Ominous future for Pakistan

[aryan2007]

so u want us to give up our nukes but u keep yours. this is a non starter. no need to discuss further.

please replace want with wish...

 

[fatman17]

please replace want with wish...

Dear Sir,

its not about "want or wish" but whats good for both countries. we are neighbours and shall remain so. how long can both countries continue undermining each other at every step and juncture. we need to move forward.

 

[Tiki Tam Tam]

I think Mastan Khan has been able to identify India's worry over the Pak nukes.

Pak having nukes is not the concern. It will continue to have the same, whether anyone likes it or not.

What is the worry is that it should not fall into the hands of any irresponsible hotheaded and overzealous politician or terrorists.

Should it fall into such hands, then not only India, but the world will be up the gum tree!

 

[aryan2007]

I think Mastan Khan has been able to identify India's worry over the Pak nukes.

Pak having nukes is not the concern. It will continue to have the same, whether anyone likes it or not.

What is the worry is that it should not fall into the hands of any irresponsible hotheaded and overzealous politician or terrorists.

Should it fall into such hands, then not only India, but the world will be up the gum tree!

very well said Salim as usual..


I think if both countries have responsible governments and militaries then having nuke is the best possible thing.there will be no war.. tension maybe full fledged war no...


Though as yet Pakistan has not been able to live upto the democratic ideals for which it was created, there still is factionalism amongst the people and couple with a growing wave of Islamisication both moderate and extreme is a worrying trend for a "NON - THEOCRATIC, SECULAR, DEMOCRATIC STATE" as envisaged by Jinnah...


therefore justifiably Indian Govt is ok with a non nuclear Pakistan but will it do something about it? NO
for past as an example since India's first nuke test in 74 till the second one in 98' how many times did we go to War? and since both acquired nukes we have fought once.. which resulted in Pakistan going into turmoil... and ruled by a dictator... so if Pakistan was a stable state at the time and the military would have known its place, so do the extremists, ISI and the govt just a terrible misadventure would not have happened and/or there would not have been a miltitary takeover..


Agnostic_Muslims article Nuclear Control in Pakistan is very informative and portrays some of our concerns, and past lapses and growing extremism amongst even Pakistani nuke scientists..


Even if some radical groups in Pakistan are able to get hold of a dirty bomb it would be disastrous and somehow detonate it into India, what will India do in reply?? or if this is transferred somehow to an anti-Israeli group like Hamas, Hezbollah??..

Not saying it would not happen, but Pakistan's declaration that anyone touches are Nukes we will launch 'em into India, is a very irresponsible though smart thing to say.. is also a proof that India should do something about it since.. even by sitting on the sideline a non-interferring country like India cannot stop US for not doing anything..

fear-mongering at its best.. Hope for the best Prepare for the worst...

 

[fatman17]

a non-interferring country like India cannot stop US for not doing anything:

non-interfearing country??? thats a good one!!! the hits just keep on coming!!!

 

[aryan2007]

non-interfearing country??? thats a good one!!! the hits just keep on coming!!!

only if you believe RAW is up there with teh best

 

[fatman17]

only if you believe RAW is up there with teh best

one always has to believe that RAW is as good as ISI or CIA or Mossad.

 

[Spring Onion]

yup sir never under-estimate your enemy as they said .

and one fact we all need to live with is India will and remain concerned about anything about Pakistan its natural.

Their Pakistan-Phobia not gonna vanish thats for sure.
so have a cup of coffee and relex.

 

[aryan2007]

yup sir never under-estimate your enemy as they said .

as they said.. keep your friends close and your enemies closer...
in a global world everyone is an enemy..

and one fact we all need to live with is India will and remain concerned about anything about Pakistan its natural. Their Pakistan-Phobia not gonna vanish thats for sure.
so have a cup of coffee and relex.

This may sound a bit pompous..

but India as a country does not treat Pakistan as an economic or military rival, it is China that we are more concerned about and IMO wish to emulate...

You guys in not so Kind words are our "ungali karnay wale" neighbours. in effect our #1 headache... + involving religion in a political fights with a country with mo' muslims is frankly disconcerting.

 

[Spring Onion]

This may sound a bit pompous..

but India as a country does not treat Pakistan as an economic or military rival, it is China that we are more concerned about and IMO wish to emulate....

