Our Announcements
Sorry, but you are looking for something that isn't here.
Posted by admin in CURRENT EVENTS on April 30th, 2023
GOOD AND EVIL
About five years ago while pondering upon the deteriorating economy, deep political corruption
and all our woes existing at that time in Pakistan, we wondered what future awaited us in our
country. Even if we got rid of the corrupt rulers of that time the taking over rulers would be the
same. Then we said “Now only God can do something to save us”. The benevolent and merciful
God heard our wailing prayers and bestowed us with an innocent, sincere and honest man by
the name of Imran Khan to purge our life of curruption and evil. But the sad state of affairs is
that we have not given him the value and support he truly deserves. Its true that 90% (may be
more) of the population supports Imran Khan and only 10% of the population supports corrupt
politicians, they are at present in power and ruling the country.
It is essential for every ruler to survive in Pakistan to have the support of three organizations: (1)
Establishment, (2) Judiciary, (3) Election Commision. Now all the corrupt politicians have united
together to fight Imran Khan to remove him from the political scenario. They have money which
they have accumulated by unfair means, and with this money, they have bought all the three
organizations so that they can continue to loot and plunder uninterrupted and unabated.
The honest and patriotic Imran Khan is alone against the united corrupt politicians and currently
they are stakeholders since they have the backing of all the three organizations.
Hats off for Imran Khan for his courage, patience and perseverence despite all odds against
him. its now a combat between good and evil, a fight between truth and falsity, and come what
may, truth will remain truth on its own merits. Imran Khan stands for justice and righteousness,
and he is ready for sufferings also, if he has to.
We are standing at s crossroad and at a crucial time, and we have to decide which way to go.
Going to the wrong direction will lead us to disaster. Imran Khan is our guiding star. We should,
therefore, support him in all possible ways.
What we can and should do? We all should turn to Merciful Almighty Allah, in full faith and
conviction, to seek His forgiveness for our sins and earnestly pray to Him to help Imran Khan to
defeat the corrupt politicians of our country, eradicate corruption, and make way for social,
political and economic order based on Islamic justice and fairness. We should be hopeful and
not indulge in despair since despair is “kufr.
Later time will be better than the former time (Al-dhuha verse 4 Al-Quran).
God is with us. We should follow the footsteps of Imran Khan and keep reciting: We worship
only you and seek help only from you {Alfateha verse 4).
This reminds me also of the opening line of a poem by Manzer Bhopali: Taqatain tumhari hain
aur Khuda hamara hai.
Although the poem is about the claims of achievements by west, in fact, these are our {muslims}
performances in the past, this also applies to the current situation we are in.
Posted by admin in CURRENT EVENTS on April 30th, 2023
Mahboob A. Khawaja, PhD.
Strangely enough, none of the Western leaders – be it the US, NATO or the EU with the exception of Emmanuel Macron (France) had fostered a vision for a dialogue with Russia and China and to forge understanding for a peaceful resolution of the conflict. It was absurd that knowledgeable leaders of the Western alliances could miss several opportunities for a face to face meeting with President Putin or China’s President to explore the possibilities for an amicable end to the hostilities. Complementing his historic ties with the Russian Federation, China appears to be making the logical headlines for a peaceful change and a new beginning between Russia and Ukraine. Perhaps most Western strategic thinkers and intelligence communities assigned too much intellectual power to their current political leaders or their hired political advisors having the moral and intellectual capacity to be entrusted for effective role-play in dealing with Russia and China. Lacking the intelligence to know and understand the Nature of Things and the conflict within the universe and to human nature, they failed miserably lacking proactive vision and have become silent dummies and perhaps vices to endanger the peace and future of mankind. Their indifference, obscure intents and primitive impulses of political reflections of Russia, Ukraine and China are simply games of puzzles – games of numbers of external affairs arising from absurd notions of ignorance and arrogance of their own powerful egoisms for hegemony and control of the world.
