2012 is a new year for Pakistan, yet it brings with it many of the same challenges that have dogged it for years. January 2012′s B-side looks at some of those challenges beginning with the most important challenge before Pakistan, that of extinguishing the fire that is Balochistan. An article by the great Professor Akbar Akhmed on Balochistan is a timely reminder to us all to act now to stop our endless blunders in Balochistan.

The second article is written on the coup that never materialised and is written by Wajahat S. Khan whilst the final article is one full of hope and is written by Shehrbano Taseer. January 2012′s B-side contents include the following:

1. Is Pakistan Heading For Disaster in Balochistan by Professor AKBAR AHMED
2. The Whispering Coup by WAJAHAT S.KHAN
3. Pakistan is Beautiful- And Its Mine by SHEHRBANO TASEER

Balochistan is the focus for the firsr article written by the former Pakistani Ambassador and one of my heroes in Professor Akbar S. Ahmed.

Is Pakistan Heading For Disaster in Balochistan by Akbar Ahmed

The article is published on Al-Jazeera and can be read here.

WASIM VIEW- Professor Akbar Ahmed is a man very close to his heart as his article on the burning fire that is my beloved Balochistan. The article is a cry for help to all Pakistanis in our individual and collective capacities as well as the Pakistani state to extinguish the separatism fire that rages in Balochistan.

Professor Ahmed’s use of the fall of Titanic to describe the Pakistani state’s wilful neglect of Balochistan is apt and should ring alarm bells amongst all who care about Balochistan. When a Pakistani patriot and former ambassador like Ahmed warns of ‘the simmering, but widespread movement for independence spins out of control, Pakistan will find it almost impossible to maintain nationhood’, Pakistan must wake up and act now to save Balochistan.

Professor Ahmed’s article is especially useful for it shares his personal knowledge of the Balochi people gained during his stay in the province, in addition Professor Ahmed uses testimony from respectable Balochi exiles such as Malik Siraj Akbar whose article has been shared on OP in a B-side here.

Professor Ahmed does not mince his words in the article and his suggestion for giving honour to the Balochi people in a sustained and full-scale effort from the civilian and military powers to engage Balochistan is certainly the need of the hour. I fully endorse Professor Ahmed’s views on the urgency of the matter and plan to do whatever I can in my personal capacity as a Pakistani to save and serve Balochistan and I urge all Pakistanis to do likewise.

The second article looks at the Kayani coup that never came early this year.

The Whispering Coup by Wajahat S. Khan

The article is published in The News and can be read here.

WASIM VIEW- Khan’s article is a useful reminder of the fruits of dictatorship that Pakistan has enjoyed for too long and near;y enjoyed again in early 2012. Khan’s article is lucid and well-written and is shared on the B-side to remind us as a citizenry of the seductive pulling power that the khaki kings from Ayub and Zia to Musharraf fooled us with.

Khan rightly concludes that coups have never served Pakistan well, and cannot do and this is a point I strongly agree with. And so the lesson of the Khan article is to guard against the appeal of a coup for such unconstitutional steps serve no-one and cannot ever do so. Instead the rule of law must prevail above all else.

The final article is written by Shehrbano Taseer, daughter of the slain Punjab Governer who was mercilessly killed by a religious zealot and is a report card on the progress of Pakistan since last year.

Pakistan is Beautiful- And Its Mine by Shehrbano Taseer

The article is published in The Express Tribune and can be read here.

WASIM VIEW- Taseer’s article is a pleasant read for its message is one of hope. The article is all the more impressive for the messenger in her is someone who still believes and loves Pakistan irrespective of her personal loss in 2011, as she lost her father Salmaan Taseer to the rising intolerance that bedevils Pakistan.

Taseer’s article is in essence a Pakistani report card on the year 2011 and charts the few ups and many downs of the year gone bye that include the devastating floods of 2011. Taseer is an optimistic soul and is full of praise for the pro-women legislation the PPP government has introduced and her praise is deserved, however like all laws in Pakistan, it is their implementation that we all seek, for only then will such legislation bring a real and lasting change in the lives of ordinary women in Pakistan.

To end, the article serves as feel-good therapy for a permanently pessimistic Pakistan, however Taseer is guilty of needless negative stereotyping in declaring Pakistani madrassas as poisonous, a description I cannot agree with even though I am not a fan of their work. Such comments are unwarranted and serve little purpose for they add to the prevailing discord and give oxygen to the radical right in painting the liberal left as enemies of Islam.

December 2011’s B-side focuses on the rise of a new politics in Pakistan in the form of an article by James Caan on the rise of Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI). With this in mind, the emergence of Bilawal Bhutto Zardari in the PPP is also examined in an article penned by him. The B-side finishes with an article by Christine Fair on Pakistan-US relations after the Mohmand massacre. December 2011’s B-side contents include:

1. Pakistan At Long Last May Have Found The Leader It Needs by JAMES CAAN
2. On The Fourth Death Anniversary of My Mother by BILAWAL BHUTTO ZARDARI
3. Obama Should Apologise by CHRISTINE FAIR

The first article is written by James Caan on the rise and rise of Imran Khan.

Pakistan At Long Last May Have Found The Leader It Needs by James Caan

The article is published in The Independent and can be read here.

WASIM VIEW- James Caan is a well-known British Pakistani and proud Pakistani who cares deeply about Pakistan, so much so that he founded the British Pakistani Foundation. Caan’s article charts the hope of a better tomorrow for Pakistan and he is right to attribute such hope thanks to Imran Khan’s meteoric rise in 2011.

Caan’s article is very pro-PTI and rightly praises Imran Khan for being a true servant of Pakistan. Caan’s article is more than a showering of praise for Imran Khan; rather it seeks to compare and contrast his person with past and present politicians and finds him to be ‘the real deal’.

Although congratulatory in the main, Caan’s article does identify corruption as a menace that has held Pakistan’s back and his use of statistics such as the fact that 24% of Pakistanis live beneath the poverty line are a stark reminder of the problems before Pakistan and her people. Problems that Imran Khan and his team must find credible solutions for.

The second article is written by Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, need I say more?

On The Fourth Death Anniversary of My Mother by Bilawal Bhutto Zardari

The article is published in The Express Tribune and can be read here.

WASIM VIEW- Bilawal Bhutto Zardari has entered the Pakistani political landscape owing to his father’s ill health. The younger Zardari has made his full-blown entry in Pakistani politics and his op-ed on the death anniversary of Benazir Bhutto is more evidence of his emergence.

In terms of the article, Zardari’s praise for his mother and her track record is understandable and to be expected. Much of the article is congratualtory in tone and dedicated to Benazir Bhutto’s memory and her achievements, many of which are open to debate.

Later on in the article, Zardari blows the trumpet for the present PPP government and rightly praises the PPP for its historic NFC award and the 18th constituitional amendment. As a principled opponent, these are achievements I have openly praised here and here.

However the younger Zardari like the older Zardari is guilty of blowing the trumpet a tad too loudly and is guilty of over-extending himself with his words of self-congratulation in his claim that the PPP government forced the US to vacate Shamsi airbase. Bilawal’s words of ‘it is only under a democratic government that Pakistan finally stood up to demand respect from the United States and to do what the dictator with all his military might could not — evacuate the Shamsi airbase’ are not only laughable but untrue as my post on the Shamsi airbase proved here.

Looking ahead, it appears the younger Zardari like the older one, is too keen to engage in jingoistic cheerleading of the PPP’s achievements both perceived and real. As a man of the future, it is hoped that Zardari can see beyond parochial and party interests and serve Pakistan alone, in that he will always have my best wishes.

The final article is written by Christine Fair in the background of NATO’s Mohmand massacre.

Obama Should Apologise by Christine Fair

The article is published by Foreign Policy and can be read here.

WASIM VIEW- Fair’s article is an interesting read, not least when she notes that ‘Pakistanis, whether civilian or military, whether in the government or on the street, want out of this relationship and deeply believe that Americans do not value Pakistani lives. They may not be wrong’.

Most Pakistanis have never felt the US have appreciated our sacrifices from the so-called Afghan Jihad to the present day and Fair is right to draw attention to this truth. Moreover, such a truth is made more obvious when Fair writes that the U.S. ambassador to Pakistan, Cameron Munter had urged President Obama to apologize for the Mohmand massacre but was rubbished by some within the U.S. government as “having gone native”. Such is the arrogance of Obama and his administration that the word SORRY cannot be uttered for innocent Pakistani soldiers who were massacred by American gunships in the dead of night.

Fair rightly criticises NATO’s (read US) failure to follow established procedures as ‘indefensible’ and spends much of her article explaining how NATO committed its blunder in Mohmand Agency. However for some reason known to her alone, Fair then goes off on a tangent and engages in some lazy criticism of Pakistan for playing a double-game with the US. It seems Fair is too desperate to appear fair in giving space to all aspects of the Pakistan-US relationship and thus must have felt she needed to overdo her vitriol against Pakistan’s so-called double game having acknowledged as the main tenet of her article that the US cares little about Pakistan and Pakistani lives.

That said, Fair’s call for Obama to apologise to Pakistan is welcome and the minimum Pakistan expects. Fair is brave in calling for action against those US officials who are responsible for the Mohmand massacre, however her suggestion is unrealistic for the US has always done as it pleases and rarely holds to account those who commit blunders in her name. One example will suffice for Pakistanis still await justice from the US Department of Justice as promised by Cameron Munter for the acts of one Raymond Davis, remember!

