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Posted by admin in Foreign Policy on February 20th, 2019
Prime Minister Imran Khan impressed the constituents to imagine the phenomenon of “change” as a driving force for future-making. Was the political power a motivating factor to influence the curious minds of the masses or was it an exercise in self-propagated approach to gain success at a critical juncture of Pakistan’s contemporary history? For too long Pakistanis experienced the nuisance of corrupt politics. Reality has its checks and balances based on the consequences. PM Khan is no stranger to the much charged and corrupt culture of politics. Pakistan had witnessed many critical moments of historical developments in its search for identity, unity and future-making. Often dismayed and unimpressed are the people of a young and educated generation who find no place to participate in the movement and struggle for change and reformation of the decades old corrupted and degenerated system of obsolete systems of political governance. At a time, Imran Khan – a comparatively young, reasonable and open-minded politician enticed the young generation to be hopeful for change but it is questionable if there is rational substance to be optimistic about “rebuilding” the nation. In an age of reason, it is important to know and determine where Pakistan is and how to go forward with a planned Action Plan. Imran Khan has a moral and intellectual outlook as head of a progressive political organization should have imagined and prepared a Proactive Plan for New Thinking and a Plan for Action once he assumed the office. To learn from the tragic tensions of history, all of the previous self-styled leaders including the unwelcomed four General of coups and their byproducts – Bhuttos, Sharifs, Zardari and Musharaf were all dead-ended entries to the essence and freedom movement of Pakistan. They stole billions and billions from the national treasury and stabbed the nation. Could Mr. Khan realize what went wrong and how they consumed precious time and resources of the nation and derailed its prospects for future-making as a viable democratic nation in Southwest Asia? If Pakistan had a continuous culture of political change and educated and learning leadership, the country should not be interdependent on foreign aid and a subservient to the US or Western political interests. There appears to be conflicting time zones and culture of thinking between the masses and the ruling elite confined to comfortable quarters of Islamabad. Leaders come and go but nothing changes on the ground for the public good. The endless self-repeating delusions flow for even more the same at this juncture. PM Khan is either not connected to the dots or he is surrounded by the same set of individualistic absolutism prevalent at the beginning but most often is ridiculed as it progresses and ends-up in disastrous consequences for the nation. Words and statements alone do not change an unproductive culture of the political nuisance. There is nothing new on the ground to substantiate any new visionary approach to rebuild the nation. Those who are part of the problem cannot be part of the solution. Mr. Khan should analyze critically what is operational and what is dysfunction within the compound of the central government. He should be open to voices of reason and enlightenment. There seem to be too much centralized boxed functions in Islamabad and not the much-decentralized presence of the federal governance at major provincial centers of activities. This should be reorganized to serve the interest of the masses and proved services across many divergent zones. Pakistan desperately needs new and young educated and honest people to embrace the challenges of the present and future-making. Pakistanis living abroad are the asset to be counted to enhance the planned cause of political reformation and nation-building.
Great spoken symbols do not require immeasurable importance. All egoistic politicians assert such slogans to maintain the irrational balance between the reality consequential developments. At this stage, the nation is receptive to see how and what Imran Khan could deliver to change the engrossed misfortunes of the nation. All responsible leaders defy the urge to make flamboyant expressions of political ambitions which negate realism and national interest. To a visionary and effective leader, it is incumbent to know your strengths and weaknesses and the people around your immediate circle. If you have a vision of the future, explain it and connect it to the known aspirations of the masses that were denied the rightful thought and place in the past. If imperatives of change and reformation for nation-rebuilding were of utmost vitality, should Mr. Khan not enlist the educated people of knowledge, wisdom and global experience to plan the political change and enhance the priorities of “nation-rebuilding” as part of an Action Plan? The Pakistani nation has a delicate eco-system of social, moral, political and intellectual diversities and sensitivities. Those dealing with the phenomenon of change, must know and understand how to acquire an inner understanding of such distinctions and inequalities to bridge the unity of the nation. Reason has many enemies if Pakistani political culture is closed but the reasoned discussion could lead to rebuilding the trust across many divides. If Imran Khan thought that his symbolic opinions will bear fruit without any efforts, it would be unthinkable to imagine a destiny out of inaccessible communication to the masses. Destiny is always new and young, not obsolete or incapacitated. Mr. Khan should motivate the official circles with a sense of responsibility, services and honest role model. If the leadership statements are unexcitable shadows of illusion without truth and strength, the new leadership will go nowhere except consuming time and precious energies as it happened before for almost 50 years. Pakistan is a victim of failed and disgraced leadership.