After more than a year, the continued dreadful tragedy of Russian-Ukrainian conflict could lead to infallible results to encroach mankind prematurely into accidental annihilation by the use of tactical nuclear weapons. An evil is inseparable from contemporary global politics but glory lives in the conception of good, not in evil. All the nationalistic leaders compete in media propagation to have superior imagery for hegemonic politics and affluence. They were not prepared and are afraid of being replaced by the phenomenon of change and future-making. Morally and intellectually bankrupt leaders have no time to understand the aspirations of global mankind. We, the People of the globe aspire for peace, not for wars or destruction of human habitats by nukes and aggression against the weak and powerless.
Posted by admin in CURRENT EVENTS on April 30th, 2023
Kashmir kept in Cold Freezer
Asif Haroon Raja
When it comes to the question of honour and dignity, then the tangible superiority, or diplomatic and economic superiority doesn’t matter. For the defence of the motherland and to protect the dignity and honour of the nation, all materialist ambitions and internal feuds should be set aside, and everything in hand sacrificed to push out the offenders and to eliminate the conspirators.
The Afghan Mujahideen did it in the 1980s and the Afghan Taliban repeated it in 2021. On both occasions, the Lilliputians defeated the Goliaths because of their cohesion, unity and abiding faith in Allah. The leaders and the led fought hand in hand and they braved the difficulties equally. The TTA achieved the miracle on their own and without external support.
During Napoleon’s campaign in Russia, when the Corps of Marshal Michael Ney was encircled while withdrawing from Leningrad to Moscow and was asked to surrender, he replied, “Marshal’s do not surrender”, and he fought his way out of the encirclement after a savage fight.
When ten times superior Indian forces invaded the encircled and isolated EP, although the heavily outnumbered troops fought with extraordinary grit and determination despite the extremely heavy odds, the senior leadership buckled down and drowned their sacrifices in the sea of humiliation. The defenders of Hilli who had blunted repeated attacks of Indian 20 Mountain Division from 21 Nov till 4 FF was ordered to withdraw on 11 Dec, had to bear the shame of surrender. Lt Gen AAK Niazi in command of 45000 regular and irregular forces could have made history had he opted to die fighting like a tiger instead of surrendering. Defiance might have opened an honorable avenue of exit and possibly a political resolution of ‘confederation’.
India, supported by the USSR, annexed East Pakistan in Dec 1971 through treachery and subversion. No Pakistani leader pledged to avenge the defeat and wash off the humiliation. All aspired for friendship with India and went an extra mile to keep India appeased.
Pakistan didn’t untie the knot with the duplicitous USA despite its betrayal in the 1965 war and in the 1971 war. A policy of one-sided appeasement was adopted.
With this mindset, Kashmir which had emerged as the unfinished agenda of the Partition and the chief bone of contention between the two neighbours was never taken seriously and was put in the cold freezer. No long-term Kashmir policy was framed and India was given a free hand to consolidate its hold over the disputed territory. Only a reactive policy was adopted. Even on the diplomatic front, no meaningful effort was made to counter the Indian narratives and the disinformation campaign.
Without Kashmir, Pakistan is incomplete and without the free flow of water in our rivers, Pakistan’s survival is impossible. India was allowed to build over 60 small, medium and large dams over the three eastern rivers and to indulge in water terrorism.
It is dismaying to know that all our civil and military leaders did politics with Kashmir. Many in the army earned promotions by posing as peacetime Napoleons while some made profits.
The game started when Liaqat Ali Khan accepted Jawahar Lal Nehru’s request for a ceasefire at a time when our brave hearts had turned the tide of the 1948 war. Maj Gen Akbar who wanted the war to continue and had made plans to interdict the vulnerable lines of communication was court martialled and imprisoned.
Nehru duped our leaders by making a false pledge that he would resolve the issue by granting the right of self-determination to the Kashmiris. Thereon he kept buying time and absorbing Kashmir into the Indian Union through fake elections, buying the loyalties of puppets in Kashmir and affecting changes in the Indian Constitution. The UN and other world powers remained tilted towards India.
Field Marshal Ayub Khan was the only leader who made an earnest effort to liberate Kashmir through use of force, but luck didn’t favour him and Op Gibraltar and Op Grand Slam couldn’t meet its planned objectives. Yet he had made Pakistan armed forces a robust fighting machine which was able to defeat the nefarious designs of six times superior Indian armed forces that had vowed to destroy the Pak military in the battle of Chawinda in the 1965 War. He has several other feathers in his cap for which the nation should remain grateful, but the chronic army haters paint him in black.
