Pakistan Stands United Against All Threats

U.S. accusations that Pakistan is supporting Afghan insurgents have triggered a nationalist backlash and whipped up media fears of an American invasion, drowning out any discussion over the army’s long use of jihadi groups as deadly proxies in the region.

People rally against the U.S. in Multan, Pakistan,

The reaction shows the problem facing the United States as it presses Pakistan for action: Strong statements in Washington provoke a negative public response that makes it more difficult for the army to act against the militants – even if it decided it was in the country’s interest to do so.

Pakistan’s mostly conservative populace is deeply suspicious of U.S. intentions a decade after Washington forged an alliance with Islamabad. Many people here believe the U.S. wants to break up Pakistan and take its arsenal of nuclear weapons, and America is very unpopular throughout the country.

By contrast, Pakistanis lack unity against Islamic militants. Politicians and media commentators are often ambiguous in their criticism of the Pakistani Taliban, despite its carrying out near weekly bombings in Pakistan over the past four years.

One small private television channel has aired an advertisement that features images of Adm. Mike Mullen, America’s top military officer, and Defense Secretary Leon Panetta along with scenes of the Pakistani army fighting and raising the country’s flag.

Each time the Americans appear, a shrill voice sings: “Enemies, you have challenged a nation which has a growing knowledge of the Quran and the support from Allah. Our task in this world is to eliminate the name of the killers!”

Mullen’s comments on Capitol Hill last week set off the storm.

He said the Haqqani network, the most deadly and organized force fighting American troops in Afghanistan, was a “veritable arm” of Pakistan’s premier spy agency, the strongest public statement yet by U.S. officials on Pakistan’s long suspected duplicity.

He and other U.S. officials suggested that the U.S. would use any means necessary to defend itself. That raised speculation here that America might deploy troops in Pakistan’s North Waziristan territory, the Afghan border region where the Haqqanis are based.

Most analysts view that scenario as highly unlikely because of the risks it entails for U.S. interests in the region. But it has not stopped right-wing politicians and retired generals that are well represented on TV talk shows from speculating on the threat of American boots on Pakistani soil.

On Thursday, the leaders of the country’s feuding political parties will put aside their differences to sit under one roof to discuss the issue. In announcing the meeting, Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani said the lawmakers will discuss “the security situation in the wake of threats emanating from outside the country.”

The Sunni Ittehad Council, an organization representing the country’s Barelvi sect, often referred to as the most moderate among Pakistani Muslims, issued a statement saying it was obligatory on all Muslims to wage jihad against the United States if it attacked Pakistan.

“The Pakistani government and the armed forces should start preparing to counter any possible American attack as Islamic law suggests ‘keeping the horses ready’ to counter any sort of foreign aggression,” the statement said.

There have been a few small street protests since Mullen’s comments, but nothing major.

In some respects, the situation mirrors the atmosphere after the May 2 American helicopter raid on Osama bin Laden, which was carried out without the knowledge of the Pakistani army. There was outrage then over the infringement of the country’s sovereignty by the U.S., but little on how bin Laden had been living in the army town of Abbottabad for so long.

Now, the focus is on Pakistan’s public humiliation at the hands of a supposed ally – and the threat of American action.

There appears to have been little debate on whether Pakistan is right to allow the Haqqani network free reign in parts of the country. Nor has there been much discussion of Pakistan’s historical use of militant proxies in India. This is all the more striking because the Haqqani network and other militants are allied, at least ideologically, to the Pakistani Taliban, who carry out attacks inside Pakistan.

The dominant right-wing narrative in Pakistan following Mullen’s comments has been that the United States is losing the war in Afghanistan and wants to pin the blame on Islamabad. The threat posed by the Haqqani network is seen as exaggerated, and tackling them now is thought not to be in Pakistan’s interest.

The anger this week at America coincided with the visit of Chinese Public Security Minister Meng Jianzhu, allowing the media and politicians to peddle another populist trope: that Beijing will be able to replace the United States as a source of funds if and when Pakistan chooses to sever its ties with Washington.

“American allegations and threats have extremely endangered our country’s security and sovereignty. It is high time … we should consult our friendly neighbors and other countries out of this region and get their support,” said an editorial in the right-wing mass circulation paper, Nawa-i-Waqt.

Most analysts say this hope is misplaced, noting that Beijing shares international concerns about Pakistan as a breeding ground for terrorism and has shown little sign it wants to prop up the government. The hope also fails to address how China would replace American influence on institutions like the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.

Anti-American sentiment in Pakistan was already rife and growing, following the shooting deaths of two Pakistanis by CIA operatives in Lahore in January and the raid on bin Laden. Both events were portrayed here as further evidence of the malign intentions of the United States.

The Pakistani media tend to focus on the supposed American threat because that’s what Pakistanis want to read and hear about, said Cyril Almedia, a liberal political analyst and columnist. But he said there were signs that those who wanted to see the alliance with the United States break down may be disappointed, noting that the army – which receives billions from the United States in aid – had been relatively muted in its reaction.

“Emotions are running high, but there are indications the military is performing a delicate balancing act,” Almedia said. “On the one hand, it is trying to give a response that satisfies a paranoid, conservative population and the rank-and-file, yet also a feeling that this is not the moment to cause a complete rupture with the United States.”