To reshape and rebuild the destiny of deprived masses, Mr. Khan should articulate a focused approach to deal with some of the urgent issues. The issue of fair and equal services to the people, legal justice, security of the country, unity of diverse provincial cultures and integration, reformed systems of political governance, sustainable economic and technological productivity, educational system and health services could be prioritized for the first year of the Development Plan, if there is such an official instrument at this time. Mr. Khan wanted to hold the corrupt politicians accountable for their criminal atrocities and stolen wealth. He must set up a high power legal body with competent judges to hold the trials and punish the political thugs and criminals. How come Zardari, Sharif and Musharaf are roaming around freely?
None of them was alone but had hundreds and thousands of culprits to rob the nation. If the intent and resolve are clear, what are they waiting for to prosecute the indicted criminals? This must be done in a few months, not a year if all concerned are honest and true to their commitments. Pakistan should not be held hostage for change by the criminals. If the stolen wealth is returned to the national treasury, Pakistan will not ask the IMF or Saudis for new loans. Does Imran Khan have any compassion for the indicted criminals? This must assume a priority for action.
The focal issue appears to be –how to change a dreadful and unproductive political culture into a promising future? It requires ingenuity, vision and workable plan to ensure positive outcomes for the best of people. To awaken the consciousness of political accountability, PM Khan would need to move fast based on a well chalked out plan for change and reformation of the political systems. Time is critical and offers a historic opportunity to all concerned. Defying cynicism and hoping to be optimistic, Mr. Khan and his colleagues better do a soul searching as to where they are and how to move forward? Otherwise, they cannot go from anywhere. It is a cumbersome challenge but must be encountered otherwise, time and opportunities will be lost with disastrous consequences for the present and future generations of Pakistanis.
The new Pakistani administration must detach itself from the delusional glimmers of American policies and practices in Afghanistan and the region. American drone attacks on Northwest Pakistan and its entanglement in Afghanistan must end on its own record of failure. America is a big game player in Pakistan and its security apparatus. The aid gimmick has kept Pakistan interdependent on the policy-making of the US administration and a nation being viewed more liability than an asset to the American geopolitical interests in that region. All that can go wrong have gone wrong with the system of Pakistani political governance. Any realistic observer taking a dispassionate survey of the current picture of Pakistan would agree that time and essence of history call for planned change to produce a sustainable and productive culture of new thinking and actions for the security and future-making of a new Pakistan.
Dr. Mahboob A. Khawaja specializes in international affairs-global security, peace and conflict resolution and international affairs with keen interests in Islamic-Western comparative cultures and civilizations, and author of several publications including the latest: Global Peace, Security and Conflict Resolution: Approaches to Understand the Current Issues and Future-Making. Lambert Academic Publishing, Germany, October 2017.
Posted by admin in Corrupt Pakistani Judges, JUDICIARY on February 11th, 2019
Irrespective of what has been said in the attached link on sundry issues, Qazi Faiz Isa is a judge who needs being investigated and scrutinized for allowing Nawaz Sharif and family a free pass in the Hudaibya case. This was an open and shut case of huge corruption against the Sharif family. This family was sprung from this case by corrupt judges, and their collusion with the then Chairman NAB, Chaudhary Qamar Zaman.
This was a fact known by all and sundry, and more than one Justice of the Supreme Court had observed this fact while hearing the Panama case.
Belatedly NAB chose to take this observation as a direction, and filed for a review of this case with the Supreme Court, in order to right a villainous wrong committed by its ex-Chairman.
And Justice Qazi Faiz Isa chose to throw this case out and forever barred its hearing by the apex court.. He point-blank refused to allow the NAB prosecutor to invoke the observations made by the present Chief Justice. As a matter of fact, this judge more or less threatened the prosecutor with jail, should he refer to the subject observation, by warning him that should he pursue the line of argument he was following, the latter would be charged with contempt.
This judge also bound the media not to report this matter.
Had this judge been half the judge he is masquerading at being, he ought to have played fair with Pakistan, and taken ‘judicial notice’ of the following facts:
” Judicial Notice”, for those of my readers who may not be aware of this term, simply means taking notice of a general truth by a court, which is so well known, that it need not be proved in a court of law.