Tashkent Accord was not a sell off of Kashmir as falsely alleged by ZA Bhutto, but Simla Accord in 1972 was the first sell off. Bhutto agreed to convert the ceasefire line in Kashmir into Line of Control (LOC), and both mutually consented to convince their respective people to accept the LOC as a permanent border between the two Kashmirs’. Third party involvement was replaced with bilateralism which favored India since it could buy time and parry the UN intervention.
Gen Ziaul Haq was the only leader who had a vision of liberating Kashmir. While he mandated the ISI to carry out biggest proxy war in Afghanistan in the 1980s without the involvement of any other agency, he triggered the Khalistan movement and fixed his periscope on Kashmir. After the defeat of the Soviet forces in 1988 and their readiness to quit in Feb 1989, it was very easy to take on Kashmir. India was internally at its weakest in the late 1980s and Pakistan had acquired weaponized nuclear capability. Gen Zia had planned to link Khalistan movement with the Kashmiri freedom movement. After the ten-year experience in covert war, the ISI was in sound position to push out the Indian occupying forces from IOK; Gulbadin Hikmatyar had pledged to send one lac Mujahideen to the aid of Kashmiris who had taken part in the Afghan Jihad.
Gen Zia had gained tremendous influence and popularity in the Pashtun belt of Afghanistan, and was all set to introduce Islamic system. This was not to the liking of the western powers and it became obligatory to bump him off. He along with many generals were killed in an air crash in Aug 1988. His departure was rejoiced by Russia, India, and his detractors at home which included the PPP and the liberals.
After his death, all the plans made for the liberation of Kashmir were shelved. Benazir, Nawaz Sharif (NS), Gen Musharraf and Zardari favored friendly ties with India and played politics to damage Kashmiri freedom movement. None exploited the armed uprising in IOK which had nailed down 7 lacs of Indian forces in the narrow Kashmir Valley. All favoured converting LOC into a permanent border, not realising that it would not quench the thirst of expansionist India. None took the Kashmiris in the loop while engaging in peace talks with India.
NS claimed that Kashmir resolution was round the corner when Vajpayee visited Lahore in Jan 1999, but lamented that his hand-picked Gen Musharraf stabbed him in the back by launching Operation Dras-Kargil on his own. In his second tenure, he cultivated personal friendship with Indian PM Gujral, and in his third term he established business ties with Modi and business tycoon Jindal. Gen Musharraf took the steam out of Kashmiri freedom struggle after signing peace deal with India in 2004, allowing India to fence LOC, floated the out of box solution and divided APHC. Zardari declared the Kashmiri freedom fighters as terrorists. To restart the suspended composite dialogue that were snapped after the Mumbai attacks in Nov 2008, NS agreed with Modi at the Uffa meeting in 2015 to accord higher priority to terrorism over Kashmir. Imran Khan (IK) desired friendship with Modi soon after he took over in 2018, but the latter declined to meet him. Reportedly, both IK and Gen Qamar Bajwa tried to arrange Modi’s visit to Pakistan in April 2021.
When India illegally annexed the disputed territory of IOK on Aug 5, 2019, that was the time when Pakistan should have gone all out to free Kashmir from the cruel clutches of fascist and racist India. Nothing else should have mattered after the jugular vein was severed. At least covert operations should have been stepped up in Kashmir and some other disturbed regions of India.
But like the former leaders, IK and Gen Bajwa favoured a similar outcome of the Kashmir dispute as envisaged by the predecessors and they continued with the old apologetic and defensive policy in spite of India’s intense firings across the LOC and Working Boundary, surgical strikes and other offensive acts.
A tacit understanding was given to Trump and Pentagon during the visit of the two to Washington in July 2019. Trump’s mediation offer was meant to guarantee the safety of AJK and GB. Both were informed about Modi’s plan of changing the special status of IOK and they were told to control the people. 21-gun salute to Gen Bajwa by Pentagon, who was retiring in Nov that year, was a clear indication that he had consented, and it was decided that he will be given a three years extension.
