Stilling a stormy relationship

With the word "sorry," Secretary of State Hillary Clinton recently opened the door for the United States to continue to supply its forces in Afghanistan through Pakistan.  Getting to this word took months of effort on both sides but "sorry" may not be enough to keep the relationship on an even keel for too long. It will need a sustained effort on both sides. The auguries are not good.

by Shuja Nawaz

With the word "sorry," Secretary of State Hillary Clinton recently opened the door for the United States to continue to supply its forces in Afghanistan through Pakistan.  Getting to this word took months of effort on both sides but "sorry" may not be enough to keep the relationship on an even keel for too long. It will need a sustained effort on both sides. The auguries are not good.

Why Pakistan Must Disengage from the US!

TIME TO "DISENGAGE" FROM THE US-LED WESTERN ALLIANCE

by Dr. Haider Mehdi

“The facts have changed, now we must change too.”
George Monbiot – author of The Corporate Takeover of Britain

This is a Pakistan foreign policy specific article.

It is not a historical coincidence that the US has been engaged in over 100 military conflicts, foreign invasions, covert overthrows, destabilizations and overt interventions in the affairs of other nations during latter half of the 20^th century and in the first decade of the current era. It has been the result of an ideological project to subjugate the Third World to the military-political-economic-financial domination of US-Western capitalism and to exploit other nations’ resources for their own enrichment.

Friends Not, Masters [2 of 2]

by Humayun Gauhar

We are better than the whore who claimed she was raped because her client’s cheque ‘for services rendered’ bounced. Our cheque has finally been honoured. Bravo!

I moved the comma forward by one word in the title of President Ayub Khan’s autobiography, ‘Friends, Not Masters’ to ‘Friends Not, Masters’ to change its meaning 180 degrees to reflect our abject surrender to America. Enslavement is our humiliating reality.

Friends Not, Masters [1 of 2]

by Nayyar Hashmey

I already uploaded two posts on the shameful agreeemnt our awami hakoomat has made with the US on reopening transit facilities for NATO and ISAF forces in Afghanistan. As I put up the third one of this series, this time by Humayun Gauhar, I recall the two  posts I earlier had on my WordPress blog, titled: Pakistan ‘trashed’ and insulted, Kayani won’t meet US official (here) and Clinton’s $33m raid on Pakistan shows that, in the end, hypocrisy will win (here) 

Apology: To be or not to be

4TH JULY 2012, DAY OF NATIONAL SHAME

..

.

by Brig Samson S Sharaf

.

.

.

The quickness of response by Pakistan suggests that the entire farce was prepared well in advance and was to be made public on the American Declaration of Independence Day. In our eagerness to mend the fences, we have owned a part of the blame and become both co accused and co apologists.

Let’s Search Together For Your Apology, Mrs. Clinton

Image via: http://thecable.foreignpolicy.com/

.

by PakNationalists

.

Pakistani journalist and television anchor Syed Talat Husain published an online column in Urdu today. The column provides an accurate translation of Mrs. Clinton's statement announcing reopening US military and NATO supply routes through Pakistan.  The US and Pakistani governments call this statement an apology for the deliberate US military massacre of 25 Pakistani soldiers at Salala border checkpoints on 26/11. Hussain asks a simple question: Show me the apology in this letter.

"Why do they pick on us Pakistanis?"

Faisal Shahzad, alleged Times Square bomber, is praised by Pakistan Taliban spokesman Azam Tariq. Shahzad, believed to be the man in the pic above, was arrested May last year while trying to leave the country on board a plane departing for Dubai.

Why do they pick

on us Pakistanis?

by Pervez Hoodbhoy

First a very pertinent note from Mehdi Hasan of the New Statesman blog [though partly edited to ensure a continuous readability]. 

A brilliant and brave answer from one of the country's leading academics.

 The news of the death of Salman Taseer, a secular minded Muslim and governor of Pakistan's Punjab province, came as a profound shock. Not because of the killing itself, as such acts of murder and violence have tragically and depressingly become part of daily life in our land of the pure, but because he was slain by one of his own bodyguards. As the Guardian's Declan Walsh notes, the killing has exposed:

...a vein of deep-rooted extremism that has infected even the senior security forces.

Taseer was shot 27 times yesterday by one of his own bodyguards, who was reportedly enraged by Taseer's opposition to Pakistan's often-misused blasphemy laws.

Taseer's murder by a trusted member of an elite counter-terrorism unit (who believed that he nonetheless had a divine duty to kill the governor for criticising Pakistan's blasphemy laws) shows that extremism in Pakistan is driven by ideology as well as by organised militant groups such as the Pakistani Taliban. Extremist takfiri ideology, a relatively modern import to Pakistan, has now affected many aspects of Pakistani society and culture and continues to spread through schools, mosques, universities and television channels. Similarly, the belief that any Muslim individual can spontaneously take violent action in order to 'protect Islam' is also becoming ever more widely accepted in Pakistan - independent of the activities of jihadist groups.