November 2011’s B-side has its main focus on the emergence of a third force in Pakistani politics in Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) as well as continuing commentary on the evil of US drone attacks in Pakistan. The B-side begins with an analysis of the rise of Imran Khan’s PTI by Rahimullah Yusufzai, who remains one of Pakistan’s most respected jourmalists. The second article also passes comment on Imran Khan’s PTI and is written by Sana Buchha who represents the new breed of Pakistani journalists.

The B-side concludes with a heart rending article by Pratap Chatterjee about a young Pakistani boy who visited Islamabad to campaign against US drone attacks and was compensated accordingly by the US not in dollars but in the form of a drone attack that killed him, need I say more? November 2011′s B-side contents include:

1. The Emergence of Imran Khan by RAHIMULLAH YUSUFZAI
2. His Name is Khan, Imran Khan by SANA BUCHA
3. The CIA’s Unaccountable Drone War Claims Another Casualty by PRATAP CHATTERJEE

The first article is written by Rahimullah Yuzufzai on the emergence of Imran Khan.

The Emergence of Imran Khan by Rahimullah Yusufzai

The article is published in The News and can be read here.

WASIM VIEW- Rahimullah Yusufzai’s article charts the rise of Imran Khan and is a must read for all objective Pakistanis who wish to understand the rise of the PTI. Yusufzai is fair in praising Imran Khan in the article and like me has concluded that he is a man on a mission when he writes ‘whatever one may say about Imran Khan’s politics, not many can question his never-say-die attitude. He refuses to give up even at the worst of times and inspires hope’.

Yusufzai was right to note the mammoth crowd that attended the Lahore rally, the largest gathering since Benazir Bhutto’s return in 1986 and was right too in concluding that the youth of Pakistan had made their decision to back the PTI in their droves. Later in the article, Yusufzai questions the worth of musicians like Shehzad Roy in singing at the rally and later on is right to drawing attention to the challenges before the PTI in staying true to its tall ideals and at the same time select electable candidates to win influence in Pakistan if it is to be a third force to be reckoned with.

The second article also focuses on Imran Khan’s PTI and is written by Geo Anchor and journalist, Sana Bucha.

His Name is Khan, Imran Khan by Sana Bucha

The article is published in The News and can be read here

WASIM VIEW- Sana Bucha’s article on Imran Khan’s rise has upset me and is the very antithesis of good and honest journalism and in stark contrast to the earlier article by Rahimullah Yusufzai. Buchha is bullish at the outset of her article and boasts (to her cost as I will prove) of her journalistic responsibility to present both sides of a story, sadly for her she has failed in that endeavour as her article is full of unnecessary bile and bias.

The quality of Bucha’s article and journalism can be gauged from the following sentence ‘Aside from entertainment, what did we, the public, get out of the PTI’s recent show of strength?’. The music at the PTI Lahore rally may not have been the best idea as alluded to by Rahimullah Yusufzai in his excellent article earlier, however Bucha is flogging the wrong horse and seems is deaf, dumb and blind to the real story of the Lahore rally which was the emergence of the PTI as a political force.

Later in her article, Bucha butchers the art of honest journalism by engaging in blatant lies in criticizing Imran Khan for his support of peace talks with the Taliban and ridiculing him by writing ‘Imran Khan wants to talk peace with extremists who have forcibly occupied a large area of Pakistani land to dictate their agenda. Khan also seeks to bring terrorists into the mainstream – if it was up to him, those who have killed more than 40,000 innocent people may be welcomed in parliament!’

Bucha’s deceit is that she has lied in the extract above for she and the entire Pakistani media are well aware of the recent APC which decided to give peace a chance and authorized the government to engage in the same peace talks Buchha criticizes only Imran Khan for. Another example of Bucha’s bias against Imran Khan are her comments on his uncontroversial support for utilizing Pakistan’s vast reserves of Thar coal which Bucha informs us lie underground (is that so!) and that ‘their extraction halted as the Chinese have fled amid security fears. Law and order, however, is the least of Imran’s worries’. Bucha is clearly unaware of recent Russian interest as reported in her own newspaper and shared below:

Moreover Bucha must be living on another planet in Pakistan if she is not aware of Dr Samar Mubarakmand’s 50MW coal gasification project that has been completed already. Concluding, Sana Bucha’s diatribe (its not an article) is also a must read for Pakistanis for it proves that the all anchors are not journalists in Pakistan and that lies can be peddled from the likes of Bucha in print and on the idiot box that she is suited to.

The final article is written by Pratap Chatterjee and is a tough one to read for it details the death by drone of Tariq Aziz who was a 16 year old Pakistani civilian.

The CIA’s Unaccountable Drone War Claims Another Casualty by Pratap Chatterjee

The article is published in The Guardian and can be read here.

WASIM VIEW- The heart-rending article by Pratap Chatterjee on the drone attack that killed Tariq Aziz made my blood boil and angers me as Tariq Aziz had visited Islamabad to campaign against drone strikes and was punished for this deed by death by drone.

Chatterjee’s article raises many vital legal questions for the US administration and in particular the CIA. Chatterjee is right to question the CIA’s right to kill and names Stephen Preston who is the general counsel at the CIA headquarters as the chief executioner of the hundreds of drone strikes that have killed innocent Pakistani civilians as reported in my posts here.

I echo the sentiments of Chatterjee in his insightful artice and support the legal questions he has put to the CIA. Indeed he is right to question the logic of Tariq Aziz attending a seminar in Islamabad in the full view of a media circus if he was the terror mastermind for which he was slain. Thus I cannot but conclude and echo Chatterjee’s final words on Tariq Aziz’s death, that of ‘unless the CIA can prove that Tariq Aziz posed an imminent threat (as the White House’s legal advice stipulates a targeted killing must in order for an attack to be carried out), or that he was a key planner in a war against the US or Pakistan, the killing of this 16 year old was murder, and any jury should convict the CIA accordingly’.

October 2011′s B-side is in memoriam to Begum Nusrat Bhutto who passed away in October. This special B-side includes three articles of tribute to the iron lady of Pakistan with contributions from the respected analyst Nasim Zehra followed by an article by Pakistan’s High Commissioner to the UK, Wajid Shamsul Hasan. The respected columnist Kamran Shafi is the author of the final article, October 2011′s B-side contents include the following:

1. Ten Feet Tall by NASIM ZEHRA
2. Begum Bhutto Lived Fighting, Died Fighting by WAJID SHAMSUL HASAN
3. Begum Bhutto Remembered by KAMRAN SHAFI

It is a coincidence that all articles were published in The Express Tribune and thus my comments will cover all three together. The first article was written by the respected analyst and journalist, Nasim Zehra. The second was written by Wajid Shamsul Hasan and the final article by Kamran Shafi.

B-Side Articles

The Nasim Zehra article is published in The Express Tribune and can be read here.

The Wajid Shamsul Hasan article is published in The Express Tribune and can be read here.

The Kamran Shafi article is published in The Express Tribune and can be read here.

WASIM VIEW- As I read the three articles of tribute by Nasim Zehra, Wajid Shamsul Hasan and Kamran Shafi I was reminded of the words of the great Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, who said of himself ‘I’m not made of a wood which burns easily’. I feel the same words can be said for Begum Nusrat Bhutto who stood tall as a giant to the midget of a man that was Zia in facing his evil rule. Like millions of Pakistanis, I too mourn the passing of Begum Nusrat Bhutto and pray that she is granted paradise.

The trio of articles have rekindled my respect and reverence for her person with the articles proving that she was an iron lady and a true Bhutto who valiantly fought against Zia’s vicious dictatorship and single-handedly kept alive the Pakistan’s People Party. Wajid Shamsul Hasan is right when he writes that ‘the graceful Begum Bhutto took all that was thrown at her with great stoicism and courage, Unlike many of her male counterparts who showed instant preference to surrender at the first crack of the military dictator’s whip, it was Begum Bhutto who dared to challenge when they hounded her husband Zulfikar Ali Bhutto’.

As expected, Wajid Shamsul Hasan’s article was full of tribute, however the most insightful article was that of Nasim Zehra which provided a glimpse of the passion of Begum Bhutto on the Kashmir issue. Kashmir remains the life vein of Pakistan and as a Pakistani with Kashmiri heritage, Nasim Zehra’s informative article proved that the Kashmir cause was a Bhutto cause for all time from Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto to Begum Nusrat Bhutto and beyond.

Otherwise both Kamran Shafi and Nasim Zehra are right to laud Begum Nusrat Bhutto’s contribution to Pakistan and democracy, for it is praise well-deserved. At a personal level, I am sad that in her final years, the iron lady was a broken women owing to illness and no doubt a broken heart after the murder of Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto and her children. All three articles have done a sterling job in reminding me about Begum Nusrat Bhutto’s the service to Pakistan, it is sad that another Bhutto has departed but I know that the Bhutto legacy will live on and flourish in the masses for Neruda said it right and it is most apt for the Bhuttos that  “you can cut all the flowers but you cannot keep spring from coming.”

September 2011′s B-side continues to discuss that migraine of migraines, Pakistan-US relations. Ten years on from 9/11, the effect of that dark day on Pakistan are reviewed by none other than the man at the helm on that day, Pervez Musharraf.

The second article looks at the current Pakistan-US tension after Admiral Mullen’s diatribe and is writtten by the one and only Christopher Hitchens. The final article in the B-side is a one-off for it is written by the slain Salmaan Taseer on Pakistan’s water and energy crisis. September 2011′s B-side contents include:

1. I Stand By My Decision by PERVEZ MUSHARRAF
2. Pakistan Is The Enemy by CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS
3. The Case for Kalabagh Dam by SALMAAN TASEER

The first article is written by Pervez Musharrraf and reviews Pakistan’s engagement with the world and the US in particuar after 9/11.