Pakistan’s Army & People Are One

Pakistan Patriot

It didn’t begin with the Haqqanis, or the attack on Kabul. It didn’t even begin with Operation Geronimo-it actually began when President Obama made the blunder of not visitingPakistan and then going to Delhi. Trying to hide the failure of his administration to sign the Nuclear 123 deal he tried to appease the Indians by saying that he supported Delhi’s bid for the UNSC. He couldn’t had said anything worse.

In better day Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Navy Adm. Mike Mullen reviews Pakistani troops.

The entire Pakistani nation was furious. The National Assembly was mad. The media was upset. There were demonstrations all over Pakistan-of course the US media missed it all. All of this was recorded on Rupee News. No American president had come across to biased, not Bush, not Nixon, not Johnson, not Kenney and not Reagan. They all tried to be even handed. Here was a president, with a middle name of Husein, who enjoyed tremendous popularity in Pakistan. Obama could have cahsed it on the equity he had with the Pakistanis. He however lost it all-because of his silly remarks, the loud mouth of his generals, the loose talk of his Secretary of State, and the exponential increase of drone bombings.

Why is that the American generals are so far off the mark when they begin to deal with the Pakistanis. The reason is that a mafia in Washington controls the access of information that reaches American policy makers. It is America’s fault too. They bank on the likes of Ahmed Rashid, the US Ambassador to Pakistan, Mr Haqqani, and Mr. Najam Sethi-plus a cabal of so called left wingers on the net-these guys are responsible for the failure of US policy in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

US Pakistani relations have been deteriorating because of the heightened sense of frustration felt by the US Army in Afghanistan. Neither the surge, nor the increase in drone activity has helped increase the US footprint in Afghanistan. The Europeans have lost all appetite for the decade long quagmire in the Hindu Kush. The retiring American generals are leaving with a legacy of defeat. Unable to defeat the Afghan National Resistance (Talibs, Jamat e Islamai, Hizul Islmai, Haqqanis, Hikmatyar etc) – they needed a escape goat. They attempted to humiliate General Kayani and General Pasha-hoping that their resignations would allow them to deal with a more compliant COAS. They had tried that with Musharraf and had hoped that Kayani would do their bidding. It didn’t happen. Kayani walked half a mile with them-but would go no further. Like Ayub, Zia, and Musharraf, the US once again learned that the Pakistani Army will go only so far with them. When it comes to national interests, they go their own way. Ayub Khan threw them out of Badabare, Bhutto defied them and built the bomb, Zia fooled them and accelerated the Pakistani Nuclear program, and Musharraf hodd-winked them by doubling Pakistani nuclear bombs.

In the aftermath of the Abbotabad raid, General Kayani went to meet his corp commanders. He got an earful. This site also called for his resignation. Still reeling from what he had heard from the nation, he went to the army bases to listen to the “jawans’ (soldiers). The visceral response he got from the rank and file, probably surprised him also. It was the consensus of the army that they did not want American Aid and did not want the US to interfere in Pakistan’s internal affairs. The Chief or Army Staff then visited, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and China. All branches of the government were brought on board and a strategy was created. There was a flurry of activity between Riyad, Beijing, Istanbul, Astana, and Moscow. Russia announced the formation of theDushambe 4 (Tajiskistan, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Russia). General Kayani then got on the horn and pretty much turned down US military aid to Pakistan. He couched it in diplomatic language by saying that aid to the military should be transferred to the civilians. He then turned around sent all the US trainers home. His fellow general Pasha began hunting down the US operatives and began to hound them out. They Pakistanis knew what the reaction from the US would be. They knew that the American intelligence agencies as well as the defeated US Generals would be furious.

The Americans were left with no choice-they halted the 800 million in aid to the Pakistani military. They were banking on the advice given to them by Mr. Njam Sethi and gang. That line went as follows-”the generals are greedy, and the moment the aid is stopped, they will fold like a tent-begging Washington like poodles”. The US Generals took the advice of folks writing for dawn.com and dailytimes.com.pk and began to believe the “advice’ which was purchased with US Dollars.

Turns out, that that the Americans were wrong. The advice that they received was bogus and the US is now reeling from the consequences of inflamed Pakistanis, and the exponential growth of Anti-Americanism in Pakistan.

Of course the Bharati lobby in Congress is ecstatic, just like they are ever time they see an opportunity to hurt Pakistan. Hillary Clinton in one of her moments of sanity said that “The Pressler Amendment was one of the biggest blunders of American foreign policy”. General Petraeus (now the head of the CIA is known for his favorite anedtoe when he says, every Pakistan soldier knows what the Pressler Amendment is, and no US soldier has a clue what it is. Ted Poe a Respublican Representative was was spewing fire and brimsote the other day “Turns out they are disloyal, deceptive and a danger to the United States,” fumed Republican Representative Ted Poe last week. “We pay them to hate us. Now we pay them to bomb us. Let’s not pay them at all.” Pakistanis are praying for the day with the US Aid would be halted. The aid has strings and it has created more problems for Pakistan.

For many in Pakistan, Washington has been nothing short of perfidious since joining a strategic alliance with Pakistan 10 years ago- selectively bringing India into Afghanistan, installing an Anti-Pakistan government in Kabul, while allowing or supporting anti-Pakistan terrorists like the TTP.

