The Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) has threatened the government with drastic measures and announced to resist any government action to disarm MQM militants in Karachi. MQM has also demanded the removal of CCPO Karachi and IG Sindh and started a campaign against them after these two officers suggested door-to-door search for weapons in Karachi.
It is ironic that on one hand they have launced a campaign against Pakhtoons of Karachi by tagging them as Talibans, but on the other hand they are threatening the government just like the Talibans of North, to resist any action to disarm the MQM Militants.
Both sides looked a little ill at ease during Tuesday’s press conference
By Barbara Plett BBC News, Islamabad
The body language said it all.
The normally urbane and mild-mannered Pakistani Foreign Minister, Shah Mahmood Qureshi, was firm and spoke in categorical terms.
Meanwhile, Richard Holbrooke chatted quietly with Admiral Mike Mullen – an act that, whatever the intention, was perceived as rude and contemptuous by those present.
The US special envoy and chairman of joint chiefs of staff were holding a press conference with Mr Qureshi after “frank” discussions.
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…
It was January 1980. Just 11 months earlier, the Shah of Iran had been deposed. The King of Kings, who traced his lineage back to Cyrus the Great, had celebrated 25 centuries of Persian monarchy in the ruins of the imperial capital at Persepolis in October 1971.
A hundred million dollars were spent on entertaining and hosting dignitaries from around the globe. Cooks flown in from Maxim’s of Paris served up a dinner featuring peacock breast.
The man who claimed that he had launched a white revolution from the Peacock Throne now sat in an ordinary chair in Panama facing David Frost, the British talk show host. Frost asked the Shah about the crimes against humanity that had been committed by the Savak. Without blinking an eyelid, the Shah stated that he did not know that his secret police had tortured anyone. The fact that he had created an authoritarian state in which such acts were de rigueur did not bother him.
In May 1977, former US President Richard Nixon, a great friend of the Shah, was sitting across from David Frost in scenic southern California. Three years prior, Nixon had resigned in the wake of political outrage triggered by the Watergate scandal. The climax came when Frost asked Nixon if had broken the law by covering up the burglary to which Nixon replied, ‘Well, when the president does it that means it is not illegal.’
He went on to cite a statement that President Lincoln had made during the Civil War: ‘Actions which would be unconstitutional, could become lawful if undertaken for the purpose of preserving the Constitution and the Nation.’ Frost gasped and stated that there was no parallel between the crisis facing Lincoln and the crisis facing Nixon. It has been more than a year since Gen Pervez Musharraf removed his vaunted ‘second skin’, the army uniform, and almost a year since he resigned as president. He is busy globetrotting as a celebrity, commanding speaking fees in the $100,000 to 200,000 range. 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.”
WASHINGTON: US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton acknowledged that the United States too had a share in creating the problem that plagues Pakistan today.
In an appearance before a subcommittee of the House Appropriations Committee on Thursday, Hillary Clinton explained how the militancy in Pakistan was linked to the US-backed proxy war against the Soviets in Afghanistan.
‘We can point fingers at the Pakistanis. I did some yesterday frankly. And it’s merited because we are wondering why they just don’t go out there and deal with these people,’ said Clinton while referring to an earlier hearing in which she said that Pakistan posed a ‘mortal threat’ to the world.
‘But the problems we face now to some extent we have to take responsibility for, having contributed to it. We also have a history of kind of moving in and out of Pakistan,’ she said.
‘Let’s remember here… the people we are fighting today we funded them twenty years ago… and we did it because we were locked in a struggle with the Soviet Union.’ Read more…
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 Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) has threatened the government with drastic measures and announced to resist any government action to disarm MQM militants in Karachi. MQM has also demanded the removal of CCPO Karachi and IG Sindh and started a campaign against them after these two officers suggested door-to-door search for weapons in Karachi.
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.
WASHINGTON: US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton acknowledged that the United States too had a share in creating the problem that plagues Pakistan today.
These days you will see massive campaigns against Pakistan identifying its security failures, deal with Talibans and the ultimate fall by loosing 