I Stand By My Decision by Pervez Musharraf

The article is published on The News and can be read here.

WASIM VIEW-Pervez Musharraf’s article written on the 10th anniversary of 9/11 charts his momentous decision to support the US after 9/11. As such the article should include the rationale behind his decision as well as an honest appraisal of the so-called war on terror. However such a task is beyond Musharraf, instead as has become customary for him, his article is full of it, that is full of bluster.

In the article Musharraf cannot help serve his lying itch when he discusses his decision to accept five out of the seven US demands made to him. He is unapolegetic and proud of his decision especially his refusal to allow the US blanket overflight and landing rights as well as territorial access including the use of Pakistan’s naval ports, air bases and strategic locations for US actions. However just two words- drone attacks prove that Musharraf is lying on the issue given that drone attacks began under his rule. It is fair to say the situation has got worse under the present leadership, however Mushafrraf cannot abdicate his responsibility as drone attacks with his tacit approval no doubt began in his tenure from Shamsi airbase as recent posts have proved here.

For most of the article, Musharraf shares his analysis at the time however as was the case with his role in office it is the omissions that trip him up. For example Musharraf is happy to share his analysis on the likely US reaction but makes no mention of the missing persons who were sold by him according to his book (to the devil) in the war on terror. Such a glaring omission is deliberate no doubt and thus his championing of his decision ten years seems hollow and misplaced given Pakistan has lost 30,000 of her civilians since that dark day.

The second article is written by Christopher Hitchens and it too covers Pakistan-US relations.

Pakistan Is The Enemy by Christopher Hitchens

The article is published in Slate and can be read here.

WASIM VIEW- Christopher Hitchens article begins and ends with bouts of poor storytelling with opinions masquerading as facts. In only the second paragraph he is quick to declare ‘Pakistan’s military-intelligence elite as the most adroit double-dealing profiteer from terrorism in the entire region’. The claim is absurd indeed only one fact is needed to prove him wrong, that 30,000 Pakistanis have lost their lives to terrorism.

Hitchens also suffers from (selective) amnesia and/or is being economical with the truth or both as we all know of US exploits in the world a la South America and the Iran-Contra affair to name two examples of Uncle Sam’s profiteering from terrorism.

Hitchens article is quite frankly, poor and amateurish. For example in lambasting Pakistan and supporting the US claim that Pakistan supports the Haqqanis against the US, Hitchens is unable to do the most elementary journalistic duty of seeing both sides and cannot even contemplate a motive for such sudden claims against Pakistan.

For a writer and commentator of his stature, Hitchens demonstrates a childlike innocence (aah) in not being able to fathom a motive behind Admiral Mullen’s diatribe against Pakistan. Hitchens is deaf and blind to the fact and Mullen motive that the US has failed in Afghanistan and needs to blame Pakistan for her superpower failures.

Hitchens has nothing to say of the US failure in Afghanistan, a truth he tries to hide but cannot hide from even in passing when he refers to the recent Afghanistan elections as ‘scandaously bought and rigged’. The flaws and contradictions in his arguments are clear for all to see given that the elections took place thanks to US dollars and on Uncle Sam’s watch, I hasten to add Mr Hitchens!.

The rest of the article is full of bluster and bile as has become custom for Hitchens with Judge Hitchens declaring Pakistan to have broken UN resolutions and international law. Hitchens is happy to declare Pakistan guilty of all manner of crimes with Pakistan blamed for granting a safe-house to Bin Laden as well as the Indian Embassy attack in Kabul in July 2008. Both claims are absurd and Hitchens is left looking a fool for he has no evidence forthcoming that can prove his hypothesis. All in all, Hitchens article is not worth the paper it is written on for it is full of lies that he seeks to hide as half-truths.

The last article is the best of the B-side and it is written by the slain Punjab Governer, Salmaan Taseer.

The Case for Kalabagh Dam by Salmaan Taseer

The article is published in Newsweek Pakistan and can be read here.

WASIM VIEW- Salmaan Taseer’s article is articulate, authoritative and frightening in its findings. Already a water-stressed country, Taseer warns that soon Pakistan will not have enough water for its crops and will suffer major food shortages unless remedial action is taken swiftly. Time is of the essence according to Taseer who opined that Pakistan has ‘five to seven years, to secure our future’.

The solution to Pakistan’s water woes according to Taseer is the building of the Kalabagh Dam. Taseer eloquently puts his case forward for the building of the dam and blows away the weak and trivial arguments of opponents with a scholarly defence of Kalabagh dam. For example he refers to the great flood of 2010 in his article as proof that Kalabagh should have been built, a point made stronger when he reveals that the 50 million acre-feet of water which ravaged towns and villages, if stored would have served Pakistan’s water needs for seven years.

Furthermore, Taseer rubbishes the lies of the Sindhi nationalists and the ANP who oppose the building of Kalabagh dam purely by the power of his arguments proving for example that Nowshera in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa cannot be flooded as the ANP falsely claims.

In fact, Taseer turns the ANP argument on its head by proving that Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa is probably the most likely to benefit of all provinces if Kalabagh is built for it will irrigate an additional 800,000 acres of land in the province thus ensuring it becomes self-sufficient in wheat. Taseer also proves wrong the notion that Sindh will lose water, instead Sindh is set to benefit from an extra 2.25 million acre-feet of water.

Taseer proves beyond doubt that Pakistan will be in a win-win situation if Kalabagh dam is built. Taseer’s article deserves a fair hearing as he has strong arguments as he strictly deals with facts and not opinions. For example no Pakistani can ignore his claim that wheat production is likely to drop by at least 30 percent within seven years if the water storage issue remains unresolved. For the Balochi and the Lahori the resulting starvation and civil unrest caused by such a fall need not be contemplated for it will be nothing short of cataclysmic and Taseer deserves praise for drawing attention to our impending doom.

Taseer’s article does not engage in scaremongering for the sake of it, his championing of the Kalabagh dam is heartfelt and he was vocal about it during his the floods of 2010. Taseer’s passing at the start of this year is made all the more tragic and regretable for he was a heavyweight whose championing of the cause made headline news. As a leading PPP politician and Governer of Punjab, Taseer was well-placed to bring people together on the issue. Indeed Taseer was right to say that ‘it will take political daring and awareness efforts to highlight the true facts and to change the very rigid, entrenched positions of Sindhi nationalists and the Awami National Party. If we could sit down with India and reach a settlement in the form of the Indus Waters Treaty, can we not do the same among ourselves?

It is hoped that the excellent Taseer article on the building of the Kalabagh dam represents a watershed in the national discourse on the issue for Taseer is only too right in warning that ‘;a no-new-dam situation, especially a no-Kalabagh situation, is what Pakistan’s enemies are fervently praying for’. Let us as Pakistanis foil the plans of our enemies, and instead unite and rise as one nation by building the Kalabagh dam forthwith.

August 2011’s B-side has its central focus on the death drones that land in Pakistan daily. The B-side is essentially a drone debate this August, because although I have written extensively against the drone attacks in Pakistan, recent developments have caught my eye and deserve further comment. The first two articles in the B-side are focused on drone attacks in Pakistan and cover new ground for they are the first articles written by senior US officials that criticise drone attacks.

The first article is written by Dennis Blair who was as recent as May 2010 the Director for National Intelligence in the Obama Administration. The second article is written by Dennis Kucinich, a senior Democratic Congressman who has tried twice to win the Democratic Party ticket to stand as President. The final article written by Shehrbano Taseer looks at another pressing foreign policy issue for Pakistan that of Pakistan-India relations in the context of the recent Pakistan-India summit in New Delhi attended by Pakistan’s new foreign minister, Hina Rabbani Khar. August 2011′s B-side contents include:

1. Drones Alone Are Not The Answer by DENNIS C. BLAIR
2. Drones Direct Hit Upon The Rule of Law by DENNIS KUCINICH
3. Hina Rabbani Khar Offers Hope to Pakistan by SHEHRBANO TASEER

The drone debate begins with an interesting first article by Dennis C Blair.

Drones Alone Are Not The Answer by Dennis C Blair

The article is published in The New York Times and can be read here.

WASIM VIEW- As a former Director of National Intelligence, Dennis Blair was as a man in the inner circle of US statecraft with access to all the truths as well as guesswork and intelligence. Consequently he speaks and in this case writes with authority in stating that the US policy to defeat Al-Qaeda via drone attacks was flawed and is ‘wishful thinking.

Blair’s article concludes that drone strikes achieve little in the long-run as Al-Qaeda officials who are killed by drones are easily replaced and is right to point out that it ensures increased hatred of America in Pakistan. However Blair does support continued drone strikes albeit with Pakistani participation as opposed to unilateral US drone strikes, both being scenarios most Pakistanis including me, cannot agree with.

That said the Blair article is a step forward for it is an open indictment against the Obama policy in Pakistan and moreover shows that those in the highest echolens of US state power have realised their folly. Thus the key point in Blair’s article is how he no longer supports unilateral drone strikes which is a significant development given his status in the corridors of power. Who knows maybe others in the Obama Administration will follow his lead and wake up to the truth that drone strikes don’t work and must end now.

The second article is the best article in the B-side and continues on the drone debate and is written by US Congressman Dennis Kucinich.

Drones Direct Hit Upon The Rule of Law by Dennis Kucinich

The article is published in The Huffigton Post and can be read here.