John Chalmers in an analysis written for Reuters tries to explain why Pakistna is acting the way it is “The answer is that Pakistan wants to guarantee for itself a stake in Afghanistan’s political future.

It knows that, as U.S. forces gradually withdraw from Afghanistan, ethnic groups will be competing for ascendancy there and other regional powers – from India to China and Iran – will be jostling for a foot in the door.
Islamabad’s support for the Taliban movement in the 1990s gives it an outsized influence among Afghanistan’s Pashtuns, who make up about 42 percent of the total population and who maintain close ties with their Pakistani fellow tribesmen.
In particular, Pakistan’s powerful military is determined there should be no vacuum in Afghanistan that could be filled by its arch-foe, India.
Chalmers says “Relations between Pakistan and the United States have been stormy ever since, culminating in a tirade by the outgoing U.S. joint chiefs of staff, Mike Mullen, last week. Mullen described the Haqqani network, the most feared faction among Taliban militants in Afghanistan, as a “veritable arm” of the ISI and accused Islamabad of providing support for the group’s September 13 attack on the U.S. embassy in Kabul.”

He accurately describes the mood in Pakistan “The reaction in Islamabad has been one of stunned outrage”. Washington has not gone public with evidence to back its accusation, and Pakistani officials say that contacts with the Haqqani group do not amount to actual support”.

Chalmer’s uses the sane advice of the most popular Pakistani leader today “However, Imran Khan, a Pakistani cricketer-turned-populist-politician, said this week that it was too much to expect that old friends could have become enemies overnight.

He told Reuters that, instead of demanding that Pakistan attack the Haqqanis in the mountainous border region of North Waziristan, the United States should use Islamabad’s leverage with the group to bring the Afghan Taliban into negotiations. ‘Haqqani could be your ticket to getting them on the negotiating table, which at the moment they are refusing,” Khan said. “So I think that is a much saner policy than to ask Pakistan to try to take them on’.”

Chalmers correctly describes the regional game-about which we have written multiple time here on Rupee News.

The big risk for the United States in berating Islamabad is that it will exacerbate anti-American sentiment, which already runs deep in Pakistan, and perhaps embolden it further.

C. Raja Mohan, senior fellow at New Delhi’s Center for Policy Research, said Pakistan was probably gambling that the United States’ economic crisis and upcoming presidential elections would distract Washington.

“The real game is unfolding on the ground with the Americans. The Pakistan army is betting that the United States does not have too many choices and more broadly that the U.S. is on the decline, he said.

It is also becoming clear that as Pakistan’s relations with Washington deteriorate, it can fall back into the arms of its “all-weather friend,” China, the energy-hungry giant that is the biggest investor in Afghanistan’s nascent resources sector.

Chalmer’s is right about the regional angle which has been part of our prescient forecasting for the past several years. LIke Rupee News, most Pakistanis see Central Asia as the future of Pakistan ‘Pakistani officials heaped praise on Beijing this week as a Chinese minister visited Islamabad. Among them was army chief General Ashfaq Kayani, arguably the country’s most powerful man, who spoke of China’s “unwavering support.’

Chalmer’s is also right about Islamaba’s burgeoning relations with Iran:

“In addition, Pakistan has extended a cordial hand to Iran, which also shares a border with Afghanistan. Teheran has been mostly opposed to the Taliban, which is dominated by Sunni Muslims while Iran is predominantly Shi’ite. But Iran’s anti-Americanism is more deep-seated.

“My reading is the Iranians want to see the Americans go,” said Raja Mohan, the Indian analyst. “They have a problem with the Taliban, but any American retreat will suit them. Iran in the short term is looking at the Americans being humiliated.”

Chalmer’s like most Indian analysts is under the impression that the Pakistani Army goes against the grain of what Pakistanis think. It cannot. The Army gets its strength from the folks that man it-if they army took up stances that are unpopular with the people, the Army could not sustain those stances. Even Mushaarraf understood that, and by attempting to fire the Chief Justice-he lost the support of the people and had to resign. For most Bharatis the Pakistani army is the culprit and their favorite whipping boy. Even though many corrupt practices have crept into the cadre, the fact remains that the army is a professional fighting force, and is the front line organization in the defense of Pakistan. Today, more so than ever, almost all political parties (from the leftis ANP, to the rightist JI) all stand behind it.

In this game of chicken, America, by suspending aid to the Pakistani Army has now lost all leverage on the Generals. Pakistan is not dependent on US arms anymore. America does not provide Islamabad the latest arms, and Pakistan can get plenty of 2nd tier arms from China or build them itself.

The Great Game is on, a defeated army is withdrawing from the graveyard of empires. Its defeated generals are desperate and their frustration can be heard in the howling in the news media and the halls of Congress. Mullen will not win any Congressional Medals of Honor. He will melt away ignominiously into the woodwork-he will write a book, become rich and no one will ever hear of him again. After all, does anyone remember the name of the general who was defeated in Vietnam?

