, the warning went unheeded in newly-independent Pakistan. When our descendants, in a century’s time, come to look at our age, it is these two phenomena that will be held to be the determining factors of our history — the most demanding of explanation and analysis.

“Perhaps no form of government needs great leaders so much as democracy,” said the historian and diplomat Lord Bryce. The leadership Pakistan brought to power in 1947 proved unable to govern a country rent by political, ethnic, economic, and social conflicts. No wonder, today it is a nightmare of despair and despondency, in doubt about its future. The rich are getting richer, while the poor are sinking deeper and deeper into a black hole of abject poverty. The country appears to be adrift, lacking confidence about its future. Disaster and frustration roam the political landscape. Look into the eyes of a Pakistani today and you will see a smouldering rage.

Sixty-two years after independence, are we really free? Are the people masters in their own house? Are our sovereignty and independence untrammelled? On Aug 14, 1947, we thought we had found freedom, but it has turned out to be another kind of slavery. The independence of Pakistan is a myth. Pakistan is no longer a free country. Today it is not just a “rentier state,” not just a client state. It is a state with a government set up by Washington. It is no longer a democratic country. Today we have a disjointed, dysfunctional, lopsided, hybrid, artificial, political system — a non-sovereign rubberstamp parliament, a weak and ineffective prime minister, appointed by a powerful accidental president. Armed American security personnel crisscross our border without let or hindrance. They violate our air space with impunity, bomb our villages and kill innocent men, women and children. Everyday I ask myself the same question: How can this be happening in Jinnah’s Pakistan? Where are the voices of public outrage? Where is the leadership willing to stand up and say: Enough! Enough! We have sullied ourselves enough. Why are we so passively mute? How can we be so comatose as a nation when all our political institutions are crumbling before our own eyes?

Many questions come to mind. Why did the army get involved in the politics of Pakistan in the first instance? Why did Ayub Khan stab Pakistan’s fledgling democracy in the back? Why was he allowed to commit the original sin? Worse still, why did everybody acclaim it? There was no breakdown of law and order to justify imposition of martial law. There was also no civil commotion to prevent the judges from attending their courts. The country was abuzz with politics, but that happens in all democracies, especially on the eve of elections.

Why did the superior judiciary, the guardian of the Constitution, the protector of the citizens’ rights, become subservient to the executive and to the philosophy of the party in power? Why did we allow the rule of law to give way to the rule of man? Why did our judges match their constitutional ideas and legal language to the exigencies of current politics? Why did the courts tailor their decisions for reasons of expediency or, at times, for simple survival? 

Why did parliament, the pillar of our state, the embodiment of the will of the people, become a rubberstamp? Why did it allow itself to be gagged? Why did it surrender its sovereignty to both military and civilian dictators? 

Why did Pakistan become a land of opportunities for corrupt, unscrupulous, unprincipled politicians; judges and generals; corrupt and dishonest civil servants; smugglers and tax evaders who have bank accounts, luxurious villas, mansions, and apartments in the West? Why did Pakistan become a nightmare of corruption, crime and despair? Why? Why?

Aug 14 gave independence to Pakistan, but not to Pakistanis. The greatest disappointment of my generation has been its failure to stand up to Generals who have robbed us of everything — our past, our present, our future. Prolonged army rule has reduced us, collectively, to a plantation of slaves. We seem to be helpless in the grip of some all — powerful monster; our limbs paralysed; our minds deadened. Few Pakistanis seem ready to die for anything anymore. 

Who has done this to us? There is something pitiable about a people that constantly bemoans its leaders. If they have let us down, it is only because we have allowed them to. With the mess we are in, we look everywhere but within. It is the fault of corrupt politicians. It is Washington’s fault. It is the Pakistan army and power-hungry generals. It is the corrupt bureaucracy. Somebody fix it! What about us?

We have made a mockery of the gift of independence. What gift, shall we, the living, bequeath to the unborn? What Pakistan shall we hand over to the future? Today we feel ourselves unable to look our children in the eye, for the shame of what we did, and didn’t do, during the last 62 years. For the shame of what we allowed to happen. 

Today the Supreme Court, the guardian of the Constitution, is the only ray of hope in the darkness that surrounds us. After years of subservience, it is on its feet and holding its head high. Sadly, in spite of a strong and independent judiciary, the present corrupt order may survive because both the presidency and the Parliament are dysfunctional and out of sync with the spirit of the times. 

What is to be done? At last, people have found their life mission: fight corrupt, discredited rulers, elected or unelected, when they capture the commanding heights of power. And I believe they have also found the tool to achieve this mammoth task: peaceful streets demonstrations and rallies. 

When we organise with one another, when we get involved, when we stand up and speak out together, we can create a power no government can suppress.

We live in a beautiful country. But corrupt leaders who have nothing but contempt for the people and no respect for democracy, freedom or justice have taken it over. It is up to all of us to take it back.

