[BITList] A lone voice of reason

[John Feltham]

Facing the truth

By Irfan Husain, Dawn, Karachi,

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December 3, 2008.

Even in my remote bit of paradise, news of distant disasters filters  
through: above the steady sound of waves breaking on the sandy beach  
in Sri Lanka, I was informed by several news channels about the  
sickening attacks on Mumbai.

Over the last few years, I have travelled to several countries across  
four continents. Everywhere I go, I am asked why Pakistan is now the  
focal point of Islamic extremism and terrorism, and why successive  
governments have allowed this cancer to fester and grow. As a  
Pakistani, it is obviously embarrassing to be put on the spot, but I  
can see why people everywhere are concerned.

In virtually every Islamic terrorist plot, whether it is successful or  
not, there is a Pakistani angle. Often, foreign terrorists have  
trained at camps in the tribal areas; others have been brainwashed in  
madressahs; and many more have been radicalised by the poisonous  
teachings of so-called religious leaders.

Madeline Albright, the ex-US secretary of state, has called Pakistan  
'an international migraine', saying it was a cause for global concern  
as it had nuclear weapons, terrorism, religious extremists,  
corruption, extreme poverty, and was located in a very important part  
of the world. While none of this makes pleasant reading for a  
Pakistani, Ms Albright's summation is hard to refute.

Often, the truth is painful, but most Pakistanis refuse to see it.  
Instead of confronting reality, we are in a permanent state of denial.  
This ostrich-like posture has made things even worse.

Most Pakistanis, when presented with the fact that our country is now  
the breeding ground for the most violent ideologies, and the most  
vicious gangs of thugs who kill in the name of religion, go back in  
history to explain and justify their presence in our country.

They refer to the Afghan war, and the creation of an army of holy  
warriors to fight the Soviets in Afghanistan. Then they go on to  
complain that the Americans quit the region soon after the Soviets  
did, leaving us saddled with jihadi fighters from all over the Muslim  
world camped on our soil.

What we conveniently forget is that for most of the last two decades,  
the army and the ISI used these very jihadis to further their agenda  
in Kashmir and Afghanistan. This long official link has given various  
terror groups legitimacy and a domestic base that has now come to  
haunt us.

Another aspect to this problem is the support these extremists enjoy  
among conservative Pakistani and Arab donors. Claiming they are  
fighting for Islamic causes, they attract significant amounts from  
Muslim businessmen here and abroad. And almost certainly, they also  
benefited from official Saudi largesse until 9/11.

Now that government policy is to distance itself from these jihadis,  
we find that many retired army officers have continued to train them  
in camps being run in many parts of Pakistan. A few weeks ago, Sheikh  
Rashid Ahmed, a prominent (and very loud) minister under both Nawaz  
Sharif and Musharraf, openly boasted on TV of running a camp for  
Kashmiri fighters on his own land just outside Rawalpindi a few years  
ago. If such camps can be set up a few miles from army headquarters,  
what's to stop them from operating in remote areas?

Many foreign and local journalists have exposed aspects of the terror  
network that has long flourished in Pakistan. Names, dates and  
addresses have been published and broadcast. But each allegation has  
been met with a brazen denial from every level of officialdom. Just as  
we denied the existence of our nuclear weapons programme for years, so  
too do we refuse to accept the presence of extremist terrorists.

For years, it suited the army and the ISI to secretly harbour and  
support these groups in Pakistan, Kashmir and Afghanistan. While  
officially denying that they had anything to do with these jihadis,  
money and arms from secret sources would reach them regularly. Despite  
our spooks maintaining plausible deniability, enough information about  
this covert support for jihadis has emerged for the fig-leaf to slip.  
And even if the intelligence community has now cut its links with  
these terrorists, the genie is out of the bottle.