It is most distressing that Pakistan’s policy makers allowed India to usurp IOK without a whimper. The Indian brutes were permitted to carry out genocide and rapes of locked down Kashmiris in the biggest military garrison and open prison. Encouraged by pacifist response from Pakistan, Modi went ahead with his plan to change the demography and culture of Kashmir by settling non-Muslims and letting them buy lands and marrying Muslim Kashmiri girls. He is now welcoming foreign business tycoons as well as G-20 to invest and build business empires and resorts in the Kashmir Valley.
The abject plight of the Indian Muslims, rendered stateless and treated as 2nd rated citizens of India and brutally oppressed, doesn’t bother the insensitive elite class in Pakistan, which is smug in their money-making ventures, and in infighting for power. They are least concerned about the dangerous designs of India wanting to fragment Pakistan into four parts.
The writer is a retired Brig Gen, war veteran, defence, security & political analyst, international columnist, author of five books, Chairman Thinkers Forum Pakistan & director Measac Research Centre. asifharoonraja@gmail.com
Posted by admin in CURRENT EVENTS on March 17th, 2023
It is distressing to have one’s hopes lifted only to be dashed. Thus is the case of the rise and fall of Imran Khan of Pakistan. He seems to have had the vision and a good heart to raise Pakistan out of its history of political corruption and manipulation. Yet it takes more than one leader to make such systemic changes in any state. The history and patterns, and people, all are aligned to the status quo, and even there are many state workers and politicians who wish for positive change, the patterns are very difficult to shift. This is not the task of a single person, or even a single administration. It takes concerted effort following a plan for years with the support of the people to achieve a new footing
We can follow the course that brought Pakistan to its current place of grift and neo-colonialism. There is wealth (for some) in grifting and selling oneself and one’s nation to the highest bidders. We can look at the United States where one political party has worked on achieving total control of all the levers of power so that the nation can be their banker. This has been the concerted effort of at least the last 50 years. It has been a corrupt pursuit constantly at odds with both the spirit and letter of the Constitution and law. Ironically, or maybe karmically, the Republicans have applied much of the CIA craft book on overthrowing other nations. Sadly, too many refused to see what was happening right before their eyes. I can surely sympathize with nations who have fallen to these same efforts, and the people who tried to believe the best of their leaders.
Whether Khan can survive his current troubles to again lead, hopefully with stronger plans for implementing necessary changes, or other leaders of vision and skill and capture the hearts of the people and create a government that truly serves the present and future of Pakistan.
Mahboob Khawaja, PhD
They want to Arrest Imran Khan and Destabilize the Country
Is Pakistani politics a game of deception, betrayal, and dishonesty to the national interest? Pakistan’s trajectory of current affairs unfolds a self-destructive political endemic and cynicism to grab power by any means – fair or foul – the current political governance of 10 parties has no legitimacy whatsoever to run the country. Its formation resulted from the military-assisted coup to oust Imran Khan, who had been popularly elected by the masses. Now Khan is the object of a neo-colonial scheme of evil mongering to arrest him under false pretexts and to block him by any means of coming back to political power. The scenes of police firing on the protesters are drawing headlines on global news screens. The ruling elite wants to utilize disruption and distraction to mask the real socio-economic and political problems. They are masters of deception, instigating violence and calamity in the nation. They have no sense of time and history and how the current chaotic and subversive action could take the country to the unknown horizon.
Military-run Pakistan was always a source of internal conspiracies, coups, and socio-economic-political mismanagement. The Generals who planned and assisted Sharif-Bhutto’s alliance in March 2022 to oust Imran Khan via a bogus Assembly vote, knew well of the coming time of great upheaval and political disruption across the country enabling them to plan another military coup. The known thugs and indicted criminals wanted to arrest Khan or kill him, clearing the way to maintain their illegal powerhouse. Few Western powers have a vested interest to destabilize nuclear Pakistan and to move in to take over the controls of its nuclear arsenals via shadowy political manoeuvres. The same plan failed to materialize during the Afghan war. Despite the planned political subversion and violation of people’s right to hold peaceful gatherings and the threat of arrest, the high court has granted bail to Khan until Thursday to appear in court. The ruling elite views the power as transitory and tries to dislodge Khan and his Teherk-e-Insaf party as an emerging force of public consensus. It is a turbulent time for Pakistan to have false charges against a popular political leader. Is Pakistan fast becoming a Pandora’s box of political endemic of the few?