WASIM VIEW- Kucinich’s article is a breath of fresh air for it is candid and correct in denouncing the Obama Administration ‘use of unmanned drones as a tool of war’. Kucinich is especially right to draw attention to the human cost of drone attacks with Pakistani civilians dying daily by joystick.

In my opinion, the number of civilians killed in Pakistan alone is sufficient grounds to halt drone attacks and Kucinich deserves credit for raising this aspect of the drone debate. Kucinich is right to draw attention to the civilian death toll and shares the truth authored by multiple sources in The Bureau of Investigative Journalism as well as the Brookings Institution and the New American Foundation all of whom confirm that many Pakistani civilians are killed by US drone attacks. It not need be stated that the latter two are no friends of Pakistan and are respected US think tanks which increases the validity of the argument put forward in Kucinich’s excellent article.

Kucinich ends his article by making valid references to the legality or lack thereof of drone strikes in Pakistan. I could not say it better than Kucinich who dismissed drone drone strikes ‘as summary executions, extra-judicial killings’. In a eerie sentence, Kucinich may well have seen what is coming when writing ‘that the hellfire we are sowing will surely be reaped by Americans in the future’.

The final article has its focus on the foreign minister and foreign policy of Pakistan and is written by Shehrbano Taseer.

Hina Rabbani Khar Offers Hope to Pakistan by Shehrbano Taseer

The article is published in The Guardian and can be read here.

WASIM VIEW- Taseer’s article is a good one for it is better than what most op-ed writers have done in focusing on the person of the foreign minister and not foreign policy. Taseer does refer to Hina Rabbani Khar’s dress sense and the media coverage afforded to her in India but uses both to bring to the fore the key issues, that is the substance of the story behind the sheen by drawing attention to the rich-poor disconnect in Pakistan.

Taseer must be praised for looking beyond the all too-easy references to Khar as Pakistan’s Fashion Minister and instead demonstrates journalistic maturity in drawing attention to hard facts like the 2010 study that estimates that 32% of Pakistan’s 180 million population subsists below the poverty line. Taseer goes one step further and links Khar’s tax returns amounting to a paltry £60 as evidence of Pakistan’s wider failings and I quote ‘So her ability to accessorise while millions in her country are homeless jobless and malnourished is hardly surprising. It is indicative of the gulf between the haves and the have-nots in Pakistan today’.

The rest of Taseer’s article charts the history of civilian-military relations and their respective roles in determining foreign policy as well as some useful references to the proud role women have played in Pakistan. Taseer is right to be hopeful for Pakistan and its youth, however she is wrong or at the least overly optimistic that Hina Rabbani Khar’s first meeting represents a marked change in Pakistan-India relations, for the real test remains, can flowery words translate into actions.

July 2011’s B-side continues to focus on the aftermath of the Bin Laden killing and looks at that headache of headaches, Pakistan-US relations. The first article is written by the one and only Tariq Ali and focuses on ‘AmPak’ – a marriage of convenience. The second article is written by Cyril Almeida and looks at Pakistan-US relations after 9/11 to the present day. The final article looks at a separate issue in terms of the Pakistan-Iran pipeline and the potential for Pakistan as an energy corridor. July 2011’s B-side contents include:

1. US and Pakistan: The Rocky AmPak Affair by TARIQ ALI
2. A Second Chance by CYRIL ALMEIDA
3. Pakistan Punished in Pipelineistan by PEPE ESCOBAR

Tariq Ali is the author of the first article, need I say more?

US and Pakistan: The Rocky AmPak Affair by Tariq Ali

The article is published by The Guardian and can be read here.

WASIM VIEW- Tariq Ali remains an intellectual heavyweight who is respected the world over by friend and foe alike. As a commentator, he remains a personal favourite of mine and impressed me with his brilliant article on Pakistan-US relations. In the article, Ali describes the relations between both countries as a marriage of convenience (made in hell I must add) with the XXL sized trousers worn by the stars and stripes I must add,

Ali rightly concludes that the so-called marriage (a sordid affair more likely) is one-sided when he writes ‘Washington defines the rules of the marriage. It drones the country, it violates its sovereignty, its agents kill citizens on public highways. International law is arbitrary’, thus to borrow from the Black Eyed Peas then where is the love???

The history of the AmPak marriage from the Afghan jihad and 9/11 till today, as defined by Ali is charted later in the article. In it Ali, describes the many lows of the Pakistan-US relationship that has resulted in a pliant Pakistan bullied by arrogant America.

Ali’s article is right to bring attention to other Pakistani ills not least the evil of corruption and the daily bloodbath in Karachi, however he is being too negative in predicting that an implosion is inevitable. Ali is however right in his solution to Pakistan’s woes, in his words ‘A quick Nato exit from Afghanistan is the only basis to stabilise Pakistan’, I could not agree any more.

Continuing with the Pakistan-US relations theme post-Osama, the second article looks at the prospects of a second chance for Pakistan and is written by Cyril Almeida.

A Second Chance by Cyril Almeida

The article is published by Dawn and can be read here.

WASIM VIEW- Cyril Almeida’s article is a seminal piece for it proves how incapable our khaki kings namely Musharraf , Kayani and co have been in learning the lessons of 9/11. Almeida concludes rightly that ‘the generals didn’t get it. They thought 9/11 was a blip, one that required temporary adjustments and deflections, for which they would be rewarded handsomely, before eventually going back to business as usual’. Musharraf’s mistake has cost the Pakistani people dearly who have paid the price for the military leadership’s failings, paid in death and destruction.

Almeida’s analysis of where Pakistan went wrong after 9/11 is well worth a read for it provides for much needed introspection with a view to taking Pakistan forward. Almeida’s article gets better as he does more than problem-spot; instead he charts a way forward post-Osama in the form of a second chance.

Almeida is keen to re-set Pakistan’s ties with the US and reminds his readers of Pakistan’s worth (sold cheaply) to the US in terms of the NATO supply route, our complicity in drone attacks and the fact that Pakistani assistance comes cheaply. Almeida does not set out a minimum agenda of Pakistan-US co-operation in his article, however he does identify the various levers Pakistan can use and flex to put pressure on America with a view to ensuring a Pakistan-US relationship that is in the interests of Pakistan too.

Agreeing with Almeida, Pakistan’s military and civilan leaders do have a second chance to reset Pakistan-US relations, which I suspect they will goof up once again.

The final article looks at the politics of pipelines and is written by Pepe Escobar.

Pakistan Punished in Pipelineistan by Pepe Escobar

The article is published by Asian Times and can be read here.

WASIM VIEW- Escobar’s article is a good one and is warmly welcomed for it has at its focus the planned Iran-Pakistan gas pipeline that should connect Pakistan to Iran. Escobar is excited as am I by the potential of the IP pipeline which if successful could see Pakistan emerge as an energy corridor in the region and beyond.

The rest of the article looks at Pakistan-US relations post-Osama in which Escobar rightly bemoans the imperial bullying of Pakistan by Uncle Sam that included the suspension of military aid. And still the US says has the tenacity to say her relationship with Pakistan is strategic and not transactional! Escobar is also right to question the wider American agenda and their hate for the IP pipeline and their preference for the TAPI pipeline that moves through Afghnaistan and India and excludes Iran.

Escobar is too quick to judge Pashtun nationalism as an existential threat to Pakistan, a view I do not share. That said Escobar is right to conclude that a successful IP pipeline will embolden Pakistan and her appeal to the region and the world as an energy corridor.

June 2011′s B-side looks within and without, starting with a continued focus on Pakistan-US relations via a commentary from a luminary no less than the former President of Pakistan, Pervez Musharraf. The second key focus is some much needed introspection that looks at the negative role of successive Pakistani military leaders in an article written by a B-side regular in Mohammed Hanif. The final article is written by Umar Cheema and reflects on the death of Saleem Shahzad and the role and responsibilities of the Pakistani media. June 2011’s B-side contents include:

1. Pakistan: A Reality Check Amid The Terror And Chaos by PERVEZ MUSHARRAF
2. Pakistan’s General Problem by MOHAMMED HANIF
3. Dying To Tell The Story by UMAR CHEEMA

The headache that is Pakistan-US relations is the focus of the first article written by the man who has left Pakistan in many a headache, Pervez Musharraf.

Pakistan: A Reality Check Amid The Terror And Chaos by Pervez Musharraf

The article is published by CNN and can be read here.

WASIM VIEW– For the sake of transparency and validity, it is important for me to state a few truths before I comment on the Musharraf article. Readers should know that many moons ago, I was a passionate supporter of Musharrraf, however regular OP readers will know that I saw the light eventually, moreover many will know of my vitriolic dislike for his policies and his person in posts that can be read via the tag Go Musharraf Go here.

Musharraf begins his article by referring to Pakistan being ‘in the eye of the terrorism storm’, conveniently forgetting that it was he who took Pakistan down this path of death and destruction a la the deadly Bush and Mush tango of two.

Musharraf’s article is right to remind readers of the historical context in which Pakistan finds itself namely the Cold War and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. However he loses all credibility with a supreme blunder as per his brash nature by boasting of involving the Taliban during the Cold War. The commando has obviously lost his marbles when he said that Pakistan ‘inducted 25,000 to 30,000 Mujahedeen (holy warriors) from all over the Muslim world into Afghanistan and also pumped in Taliban from the tribal agencies of Pakistan after arming and training them’ given the Taliban as a political force did not exist during the so-called Afghan jihad.