Each time an atrocity like Mumbai occurs, and Pakistan is accused of  
being involved, the defensive mantra chanted by the chorus of official  
spokesmen is: "Show us the proof." The reality is that in terrorist  
operations planned in secret, there is not much of a paper trail left  
behind. Nine times out of ten, the perpetrators do not survive to give  
evidence before a court. But in this case, one terrorist did survive,  
and Ajmal Amir Kamal's story points to Lashkar-e-Tayyaba. . The  
sophistication of the attack is testimony to careful planning and  
rigorous training.

This was no hit-and-run operation, but was intended to cause the  
maximum loss of life.

Pakistan's foreign minister said that Pakistan, too, is a victim of  
terrorism. While this is certainly true, the rest of the world wants  
to know why we aren't doing more to root out the training camps, and  
lock up those involved. Given the vast un-audited amounts from the  
exchequer sundry intelligence agencies lay claim to, their failure to  
be more effective against internal terrorism is either a sign of  
incompetence, or of criminal collusion. Benazir Bhutto's murder, after  
an earlier attempt and many warnings, is a reminder of how poorly we  
are served by our intelligence agencies.

And while the diplomatic fallout from the Mumbai attack spreads and  
threatens to escalate into an armed confrontation, the biggest winners  
are those who carried out the butchery of so many innocent people. It  
is to their advantage to prevent India and Pakistan from coordinating  
their fight against terrorism. Tension between the two neighbours  
suits them, while peace and cooperation threatens their very existence.

The world is naturally concerned about the danger posed by these  
terror groups to other countries. However, the biggest threat they  
pose is to Pakistan itself. Until Pakistanis grasp this brutal reality  
and muster up the resolve necessary to crush them, these killers will  
tear the country apart.

http://www.dawn.com/weekly/mazdak/20080312.htm


If you found this interesting, here's another article that appeared in  
the Dawn on 06-Dec-2008

http://www.dawn.com/weekly/mazdak/mazdak.htm



A very big deal


By Irfan Husain

OFTEN, a gambler who is down to his last pile of chips will bet them  
all on a worthless hand in a bluff to recover his losses.

Pakistan looked a bit like this desperate poker player when the  
government announced that it would pull its troops out of the tribal  
area, where they are engaging Taliban insurgents, in case India moved  
elements of its army close to the border.

Our soldiers are fighting a dangerous enemy because of an existential  
threat Pakistan faces in this area, and not because we are doing  
anybody any favours. But by raising the spectre of an open, undefended  
border, Pakistan is effectively posing an indirect threat to American  
and Nato forces in Afghanistan. This implied threat, the government  
hopes, will cause Washington to bring pressure to bear on New Delhi to  
stop any escalation of the situation. But the United States has little  
leverage in India, and currently there is a lot of sympathy for the  
loss of innocent lives India has suffered during the recent terror  
attacks in Mumbai.

Years ago, a western diplomat wrote that Pakistan was the only country  
in the world that negotiates with a gun to its own head. Our argument,  
long familiar to aid donors, goes something like this: If you don?t  
give us what we need, the government will collapse and this might  
result in anarchy, and a takeover by Islamic militants. Left unstated  
here is the global risk these elements would pose as they would have  
access to Pakistan?s nuclear arsenal.

We have been getting away with this argument for a long time, mainly  
because a failed, fragmented Pakistan is everybody?s worst nightmare.  
There are still Pakistanis around, in and out of uniform, who  
seriously believe that India secretly would like to see the break-up  
of their country. They need to wake up to reality. Many Indians have  
written to me, saying that they are glad India was partitioned in  
1947, so it now has fewer Muslims to deal with. More to the point, the  
last thing India wants is to share a common border with Afghanistan.  
The turmoil there is unlikely to end anytime soon, and our army would  
be of far more use on that border, dealing with the militant threat.

While defending Pakistan recently, our foreign minister was quoted as  
saying that we were a ?responsible state?. And when India presented  
our government with a list of the names of 20 people accused of  
terrorism against our neighbour, spokesmen immediately demanded to see  
the proof against them. This legalistic approach would have carried  
more weight had the Pakistani state shown this kind of respect for the  
rule of law in the past. But given the frequency with which ordinary  
Pakistanis are picked up and ?disappeared? by organs of the state  
without any vestige of due process, the claim to responsibility rings  
a little hollow.