Very true India is trying to encircle China who BTW is not india’s “ungali karma walaye” but still India has problem with China as it’s the country which is hindrance to Indian becoming bully of the region.


On the other hand despite Pakistan being not a rival of India as per Indian notion, India is always trying to poke its nose into our affairs even our internal ones, which only shows the decades-old Indian complex.

How it would be much better for India to utilize its energies to bully China and to resolve own problem instead of wasting the same on anti-Pakistan propaganda.


.

You guys in not so Kind words are our "ungali karnay wale" neighbours. in effect our #1 headache... + involving religion in a political fights with a country with mo' muslims is frankly disconcerting.

Well I guess these words “ungali karnay wale” are more appropriate for India not Pakistan.

And we are not using the religion in fight with india.

As far more number of Muslims in India is not something to be proud of rather its more shamful that despite the fact More Muslims live in India their plight is much pittyful even after 60 years.

 

[AgNoStiC MuSliM]

Agnostic_Muslims article Nuclear Control in Pakistan is very informative and portrays some of our concerns, and past lapses and growing extremism amongst even Pakistani nuke scientists..

You have completely misunderstood the article - Nowhere does it talk about "growing extremism" - what it does refer to is a growing "conservatism" and there is nothing wrong with that. The people running the program are comfortable with the "conservatism" of their personnel , the monitoring program is to ensure that conservatism does not change into extremism and if it does then it is spotted promptly. In a sense, a conservative staff also immunizes them to some extent from being recruited by Western Intel, so the PA probably does not mind that too much either.

You have stated your conclusions in an extremely misleading manner, by tying in past lapses (and you do realize that the Western world and India have also had lapses in the Nuclear control field) and Indian concerns to a non existent "growing extremism" you are patching together a quasi factual doomsday analysis of the Pakistani situation.

The article in fact proves that there is nothing to worry about - past lapses and mistakes have resulted in a extremely thorough and comprehensive monitoring program that serves to both weed out extremists, and keep tabs on who is talking to the Americans.Israelis Indians

I'd say that at this point the C&C system appears almost as good as what the US has. We have even designed our own PAL's, which most analysts were suggesting Pakistan did not have and was incapable of manufacturing indigenously.

 

[kvLin]

well the situation is pakistan is certainly not normal but i believe the recent actions will lead towards a more stable situation after the jan-08 elections. lets summarise:

1. musharraf retires from army/hands over command to kiyani - everyone from washington to london to delhi is happy about this.

3. musharraf is a civilian president - everyone from washington to london to delhi is happy about this. even BB and NS are happy about this even if they dont show it publically,

4. elections will be free and fair because the US/EU/UN is sending observers - everyone from washington to london to delhi is happy about this.

I sincerely wish you guys a peacful and prospering Pakistan ASAP. however there're few suspicions on my mind:

1. Will a civilian president Musharraf be powerful enough to deal with the deray and unpredictable troubles, or at least keep himself magisterial in the political whirlpool? though I know Gen Ashfaq Pervez Kiyani has been loyal to him so far.

2. Musharraf might not be the best president for Pakistan, but he's proven himself better than any other Pakistani leaders in recent decades. the problem is, as his achievement actually benefited from both his traditional reputation of a commander, his political tendency and also puissant implementations, would he be used to the pure role of a civilian president and work effectively on it?

If he can not make it through next year, there is no necessity for US to throw supports on him any more.

3. Seeking cooperation with BB and NS is merely a political posture by Musharraf, behind the door he dislikes those opponent to the bone. however, doing as what he has declared seems to be the only way out. To what degree do you believe in this kind of cooperation?

 

[Awesome]

please replace want with wish...

We have stopped running our farmaishi program...

 

[Tiki Tam Tam]

Musharraf's Emergency Rule Abounding in Contradictions

Crackdown Has Veered Between Cruelty, Leniency

By Pamela Constable
Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, December 3, 2007; Page A13

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan -- The riot police fastened their helmets and raised their thick plastic shields, under orders to stop an exultant mob that was massing against a fence outside the Lahore airport last week. But as clusters of people began breaking through the fence, frantic to greet an arriving political leader, the police suddenly fell back and let them through.

"This is Pakistan," one policeman said with a shrug to a journalist watching the chaotic scene. "There is always a double policy."