Pakistani masses need safety and protection against great evils. Wherever the military comes into power, it destroys the culture of positive thinking, morals, and hopes for change. A few months earlier, Imran Khan alleged an assassination attempt by the current “imported regime of the few” on his life while leading a Freedom March to Islamabad. Pakistani Masses continued to react against this evil act of subversion of people’s right to decide their own future in a democratic system. The Generals and their accomplices, Sharifs and Bhuttos, lack the legitimacy to govern the country. They are part of the problems, not solutions. Most have criminal records, no political integrity or honesty, and perhaps no other nation will embrace them as political figures. The planned political chaos is intended to drive the nation towards further catastrophic ends and imposition of martial law and the coming of an age of great uncertainty and beyond predicting no return to democracy.
The Ruling Elite makes Pakistan a Neo-Colonial Satellite
Most dreadful tragedies have infallibly resulted in victimizing the masses. Today, the nation is crippled with catastrophic events of political mismanagement, systematic corruption, insecurity, and socio-economic exploitation. They have incapacitated the country encouraging external enemies to walk in without any challenge. Pakistani ruling elite and the Generals are not open to reason and accountability. They cannot realize the imperatives of hopes and expectations of the new generation of educated and morally and intellectually competent people. The future belongs to the new generation of educated people, not to the naive and obsolete Generals. They view “power” and “Pakistan” as their own property. The authoritarian leaders played with their destiny and future without being questioned. They are the wrong people, with wrong thinking and doing the wrong things. If there was any fair system of accountability, some of the Generals and accomplice politicians could well have faced firing squads for their crimes against the nation. Pakistan has a history of five major military-led coups which ended up in the defeat and loss of East Pakistan. Are the Generals waiting for another mishap of formative history? Please see “British Colonialism and How India and Pakistan Lost Freedom.” Global Research and Uncommon Thought Journal: 1/01/22.
American foreign policymakers view the Pakistani politicians-Generals as beggars, bootlickers who will perform all kinds of superficial acts to please the Master – the one who calls them an ally when needed but will stab Pakistanis when they become a liability. Disillusioned and disconnected from its roots, Pakistan continues to move forward – not towards planned political change, normalcy, and progress – but towards tragic events fomenting planned deaths of the citizenry, destruction of the social, economic, and political infrastructures, incapacitated and broken lifelines and ultimately to become a battleground for mindless ethnic and regional divides and national collapse. Andrew Gavin Marshall Imperial Eye on Pakistan – Pakistan in Pieces, Part 1 (Global Research: 5/28/2011) states that “in December of 2000, the CIA released a report of global trends to the year 2015, which stated that by 2015:
“The war in Afghanistan is inherently related to the situation in Pakistan……….Pakistan will be more fractious, isolated, and dependent on international financial assistance.” It was noted that the US-led war in Afghanistan was ultimately aimed at denuclearization of Pakistan.”
Imran Khan Is Seen as a Person of Purpose and National Unity
Imran Khan was an elected leader and he remained in power for about four years. He did not kill anybody nor robbed any banks and was keen to have legal accountability for the stolen wealth and killings by the Sharif brothers, Bhuttos, Zardari, and others. But political governance was infested with corrupt figures of the past. He should have organized an independent tribunal to hold the monsters accountable but he flunked in this effort. Khan was unable to devise an Action Plan to reform a highly systematic culture of corruption. He needed people of new age education, intelligence and creative plans to work out innovative strategies for political change and reformation. That simply did not happen and he was hurriedly ousted by a political–military conspiracy. Imran Khan has the perception and vision for a new Pakistan but he would need people of the new and educated generation to plan for a new beginning. Imran Khan and his PTI supporters allege that a few Generals and Shahbaz Sharif were involved in his assassination plan.