The people of Afghanistan and Pakistan remember the name of the man who defeated the British Army at Maiwand. Millions of Afghans and Pakistanis are named Ayub Khan. President Ayub Khan was also named after the famous Ayub Khan who defeated the mighty British Army-and the Khan sent one surviving soldier back to the Khyber pass riding a donkey. The picture of the sole survivor of the British army, Dr. Brydon reaching Jellalabad alone-has been encapsulated by a British painter Elizabeth Butler and hangs in many Pakistani homes.

Serious consequences if anything Happened to Gen Musa

In Occupied State of Jammu & Kashmir (OSJK), the APHC chairman, Syed Ali Shah Geelani warned the Indian authorities to get vacated the land occupied by non-Kashmiris.

Syed Ali Shah Geelani was heading an extraordinary meeting of All Parties Hurriyat Conference (APHC).

Geelani said that the government of India and its occupation authorities were planning to change the demography of Kashmir by settling the Indian people.

Geelani said that if the non-Kashmiris were not expelled by 20th October, a massive agitation would be launched in the territory.

In the meanwhile, the Tahreek e Hurriyat Jammu Kashmir (TeH) has expressed serious concern over the deteriorating health of its incarcerated leader, Abdul Aziz Dar in Central Jail, Srinagar.

The Tahreek e Hurriyat spokesman Dr Ghulam Muhammad Ganai in a statement said that Gen Musa is suffering from diabetes and high blood pressure, which have badly damaged his eyesight and kidneys.

The doctors suggested that the detained leader should be admitted in the hospital for treatment. But the police shifted him back to the Central Jail.

The statement of TeH warned of serious consequences if anything untoward happened to Abdul Aziz Dar alias Gen Musa.

OBL Killing Photos: To show or not to show?

Global Post

The U.S. Department of Justice has filed court documents arguing against releasing photos and video of Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden’s death in response to a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit filed by conservative watchdog group Judicial Watch.

Justice officials said the 52 images of the deceased bin Laden were classified and could prompt violence against Americans overseas if they were made public, The Associated Press reports.

The government asked the court to dismiss the lawsuit.

In a declaration included in the documents, John Bennett, director of the CIA’s National Clandestine Service, described the photos and video recordings as “quite graphic, as they depict the fatal bullet wound to (bin Laden) and other similarly gruesome images of his corpse,” the AP reports. Images were taken of bin Laden’s body at the Abbottabad compound and during his burial at sea from the USS Carl Vinson, Bennett said.

The government’s filings were also accompanied by a declaration from Admiral William McRaven, who’s in charge of the U.S. Special Operations Command and commands the Navy SEALs who carried out the bin Laden raid, Politico reports. McRaven wrote that releasing the images would likely “make the special operations unit that participated in this operation and its members more readily identifiable in the future.”

Judicial Watch said it disagreed with the government’s arguments. “There’s always something that can be released,” Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton told the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press.

According to Politico:

The legal fight over the bin Laden photos has produced some disagreement among FOIA experts. Some expect the government to prevail in the case without much difficulty because courts are traditionally very deferential to the executive branch in litigation involving national security, particularly FOIA cases. However, a few FOIA specialists have said aspects of the government’s arguments against disclosure is weaker than in other cases, chiefly because of reliance on the harms that stem in essence from the public relations impact the imagery could have.

Judicial Watch is one of several organizations, including the AP and Politico, that has requested photos and video of bin Laden’s death, Politico reports.

The judge in the case is unlikely to rule before December, Politico reports.

Bombs Recovered near PAF Base Karachi

KARACHI: Seven bombs have been recovered from the Baldia Town area of the city, Geo News reported.

It is being reported that the bombs were kept next to the wall of PAF base Masroor.

The bomb disposal squad has reached the site while police and Rangers have cordoned off the area.

The Biased State Terrorism in India

By: Irfan Ahmad

According to the Indian government and media, many Muslim groups have recently been involved in terrorism. Of these, three stand out: Student Islamic Movement of India (SIMI), formed in 1976 and banned soon after 9/11 for fomenting “communal disharmony” and “sedition”; Deccan Mujahideen (DM), an outfit which shot to prominence by claiming responsibility for the 2008 Mumbai terror attack; and Indian Mujahideen (IM), a group believed to have been formed after 2001. These groups have been charged with killing hundreds of people. The latest attack came on July 13, when 20 people were killed in a series of bombings in Mumbai.

India’s media often rushes to blame Muslims for acts of terrorism, sometimes without serious evidence

Shortly after the attack, the police said that IM and SIMI were behind the blasts. A nationwide hunt followed. According to Rakesh Maria, Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) Chief, expert teams fanned out to seven states. Officers from the National Intelligence Agency, formed after the 2008 Mumbai attacks to fight terrorism, raided the houses of two IM suspects in Ranchi, capital of Jharkhand state.

In Indian political discourse, outfits like SIMI, DM and IM appear as a threat to India’s stability and its global rise. While some depict them as domestic groups, others portray them as working in alliance with outfits from Pakistan. It is thus believed that IM was floated by Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), a militant group formed in 1990 in Afghanistan and active in Pakistan-controlled Kashmir. Most accounts of these outfits are, however, inconsistent and even contradictory.

