The Pakistani Spectator

Travelling back from usual monthly visit to my village in Rajanpur district, I was intending to write on the mistreatment of southern Punjab at the hands of the local feudals in power, the provincial government and the national leadership. The latest action in this regard was the cutting off of our water on the orders of the whimsical president. The Seraiki prime minister in his deceitful way can cry hoarse that no province will be deprived of its share of water, but the fact on the ground is that following the Zardari edict the water dwindled off suddenly.

Add to this the twelve-plus hours of loadshedding which make it impossible to use the tube wells, and clearly the intent is to turn the area into a desert. Now is that not part of the Indian plan in turning off the waters of our rivers? So are all these developments mere coincidences? In any case, the water issue is yet another attempt to foster ethnic conflict – the earlier attempt being the entry of IDPs into Sindh and the threats to Pashtun students in Jamshoro University. What is our national leadership playing at? In the same vein, I am not sure whether merely creating a new province in southern Punjab will resolve the issues of our area, given how the area’s tumandars and representatives sitting in the provincial and national legislatures are primarily engrossed in fighting for control of bus adas and sale of jobs.

Back in Islamabad, seeing how the continuing lack of governance and growing nepotism was making the bizarre a routine matter, the water issue seemed merely a part of the present follies of the bizarre that the leadership is indulging in. One can accept that dictatorships leave behind institutional destruction and chaos. But what does one do when the democratic setup that follows continues on the same path but at a faster pace? Just take a look at the bizarre happenings relating to the destruction of the professional Foreign Service. At a time when there is a desperate need for professional competency, the government is destroying what was left of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Appointment of political envoys, a questionable tradition when it becomes the norm rather than a means of recognising exceptional talent such as Dr Lodhi, has gone into the area of the bizarre with the new trend of putting in political appointees even as first secretaries. Now we have the ridiculous situation of sending in a Grade 20 DMG officer as an envoy to France – a position normally reserved for one of the most senior diplomats. But there is a darker agenda here that now seems to be becoming more obvious: the sale of Pakistan House. For some time now the designer Bhatti has been seeking to purchase this and it has been rumoured that the present leadership is keen to sell this valuable property. So is it a mere coincidence that the DMG gatecrasher is a close friend of Mr Bhatti? There are many other rumours also linked to this gentleman, and they will eventually surface. Suffice it to say that in an environment when democracy is merely a facade for a civilian autocrat, the ‘right’ familial connections are becoming the ultimate criteria for rewards at the expense of the state and nation.

While the nation’s attention is focused on the ongoing military action, the continuing distress of the IDPs and the growing burden of loadshedding and poor-oriented taxes – and the absurd child tax now being suggested will also hit the poor – the leadership is busy destroying all vestiges of norms, rules and procedures that are meant to govern policy, decision-making and institution-building. We are in a bizarre freefall down an abyss of chaos and self-destruction, with our detractors exploiting the situation wherever they can.

For instance, thanks to the US drone attacks, the splits between the Taliban or militants are coming undone so that the military is having to take on multiple threats simultaneously – instead of focusing on Baitullah Mehsud, it has to now also deal with the Gul Bahadur faction of the Taliban – which had been seen as pro-government as a result of a peace deal. Of course the US has always destroyed these peace deals; but one needs to ask why the US would conduct hostile drone attacks just when the army seemed to be succeeding in strangulating Baitullah Mehsud? Why stretch the military in multiple directions, especially when the civilian government is nowhere to be seen in terms of moving in to administratively secure the ‘cleared’ areas – and thereby resulting in blasts as the one in Buner, which hardly bodes well as an incentive to get the IDPs to move back? Or is the real intent of our detractors like the US and their affiliates to simply keep the Pakistan military embroiled endlessly in FATA and Swat?

After all, look at the commentary coming out from those working closely with the US establishment. Bruce Riedel continues to spew venom at Pakistan – which he had begun years ago by stating a clear falsehood that during Kargil Pakistan had readied its missiles – a claim rubbished by none other than the Indian COAS at that time, General V P Malik. But such lies have not deterred him from spewing his poison against this country. In his latest diatribe against Pakistan, his anti-army mantra continues unabated even as he rues the fact that the civilians are busy fighting each other – now who can he blame for that, one wonders? He tries to build up a strange case of ‘Armageddon in Islamabad’ by decrying sectarian tensions but also berating Pakistani Shias for being linked to Tehran – shows how little he knows of this country and its Shias! In the end, he comes down to targeting Pakistan’s nuclear assets with all the usual scare-scenarios in vogue against Pakistan since it went overtly nuclear. His final conclusion is that the US may have no eventual option but to use military force against Pakistan – despite the shortcomings of such an option that he concedes!

Yes, it seems all roads for US analysts connected to their establishment lead to the targeting of Pakistan’s nuclear assets in one way or another – as if the absence of these assets would bring Pakistan to its knees! (Of course our leadership seems already on its knees before the US but the nation is another matter altogether). In the process, every defence analyst seems to declare that he was consulted by the Pakistanis in terms of securing their nuclear assets – something that is as absurd as it is untrue. Take the case of

Bruce Blair, who considers himself a nuclear command and control expert after a mere four years in the US Air Force – given how the US B57 took off with live nukes in August 2007, not much can be said for the Command and Control of the USAF! Blair is also president of an NGO, the World Security Institute, and about a month after 9/11 he suggested Pakistan send its nukes to China for safekeeping but was stunned when a Pakistani establishment person suggested the US send its nukes to Canada for safekeeping seeing as how 9/11 had happened in the US!

Anyhow, now Mr Blair has declared that the Pakistan military actually approached him seeking advice on securing the country’s nukes – the aim, as he put it, being to render these weapons ‘mature’ and ‘operational’! Now why would the Pakistani military approach an insignificant NGO man when it could have approached the Pentagon itself? Seems ridiculous but US analysts use such statements to concoct bizarre stories about Pakistan and its nukes – and we take them seriously enough to reprint them in our media! As for Blair’s claim that the Pakistan military ‘is always pressurising to deploy the weapons’ – if he was truly updated on our weapons he would know that that stage has long been passed and we have moved on. Finally, when will our detractors realise that if we can produce our Uranium-enriched weapons, build our missiles, develop solid-fuelled missiles as well as beginner cruise missiles, we need neither US technology nor funds for keeping our nuclear arsenal updated and well-protected.

Unfortunately, in a country where the bizarre is fast becoming the norm and governance is all about who can get what from whom, why blame our foreign detractors who will always seek to exploit our weaknesses? This nation of rich resources and a dedicated people is being weighed down by its leaders whose guilt makes them unable to even look at a portrait of the Quaid and so his picture has been removed from the presidency – despite claims to the contrary.