This is something which each individual does every day of his life.
Qazi Faiz Isa should be held to account for giving safe passage to arch-criminals whose combined criminality destitute and despoiled the country that this judge has sworn to defend.
This man needs to be investigated.
And this is something that should be debated far and wide, night and day.
And after Qazi Isa, so should Athar Minallah be opened to scrutiny, along with the NAB prosecutor who combined with him to bail out Nawaz Sharif and his grasping brood, which made possible the infamous “43-page judgement.”
Remember, this is our country. It is something worth speaking up for…
All this “Me-lording” is all very good and civilized stuff. But it is about time that we took it upon ourselves to see what the judicial black cloaks are covering up.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-izup0KkQm4
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China, as part of its recent military and foreign policies, has planned to upgrade on a large scale its first aircraft carrier, the Liaoning, to sell it to Pakistan, its ally, in order to compete with India. This selling is to increase Pakistani Navy’s strength, facing India equally and making of Pak a better ally for China.
An aircraft carrier fleet of the Chinese PLA Navy arrives in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region on July 7 for a visit to mark the 20th anniversary of Hong Kong’s return to China. The fleet comprises the country’s first aircraft carrier Liaoning, two destroyers and a frigate. The fleet will leave Hong Kong on July 11. (Picture source: PLA HK Garrison)
An official media report separately disclosed that China has planned to carry out a “large-scale upgrade” of China’s first aircraft carrier, the Liaoning, and “sell it to Pakistan to compete with India”! It described Pakistan “as the best destination for it” and said that by then the Liaoning, which was commissioned into the PLAN in September 2012, will have served the Chinese Navy for about 18 years. Gwadar and Karachi are already described by Chinese Navy strategists as a “logistics base” and “PLA Navy (PLAN) base” respectively. This does mean that the carrier could be sold to Pak by 2020.
This isn’t the only military vehicle that China wants to sell to Pakistan. During the past few months, plenty of armament and vehicles have been sold to Pakistani armed forces, including nuclear weapons technology, warships, aircraft and missiles. In addition to that, China and Pakistan both take part to more and more joint exercises on their shared borders. Moreover, is China sending aircraft to Pakistan to help them understand Indian aircraft’s technologies and characteristics, in order to counter them more efficiently (J-11, J-11B and Su-30MKK to simulate India’s Su-30MKI, and J-10C to simulate the Rafale fighters India is to acquire).
Military cooperation between those two countries seems to increase more and more all along the months. And China appears intending to integrate Pakistan into its military system to fulfil its global ambitions. Pakistan would then become an outpost for Chinese extended global maritime reach.
All of this can largely be explained by the intentions China has to extend its military and political influence beyond its borders. Recently, China actually has shown to the world its desire to militarily secure the South China Sea, and maybe even the Indian Ocean, by increasing its military power and presence in these areas. In order to make it possible, China has made the decision to deeply transform its armed forces by enhancing its naval capabilities, through the building of brand new vessels, but also through the training of more maritime personnel.
PLA Navy (PLAN) strategists emphasized that, in order to be able to achieve such goals, China would have to launch new carrier battle formations in East and South China. Therefore, China has decided to build 5 aircraft carriers and launch them by 2025-2030. Another 6th could even be considered but whether this one will be built remains uncertain.
Posted by admin in Col.Riaz Jafri (Retd), OPINION LEADER on February 5th, 2019
When I was serving as Director Psychological Operations (PsyOps) in GHQ way back in the early 1990s, I had the privilege of revolutionizing this neglected subject and upgrading its significance in the Army in a big way for the first time. The then Army Chief Gen Asif Nawaz backed my efforts. I had argued that while the armed forces prepared itself during peacetime for the future war by carrying out intensive physical, technical, educational, operational and administrative training and procuring weapon systems in order to defeat the enemies on the battlefield, When proxy war failed to achieve its objectives, the subversive war was further stepped up which is now being termed as hybrid war. It has been made more lethal by adding social media to heighten political polarization and to sharpen the existing divides and to create tensions in civil-military relations. Besides Indian water terrorism, Indo-US-Afghan aggressive tactics are aimed at creating chaos and melting down Pakistan’s economy. remain operative both during peace and wartime to supplement war effort.
Peace time psy ops are akin to pre-H Hour artillery bombardment to soften the adversary from within. The only difference is that the bombardment is noisy and can be responded through counter bombardment, but in case of PSYOPS, the deceptive and pain-free stings and arrows aimed at subverting and controlling the minds are silent and invisible. It is slow-poisoning of the minds to shatter the will to fight.