At the edge of reason, Imran Khan should have recruited people of the new generation to foster change in the country. In 2019, this author offered Khan a logical plan for sustainable change (“Pakistan: How to change political culture of corruption and rebuild the future.” Media Monitors Network, USA, 2019). Most of his associates were feudal lords, uneducated and former loyalists of the current political opposition parties. None of them had any knowledge or experience in critical thinking, strategic planning, and change or future-making profile. Why did Khan waste almost four years in the fantasy of New Pakistan and fail to live up to his imagination? He was supposed to have a Plan for Change. Pakistani political culture has its psychology of self-interest and trading in their individualistic interest in exchange for the national interest. Pakistan’s system of law and justice is futile and questionable as most verdicts are influenced by political motivation. If the Constitution was a reference point, the Supreme Court, according to clause 6, should have stayed out of this political chaos and not interfered and ask the politicians to work out political remedies within the National Assembly. Not, so, perhaps dictates came from above and many powerful establishments to oust Imran Khan. He should have stopped the blame game and faced the ‘no confidence vote’ with leadership courage. Will Khan learn from the failure of his mission, ideals, and expectations and lead a movement for rational and sustainable political change in Pakistan? Will he make a navigational change to ensure a true system of law and justice in the country? Will he evolve a fair and honest Assembly of people representing the nation?
Pakistan needs a New Constitution, New public institutions of integrity, a New System of Political Governance and educated and honest leaders who could lead the country out of its current mismanagement and corrupted system of governance. The Need is urgent for the Pakistani nation to think critically and see the Mirror and stand firm in raising voices of reason for accountability, justice, and political change. The people must ponder past misconceptions and errors of judgment to bring 21st-century’s educated, proactive, and intelligent young people into political leadership roles and to safeguard the national interest, freedom of the nation, and its future.
Dr. Mahboob A. Khawaja specializes in international affairs-global security, peace and conflict resolution with keen interests in Islamic-Western comparative cultures and civilizations, and is the author of several publications including the latest: One Humanity and the Remaking of Global Peace, Security and Conflict Resolution. Germany, 12/2019.
Tags: Imran Khan
All material is under a Creative Common share with attribution license unless otherwise noted.
Posted March 16, 2023 by Rowan Wolf in category “Mahboob A. Khawaja, Ph.D.“, “Pakistan
Posted by admin in CURRENT EVENTS on March 16th, 2023
They want to Arrest Imran Khan and Destabilize the Country
Is Pakistani politics is a game of deception, betrayal and dishonesty to the national interest? Pakistan’s trajectory of current affairs unfolds a self-destructive political endemic and cynicism to grab power by any means – fair or foul – the current political governance of 10 parties have no legitimacy whatsoever to run the country. Its formation resulted from the military assisted coup to oust Imran Khan, popularly elected by the masses. Now Khan is the object of a neo-colonial scheme of evil mongering to arrest him under false pretexts and to block him by any means to coming back to political power. The scenes of police firing on the protesters are drawing headlines on global news screens. The ruling elite wants to excel disruption and distraction from the real socio-economic and political problems. They are masters of deception instigating violence and calamity to the nation. They have no sense of time and history how the current chaotic and subversive action could take the country to the unknown horizon.
The military run Pakistan was always a source of internal conspiracies, coups and socio-economic-political mismanagement. The Generals who planned and assisted Sharif-Bhutto’s alliance in March 2022 to oust Imran Khan via a bogus Assembly vote, knew well of the coming time of great upheavals and political disruption across the country enabling them to think of another military coup. The known thugs and indicted criminals wanted to arrest Khan or to kill him, clearing the way to maintain their illegal powerhouse. Few Western powers have vested interest to destabilize nuclear Pakistan and to move-in to take over the controls of its nuclear arsenals via shadowy political manoeuvres. The same plan failed to materialize during the Afghan war. Despite the planned political subversion and violation of people’s right to hold peaceful gatherings and threat of arrest, the high court has granted bail to Khan until Thursday to appear in court. The ruling elite views the power as transitory and trying to dislodge Khan and his Teherk-e-Insaf party as an emerging force of public consensus. It is a turbulent time for Pakistan to have false charges against a popular political leader. Is Pakistan fast becoming a Pandora box of political endemic of the few?
© 2023, All Rights Reserved by Pakistan Think Tank.