The officer's comment neatly summed up the ad hoc, constantly shifting and often contradictory nature of emergency rule that President Pervez Musharraf imposed on Pakistan on Nov. 3 and has announced he intends to lift Dec. 16.

It has been both vengefully cruel and unexpectedly lenient, codified in abstruse legal language but defiantly unconstitutional, at times calibrated for political effect and at times clumsily applied on apparent whim.

It has not officially been called martial law, perhaps to avoid the stigma of a term that is both vividly familiar and technically precise to Pakistanis, and that would have evoked other chilling associations for Musharraf's allies in the West. Between 1958 and 1986, Pakistan endured three periods of martial law under military rulers.

Musharraf's version has paled beside the last such episode, under Gen. Mohammed Zia ul-Haq, when civilians were flogged in public for drinking alcohol, politicians were tortured in squalid prisons, secret military trials were held and the death penalty was decreed for such crimes as "arousing insecurity or despondency among the public."

This time, there have been no tanks or army troops on the streets of the capital or other cities, only uniformed police and plainclothes agents deployed to strategic spots, such as homes of senior opposition leaders and sites of repeated public protests.

Demonstrators were clubbed but not shot. Violent confrontation was preempted whenever possible, with police cordoning off potential trouble spots. The major complaint was of traffic jams.

For most Pakistanis, in fact, life has continued normally. Motorized rickshaws and decorated wooden cargo trucks still clog the roads; alleys teem with fruit and fish, sneaker and soap displays. Mosques still fill on Fridays, luxury hotels hold society weddings and bureaucrats sip their last cup of tea in time to leave the office by 4 p.m. sharp.

Some of the most salient aspects of emergency rule have been marked by absence -- the blank screens on TV channels that once hosted lively debate shows, the empty courtrooms where protesting lawyers have boycotted proceedings for the past month.


Everyone has felt the tension, the jolt of adrenaline when police motion cars to stop for spot checks, the fear that things could suddenly get much worse. At the same time, even the humblest Pakistanis express contempt for this emergency, which many see as a dictator's transparent maneuver to keep himself in power.

"Musharraf did it just to save himself," said Iftikhar Ahmed, 34, a poultry salesman in Rawalpindi. "He closed down the only TV channel that was telling the truth, just so we wouldn't know what was going on in our own country."


"There was no need for any emergency. Emergencies are for extraordinary circumstances. This was just to secure his seat," said Asma Chohan, 30, a math teacher in Islamabad.

Sometimes, the crackdown seemed like a high-stakes game between Musharraf and his domestic adversaries, with the rules changing constantly. Opposition leader Benazir Bhutto, ostensibly confined at home behind multiple rings of police barricades managed to address reporters with a bullhorn and attend a diplomatic reception.

There were class distinctions, too. Senior politicians, arriving at Bhutto's Islamabad residence in SUVs, were allowed inside to gossip and strategize. But low-level supporters, who dared approach the house and chant a few slogans, were grabbed by intelligence agents, shoved into police vans and trailed down the street by TV crews.

A similar official ambivalence surrounded the return of former prime minister Nawaz Sharif from exile last week. At first the government, hoping to minimize his public welcome, sealed the airport and issued a one-day decree banning all public gatherings. Then it suddenly relented, letting Sharif's fans fill the airport and his motorcade crawl through the city until dawn, mobbed by delirious supporters.

Other prominent Pakistanis were made targets of gratuitous humiliation, especially the judges and lawyers whom Musharraf made clear he viewed as ringleaders of a "conspiracy" to derail his vision of a controlled, Pinochet-style transition to democracy.

Munir Malik, a lead attorney in several Supreme Court challenges to Musharraf's rule, was arrested on the first day of emergency rule and kept for weeks in a tiny cell, where he was denied medicine for chronic kidney and liver problems until he had to be rushed to a hospital intensive care ward. His family and associates charged that he had been poisoned.

The punishment for Aitzaz Ahsan, 62, another senior lawyer, former senator and one of Pakistan's most admired opposition figures, was more subtle. Ahsan was held incommunicado in prison until last week, when he was moved to house arrest and barred from seeing visitors or speaking to reporters.