By analysing the Mumbai attack and the alleged involvement of IM and SIMI, I make three arguments. First, since the media and the security agencies have a close and uncritical relationship, we should have a healthy doubt about the accuracy of their information, and refrain from immediately pointing fingers at one Muslim group or another. Despite the fact that barely anyone adequately knows what IM is and how it came about, after the July attack several Muslims were arrested as terrorists.

Second, because Muslims are blamed, arrested, tortured, and killed (by the police) after each terror attack, with little or no evidence, such measures might end up creating the danger the Indian state claims to fight.

Third, I contend that the Indian media’s role in “reporting” terrorism is prejudiced.

What is Indian Mujahideen?

After the blast, the police arrested many people from Mumbai’s “sensitive” (read Muslim) neighbourhoods, a practice the residents of such neighbourhoods have grown accustomed to in the last decade. One suspect, Faiz Usmani, died in police custody. The police claimed that his death was caused by “hypertension”; his family believes that he was tortured. Usmani was the brother of Afzal Usmani, in jail for his alleged involvement in the 2008 Ahmadabad blast. Both brothers are reported to be IM members.

Riaz Bhatkal, described as India’s “most wanted terrorist”, is regarded as IM’s founder. He became close with SIMI in the early 1990s when it began to radicalise. Born in 1976, Bhatkal went to an English-medium school and later studied engineering at a Mumbai college. But beyond that, much of IM’s history remains unclear. It’s not even known whether Bhatkal is alive or dead. After the July 13 blast, the ATS attempted to nab him. This is surprising, because early this year the media reported that Bhatkal was killed in Karachi by Chhota Rajan, Mumbai’s underworld don.

The media provides differing accounts of IM’s formation and, in fact, is sometimes inconsistent even within a single version. For example, Animesh Roul, the director of the Society for the Study of Peace and Conflict in Delhi, claimed that IM was “conceived at a terrorist conclave attended by top leaders of the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) and Harkat-ul-Jehadi Islami (HuJI) in Pakistani-administered Kashmir in May 2008″. He did not find it contradictory when in the next paragraph he wrote, “IM came into the open for the first time in November 2007″. In Asian Policy, Christine Fair indicated two dates of its formation: 2001 and an ambiguous date of “much later”. According to The Times of India, IM was formed in 2005. To Namrata Goswami of the Institute for Defence Studies and Analysis in Delhi, “key SIMI members …started supporting the idea of the formation of the IM as early as December 2007″.

IM first hit the headlines after a series of explosions in November 2007. In an email to the media and police, IM claimed responsibility for the blasts. As the email explained, the aim of those attacks was to protest against “the pathetic conditions of Muslims in India that idol worshippers can kill our brothers, sisters, children and outrage dignity of our sisters at any place and at any time and we can’t resist them”. Then, in 2008, minutes before the blasts in Ahmadabad, IM sent an email (entitled “The Rise of Jihad, Revenge of Gujarat”) to the media saying: “We hereby declare an ultimatum to all the state governments of India … to stop harassing the Muslims and keep a check on their killing, expulsion, and encounters.”

The messages are a sign that IM’s aim is to protest against and avenge the killings and humiliation of Muslims at the hands of Hindu nationalists and the state administration. The destruction of the Babri mosque by Hindu nationalists in 1992 is important to IM’s ideological repertoire – hence its description by the media and the terrorism experts as a “home-grown”, “domestic” terror outfit. Since the media regard the Babri mosque as a domestic issue (unlike Kashmir, which is international) and the IM invokes the Babri mosque to rationalise its attacks, the IM is thus considered a domestic outfit.

However, many Indian security experts hold that IM is a tool of Pakistan’s Inter-Service Intelligence (ISI) used to destabilise India. In these accounts, IM is a means to advance ISI’s agenda of destabilising India and at the same time to exonerate Pakistan of any allegations made by India and the West of promoting terrorism. The logic of the security experts is that the word “Indian” in IM points to India’s domestic groups, rather than Pakistani groups like Lashkar-e-Taiba, through which the ISI has been operating in Kashmir. On the other hand, experts like B Raman allege that IM and SIMI’s reach extends beyond South Asia, characterising the groups as a part of a global network of Islamic radicals without furnishing adequate evidence.

India’s Guantanamo Bays

The media invariably base their stories on the sources of the state. An apt example is Praveen Swami, a terrorism expert cited by everyone writing about the IM. Swami is to print media what Arnab Goswami (of Times Now) is to Indian TV: Their views are rabidly nationalist, some might even say Islamophobic. Swami reproduces the police version (e.g. see his writings in CTC Sentinel, May 2010; The Hindu, Edit-Page, March 22, 2010; and Frontline, June 2-15, 2007) without giving the other side of the story, namely: the viewpoints of the alleged terrorists, their family members, or the Muslim community. It is well-known that the Indian police are biased against Muslims and have been complicit in killing them, as was evident in the state-mediated 2002 Gujarat violence, in which 1,000 Muslims were killed.

Given that the Indian media is uninterested in reporting “facts” and multiple views, can an anthropologist like me make sense of the mediatised world of terrorism? Thomas Eriksen holds that a concept like globalisation has “no meaning to an anthropologist unless it can be studied through actual persons, their relationship to each other and to a larger surrounding world”. I thus agree with Peter Van der Veer that “behind the growing visibility [of media] is a growing invisibility”.