Musharraf is however right to bemoan the American betrayal of Pakistan post the Cold War which continues to this day. However I was flabbergasted and nearly fell of my chair when Musharraf concluded that the U.S. military presence in Afghanistan. the indiscriminate drone attacks and the violation of Pakistani sovereignty in the cross-border strike against Osama bin Laden were seen negatively by the people of Pakistan. It staggers belief that Musharraf has realised this now in the cold and comforting climes of London, given that it was he who personally allowed the US to do drone away and do as it pleases in Pakistan. Clearly the cold air in London has brought home the truth to macho Musharraf and that too whilst hiding in Londonistan.

Musharraf ends the article as he began it, full of bluster and brashness. The former khaki king reminds us all of his messianic leadership whilst denouncing all other Pakistani leaders and pronounces to the world that Pakistan must explain its inaction in North Waziristan against the Haqqani group and rid herself of extremist elements in the intelligence agencies. Such words are cheap given that Musharraf spectacularly failed to do either during his long stint of 9 years during which Musharraf rule reigned supreme as he was the all powerful army chief and President.

Musharraf the sage has more good advice to share in his joke of an article that includes the US giving drones to Pakistan and the respecting of our sovereignty. Musharraf is also keen to resolve the Kashmir dispute, and curtail India’s role in Afghanistan and raise 20 more wings of the Frontier Corps equipping them with more tanks and medium guns. Again Musharraf’s talk is cheap and getting cheaper since he was unable to achieve any such feats when he was in power and that even includes the non-controversial raising of 20 wings of the FC which should have been relatively easy to implement given his military background. In conclusion and if honest. friends and foes of Musharraf cannot be impressed with his article and should conclude that he is all talk, a megaphone of a man more and a paper tiger with no teeth.

The second article written by Mohammed Hanif is one of the very best I have read in a long time.

Pakistan’s General Problem by Mohammed Hanif

The article is published by Open Magazine and can be read here.

WASIM VIEW- Following Pervez Musharraf’s diatribe of an article, the Hanif article is different class. In it Mohammed Hanif traces the genesis of Pakistan’s ‘General Problem’ namely the unwanted influence of its khaki kings with special ire rightly reserved for General Zia.

Hanif is right to ridicule General Zia and bemoan his legacy of blood and bombs that has destroyed the Quaid’s Pakistan. Hanif is also right to point out that without publicly owning up to it, the Pakistan Army has continued Zia’s mission in open and in secret that has in Hanif’s words ‘turned the country into an international jihadi tourist resort’, creating a Frankenstein monster that keeps us all awake day and night.

Hanif’s article captures the dilemma of the Pakistani and the Pakistani state, which one hand prides itself on its Islamic credentials as it should for Pakistan was created to be the second Madina. Yet on the other hand, that Pakistan is under attack from the so-called followers of same Islam that created Pakistan thanks to the Pakistani Taliban and other groups. Consequently Pakistan is a confused nation that is left wondering whose Pakistan and which Islam is under attack and why and left even more confused daily. Hanif sums up our predicament in the following passage in his article:

The Pakistan Army’s biggest folly has been that under Zia it started outsourcing its basic job—soldiering—to these freelance militants. By blurring the line between a professional soldier—who, at least in theory, is always required to obey his officer, who in turn is governed by a set of laws—and a mujahid, who can pick and choose his cause and his commander depending on his mood, the Pakistan Army has caused immense confusion in its own ranks. Our soldiers are taught to shout Allah-o-Akbar when mocking an attack. In real life, they are ambushed by enemies who shout Allah-o-Akbar even louder. Can we blame them if they dither in their response? When the Pakistan Navy’s main aviation base in Karachi, PNS Mehran, was attacked, Navy Chief Admiral Nauman Bashir told us that the attackers were ‘very well trained’. We weren’t sure if he was giving us a lazy excuse or admiring the creation of his institution. When naval officials told journalists that the attackers were ‘as good as our own commandoes’ were they giving themselves a backhanded compliment?’

Hanif is right to criticise General Kiyani and his stellar leadership when he declared that the Pakistan army had broke the backs of the militancy and boasted of his promise that Pakistan will never bargain its honour for prosperity. Hanif puts Kayani right when he writes that ‘as things stand, most people in Pakistan have neither honour nor prosperity and will easily settle for their little world not blowing up every day, the question people really want to ask General Kiyani is that if he and his Army officer colleagues can have both honour and prosperity, why can’t we the people have a tiny bit of both?

Hanif’s article does not only focus on the role of General Zia, in fact later on he makes a brilliant assessment of Pervez Musharraf’s record as a general. Hanif’s description of the Kargil debacle and Musharraf’s macho arrogance since the fiasco is instructive of the mindset of the Pakistan army under Musharraf and the army leadership and is also an open indictment on his person and a riposte to his article earlier in the B-side in which he arrogantly lectures the world on how to win the peace.

Concluding Mohammed Hanif is right to introspect on the role of successive khaki kings in his brilliant article and it is hoped from me at least that such articles open the eyes of Pakistan’s military leadership to their follies so they correct their ways.

The final article is written by a respected Pakistani journalist in Umar Cheema and looks at the role of the Pakistani media.

Dying To Tell The Story by Umar Cheema

The article is published in The New York Times and can be read here.

WASIM VIEW- Umar Cheema’s heart-rending article includes an account of his torture which is difficult to read. Worse, it is the tragedy of Pakistan that Umar Cheema was lucky in only being tortured and not as unlucky as Saleem Shahzad was who paid the ultimate price for his investigative journalism.

Umar Cheema’s article is included in the B-side as it covers new ground for the B-side and looks at the pressure on the media in Pakistan. As a supporter of a vocal and independent media I agree with Cheema that ‘Pakistan is at a crossroads and so is its news media. In a situation of doom and gloom, Pakistani journalists offer a ray of hope to their fellow citizens and they have earned the people’s trust’.

Far too many journalists have perished in Pakistan and I agree with Cheema that the impunity afforded to the ISI must end. In this regard I am encouraged by the recently announced Saleem Shahzad commission headed by the future Chief Justice in Justice Mian Saqib Nisar of the Supreme Court of Pakistan and hope and pray it will provide justice.

May 2011’s B-side is all about the killing of Osama Bin Laden and the fall-out from it in Pakistan. Three articles try to bring some sense and perspective beginning with the much ridiculed article penned by President Zardari. The other articles have not been subject to ridicule and are written by Babar Sattar and Mohammed Hanif respectively. May 2011’s B-side contents include:

• Pakistan Did Its Part by ASIF ALI ZARDARI
• Time For Heads To Roll by BABAR SATTAR
• Osama Bin Laden Death: No Mourning Or Celebration In Pakistan by MOHAMMED HANIF

The first article is written by none other than the President of Pakistan, Asif Ali Zardari.

Pakistan Did Its Part by President Asif Ali Zardari

Pakistan, perhaps the world’s greatest victim of terrorism, joins the other targets of al-Qaeda — the people of the United States, Britain, Spain, Indonesia, Afghanistan, Turkey, Yemen, Kenya, Tanzania, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Algeria — in our satisfaction that the source of the greatest evil of the new millennium has been silenced, and his victims given justice. He was not anywhere we had anticipated he would be, but now he is gone.

Although the events of Sunday were not a joint operation, a decade of cooperation and partnership between the United States and Pakistan led up to the elimination of Osama bin Laden as a continuing threat to the civilized world. And we in Pakistan take some satisfaction that our early assistance in identifying an al-Qaeda courier ultimately led to this day.

Let us be frank. Pakistan has paid an enormous price for its stand against terrorism. More of our soldiers have died than all of NATO’s casualties combined. Two thousand police officers, as many as 30,000 innocent civilians and a generation of social progress for our people have been lost. And for me, justice against bin Laden was not just political; it was also personal, as the terrorists murdered our greatest leader, the mother of my children. Twice he tried to assassinate my wife. In 1989 he poured $50 million into a no-confidence vote to topple her first government. She said that she was bin Laden’s worst nightmare — a democratically elected, progressive, moderate, pluralistic female leader. She was right, and she paid for it with her life.

Some in the U.S. press have suggested that Pakistan lacked vitality in its pursuit of terrorism, or worse yet that we were disingenuous and actually protected the terrorists we claimed to be pursuing. Such baseless speculation may make exciting cable news, but it doesn’t reflect fact. Pakistan had as much reason to despise al-Qaeda as any nation. The war on terrorism is as much Pakistan’s war as as it is America’s. And though it may have started with bin Laden, the forces of modernity and moderation remain under serious threat.

My government endorses the words of President Obama and appreciates the credit he gave us Sunday night for the successful operation in Khyber Pakhtunkhawa. We also applaud and endorse the words of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton that we must “press forward, bolstering our partnerships, strengthening our networks, investing in a positive vision of peace and progress, and relentlessly pursuing the murderers who target innocent people.” We have not yet won this war, but we now clearly can see the beginning of the end, and the kind of South and Central Asia that lies in our future.

Only hours after bin Laden’s death, the Taliban reacted by blaming the government of Pakistan and calling for retribution against its leaders, and specifically against me as the nation’s president. We will not be intimidated. Pakistan has never been and never will be the hotbed of fanaticism that is often described by the media.

Radical religious parties have never received more than 11 percent of the vote. Recent polls showed that 85 percent of our people are strongly opposed to al-Qaeda. In 2009, when the Taliban briefly took over the Swat Valley, it demonstrated to the people of Pakistan what our future would look like under its rule — repressive politics, religious fanaticism, bigotry and discrimination against girls and women, closing of schools and burning of books. Those few months did more to unite the people of Pakistan around our moderate vision of the future than anything else possibly could.