He could also no longer appear in court, and last week the neatly tied bundles of cases and briefs sat unopened on his desk in Lahore. His clerk had dutifully typed out the agenda of weekly events he could no longer attend, from Supreme Court hearings to family weddings to a reception honoring the birthday of Japan's emperor.

"I think what is especially hard for him is not to be able to practice his profession," his wife, Bushra, said in an interview. "We calculated he has been in prison 15 times before, but this time something has changed. He's not himself. He's a man of the law in a country where the law has been destroyed."

The government's treatment of the mass media under emergency has also been erratic. Newspaper columns and editorials continued to blast the government untouched, but TV talk shows featuring influential celebrity hosts were banned.

Then, one by one, the independent channels negotiated deals that put them back on the air.

In some ways, Musharraf's half-strength emergency has reflected his ambivalent governing style since taking power in 1999. He has often made inspiring speeches vowing bold reforms that never materialized, and he fathered a disastrous truce with Islamic insurgents while his crack troops were being routed by tribal Taliban fighters in sandals.

A stolid career soldier who strayed into politics and succumbed to the whispers of ambitious advisers, Musharraf was often criticized for failing to wield his power to do good. In the end, many Pakistanis say, he wielded that power to prolong his stay on the throne and ended up with a cowed but cynical nation snickering behind his back.

Musharraf's Emergency Rule Abounding in Contradictions - washingtonpost.com

A resounding indictment no doubt.

This does paint a dismal picture of contemporary Pakistan, but it must be borne in mind that Miusharraf had no other option in a country that has a dismal history of democracy and where the military has ruled it longer than democratically elected governments and hence foundationed by shaky democratic institutions leading to dangerous jockeying for power by all and sundry at the first whiff of liberal rule (as personified by Musharraf when he announced elections).

Therefore, while it is fashionable to criticise Musharraf, it must also be noted that the Pakistani politicians and so called denizens of a sham democracy (to quote Musharraf) are no angels either!

Pakistan is at the cross roads. Musharraf has given the country some foundations that encourages a robust democracy for times to come.

Will the allegedly tainted politicians, who are slated to become the next custodians of Pakistan's destiny, be able to rise to the occasion?

It is essential for the subcontinent that stability in governance continues and sectarian and divisive forces including fundamentalists and terrorists in Pakistan that Musharraf worked hard against are contained.

 

[Tiki Tam Tam]

And here is what in the US is the perception of the 'saviour' Bhutto!

Skepticism tinges support for Bhutto

The Pakistani opposition leader is still popular, but some wonder what she has to offer after two disastrous stints as prime minister.
By Bruce Wallace, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
December 3, 2007
KARACHI, Pakistan — Benazir Bhutto's image is visible throughout Lyari, one of Karachi's oldest and most desperate neighborhoods. It is stamped on political posters that can't paper over cracks in the buckling buildings and billows out on bedsheets that hang from rooftops and flutter with every breeze that lifts the dust and stirs the garbage.

Despite a decade in exile, Bhutto is still a presence in this multi-ethnic inner-city ghetto of 1.6 million people that has been solidly behind her Pakistan People's Party since the 1970s, when it was led by her father. Yet even in Lyari, along the rutted alleys that double as outdoor schools and past the dozens of "Chinese Dentist" stores, there is only tempered enthusiasm for the woman campaigning to recapture the prime minister's job she held twice in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

Neither democracy nor martial law has made much difference to the lives in Lyari. Sewage runs through the alleys as it always has, and jobs are hard to find. Outsiders continue to come to the neighborhood to buy their hashish, the drug commerce fueling gang wars that police show little inclination to stop.

Bhutto's brand of secular politics has always leaned heavily on the rhetoric of social and economic justice, designed to appeal to the Pakistani underclass. But as she launched her election campaign over the weekend in the northern city of Peshawar, her previous stints in office were being widely remembered as disappointing, the promises of a fairer society scuttled amid charges of personal corruption and the expedient decision to cater to Muslim extremists.

"Nothing changed for us when she was in power," says Lal Baksh Rind, a longtime community activist in Lyari and a political rival of Bhutto's PPP. Rind acknowledges that Lyari is still Bhutto's turf. But he says few people believe reelecting her will end their despair.