What is rarely visible in the Indian media, however, are the brutal, illegal methods used against suspected terrorists: torture cells, illegal detention, unlawful killings in “police encounters”; elimination of evidence against the illegal actions of the law-enforcing agencies; and rampant harassment of Muslims. In July 2009, The Week reported on the existence of at least 15 secret torture chambers meant to extract information from the detainees. The methods to extract information include attaching electrodes to a detainee’s genitals as well as the use of pethidine injections. To quote The Week, these chambers are “our own little Guantanamo Bays or Gitmos”, which a top policeman called “precious assets”.

In May 2008, a Muslim boy aged 14 was abducted by the Gujarat police. He was dragged to the police car at gunpoint and taken to a detention centre where he was tortured. He returned home ten days later when the court ordered his release following his mother’s petition. The police subsequently threatened the boy’s family with dire consequences if they pursued the case in court. The police harassment becomes even more acute in light of the fact that most lawyers often hesitate to take up the cases of “terrorists”. As a disempowered community – as the government-appointed Sachar Committee report (of 2006) minutely demonstrates – Muslims themselves don’t have adequate and qualified lawyers to pursue such cases. Muslims’ marginalisation thus renders their voice invisible in the media too.

It is believed that after SIMI was banned, soon after 9/11, its radical members formed IM. During my fieldwork (2001-2004) on Jamaat-e-Islami and SIMI I did not hear anything about IM. SIMI activists and other Muslims I met felt terrorised themselves. It is worth noting that since 2001 far more people have been arrested as “SIMI terrorists” than the actual number of SIMI members, which in 1996 was 413 (when founded in 1976, SIMI’s members numbered 132). Until today, the Indian government has still not legally proved its rationale for banning SIMI.

The story untold

In the fight against terrorism, evidence and the rule of law are subservient to prejudice. As of this writing, the Indian government has not yet tracked the perpetrators of the July 13 attack. However, only two days after the attack, Subramanian Swamy, a prominent politician and former minister (with a doctorate from Harvard University) wrote an article called “How to Wipe Out Islamic Terror”. Without any evidence, he blamed Muslims for the attack, in the same way that The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Sun suspected Muslim involvement in the Norway shooting nine days later.

What Swamy did is standard practice in Indian media. In September 2006, a blast killed 35 people at a Muslim graveyard in Malegaon (in the state of Karnataka). The media blamed Muslims. Likewise, in 2007, after a blast killed 10 Muslims praying in Hyderabad’s Mecca mosque, Praveen Swami freely wrote about the Muslim terrorists he believed caused it and about what he perceived to be the “Islamist threat to India’s cities”. However, investigations later showed that Hindu nationalists carried out the Malegaon and Mecca mosque terror attacks.

Returning to Subramanian Swamy, Swamy wrote: “We need a collective mindset as Hindus to stand against the Islamic terrorist. The Muslims of India can join us if they genuinely feel for the Hindus. That they do I will not believe unless they acknowledge with pride that though they may be Muslims, their ancestors were Hindus”. Those refusing to acknowledge this, Swamy advocated, “should not have voting rights”. He proposed declaring India “a Hindu Rashtra [state]“.

Stories of Muslim terrorists abound in both the Indian and Western media. Since the July 13, 2011 Mumbai bombings, vitriolic pieces like Subramanian Swamy’s have appeared frequently in the media. These pieces subtly influence the analyses of many liberal intellectuals.

The Right Path Is The Democratic Path

Not everyone supports democracy in Pakistan; some for religious reasons, others either don’t know what it means for them, while some see bad things in it because of the deceptive ways of the electoral class. That, however, shouldn’t come as a surprise. In every country and society, one encounters opposition to democratic ideas for some reason or another. The real issue in Pakistan is that those coming to power, on account of popular representation and because they keep referring to their own glorified role in democratic struggles, hardly have any political or ideological commitment to democracy.

Exposing their hypocrisy can be the first step towards building our democratic future. The bigger challenge, however, is how we can defeat their using use of democratic means – i.e., popular support – to betray the popular mandate. Let us be clear, the popular mandate is not about acquiring power but rather about articulating the public good, securing rights and the defending lives and properties of citizens. Pick up a manifesto of any political party in the governing coalitions, and one will will see these grand objectives emphasised over and over again. A mandate is not a right to rule but rather a social contract, a promise or commitment one makes when asking people to support one’s programmes and policies when running for election. Fair and free elections are a rarity in Pakistan, and so individuals, groups and parties have used violence, coercion, fraud, and money to procure popular support. The democratic means of achieving power, often claimed by victors of elections in Pakistan, may not stand the litmus test of being free, fair or untainted of corruption.

The same has been true of our four military dictators – all of whom vowed to build ‘genuine’ democracy, or create a social and economic base for it, while displacing the electoral elite. But what they did instead was to destroy each and every institution and norm that could make the democratic progress of Pakistan, smooth, sustainable and deep. The history of military dictators is characterised by deceit, institutional decay, political fragmentation, moral and social rot, (that produced polarisation), insurgencies and alliances of the state with violent ethnic and religious groups.