Pakistan had gone through the painful experience of the 1971 tragedy in which India had made maximum use of Psy Ops to brainwash the Bengalis. It took Indian psychological operators 23 years of sustained efforts to subvert the minds of the Bengalis and make them love India and detest West Pakistan. All that time, we kept sleeping and didn’t take note of the building storm. Indo-Bengali poisonous propaganda was not countered and no effort was made to show the true face of Hindus who in connivance with the British had turned the Muslim nobility of East Bengal into servitude and had made the region the most impoverished region of united India during the British rule.
Bifurcation of Bengal and making Calcutta part of West Bengal in 1947 further worsened the socio-economic plight of East Bengal. Our successive rulers failed to address the genuine grievances of eastern province and above all to integrate the two widely apart provinces because of which the gap kept widening. The germs of Bengali nationalism were first stoked through language riots in 1953 followed by political and economic deprivations. The youth was systematically indoctrinated by Hindu teachers and professors. In the final act of the drama, Indian protégé Sheikh Mujibur Rahman was given a free hand to build Bengali nationalism and to foment hatred against West Pakistan. Once the small-sized Pak military force lost the support of Bengalis, East Pakistan became a ripe apple to be plucked and it became easier for the Indian military to intervene and win the war on the East front.
After the creation of Bangladesh, RAW turned its attention towards Sindh and Baluchistan but we once again failed to checkmate subversion of the two provinces. By early 1990s, Sindh had turned into a wounded province due to urban-rural divide, while Baluchistan had gone through a full-fledged insurgency in the 1970s. RAW also had a hand in keeping the Pashtunistan issue alive and its footprints were seen in the Saraiki belt. I reminded the policymakers in the Army about the dangers of subversion and the need for a counter plan to thwart its ill effects on the society both at the Army and national levels.
Indian Psy Ops were aimed at fomenting misgivings, disillusionment, hatred, ethnicity, sectarianism, religious extremism, political polarization, intensifying love for materialism and contaminating the moral turpitude of the society, the effects of which had also seeped into the armed forces. The ultimate aim was to weaken the willpower of the armed forces to fight. All these trends intensified in the 1990s.
I held a strong view that no amount of tangible factors will help until and unless the intangibles are also strengthened to build up morals, patriotism and nationalism in the armed forces as well as the society as a whole that had become vulnerable to foreign subversion. I highlighted the need to create awareness about the pitfalls of this silent war in which India had gained substantial expertise. I had given a workable plan to develop defensive and offensive PSYOPS. Had a national Psy Ops Cell been established in 1993 as suggested by me and approved by the GHQ, we would have been in a better position to confront the ongoing hybrid war.
After 9/11, India teamed up with the US, Israel, the West and the puppet Afghan regime and launched a massive covert war coupled with subversive war to destabilize, denuclearize, secularize and balkanize Pakistan.
It is now an established fact that the US enabled Gen Musharraf regime in 2002 to expand and modernize Pak electronic media by doling out millions of dollars. Most leading media houses were purchased by foreign powers to promote their agenda of demonizing Islam, liberalizing the society, promoting obscenity and vulgarity and deflecting the youth towards a life of fun and frolic. Media was misused to sell tutored perceptions, to clone the minds of the elites, foment extremism, divide the society, and breed extreme hatred. The secular-Islamic divide was widened.
Purchased proxies were used to destabilize FATA, settled areas of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Baluchistan. Urban terrorism was ignited with the help of Blackwater, CIA-FBI network, MQM and NGOs duly aided by their toadies.
Army, Rangers, FC and Police had to make sustained efforts from 2009 onward to rollback rural and urban terrorism but at a heavy cost and much to the grief of adversaries of Pakistan. Today, Pakistan can confidently claim that the back of foreign-supported terrorist groups has been comprehensively broken and there is no network or safe haven anywhere in the northwest. Likewise, the militancy of MQM has been busted and the separatist movement in Baluchistan reined in.
Notwithstanding these outstanding achievements that have been acknowledged by the world, the terrorist groups based in Afghanistan in concert with their handlers, facilitators and financiers in Pakistan are still able to carry out random attacks. Nationwide Operation Raddul Fasad coupled with fencing of western border and gradual implementation of National Action Plan are taking care of these aspects adequately.
