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© 2007-2008. All rights reserved. AhmedQuraishi.com & PakNationalists Verbatim copying and distribution of this entire article is permitted in any medium without royalty provided this notice is preserved.
New Elections In Pakistan, Direct Contact Between Politicians And Foreign Govts Must Be Banned
Whatever the Interior Advisor is saying is cock and bull story and has nothing to do with ground realities. No media policy or media plan exist to create a national consensus against terrorism or its perpetrators. Baitullah Mehsud is not even mentioned as the main terrorist of the country. He is not even declared as the most wanted man by the government. His connections with India or Afghan government are never exposed. Not a single terrorist has been convicted or hanged in the last 8 years nor brought in front of the media. We see a total and complete breakdown of the system under this government. All decisions are being taken by foreign players with President acting as facilitator and local fixer. He has all his assets worth billions of dollars outside the country and has no stake in its security and stability. Under these circumstances, the only option we see is that of sacking of this CIA-backed government and fresh elections immediately with strict conditions that no politician or party would meet or have any contacts with foreign secret services or diplomats before and during the election.
By ZAID HAMID Sunday, 12 October 2008.
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan—Before we initiate this week’s critical political analysis, a quick revision of the last few weeks’ developments is necessary.
We had written:
“Mr. Zardari and his ally in NWFP government, the ANP, is in a serious crisis now. They are on the hit list of the most ruthless terrorists in the world today and already ANP top leadership has narrowly survived multiple assassination attempts with many of their leaders already assassinated. Mr. Zardari is also on the hit list and the probability is that the terrorists just might get lucky. What makes it almost impossible for the new PPP government and Zardari to move aggressively on U.S. agenda is the fact that their reputation as corrupt leaders, governance and fiscal management is so chaotic that it is almost threatening the entire system. That makes it four fronts to fight simultaneously for Mr. Zardari:
In our assessment, the PPP government is hopelessly short of bare minimum levels of sincerity, credibility, efficiency and planning to handle any one of them let alone all four. All decisions of this government are being taken by few point men with suspected links to CIA without any consultation, parliamentary debate or even discussion in the cabinet. Parliament is a good for nothing showcase. It was known to PPP government that national consensus would be against cooperating with the Americans. That was the reason for their reluctance to avoid a parliamentary debate. Now they are forced into it.
Nawaz Sharif and PML(N) are maintaining a lower profile, watching the game from the sidelines for the moment as Mr. Zardari continue to shoot himself one bullet at a time. They know that if Zardari falls and re-election is called, they have a fair chance of making it back big time. But the problem is while Mr. Zardari remains the political dictator, the damage being done to the country is so severe that it may need a radical surgery and not a soft political transformation to restore sanity in the coming days.”
Finally, the government was forced to call for a parliamentary session on terrorism and asked the military and intelligence chiefs to brief the MPs in secrecy. The process is on-going as we write and would continue for a few days. For its part, military is more than happy to include the politicians in the decision making process as it takes the load off the GHQ for decisions on the war on terror. Politicians had been reluctant for many reasons to be included in the decision making process and wanted to pass the buck to the army but now they have to listen and do something about it. Another reason why the army was very interested in getting the politicians involved is that the mysterious foreign info-warfare against the Pakistani armed forces and ISI was getting louder with no defense from the government or the politicians. U.S. had been trying to rope in ISI as a rogue agency and the government of PPP was supportive of the idea. Our readers would remember the embarrassing fiasco by the PPP government of bringing ISI under Ministry of Interior just before PM Gilani’s visit to United States. The attempts still continue.
---------------------------------------------------------------- The support was extended by the Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee after a meeting at the JCSC Headquarters. General Tariq Majid, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee, chaired the meeting. http://www.dawn.com/cgi-bin/dina.pl?file=top1.htm&date=20081012
---------------------------------------------------------------- But given a tradition of distrust between the generals and the politicians, the whole truth about Pakistan’s role in the so-called “war on terrorism” may not be told in only the third such secret sitting of the National Assembly and Senate in Pakistan’s parliamentary history... http://www.dawn.com/cgi-bin/dina.pl?file=top1.htm&date=20081008
Ideally, what should be the purpose of such briefings? For the last eight years since 9/11, Pakistan does not have an anti-terrorism policy. It does not have any publicly defined terms of engagement with U.S. or has any definition of terrorism. First it was General Musharraf taking decisions and now Mr. Zardari is going overboard to please his handlers.