So, what is the alternative if we find ourselves between two options – military rule and ‘democratic’ demagogues misrepresenting democracy? The answer is that we must learn from our own experiences, a lot more than we learn from the struggles of other countries. Two lessons are important and must form the foundational ideas of our social and political thinking. One, there is no alternative to democracy. Second, that democracy comes in stages and through struggles – and never is it offered on a platter or as a gift.

How can we go about this struggle, which must be both through debating universal ideas and their relevance to our society and time (it also has to come through the concrete actions of members of civil society)? For this, we must educate our people and struggle harder than we have in the past. I am afraid, a diverse, plural, large and complex society like Pakistan cannot be governed peacefully without democracy – a democracy, which is not hijacked by demagogues, murderous violent groups that enter into political compacts or by those who have no respect for law, judiciary or accountability.

This raises a million-dollar question: how to get rid of those who have false representation and falsely represent democracy? I wish I had a simple answer. It has to be through persistent, patient work for civic education, support of judiciary, accountability and rule of law. The road to democracy is long and the journey can be tiring, but this the only road that leads to progress, stability and civilised governance.

Rangers Arrest Target Killers & JSQM Chairman

Jeay Sindh Qaumi Mahaz (JSQM) Chairman Bashir Khan Qureshi was detained by the Rangers during a search and raid operation in Karachi on Thursday, reported Express 24/7.

Qureshi was taken into custody along with his guards from the Gulshan-e-Hadid area.

Rangers’ sources say that two kalashnikovs were also seized from their possession.

The raid was part of an ongoing operation in Karachi to restore peace and arrest those behind target killings in the city.

Members of JSQM have been arrested several times before in various cases.

Alleged target killer among suspects arrested in Karachi

Karachi police on Thursday arrested several people during a search operation in Liaqatabad while an alleged target killer was taken into custody from Saudabad.

The police reportedly raided Naseer Square, arresting half a dozen suspects and recovering weapons from them.

Authorities say investigations are still being conducted.

In another incident, Saudabad police arrested an alleged target killer, Zafar alias Andha.

Sub-inspector Shah Faisal told the media that police obtained a Kalashnikov from Zafar’s posession. Zafar has confessed to committing several murders.

Yesterday, authorities detained nearly 100 suspects and seized several weapons after conducting a joint search operation in Sohrab Goth. They claim to have released most of the detainees.

The entire area was cordoned off by barricades and no one was allowed to leave till the search operation had ended.

North Korean Tourism: On Board the First Cruise Ship to Sail the Closed Shores

By Marianne Barriaux

Aboard the Man Gyong Bong, fresh coffee was served, along with dried fish and local beer. Karaoke parties pepped the night life.

A North Korean soldier stands next to the Man Gyong Bong cruise ship at the Rason special economic zone in North Korea on Aug. 30, 2011

That said, turn on a faucet and there was usually no water – and cabins were more like dormitories. Welcome to North Korea’s first cruise ship. (See photos of Chinese tourists in North Korea.)

If all goes according to the plans of North Korean authorities, the 21-hour cruise on the converted freighter from the down-at-the-heels port city of Rajin to the northeastern part of North Korea, which is known for its scenic Mount Kumgang, will boost tourism and provide this isolated country with an immediate injection of much needed foreign currency.

To promote the project, North Korea’s usually publicity-shy regime invited foreign journalists and Chinese tour operators on a beta-test tour.

For the cruise, authorities spruced up a nearly 40-year-old freighter, which, until 1992, ferried between North Korea and Japan. “The conversion work on the ship was only completed a week ago,” said Hwang Chol Nam, deputy mayor of the Rason special economic zone.

The cruise idea was hatched by Taepung, a North Korean investment group, and the regional government of Rason. In 1991, the whole area on the northeast coast of North Korea that borders Russia and China, including the cities of Rajin and Sonbong, was declared a free-trade zone in order to stimulate investment. However, because of poor infrastructure, frequent power outages and a lack of confidence induced by a Stalinist-era management style, foreign investors stayed away and the zone never took off.

Now, the authorities are trying anew to infuse life into the project. North Korea’s economy is suffering bitterly because of international sanctions imposed on the totalitarian state over its nuclear-weapons program. (See photos of rural North Korea.)

After decades of isolation and bad economic policies, the country is desperately poor and its population has to cope with constant food shortages.

According to Hwang, the way forward in the zone is a mix of tourism and seafood processing.

Gradually, North Korea is opening to Western visitors. Presently, only the Mount Kumgang area has been developed for tourism – although there is a considerable political conflict in the region after a North Korean soldier shot a vacationing South Korean in 2008.

On our tour at the end of August, when the Man Gyong Bong left Rajin, hundreds of students and workers with flowers saw off the ship.

Any contacts with local people took place only with guides, owners of tourism companies or hotel employees. Out the window of the excursion bus, North Koreans could be spotted, in monotone clothes, cycling by or driving one of the rare cars on otherwise empty roads.

Portraits of Kim Jong Il and his deceased father Kim Il Sung adorned the vast lobby of the hotel in Rajin. The rooms were spartan but clean. Internet connections were not available, and connection by telephone was unreliable and expensive.

Passengers who decided to go onshore had to hand over their cell phones to cruise managers. According to Hwang, telecommunication in the free-trade zone will improve shortly and Internet access – albeit only to websites relating to the local economy – should be available later this month.