A freely elected democratic government, with the support and mandate of the people, working with democracies all over the world, is determined to build a viable, economic prosperous Pakistan that is a model to the entire Islamic world on what can be accomplished in giving hope to our people and opportunity to our children. We can become everything that al-Qaeda and the Taliban most fear — a vision of a modern Islamic future. Our people, our government, our military, our intelligence agencies are very much united. Some abroad insist that this is not the case, but they are wrong. Pakistanis are united.

Together, our nations have suffered and sacrificed. We have fought bravely and with passion and commitment. Ultimately we will prevail. For, in the words of my martyred wife Benazir Bhutto, “truth, justice and the forces of history are on our side.”

Published in The Washington Post

WASIM VIEW- Before commenting on the 734-worded article I wish to recall a tweet on Twitter that asked of President Zardari’s above article which asked ‘was that Washington Post article an address to the nation by our President? #justwondering’. The question and hash tag although humorous are in fact an indictment of out President with the tweet doing justice to the feelings of the ordinary Pakistani who has been left bewildered and betrayed by their grinning President in a time of national crisis.

Readers will know that President Zardari has yet to move his lips in public and emit a sound on the May 2 operation that killed Bin Laden, save for penning an article on it. That said President Zardari’s article (or should I say Husain Haqqani’s article) is lucid and loud, the latter a quality he has lacked throughout his presidency and the former a quality he has in bucket loads.

The article seek to remind the Americans of Pakistan’s record on the so-called war on terror and charts Pakistan’s sacrifices. However I do take issue with the President Zardari when he wrote that he endorsed the words of Obama and Clinton vis a vis the 2nd of May, one must assume he also supported the actions that gave meaning to those very words and resulted in a unilateral and illegal attack on Pakistani soil.

In a defining moment for Pakistan, at a time of crisis President Zardari has personally been left found wanting. His article achieves nothing, even today he has not uttered a word about the US action in Abbottabad to his people in their language be it in Urdu, Balochi, Sindhi, Pashto or Punjabi. Such an act is unforgivable and nothing short of scandalous.

Even the PPP apologists and jiyalas will find it hard to defend their silent leader who has been rendered speechless after the 2nd of May. The PPP and President cannot blame anyone for their own failings in this regard, unless he wishes to blame Kayani and co for slashing his tongue, rendering him speechless. If the truth be told, Kayani could not even manage that feat for post 2nd May the khaki kings have been left disgraced, diminished and degraded and dethroned.

The second article is the best article ever featured on any B-side and is written by a brilliant Pakistani mind, Babar Sattar.

Time For Heads To Roll by Babar Sattar

Our military and intelligence agencies stand indicted for being complicit with terror groups and our best defence seems to be to plead incompetence.

Osama’s refuge in the shadows of the Pakistan Military Academy Kakul and his killing without the knowledge or permission of Pakistani authorities have not only raised piercing questions about the country’s willingness to function as a responsible state but also cast fundamental doubts on the ability of our national security apparatus to protect Pakistan against foreign intervention.

An ISPR release after Thursday’s corps commanders’ conference that broke the security establishment’s silence on the Osama operation is mostly gibberish.

While admitting “shortcomings in developing intelligence” on Osama’s presence in Pakistan, it goes on to blow the ISI’s trumpet for extraordinary achievement all around. The commanders feel betrayed by the CIA for not telling the ISI where Bin Laden was hiding.

The release doesn’t say why the military failed to detect foreign choppers and troops in our territory for an hour and 40 minutes. The air chief has now chimed in: the radars were working perfectly but enough of them are just not located on the western border. Did no one ever think we needed radar and air cover in the drone-infested part of Pakistan that has been an active war zone for a decade?

Can the-dog-ate-my-homework routine pacify a nation worried sick about having penetrable defences, no response readiness and being on the way to be branded a rogue? An inquiry into the facts of the Osama operation to determine the causes of the intelligence failure will not be sufficient.

We need to rationally approach the concept of sovereignty together with state responsibility to understand why the world views us suspiciously. We need a thorough re-examination of our existing national security doctrine to determine whether it is promoting or jeopardising our security. We need disclosure on the scope of our military relationship with the US and if the latter has been afforded air bases and the permission to house troops or intelligence operatives within Pakistan.

We need to root the power and authority of the ISI within statutory law, provide for internal checks and performance audit, and subject the agency to effective parliamentary scrutiny. And we need to do away with our policy of deliberate hypocrisy reflected in our refusal to clearly articulate our security and foreign policy goals, especially vis-à-vis the future of Afghanistan.

This is keeping the jihadi project alive, confusing and polarising the nation and drawing a wedge between Pakistan and the world. But this won’t happen unless the responsibility for failing to detect Osama’s presence in Pakistan as well as the US military operation is ascribed to those in charge of national security.

It is unlikely that Osama was being hosted by Pakistan as a matter of policy. Shielding Afghan Taliban leaders or India-focused militant leaders, however misconceived, is still understandable as part of a warped strategy to promote our defined strategic interests. Hosting Bin Laden or other Al Qaeda leaders isn’t.

Further, the assumption that our military and the ISI must have known of Osama’s presence in Abbottabad is the product of a narrative that projects our national security establishment as extremely capable, effective and omnipresent. This narrative has been conjured up by the national security establishment itself and mercilessly fed to the nation.

The masses buy into it for lack of an alternative narrative and a misplaced sense of nationalism. The political class and the media buy into it because they remain subjects of the ISI’s intrusive gaze, being followed, wiretapped, photographed, interrogated, cajoled and coerced. But hard facts do not back this narrative. Without distorting history can one honestly applaud our military high command’s performance in any war? Have our military and its intelligence network succeeded in confronting the security threat emanating from within?

If the ISI and the MI are epitomes of excellence, what accounts for their inability to prevent terrorists from blowing up themselves, our soldiers, policemen, intelligence outfits and innocent civilians across Pakistan at will? What can possibly explain the ease with which a handful of terrorists broke into the GHQ, killed senior military officers and held others hostage for hours? Pakistan has lost more civilians and soldiers to terror since 9/11 than all other countries of the world put together.

Does this sacrifice not highlight the failure of our national security strategy?

Some days ago, army chief Gen Kayani declared that national honour shall not be traded for prosperity. A week before that he had boasted that we had broken the backbone of the militants. Air chief Rao Qamar Suleman had declared that the air force is capable of shooting down US Predator aircraft if asked to. The US Navy Seals then carried out a complex military operation in the heart of Pakistan with choppers and boots on the ground and all, and the air force and army slept right through it?

In a functional democracy, these gentlemen would be sacked after such a debacle. Unfortunately, national security related decisions in Pakistan fall within the exclusive domain of the military, which jealously guards its turf. But responsibility must accompany such power. And the responsibility for erosion of our international credibility and increased threat to security personnel and citizens from terror networks nestled within Pakistan rests squarely on the military’s shoulder.

Be it a rise in suicide bombing and terror incidents within Pakistan, an increase in US drone strikes in our territory, the Mumbai attacks or the Osama operation, the threat to Pakistan’s interests for being perceived as a pad for terrorist activity and to its citizens as targets of terror has proliferated under Gen Kayani’s watch. Is it not time for Gen Kayani to call it quits and take along with him the DG ISI and the air chief? Shouldn’t these heads roll to account for failing to do their jobs?

With them in the driving seat it might neither be possible to hold a transparent inquiry into the security breaches that led to the Osama operation and its execution without Pakistan’s knowledge nor engage in a rethink of our perverse national security mindset. Can we shed some baggage and create room for untainted faces and ideas?

The concept of sovereignty assumes control over the territory a state claims. We cannot continue to shirk responsibility for the men, material and money transiting in and out of Pakistan and simultaneously wail at the disregard for our sovereignty. It is time to publicly articulate our legitimate security interests linked to the future of Afghanistan and develop a regional consensus around it, instead of vying for the whole hog.

It is time to completely liquidate the jihadi project and cleanse our state machinery of those who believe in its virtue. And it is time to shun the delusions of grandeur and conspiracy that prevent us from realising our potential as a responsible and industrious nation.

Published in Dawn

WASIM VIEW- I agree with every word and heads must roll.

Babar Sattar’s article is the best article I have read post Osama and is so spot on, that it needs no commentary from me given that I agree with every word he has written. Sattar is right to call for the heads of Kayani, Pasha and Suleman, and I echo such a call; however I feel he must add to his call the names of Messrs Zardari and Gilani who are also responsible for our present ills.

The final article is written by the respected Pakistani author, Mohammed Hanif.

Osama Bin Laden Death: No Mourning Or Celebration In Pakistan by Mohammed Hanif

There were no celebrations. And there was no mourning. It didn’t occur to anyone to make an Obama effigy; no American flags were burnt. There were no heated debates about whether Osama was a martyr or not. The buses that were set ablaze in Karachi had nothing to do with the high drama in Abbotabad. The crowd in front of Karachi Press Club was a group of private bank employees wanting their jobs back. The little group at the gates of the electricity company offices was demanding nothing more than some good, clean electricity.

A hunger strike camp with young men’s posters was part of a campaign to recover young men who have nothing at to do with al-Qaida.

In fact, the reaction to the killing of Bin Laden was so subdued that a colleague noted that there weren’t even any text messages in circulation with conspiracy theories and inevitable jokes about Osama’s wives.