This is a worrying trend and on this occasion, we as Muslims can no longer do the impressions of ostriches with our heads in the sand. Denial is not an option. That such murders have become an order of the day in second-largest Muslim country in the world is sickening and appalling and needs regular and repeated condemnation from Muslim groups and, in particular, Muslim ulema (scholars) across the world. What on earth are thousands of so-called Muslims doing joining up to a Facebook page supporting Taseer's killer? How can a Brelvi jamaat, representing the mainstream Barelvi school of Sunni Muslims, justify telling people not to offer funeral prayers for Taseer?

I've long believed that we Muslims must be at the forefront of campaigns against takfiri and jihadist violence, against killings, shootings and bombings in the name of Allah, Prophet Muhammad and the religion of Islam. To borrow a line from Robert Kennedy (or was it Rabbi Hillel?): if not us, who? If not now, when?

Silence is not an option. We Muslims are exposing ourselves to the charge of double standards when we bleat about the killings of innocent Muslims in Palestine or Afghanistan or Chechnya, at the hands of non-Muslim armies, but then keep mum when Muslim crazies start shooting and beheading non-Muslims, as well as other Muslims like Salman Taseer, and do so in the name of God and His prophet. And, above all else, where is our humanity? Islam is a humanitarian, not a sectarian, religion and so selective outrage will not do.

On a related note, as more gloomy news emerge from inside Pakistan, I spotted, via Twitter, a piece by the brilliant and brave Pakistani physicist and commentator, Professor Pervez Hoodbhoy - in fact, it's a transcript of remarks he made in a recent talk in Washington DC to Pakistani professionals settled in the United States of America, entitled "Why do they pick on us Pakistanis?"

Hoodbhoy argues:

THE "GREAT GAME" BUBBLES UNDER OBAMA'S INDIA TRIP...

by HK

 

We are witnessing some of the most cynical inhuman tactics ever used to hammer the Pakistani minds into the mold that the brain-washers have prepared for them. The special treatment accorded India, including the royal visit, is meant to be a finger in Pakistan's eye. The mission of the Pentagon psy-warriors is to agitate the angry beleaguered Pakistani people into helping the destabilization of their homeland, supporting the American mission for direct intervention, but it is also intended to placate the leadership. 

The destabilization comes from agitating from below, stimulating the grass roots to embrace anarchy, while calming the leadership, to avoid organized resistance to American plans from forming at the top.

Much like the "soda bottle bombs" created by curious youngsters, the American destabilization provides the violent catalytic reaction, as well as the "cork" in the bottle to contain the pressure until it reaches critical mass. The big unknown is how Pakistan's leaders are persuaded to help keep the American poison contained in the body politic, knowing that the mixture will be lethal....

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE69O0QL20101025

 

Specific incidents were chosen to coerce, intimidate and embarrass Pakistan to achieve these gains. US media picked up on the stories of atrocities by Pakistan Army in Swat, hidden hands behind NATO tankers burning, assassinations and arrest of Afghans willing to talk peace with USA, NATO and Hamid Karzai.

The third US-Pakistan Strategic dialogue met its predicted conclusions. USA is satisfied that its carrot and stick policy towards Pakistan will serve its short term purpose to make Pakistan more pliable and willing to work for its long term objectives.

These deliberate leaks also gave the impression that peace talks in Afghanistan were far ahead than expected and NATO Forces were actually escorting key Taliban Leaders of fear that ISI with its so called mighty presence in Afghanistan will have them assassinated. At the same time there are feelers that key personalities like Mullah Omar, Gul Badin Hikmatyar and Haqqani are being deliberately isolated and subsequently made irrelevant to the peace negotiations.

Coincidently, during this entire boil, target killings in Karachi assumed new proportions and a Pakistani in USA (Adnan Beg) being sentenced to Jail for fraternization with the Taliban. So like all US Pakistan dialogues, this too was endemic to the familiar leaks, spins and orchestrated events. Like an iceberg, much was below the surface than above it.

The results of this dialogue were predictable. What USA wanted was amply summed up by Richard Holbrooke and his aides regarding Pakistan’s growing nuclear relations with China, military operations in North Waziristan and peace with India. Pakistan’s high profile delegation had to suffer the indignity of travelling all the way to the State Department to take impromptu lessons on statecraft from President Obama and Secretary Hillary Clinton. President Obama was quick in his lecture to assert that the biggest threat to Pakistan’s security was from within and not India, but stopped short in admitting that this unrest within Pakistan was directly linked to the disapproval of US policies in the region.