When proxy war failed to achieve its objectives, the subversive war was further stepped up which is now being termed as hybrid war. It has been made more lethal by adding social media to heighten political polarization and to sharpen the existing divides and to create tensions in civil-military relations. Besides Indian water terrorism, Indo-US-Afghan aggressive tactics are aimed at creating chaos and melting down Pakistan’s economy.
The Army is neither equipped nor has the expertise and capacity to fight back the hybrid war in which electronic and social media are playing a lead role. So far, no plan has been made to counter this menace. As a consequence, the inaudible and concealed hybrid war has been going on unabatedly unchecked.
Unfortunately, the veterans have bolstered the negativity of social media. Instead of behaving maturely, in their exuberance to exhibit love for Pak Army and their parent units, they have been adding fuel to the deplorable media war between the Patwaris (PML-N lovers) and Youthias (PTI lovers), each trying to gun down the other and intensifying intolerance. The disgruntled veterans are using this platform to air their grouses and have crossed all limits of decency by going to the extent of passing filthy comments against each other. The majority which is tilted toward the PTI has been passing loathsome remarks, unbecoming of a gentleman.
As if this was not enough, they divulge information about the happenings in the combat zones. Some have been passing details about ongoing operations much before the desired details could reach GHQ. In some cases, the media received information about an incident in greater details than what was received by GHQ. On occasions, the media pressed the ISPR to confirm the information that is collected from social media and the ISPR couldn’t answer back. This has been happening since some young officers deployed in the combat zones shared information with their retired seniors, or relatives, or in the social media groups run by veterans in which hate-filled articles of civil writers are also shared and lauded.
WhatsApp Groups run by retired unit officers in particular mindlessly divulge names and location of units and officers and intimate details of activities of their units. Likewise, all promotion and postings of senior officers are flashed. Senior veterans taking part in TV talk at times display their political biases and many times have to face embarrassing situations.
No heed was paid by the veterans to several warnings issued by the GHQ. It was also learnt that India, in particular, had penetrated most groups. Facebook is already controlled by RAW from Pune and by the Jews. In the wake of the veterans displaying lack of sense of security and becoming a security hazard and an embarrassment for the Army, the GHQ was compelled to debar serving Army officers and re-employed retired officers from taking part in social media. Restrictions have now been imposed upon the veterans on use of WhatsApp, Twitter and Veterans Groups operative in social media. Retired officers operating groups having military signatures, or created on the basis of military affiliations such as PMA Courses, parent units, staff courses etc have been told to close them or change the title nomenclatures.
Some of the veterans have resented the move, arguing it shouldn’t be applicable to the retired officers. One by the name of Brig retired Syed Hanif Ahmed has recently circulated his vitriolic write-up on social media, terming the decision as illogical and stupid. While the saner people all across the globe are raising their voices against the hazards of social media which is dividing the families, he has termed the social media as a necessity. In his view, social media helps in keeping the family connected, and in maintaining a bond between the serving and retired officers. He forgets that this bond had been happily kept intact before the birth of social media.
In his jaundiced view, growing bondage between a unit and retired officers and families because of WhatsApp has vexed the senior military leadership. To give vent to his feelings and the questions, “Are we traitors, or are doing something illogical and immoral”? So far, his identity has not been found out and it seems he is fake. In any case, the sort of language he has used is regrettable. Chairman Pakistan Ex-Servicemen Society Lt Gen Amjad Shuaib has deplored it and has viewed the GHQ decision as most appropriate.
In my view, this decision should have been taken much earlier. But as they say, it is never too late. The berserk social media which has of late added another evil in the form of ‘Tip Top’, it needs to be bridled. Likewise, the electronic media which has gone bonkers requires disciplining. Anchors have become omniscient jabbers, firing hate-filled salvos on those whom they don’t like, and trying to influence the minds of decision makers.
To effectively fight the 5th generation war, the policymakers will have to take tough measures. I reckon plans are afoot to strengthen toothless PMRA and make it an effective regulatory authority that can put sense into a wayward approach of media. There is an urgent need to ensure that all avenues of foreign funding to media houses are closed, and all anchors and journalists on the payroll of foreign agencies weeded out. Our media which has become a tool in the hands of adversaries of Pakistan should be streamlined and made into the 4th pillar of the state.
The writer is a retired Brig, a war veteran, defence and security analyst, and author of five books. [email protected]
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