The reason why there is so much despondency in Pakistan is because there is no road map to get out of the so-called War on Terror – a nomenclature that even the Obama Administration has discarded as being a negative misnomer. To cure the patient the diagnosis has to be accurate, otherwise the wrong medicine can sometimes kill the patient. In order to find the cure, first six myths that have been spun around the US-led “Global War on Terror” (GWOT) have to be debunked.
Myth No. 1: This is Pakistan’s war
Since no Pakistani was involved in 9/11 and the CIA-trained Al Qaeda was based in Afghanistan, how does it concern us? It is only when General Musharraf buckled under US pressure and sent our troops into Waziristan in late 2003-early 2004 that Pakistan became a war zone. It took another three years of the Pakistan army following the same senseless tactics as used by the US and NATO forces in Afghanistan (aerial bombardment) plus the slaughter at Lal Masjid, for the creation of the Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP). If our security forces are being targeted today by the Taliban and their suicide bombers, it is because they are perceived to be proxies of the US army. Iran is ideologically opposed to both Al Qaeda and the Taliban yet why are its security forces not attacked by terrorists? The answer is because their President does not pretend to be a bulwark against Islamic extremism in return for US dollars and support.
Michael Scheuer (ex-CIA officer and author of the book Imperial Hubris), writing in The Washington Post in April 2007, cited Musharraf’s loyalty to the US even when it went against Pakistan’s national interests by giving two examples: the first was Musharraf helping the US in removing a pro-Pakistan Afghan government and replacing it with a pro-Indian one; and, the second, for sending Pakistani troops into the tribal areas and turning the tribesmen against the Pakistan army. To fully understand Musharraf’s treachery against Pakistan, it is important to know that almost a 100,000 troops were sent into the tribal areas to target around 1000 suspected Al-Qaeda members – thus earning the enmity of at least 1.5 million armed local tribals in the 7 tribal agencies of Pakistan. Read more…
The fact that the Taliban is a party of the peasant classes, but certainly not the only one, is not news in Afghanistan or Pakistan. It is thus interesting that The New York Times (“Taliban Exploit Class Rifts to Gain Ground in Pakistan,” 16 April 2009) is now exploiting the fact the Taliban do represent significant groups of peasants as if this is news. This indication of a possible reframing of the war in Afghanistan and Pakistan as a class war is significant as the U.S. escalates the intensity and scale of warfare in the region.
My Afghan-Canadian research partner, Hamayon Rastgar, has said many times since we returned from a research trip in Afghanistan that “the West gives the monopoly of anti-imperialism to the Taliban” by crushing and continuing to suppress socialist forces in Afghanistan and by portraying the complex insurgency in the simplistic way Western governments and media do.
Many non-violent resisters as well as various insurgent groups oppose the Taliban, the mujaheddin, and imperialist forces. The complexity of the resistance and insurgent forces remain opaque to most Western analysts. Articles by Afghan intellectuals engaged in non-violent resistance against all the forces of repression – the Taliban, the mujaheddin, and the Western forces – are rarely translated for Western readers. Westerners believe all insurgents are under a Taliban banner. However, as an Afghan Maoist leader told us: “The government credits the Taliban for every insurgent attack; the Taliban like to take the credit; and that works for everyone else at this moment.”
These days you will see massive campaigns against Pakistan identifying its security failures, deal with Talibans and the ultimate fall by loosing Nuclear Weapons to the extremists putting every inch on earth in danger.
Stop getting afraid of this massive propaganda campaigns spreading fear among the Pakistani people that Pakistan is going to collapse. Pakistan is not going to collapse!! It is being pushed towards wall by utmost pressure so that the nation becomes afraid. The best way to control a nation is when it is afraid. This is what the US politicians do with their own people. Dropping fear bombs that Al Qaeda is coming, Terrorists will replay 9/11 and what not to win elections.
The point being criticized by Mr Tariq Fatmi in a recent show “Second opinion – April 20″ that the State should not surrender to one stateless actor at gun point is nothing less of non-sense with all due respect. You need to understand that stateless actor pick up guns when the State does not do what it is required to do!! That is to save the lives and provide justice to its people. This is the failure of the government that Stateless actors are emerging….in form of Talibans or Mumbai attackers or Al-Qaida. It is the failure of the Muslim leadership collectively to respond to the Economic Terrorism done by the west to all the under privileged nations of the world especially the Muslim world since these are the countries with greatest wealth…..or a nation without leaders.
The BJP’s idea of India gives heart to the religious caboodle in Pakistan, and in turn fortifies what they would like their idea of Pakistan to be. —Reuters/File photo
A potentially sinister event has prompted this column. It is my sense from a few visits to Pakistan beginning with 1997 that a large number of Pakistanis prefer the rightwing religious revivalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to rule India. On the other hand, they are wary of the Congress. This tendency, I gather, is more pronounced within the Pakistani bureaucracy and the military. I know of Pakistani diplomats and officials who would be privately praying for the BJP to win the April-May elections in India.
To some extent this is true also of some of the journalists I have interacted with from different parts of Pakistan. They include those that claim to work for peace and dialogue between the two countries. The BJP has sold them the myth that it can alone solve the Kashmir dispute, not the Congress or anyone else.
There is a counter grouse among Pakistanis. Many of them feel, and they are probably spot on, that the bulk of the Indian establishment, including that media which works with the establishment, has a subcutaneous liking for the military in preference to civilian governments in Islamabad, and, in recent days, for General Pervez Musharraf in particular. This was reflected in some ways in the standing ovation the former army chief received recently at the end of a televised interaction he had with the movers and shakers of Delhi. And who was the one person Musharraf wanted to meet in Delhi but couldn’t? It was none other than his favourite BJP leader Atal Behari Vajpayee.
An inmate in the US prison facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, has told Al Jazeera that he has been beaten while in custody and had tear gas used on him after refusing to leave his cell.
Mohammad al-Qurani, a Chadian national, said in a phone call to Al Jazeera that the alleged ill-treatment “started about 20 days” before Barack Obama became US president and “since then I’ve been subjected to it almost every day”.
“Since Obama took charge he has not shown us that anything will change,” he said.
____________
“They had a thick rubber or plastic baton they beat me with. They emptied out about two canisters of tear gas on me,” he told Al Jazeera.
I just came across this documentary and watched it. I wonder why the CNN and BBC never showed this side of War to its viewers? Isn’t it important to show to the world what the Americans and its closest allies have done to the Afghan people. Probably this documentary will explain to us the fact as to why the Talibans never accept any offer for negotiation with the Americans and its allies. More then 6000 Talibans and other Pashtuns were massacred who tried to surrender or whose only crime was the fact that they spoke Pashtu language. I am sure the American viewers will open up their eyes to this new reality emerging from their so called “WAR ON TERROR”.
According to the documentary information”
“The film was researched by award-winning journalist Najibullah Quraishi. Produced and directed by Irish filmmaker and former BBC producer Jamie Doran,
The reason why there is so much despondency in Pakistan is because there is no road map to get out of the so-called War on Terror – a nomenclature that even the Obama Administration has discarded as being a negative misnomer. To cure the patient the diagnosis has to be accurate, otherwise the wrong medicine can sometimes kill the patient. In order to find the cure, first six myths that have been spun around the US-led “Global War on Terror” (GWOT) have to be debunked.
These days you will see massive campaigns against Pakistan identifying its security failures, deal with Talibans and the ultimate fall by loosing 