Pakistanis are not in denial. Just busy. They are busy fighting a hundred little battles that don’t involve US Navy Seals or helicopter crashes or Arab tycoons. These battles are as vicious as any that you have seen in the last 10 years but they don’t make good TV. How do you create high drama out of millions of industrial labourers being laid off because there is no electricity? How do you sex up the banal fact that every tenth child in the world who never sees the inside of a schoolroom is a Pakistani child?

So it fell to our TV pundits to prove that we were also part of this global soap opera. They raged against yet another invasion of our much-molested sovereignty. They demanded transparency from America. They wanted footage. How many hours of rolling news you can spin out of a single, bullet-riddled mugshot?

In the real world an educationist and chronic optimist tried to fantasise. “So the party is over,” he enthused. “Americans will go home. Our boys will ask their jihadi boys to pack up, surely?”

Someone reminded him. “Have you been to a party lately, sir? Nobody goes home.”

Pakistan’s security establishment, of course, went into a sulky silence, and wasn’t around to reassure us. Were they protecting Osama bin Laden? Or were they so hopelessly inefficient that they couldn’t track the world’s most recognisable face when he was camped out practically at the edge of the Pakistan army’s most famous parade ground? As they are answerable only to their mistrusting partners and permanent paymasters in Washington, they didn’t feel like obliging us with any information.

But anyone who has lived through Pakistan’s three military dictatorships sponsored by Washington can tell you there is no need to be such a reductionist. Why can’t Pakistan’s security establishment do both? Why can’t they shelter him and then forget about the fact that they were sheltering him? Or why can’t they shelter him and then shop him at a later stage?

Pakistan’s army is often accused, mostly by their best friends in Washington, of double-dealing and fighting on both sides of this war. In its long role as rent-an-army to the US, it has been accused of becoming a mafia, a secretive clan and a corporation, all at the same time. But what does it feel like to live under this bloody delusion? It’s like watching a person whose one hand is hacking away at his other hand. There is blood, there are cries of pain, and there is the obvious sound of one hand hacking away at the other. The person keeps looking around trying to figure out, who is doing this to me? Military operations and house-to-house searches to look for the hidden hand end up where they started.

On Tuesday afternoon an official from the ISI (Inter-Services Intelligence agency) did come up with a frank but not very reassuring explanation about that house in Abbottabad. It was embarrassing, he told the BBC World Service. And then went on to reminisce about their past victories, duly acknowledged and celebrated by their Washington counterparts. “We are good but not gods,” he said. What he really should have said is that we are gods, but not good.

Published in The Guardian

WASIM VIEW- In choosing to include Mohammed Hanif’s article in this B-side I wished to move beyond Osama and remind myself and readers of the daily struggles of the ordinary Pakistani. Such struggles are obviously not sexy and so do not make good copy or headline news in Pakistan and elsewhere but they represent the harsh realities of Pakistan and its people as described by Hanif’s excellent article.

Hanif’s criticisms of the Pakistani army and the ISI are deserved and in particular I agree with his choice of words in describing the army as a rent-an-army for the US. After PNS Mehran and Abbottabad before it, Pakistan’s armed forces have clearly lost their mojo, for it stands today supremely humiliated before the world. As a proud Pakistani that hurts for the armed forces remains the guarantor of Pakistan’s defence.

March 2011′s B-side is set to be a depressing read. Depressing for its main focus is on Pakistan-US relations vis a vis the Raymond Davis issue and looks at both sides of what is now a useless and redundant debate with two articles by luminaries no less than Christopher Hitchens and the President of Pakistan himself. The second key focus for the B-side is equally distressing via an article by the author Mohammed Hanif who looks at the rising intolerance in Pakistan. March 2011′s B-side contents are:

• As Pakistan Battles Extremism, It Needs Allies Patience and Help by ASIF ALI ZARDARI
• Our Man in Pakistan by CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS
• Silence Has Become The Mother of All Blasphemies by MOHAMMED HANIF

One must begin the Pakistan-US relations debate, first and foremost with the views of the President of Pakistan, Asif Ali Zardari.

As Pakistan Battles Extremism, It Needs Allies Patience And Help by Asif Ali Zardari

Just days before her assassination, my wife, Shaheed Benazir Bhutto, wrote presciently of the war within Islam and the potential for a clash between Islam and the West: “There is an internal tension within Muslim society. The failure to resolve that tension peacefully and rationally threatens to degenerate into a collision course of values spilling into a clash between Islam and the West. It is finding a solution to this internal debate within Islam – about democracy, about human rights, about the role of women in society, about respect for other religions and cultures, about technology and modernity – that shall shape future relations between Islam and the West.”

Two months ago my friend Salman Taseer, the governor of Punjab, was cut down for standing up against religious intolerance and against those who would use debate about our laws to divide our people. On Tuesday, another leading member of the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), Shahbaz Bhatti, the minister for minority affairs and the only Christian in our cabinet, was murdered by extremists tied to al-Qaeda and the Taliban.

These assassinations painfully reinforce my wife’s words and serve as a warning that the battle between extremism and moderation in Pakistan affects the success of the civilized world’s confrontation with the terrorist menace.

A small but increasingly belligerent minority is intent on undoing the very principles of tolerance upon which our nation was founded in 1947; principles by which Pakistan’s founder, Quaid-i-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah, lived and died; and principles that are repeated over and over in the Koran. The extremists who murdered my wife and friends are the same who blew up the Marriott Hotel in Islamabad and who have blown up girls’ schools in the Swat Valley.

We will not be intimidated, nor will we retreat. Such acts will not deter the government from our calibrated and consistent efforts to eliminate extremism and terrorism. It is not only the future of Pakistan that is at stake but peace in our region and possibly the world.

Our nation is pressed by overlapping threats. We have lost more soldiers in the war against terrorism than all of NATO combined. We have lost 10 times the number of civilians who died on Sept. 11, 2001. Two thousand police officers have been killed. Our economic growth was stifled by the priorities of past dictatorial regimes that unfortunately were supported by the West. The worst floods in our history put millions out of their homes. The religious fanaticism behind our assassinations is a tinderbox poised to explode across Pakistan. The embers are fanned by the opportunism of those who seek advantages in domestic politics by violently polarizing society.

We in Pakistan know our challenges and seek the trust and confidence of our international allies, who sometimes lose patience and pile pressure on those of us who are already on the front lines of what is undeniably a long war. Our concern that we avoid steps that inadvertently help the fanatics is misinterpreted abroad as inaction or even cowardice. Instead of understanding the perilous situation in which we find ourselves, some well-meaning critics tend to forget the distinction between courage and foolhardiness. We are fighting terrorists for the soul of Pakistan and have paid a heavy price. Our desire to confront and deal with the menace in a manner that is effective in our context should not become the basis for questioning our commitment or ignoring our sacrifices.

If Pakistan and the United States are to work together against terrorism, we must avoid political incidents that could further inflame tensions and provide extremists or opportunists with a pretext for destabilizing our fledgling democracy. The Raymond Davis incident in Lahore, which directly resulted in the deaths of three Pakistani men and the suicide of a Pakistani woman, is a prime example of the unanticipated consequences of problematic behavior. We need not go into the legal, moral and political intricacies of this case. Suffice it to say that the actions of Davis and others like him inflame passions in our country and undermine respect and support for the United States among our people. We are committed to peaceful adjudication of the Davis case in accordance with the law. But it is in no one’s interest to allow this matter to be manipulated and exploited to weaken the government of Pakistan and damage further the U.S. image in our country.

Similarly counterproductive are threats to apply sanctions to Pakistan over the Davis affair by cutting off Kerry-Lugar development funds that were designed to build infrastructure, strengthen education and create jobs. It is a threat, written out of the playbook of America’s enemies, whose only result will be to undermine U.S. strategic interests in South and Central Asia. In an incendiary environment, hot rhetoric and dysfunctional warnings can start fires that will be difficult to extinguish.

Published in The Washington Post

WASIM VIEW- President Asif Ali Zardari is not a man I am fond of to say the least. Like his person his article (or should I say his ghost writer’s article as all know that the President is not the most lucid in prose) is prone to bluster and half-truths.

In the article the President is right to state that ‘a belligerent minority is intent on undoing the very principles of tolerance upon which our nation was founded in 1947 but he must be having a laugh at the expense of the nation when he wrote after the killings of Salman Taseer and Shahbaz Bhatti  that ’we will not be intimidated, nor will we retreat. Such acts will not deter the government from our calibrated and consistent efforts to eliminate extremism and terrorism’. 

Sadly for the President the Pakistani people can see through him for they have experienced the PPP government and its words and (lack of) deeds. Indeed Pakistani  citizens can only but dream of a calibrated response from the PPP-led government on any issue let alone on an issue as important as fighting extremism and terrorism. The Zardari-Gilani double-act could not even spell the word calibrate let alone give meaning to it for theirs is a government bereft of ideas and governance lacking any coherent policy on all issues save for their mantra on reconciliation.

The rest of the article looks at Pakistan-US relations after the killing spree of Raymond Davis. Thanks to Wikileaks President (we-are-here-because of you) Zardari’s affection for America was made known to all and in the article the President is guilty of painting a rosy picture as his government prides itself as a vital US ally.  In truth he and his government were given a slap in the face when America threatened to withdraw the Kerry-Lugar funding  (funding I despise by the way) unless Davis was released.

Furthermore the Raymond Davis episode proves that the PPP’s has failed in foreign policy too irrespective of its tall claims from former foreign minister Qureshi whilst in office including the much-celebrated Pakistan-US strategic dialogue which when push came to shove counted for nothing. Instead the transanctional and master-slave nature of Pakistan-US relations reigned supreme, and that is a damning indictment on the President and the Gilani government.