Indeed, a responsible state would hardly allow the likes of Maulana  
Masood Azhar of the Jaish-i-Mohammad; Hafiz Saeed of the Lashkar-i- 
Taiba; and the Indian criminal Dawood Ibrahim to run around loose.  
Every time the West raises a hue and cry following a particularly  
vicious terrorist attack, a few militant leaders and their followers  
are picked up, only to be released once the furore has died down. This  
sends a clear signal to the security agencies that these terrorists  
are above the law. So why should they risk their lives arresting them,  
only to see them being released a few weeks later?

A Google search for terrorist groups in Pakistan reveals an appalling  
who?s who of killers, together with the incidents they have been  
involved in. Going over this bloody history made me realise just how  
deeply rooted this problem is in Pakistan. Ever since Gen Zia  
encouraged the establishment of sectarian and ethnic terror groups, we  
have witnessed a mushroom growth of terrorism over the last two  
decades. And since many of these groups have supported military  
governments from time to time, they have acquired important links in  
officialdom, as well as with some politicians.

But above all, these groups have been important pawns in the army?s  
proxy wars in Afghanistan and Kashmir. Now, having gained prominence  
as well as financial support, they are not going to disarm and go home  
just because their existence has become an embarrassment to the  
Pakistani establishment. It is important to remember that there is now  
a lot of money flowing into the coffers of these groups. Leaders drive  
around openly in expensive SUVs, while the rank and file are fairly  
well paid. These are all people who are not qualified to get the  
meanest of jobs under normal circumstances.

The existence of these dangerous groups, and the impunity with which  
they have been operating for two decades, all serve to underline the  
steady meltdown of the Pakistani state. Instead of treating the cancer  
of terrorism as a law and order issue, the army has viewed it as a  
political and military opportunity. Lacking legitimacy and a  
constituency, both Zia and Musharraf depended on religious groups for  
support. These parties, in turn, gave militants cover. Thus, the  
Islamic coalition of the MMA allowed the Taliban to flourish when they  
governed the Frontier province between 2002 and 2007. We are now  
struggling with the fallout of their policies.

As we are caught up in this vortex of ideology and violence, we often  
shoot ourselves in the foot. For instance, when Prime Minister Gilani  
declared that he would send the head of the ISI to India, this move  
was widely welcomed. All too soon, however, the reality of the power  
balance in Pakistan raised its ugly head, and the offer was withdrawn.  
Clearly, the army did not relish one of its own being placed on the  
mat in New Delhi. Nevertheless, the instinct was the right one, and  
had the PM been able to prevail, General Pasha?s mere presence in  
India could have helped defuse much of the tension.

Many Pakistanis have become so accustomed to terrorist attacks on  
their soil that they have forgotten that this is not the norm  
elsewhere. Instead of asking ?What?s the big deal?? they should be  
putting themselves in the place of the victims. If, as seems very  
likely, the group that attacked Mumbai was trained and armed by the  
Pakistan-based Lashkar-i-Taiba, it is a very big deal indeed.


 From Wikipedia
Irfan Husain has been writing in the Pakistani press for over 30  
years. When he started writing he was a civil servant so he had to  
write under different names which ranged from Akbar Hussein, Ferida  
Sher, Abdul Ghani, Shakir Husain, and Mazdak. After taking early  
retirement he began writing under his own name. He has been widely  
published in almost every major newspaper in Pakistan and currently he  
writes weekly columns for the Dawn, the Daily Times, and the Khaleej  
Times.
After taking an early retirement from Government service, Irfan Husain  
accepted the position of President at the Textile Institute of  
Pakistan, which is a premier textile university in Karachi. After a  
five year stint here he retired and splits his time between London and  
Karachi