And as Margaret Mead said: “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.” 

_________

Source: http://www.thenews.com.pk/daily_detail.asp?id=209907

The writer is a former federal secretary. Email: roedad@comsats.net.pk

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the ‘Wonders of Pakistan’. The contents of this article too are the sole responsibility of the author(s). WoP will not be responsible or liable for any inaccurate or incorrect statements contained in this post.

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Is Zardari the new Musharraf?

                                 

Smiling Zardari, Another Musharraf?

IS ZARDARI THE NEW MUSHARRAF?

by Eric Margolis

          The US has been in a bizarre state of semi-war against its ‘ally’ Pakistan for months, launching covert  ground and air raids into its territory while claiming to be a close ally of Islamabad in the so-called war on terror.

          Last month, it was revealed that President George Bush gave the Pentagon the green light to launch major ground attacks inside Pakistan’s tribal territory.

         Pakistan, first under the US-backed dictator Pervez Musharraf, and now the new, US-backed president, Asif Zardari, has been put in the impossible position of waging a small war at the behest of Washington against its own pro-Taleban Pashtun tribesmen in the frontier zone known as FATA (Federally Administered Tribal Areas) that is bitterly opposed by most Pakistanis and regarded by many as treasonous.

         Zardari, the widower of the late Benazir Bhutto, is inherits this dangerous problem and a host of other ones. Pakistan is almost bankrupt, with less than eight weeks of hard currency reserves to pay for vital imports of food and fuel. Half of Pakistan’s 165 million people live on less than $2 daily.

         Financial and political support from Washington helped engineer Zardari into power. He has been put in charge of the millions a month in overt and secret cash flow from Washington — $11.2 billion officially since 2001 — that Musharraf used to buy influence. Contrary to Washington’s claims it was neutral in the race between Zardari and his rival, former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, Washington spent a great deal of money and energy trying to sideline Nawaz, who has long been unpopular in Washington as insufficiently responsive to US interests.

         Zardari became notorious as ‘Mr. 10 per cent’ when he was minister of public contracts during his wife’s tenure as prime minister. Zardari claims all the corruption charges against him were politically motivated and denies any wrongdoing. But many Pakistanis, particularly in the powerful armed forces, are not happy seeing as their new prime minister a man of dubious reputation and a penchant for personal excess.

        Even so, Zardari has apparently assumed all of the sweeping powers held by former president Musharraf. Now that Zardari is seen as Washington’s new Musharraf, these charges against him will redouble. Few outside his People’s Party see Zardari as an ideal choice for Pakistan’s leader in a time of growing crisis, but he may yet rise to the occasion. He has certainly pleased Washington by vowing to prosecute the internal war against pro-Taleban tribesmen and aid the US-led war in Afghanistan. Rising violence along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border threatens a far wider crisis. There have been frequent clashes between Pakistan paramilitary units and US forces attacking inside FATA. A major overt US commando raid against a Pashtun village inside Pakistan killed up to 20 civilians last week and brought threats from Pakistan’s chief of staff, Gen. Afshaq Kayani, the 650,000-man armed forces would fight to defend the nation’s territory.

Deeply frustrated by the failure of its war in Afghanistan and inability to defeat Taleban, the Bush administration wants to expand the war into Pakistan tribal areas which are supposedly serving as a base for the Afghan resistance to western occupation. The Pentagon’s influential Special Operations Command, whose senior ranks hold a number of militant Christian fundamentalists, leads the effort to expand the war into Pakistan.

Once again, arrogance and ignorance are misleading the US into another misfortune. Increased US incursions into FATA will almost certainly arouse most of the Pashtun tribes to resist the attackers and eventually involve units of the regular Pakistani armed forces. Pashtuns, 20 per cent of Pakistan’s population, are heavily represented in the higher ranks of the military and intelligence service, ISI.

         US attacks will inevitably produce ‘mission creep,’ as American forces are sucked ever deeper into Pakistan. Worse, continuing US attacks on FATA could provoke a major Pashtun tribal uprising and re-ignite a simmering secessionist movement for an independent ‘Pashtunastan’ in the strategic northwest frontier that could tear away fragile Pakistan apart and invite Indian intervention as occurred in East Pakistan in 1971. This explosive issue is barely understood in Washington. Meanwhile, Pakistan is a ticking time bomb as the new Zardari government appears headed into a storm of instability and growing opposition.

Eric Margolis, contributing foreign editor for Sun National Media Canada, is the author of War at the Top of the World.. Copyright © 2008 Eric Margolis

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.Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the ‘Wonders of Pakistan’. The contents of this article too are the sole responsibility of the author(s). WoP will not be responsible or liable for any inaccurate or incorrect statements contained in this post.

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President Asif Ali Zardari, A 10% Scammer or a 100 % Pakistani?