The second article also looks at Pakistan-US relations as per the Raymond Davis issue and is written by the one and only, Christopher Hitchens.

Our Man in Pakistan by Christopher Hitchens

In April 2001, a Pakistani diplomat—the first secretary of the Pakistani Embassy in Kathmandu, Nepal, as a matter of fact—was found by the Nepalese police to be stashing a large cache of sophisticated high explosives in his home. Muhammad Arshad Cheema invoked diplomatic immunity to avoid prosecution and, after a short interval, was sent home.

In October 1985, after the hijacking of the cruise ship Achille Lauro in the Mediterranean, an act of open piracy that culminated in the rolling of a disabled man, Leon Klinghoffer, from the vessel’s deck into the sea, the organizer of the “operation” was apprehended and taken into custody by the Italian police. But Abu Abbas was not inconvenienced for long. He was released when he was found to be carrying a diplomatic passport—an Iraqi diplomatic passport as it happened, though he was by nationality a Palestinian and had never been accredited to any overseas mission.

In April 1984, during a demonstration by anti-Qaddafi protesters outside the Libyan Embassy in London, a fusillade of shots fired from inside the embassy struck 12 people. One of them, a police officer named Yvonne Fletcher, was killed. So grave was the incident that it led to the breaking of diplomatic relations between London and Tripoli and to a series of negotiations that only ended when Libya agreed to accept “general responsibility.” But the entire staff of the Libyan Embassy was allowed to return home without let or hindrance.

These cases were far more murky and gruesome, and involved much more serious breaches of local and international law, than the decision of Raymond A. Davis to use deadly force against men he believed to be his assailants in Lahore, Pakistan. Additional murk has resulted from inter-agency incompetence on the part of the United States, which has given discrepant accounts of his no-doubt discrepant job descriptions “in-country.” But this does not in the least alter the main element of the case, which is that Davis is “our diplomat,” in the president’s own words and that the Pakistani authorities have no right either to detain him or to put him on trial.

Even if he were accredited to a country like Portugal or Poland, it would make no difference whether or not Davis was a member of the “special forces,” a CIA agent, or a man working under contract. Nor would it matter whether or not he was using his own name. Even in the case of a deliberate breach of local law, he would be repatriated before it was decided whether or not, or how, to proceed against him. But Pakistan is not a “normal” country. It is a failed and rogue state, where Davis would have had to know that his assailants might very well be working for the forces of law and order. There would be no need for him to be carrying arms if it were not notorious that the Pakistani army and police are the patrons of the Taliban and in league with various criminal and fundamentalist gangs.

A similar observation holds true when the grotesque idea of trying him in a Punjabi court is mooted. This is a country where senior lawyers offered their services for free to the boastful jihadist murderer who had just slain Punjab’s governor Salman Taseer in broad daylight, and where grinning police officers oversee hysterical demonstrations calling for Davis to be hanged (never mind the trial). Prison conditions in Pakistan are of a kind to make Abu Ghraib look trivial: sarcastic letters in the Pakistani newspapers mockingly stress the fact that a shortish stay in such a jail would be near enough to a death sentence anyway.

Not to mince words, then, Davis is a hostage. In addition to the usual sense of the word, he is a hostage to the Pakistani authorities who dare not—even if they wish—make an enemy either of the Islamist mobs or the uniformed para-state run by the intelligence services. He is also a hostage to the inability or unwillingness of the U.S. government to call things by their right names. President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton have made the correct noises about the relevant international statutes governing immunity, and their envoy Sen. John Kerry (who should never have been sent unless notified in advance that he would return with the prisoner) has even spoken of putting Davis on trial in the United States, which in ordinary circumstances might seem a little premature. But they all talk as if Pakistan were a country of law, and they all talk as if Pakistan were not a client state. Its client status, indeed, is what leads so many Pakistanis to detest America, without whose largesse and indulgence it would long ago have faced collapse. Thus to the final irony: We are denied leverage by the fact of the very influence for which we are hated.

This sick relationship with Pakistan, which plays a continuous and undisguised double-cross on us in Afghanistan, will probably have to be terminated at some point. But in the meantime, it will have to be made very clear to the rulers of that country that if they want to keep Raymond Davis in prison, they will have to manage without our subsidies. He may be a bad test of an important principle, but it is still the important principle that is being tested, and we have no more right to compromise on the principle of diplomatic immunity than the Pakistanis have to violate it.

Published in Slate

WASIM VIEW- Christopher Hitchens article is the work of a diseased mind. That said Hitchens is forgiven as he battles with cancer that has ravaged his body and mind it seems given that he has shown none of his intellectual prowess in the article above. Hitchens is a poor shadow of himself, and a man lost as he writes on the Raymond Davis killing spree.

Hitchens begins by referring to legal precedent in trying to hide behind the assumed niceties of diplomati immunity in defending the actions of Raymond Davis. Hitchens spectacularly fails in that endeavour given that the release of Davis for blood money proves that for the US and Pakistan too, Davis was never a diplomat.

Hitchens hypocritical and hollow use of diplomatic immunity carries with it a stench given as it involves the selective application of the rule of law and international treaties only when it suits US interests. By virtue of his argument, Hitchens and his beloved US  argue can rip up the international consensus and law on civilian nuclear deals as was allowed for the Indian nuclear deal and continue their illegal drone attacks in Pakistan for American can, however the rest of the world including Pakistan must bow to a minor legal instrument such as the Vienna Convention even when it does not apply to Raymond Davis.

The remainder of the article is full of bile not least when Hitchens calls Pakistan a rogue state and savagely attacks the prison conditions in Pakistan as being worse than Abu Gharib. Hitchens also suffers from delusions of grandeur when he boasts that  Sen. John Kerry should have only agreed to visit Pakistan on the guarantee that Raymond Davis would return with him, such are the expectations of the slave state of Pakistan according to Hitchens.

The final article is written by the Pakistani author, Mohammed Hanif and it is well worth a read.

Silence Has Become The Mother of All Blasphemies by Mohammed Hanif

Two months ago, after Governor Salmaan Taseer’s murder and the jubilant support for the policeman who killed him, religious scholars in Pakistan told us that since common people don’t know enough about religion they should leave it to those who do – basically anyone with a beard.

Everyone thought it made a cruel kind of sense. So everyone decided to shut up: the Pakistan Peoples party (PPP) government because it wanted to cling to power, liberals in the media because they didn’t want to be the next Taseer. The move to amend the blasphemy law was shelved.

It was an unprecedented victory for Pakistan’s mullah minority. They had told a very noisy and diverse people to shut up and they heard back nothing but silence. After Pakistan’s only Christian federal minister, Shahbaz Bhatti – the bravest man in Islamabad – was murdered on Tuesday, they were back on TV, this time condemning the killing, claiming it was a conspiracy against them, against Islam and against Pakistan. The same folk who had celebrated one murder and told us how not to get murdered were wallowing in self pity.

In a very short span of time, Pakistan’s mullahs and muftis have managed to blur the line between what God says and what they say. The blasphemy law debate was about how to prosecute people who have committed blasphemy against the prophet Muhammad and the Qur’an. Since repeating a blasphemy, even if it is to prove the crime in a court of law, is blasphemous, no Pakistani has a clear idea what constitutes blasphemy. Taseer had called the blasphemy law “a black law” and was declared a blasphemer. The line between maligning the Holy Prophet and questioning a law made by a bunch of mullahs was done away with. What would come next?

During the last two months sar tan se juda (off with their heads) has become as familiar a slogan as all the corporate songs about the Cricket World Cup. Banners appeared all over Karachi and Islamabad last week demanding death for a Pakistani writer. The only problem is that nobody quite knows what she has written. Her last book came out more than eight years ago and, if it wasn’t so scary, it would be ironic that it is called Blasphemy. It was a potboiler set mostly in religious and spiritual leaders’ bedrooms. The banners condemning her say that not only she has insulted the prophet, she has insulted religious scholars.

So now disagreeing with anyone who has a beard and armed bodyguards can get you killed. The PPP government has tried to appease this lot by silencing the one-and-a-half liberal voices it had. What it didn’t realise is that you can’t really appease people who insist their word is God’s word, their honour as sacred as the Holy Prophet’s. In Pakistan, silence is the mother of all blasphemies. Most Pakistanis are committing that blasphemy and being punished for it.

Published in The Guardian

WASIM VIEW- Hanif’s article is concerned with the rising intolerance in Pakistan, a concern I share and have written about here and here. Hanif has penned an excellent article on the issue and like me bemoans the fact that in the face of deadly fundamentalism, the Pakistani state is silent to the hijacking of Islam and Pakistan.

Hanif’s article looks at the ongoing blasphemy (non)-debate in the context of Shahbaz Bhatti’s brutal killing and sends a warning to the state of Pakistan and its people when he warns that continued state impotence will bring only tears for us all. Hanif is especially write to point out that the Pakistani state ‘can’t really appease people who insist their word is God’s word, and that their honour is as sacred as the Holy Prophet’s. Corollary; the mad mullahs must be confronted and stopped from hijacking the faith of peace.

Hanif is an author and clearly has a way with words as proved in his final sentence that summarises where Pakistan stands today. Hanif is right to say that silence is the mother of all blasphemies and that most Pakistanis are committing that blasphemy and being punished for it’. One can only but hope the silent majority and the state both awake from their deep slumber and let us pray for Pakistan’s sake that they do so very soon.