Ideally, the parliament must define, write and announce its Afghan and counter-terrorism policy considering the threats Pakistan faces from local, regional and global players. The problem faced by Pakistan is due to U.S. invasion of Afghanistan. That is NOT Pakistan’s war as it is being portrayed by the PPP government. The entire set of terms with U.S. needs to be redefined and re-negotiated. Pakistan is now under attack and faces multiple wars from outside a well within its borders. It is time a major policy re-think is done.
So far, the entire State apparatus operates on ad hoc basis, without any crisp, focused and determined guidelines either for national leaders, security managers or for the allies or enemies of Pakistan. The defined counter-terrorism security policy which should be ratified by the parliament would give a strong political, legal, diplomatic and military cover to Pakistan’s foreign and domestic policies and national security decisions.
If the parliament cannot do this, this entire briefing would be an eyewash and desperate attempt by the PPP government to clear its name and to find some legitimacy for their pro-U.S. policy. Opposition also senses this betrayal.
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We can be sure that PPP, ANP, MQM and JUI [the governing coalition parties] will not let any serious conclusion come out of this session to create any hurdles for the U.S. in their designs for Pakistan. Army was asked to give a briefing and they did, hoping that politicians will take it from there to form a national consensus. It does not matter if the briefing given is detailed or not. The issues which need to be addressed and resolved are far more fundamental than needing complex tactical details of operations or releasing names of local commanders or their association with various foreign or local secret services.
The issue of Pakistan’s Afghan policy, its national security challenges and threats from U.S., Al-Qaeda, TTP and Indians, national anti-terrorism policy and Pakistan’s relations with U.S. simply do not depend upon tactical military briefings to start with as these are principled policy decisions involving much wider issue of diplomacy, foreign policy and politics. There is absolutely no doubt that U.S. would not let any consensus emerge out of this session and a joint policy declaration is already prepared without any debate to be released by the PPP government after the session.
It is all an eyewash what we are seeing. Politicians are NOT willing to take up the challenge of addressing security and terrorism issues as they end up confronting the U.S. directly if they do. They will blame the military indeed for a disappointing briefing but the fact remains that deciding the rules of engagement with U.S., allowing U.S. attacks inside Pakistan, taking positions on U.S. war inside Afghanistan, Afghan policy to suit Pakistan’s national interest as well as Indian involvement in supporting insurgencies and rebellions inside Pakistan are known political issues and do not even require a briefing from the military.
Political parties have all the reason to get serious now on this issue. The government parties as well as opposition are now directly under attack and threat from the terrorists of TTP and Baitullah Mehsud. So much so that some of top ANP leadership has moved to London along with their families for fears of safety and PML (N) is also on the hit list. But PPP insists upon playing the American game.
Whatever the Interior Advisor is saying is cock and bull story and has nothing to do with ground realities. No media policy or media plan exist to create a national consensus against terrorism or its leaders. Baitullah Mehsud is not even mentioned as master terrorist of the country. He is not even declared as the most wanted man by the government. His connections with India or Afghan government are never exposed. Not a single terrorist has been convicted or hanged in the last 8 years nor brought in front of media.
The country is going through its worst periods of history though the situation is not out of control yet:
On all critical counts of:
We see a total and complete breakdown and stalling of the system under this government. All decisions are being taken by foreign players with President acting as facilitator and local fixer. He has all his assets worth billions of dollars and his children outside the country and has no stake in its security and stability.
Under these circumstances, the only option we see is that sacking of this CIA-backed government and fresh elections immediately with strict conditions that no politicians or party would meet or have any contacts with foreign secret services or diplomats before and during the elections.
This existing system and democratic experience is not working and in fact is burning the country faster than anytime in its history. It simply cannot go on.
This column is extracted from a situation report released by BRASSTACKS, a security and defense analysis think tank based in Islamabad. Mr. Zaid Hamid is its Founding Consultant. He can be reached at info@brasstacks.biz You can also visit www.brasstacks.pk
© 2007-2008. All rights reserved. AhmedQuraishi.com & PakNationalists Verbatim copying and distribution of this entire article is permitted in any medium without royalty provided this notice is preserved. Don’t forget to post a comment Do NOT underestimate the power of your comment please click here to comment or to read what otherS have SAID ABOUT THIS STORY. oR VISIT the Paknationalist group to post a comment there.
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