For Simon Cockerell, managing director of Beijing-based Koryo Tours, a company that specializes in North Korea travel, the attractiveness of the tour lies in the fact that the destination is utterly obscure. “Lots of people love to travel to unknown places,” he says. “And this is the least visited part of the least visited country on the planet.”

Heading straight for the abyss

Nobody has a good opinion of someone who has a low opinion of himself. And this has become so obvious among Pakistanis living abroad today. They are deeply depressed about what the future has in store for Pakistan and are at a loss to explain why Pakistan and its people should have fallen so low in the esteem of their host societies. As a consequence, they seem to have lost their feistiness, their pride and that cockiness that set them apart from other communities such as the Somalis, the Yemenis and Nigerians, whose homelands are/were similarly mired in turmoil. Pakistanis never used to think they were not good enough. In fact, we were sharply offended when people did not respect us because we felt innately that we were as good, if not better, than many others.

Much of that pride and self confidence has gone. For the first time after many years of travel, I could sense hollowness deep down in their hearts. Time and again, I discovered educated and sensitive Pakistanis acting as if they were reluctant, nay ashamed, to admit they were Pakistanis. When asked directly about their country of provenance, for example, in France and Italy, they preferred to avoid or fudge the question and if pushed the lighter-complexioned ones passed themselves off as Sicilians or Latinos and the darker ones as Sri Lankans or from the “subcontinent”. Asked why, one Pakistani replied: “For God’s sake who the hell wants to explain to a civilised individual abroad what is happening in Pakistan and why. It’s simply too shameful. Besides, I have no explanation for the way we are behaving at home.”

This became more obvious when half a dozen of them recounted incidences why they no longer believed that things would improve in Pakistan. Indeed, they were convinced that the situation would continue to go from bad to worse. Nearly each one of them had a story to tell of what they had either personally experienced or knew of a close relative who had suffered at the hands of the system and the people at home who worked it. Some of these are worth relating.

One Pakistani settled in Slovenia spoke of how just the other day the qabza group of one political party had raided his sister’s apartment in Karachi, broke open the lock of her room and declared that as he was at odds with a co-tenant, and that they had come to “teach her a lesson”. This ‘lesson’ involved ensuring she paid them the royal sum of Rs300,000 to vacate her room. Rather than help her recover his property the other residents of the apartment complex begged him to negotiate and make the payment instead of resisting the attackers. “Otherwise they will kill us,” they pleaded. The retired communications engineer living on a meager Slovenian pension managed to reduce the extortion price to Rs200,000 and, in fact, remitted the money to his terrified nephew to make the payment. Luckily a mutual friend stepped in and through yet another friend in the present Sindh set up had the Rangers pay a visit after which the qabza group vacated the premises.

After recalling this incident to his audience, which included some foreigners and myself, a deeply embarrassed former envoy to Slovenia, the old Pakistani expatriate raised his hands in prayer and called upon God to curse a country and a system where such men held sway. I nearly found myself saying “Ameen”.

Another incident involves a Pakistani, now living in Naples, selling Pakistan-made bedsheets and towels in sizeable quantities. He recounted how just the other day he had been contacted by a friend in the Federal Investigation Agency, who asked him to let him know if he knew of anyone making money illegally by, for example, avoiding paying taxes. Greatly impressed that his friend should be such a conscientious officer in an organisation that is considered a by word for corruption, he asked his friend why he was so keen to have such information. “Because that way we can get some money off him too,” his friend replied. “Of course, please tell him that he can carry on avoiding taxes as long as we get a share of the profits he makes.”

Yet another Pakistani living in Venice, where he owns a restaurant, chipped in to say that a friend of his running a textile factory in Karachi had called the other day to say that people who think Pakistan is a bad place to invest are wrong. Why? Because if anyone wanted to be his partner in setting up yet another textile factory, he could ensure that they wouldn’t have to pay any taxes and would even get free electricity. With such exemptions, he continued, there was no question of the venture failing.

Finally, a young married Pakistani woman presently qualifying for a permanent resident visa in a European country, where her husband works, related how her brother-in-law presently settled in America on a visit to Karachi was shot dead by two gunmen while shopping. According to his wife, who was with him, she heard one gunmen tell the other: “Shit, I think we shot the wrong man” as they hurriedly left the shop.

No wonder the view among our communities abroad, what to speak of foreigners, is that a grotesque chaos confronts Pakistan. Dominated by land grabbing, incredibly greedy, inept and corrupt politicians, Pakistan is heading straight for the abyss. Its leaders have nothing to offer but their own confusion and personal agendas. Their failed self perpetuating policies have pitted the country against just about everybody, neighbours, friends, international financiers and even each other. So self-absorbed they live in perpetual adoration of themselves. Hence, if they hear anything to the contrary then the man speaking so is a resolute liar.

Such self-inflicted wounds stemming from moral cowardice and their stubborn indifference are lethal for a nation. Alas, there now seems an inevitability about our fate that nothing can forestall. No wonder then that Pakistanis abroad are hopelessly depressed. Notably the plane, on which I returned only yesterday from London, by PIA flight 788, was by and large empty, while the outbound flights were full as they normally are. It is no wonder why people, like capital, are taking flight.