"Some people think that if she comes back she will give them jobs -- that's why they will vote for her," he says, sitting cross-legged on his bed in a tiny, damp house beneath a portrait of Karl Marx and a painting of Iranian soldiers burning U.S. flag.

"But fix Lyari? The infrastructure is so bad -- no sewers, no services. No politician can fix it."

Bhutto, however, is not shying away from raising expectations. Her platform for elections scheduled to be held Jan. 8 is a cascade of promises designed to appeal to the millions of poor left out of much-trumpeted economic growth under eight years of rule by President Pervez Musharraf.

Bhutto has pledged to give at least one year of employment to each of Pakistan's poorest families, and to offer micro-financing for 5 million people to start small businesses. She also vowed that, by 2015, all children ages 5 to 10 would be enrolled in school.

The theme of social and economic justice was a hallmark of the PPP under its founder, the revered Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, Benazir's father, who was hanged almost three decades ago after a military coup by Gen. Zia ul-Haq. Benazir's supporters acknowledge that part of her appeal derives from her father's legacy, and his face is a ghostly presence on many of the posters and billboards touting his daughter's return to politics.

That's especially true in Lyari, which Zulfikar Ali Bhutto saw as a place to build a political base during his rise to power. It was during Bhutto's time as prime minister that Lyari was given its first underground sewage system and schools were built, and the era is remembered as a time when politicians paid attention.

The Bhutto name still resonates here.

"Democratic institutions are not very powerful and people think there is no reason to vote," says Mohammed Asghar Baloch, a member of Lyari's vibrant community of east African descendants.

"But there are some who think that whenever a Bhutto comes to power the lower classes will get jobs. That's what they are hoping for now," said Baloch, who runs a government school in Lyari.

Although much of the chattering class debate in Pakistan focuses on constitutional issues, economic themes formed the backbone of Bhutto's campaign launch in Peshawar, a stronghold of religious parties. Even her pitch for resolving the confrontation between the government and Islamic extremists is rooted in economics.

"The Pakistan People's Party will give them security, peace and employment," she said, referring to the region's conservative, ethnic Pashtun population. She added that she would "bring development to their areas so their problems will be solved."

Bhutto is unlikely to make major electoral inroads in the north. But she is counting on the pitch for economic justice to win voters in the heavily populated south and east of the country, where the election probably will be decided.

"The poor don't care about the charges of corruption against her; they care about jobs and education for their kids," says Aisha Gazdar, a Karachi-based documentary filmmaker. "It doesn't matter that some people may be angry at her from the last time. There's also a feeling of: 'Let's give her a second chance, because she can't be as bad as before.' "

Bhutto's critics are less forgiving, insisting that her record as prime minister should be taken as an indication of what another term would look like.

"She showed she was capable of great violence," says Fatima Bhutto, who is a sharp critic of her aunt. "Her last government was marked by assassination squads and torture cells."

Fatima Bhutto's fury stems in large part from the slaying of her father, Mir Murtaza Bhutto. He was shot to death by police in 1996 while his older sister was prime minister. An investigative tribunal later ruled that the incident had to have had the blessing of higher authorities.

The Bhutto family is now a house divided, with Fatima accusing her aunt of being "an enabler for Musharraf and the White House, marching to any orders so long as it lands her in the prime minister's office."

Bhutto's willingness originally to let herself be cast as potential partner for Musharraf in a deal pushed by the Bush administration shows that she is "incredibly out of touch with the ground," Fatima Bhutto says. "People don't take kindly to having their country sold out."

Other analysts note that Bhutto, while wounded by her dismal record in office, remains an attractive candidate.

"She's the most popular individual in Pakistan now," argues Syed Jaffar Ahmed, director of the Pakistani Studies Center at the University of Karachi. "She committed mistakes in government that cost her a lot of credibility. But she has made up some of what she had lost."

Yet Pakistani elections are messy affairs, with all parties guilty of buying votes and stuffing ballots, making predictions difficult. That is one unstated reason why the opposition parties are divided and unsure whether to boycott the election.

Musharraf has had eight years to build local support on the ground. Meanwhile the networks of Bhutto and former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, her main opposition rival, have atrophied.

"Benazir has a lot of support in Lyari, but there is a lot of rigging during elections," says Rind with a wry smile. "Many people don't vote. But others cast their vote for them."

bruce.wallace@latimes.com
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