 

 Asif Ali Zardari, President of Pakistan

by Nayyar Hashmey

                       

          As I write these lines, words echo in my mind, words she uttered in her last  

speech.

So said Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto, “My dear brothers and my dear sisters, this is the time when our country is in turmoil. My country, your country” said B. Bhutto “is in serious travails and turpitudes; I have come to you to help me save this land. Help me my brothers, my sisters, to save our motherland”. Shortly after she had uttered these words, she was shot at by an unknown assailant. She could not even leave the public park she had chosen to address.

 After she was out of scene, situation moved at an electric speed. Erstwhile dictator, who had orchestrated all machinations, fair or foul and turned this country into a marionette, had to resign. In the aftermath, Mohtarma‘s hubby got catapulted to the seat of presidency.

But the irony continues to haunt this nation. The inheritor of Mohtarma’s   legacy, her vision and her struggle occupies the place where an erstwhile dictator, with the sheer use of force got himself seated for 8 years.

Now when I ponder over BB’s last words, the whole scene seems to me like an action replay. The words she uttered then were as true then as they are now. This country, this most beloved land of ours is still in turmoil, even though the man who was the life partner of that graceful lady, who ruled and still rules over the hearts of millions of have-nots in Pakistan, is sitting on the throne of Pakistan. Yet this country is back to square one. Things have gone from bad to worse. Terrorists whosoever, are bombing the nerve centre of the country. Just the day before yesterday at some minutes walk from the National Assembly; they bombed the Marriot Hotel in Islamabad, 60 people, almost all civilians died in the blast.

In last 8 years the ex dictator was telling us, like a worn out recorded tape that he saved Pakistan from wrath of the US when the later threatened him to send Pakistan into stone age. [it later transpired that this threat did not come from the US President, as our the then President Gen.(R) Pervaiz Musharraf maintained but from an Assistant Secretary of State and the language too was not the same that the ex General told this nation].

Although many Pakistanis did not believe then and I myself had strong reservations on this so called Stone Age statement and the way it was played by ex dictator to dread his own people, yet we believed then and we believe it today that had there been a democratic polity, a truly democratic culture in Pakistan, the matter would never have been settled or decided the way, it was [when this country was unconditionally thrown to the mercy of the United States of America and mind it, it was not the US of Thomas Jefferson or of George Washington, it was the US of Neocons like George Walker Bush, Dick Cheney, Donny Rumsfield and Condy Rice who think they have a divine right, destined to annihilate the governments, the people, the armies in the name of democracy, free world and liberty, so on and so forth].

Whether it was the threats, the persuasions or fear of these Pentagon and White House guys, is immaterial. Fact remains that ex dictator succumbed to those threats and accepted whatever the neocons told him. What the then President did on their askance, he said, was to save Pakistan, a position which he later cleverly tried to camouflage under the slogan “Sab Se Pehle Pakistan (SSPP), but the price this country paid for this SSPP policy was the sale of innocent Pakistanis to unknown agents within and outside Pakistan and till today one does not know what was their sin, their doing and where they are now.

In Punjabi there is a story where under similar circumstances this country has been brought to by the ex dictator and the incumbent President, in which a man belonging to the rural singing clan in our villages (who are usually the butts of humour in our countryside) was asked by the village head to opt out of the two options only… Either eat 100 onions at a time, or get 100 shoe beatings (littars). The poor man using all his wits opts to take 100 onions. Thinks he, ‘100 shoe beatings are too hard to bear’, hence take onions. But after having eaten some dozens of onions, he cries “No Sir am going to accept 100 shoe beatings instead”. In this dilemma he eats 100 onions and gets 100 shoe beatings too. So dear readers, this is how the ex General made this country to have a punishment in either way. Eaten 100 onions and……

The ex General President allied this country to the US and Pakistan became a frontline state, however, with that status we, Pakistanis, the most allied ally of the US, are being bombed by US forces in Fata where poor, innocent civilians are dying after every chopper attack or through drone raids in our territory. So both ways, we are facing the punishment as it happened with the mirasi boy in a Punjabi village. Perhaps this is the first and the only instance in the history where a major power is attacking its own ally.

Unfortunately there doesn’t seem to be any change from the stance taken by the ex-General. We are still America’s ally and our poor innocent civilians are being bombed by the US and its coalition partners.

Gen de Gaulle, one time President of France once said, 70 million French can’t be wrong, so on an analogy 160 millions Pakistanis can’t be wrong either—to push Mr. Zardari to the coveted seat of the country’s presidency. It’s very much for Mr. Zardari to prove whether 160 million Pakistanis were indeed not wrong to elect him?

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Wonders of Pakistan supports freedom of expression and this commitment extends to our readers as well. Constraints however, apply in case of a violation of WoP Comments Policy. We also moderate hate speech, libel and gratuitous insults.