Book Review

[Neo]

Lure of ‘power vacuum’ in Afghanistan

By Khaled Ahmed

When the ISI could not persuade, it became persuaded. To this day retired officers are backing the groups abandoned by Pakistan in sheer desperation

Recovering the Frontier State: War, Ethnicity, and State in Afghanistan;
By Rasul Bakhsh Rais;
OUP 2008;
Pp236; Price Rs 695

Rasul Bakhsh Rais is professor of political science in the Department of Social Sciences, Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS), and has a PhD in political science from the University of California-Santa Barbara. He has produced a balanced account of developments in Pakistan’s neighbourhood that will determine the future of Pakistan. Pegged somewhere in the middle of the opposed external and internal narratives of Pakistan, he already seems to emerge as an opponent of the extremist reaction on both sides of the divide.

He is realistic about the mujahideen fielded by Pakistan and its international allies against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan. He knew the mujahideen alliance was never an alliance and was doomed to internecine failure. His view of the post-Soviet Kabul regime: “The Peshawar Accord for sharing power and constituting a coalition government began to show strain within months as multiple rivalries along ethnic, sectarian, and party lines pilled over into active and very deadly conflict in and around Kabul.” (p.43)

Taliban-Al Qaeda agenda and Pakistan: If Pakistan exercised some control over the mujahideen it evaporated in short order after the Peshawar Accord installed the new government in Kabul. And other neighbours, feeling threatened by Pakistan, stepped in too. (p.68) Most Pakistanis evaluate the mujahideen positively, forgetting that “intolerance of other sects and beliefs came as a part of religious training at early stages of their socialisation with sectarian-minded teachers and colleagues”. (p.76)

Al Qaeda latched on to the Pakistan-backed Taliban because Osama bin Laden needed a secure sanctuary from where he could plan and execute his political and military agenda; the Taliban leaders welcomed Al Qaeda on the alleged grounds that Al Qaeda members were ‘Islamic fighters’, ‘refugees’ seeking shelter against ‘tyrannical regimes’. (p.78) Iran, seeing the anti-Shia Taliban being attacked by America after 2001, ‘prudently avoided creating any trouble for the US forces”. (p.100) It rejoiced at two of its big enemies killing each other.

Piety flecked with poppy: The book navigates between the two versions available about the poppy ban by the Taliban. In Pakistan, the belief is that poppy disappeared under the Taliban. Dr Rais includes the external version that says that the Taliban leaders stockpiled 300 tons of refined heroin to corner the heroin market in Central Asia. The Taliban did not eliminate the stockpiles or the trade. (p.162) Writers like Ahmed Rashid rely on the UN agencies to record that the Taliban in fact cut back on poppy to shore up its price that had actually plummeted because of over-production. Dr Rais also makes an assessment of that view.

The most important aspect of the book is the section that takes a look at the regional perspective of the rise and fall of the Taliban and Pakistan’s management of the conflict in Afghanistan. It is a hardnosed assessment and indirectly rebukes Pakistan for formulating policy within the ISI which clearly had no clue where it was landing Pakistan. Reading the book and its examination of the complex map of regional interests one can only bemoan the short-sighted deployment of such low-IQ army officers as Col Imam as key figures in the Taliban-controlled territories.

The unhappy ‘other neighbours’: Iran feared the Taliban as arbiters of the political landscape of the country to their advantage: “It therefore made all efforts to ensure a greater representation for the Shia group in any future political institutions of the Mujahideen resistance. Pakistan did recognise Iran’s interest in Afghanistan and regularly consulted Iran on all political and diplomatic initiatives. Curiously, Iran absented itself from the Geneva negotiations that aimed to settle the Afghan problem, insisting that the Mujahideen parties should be represented at the negotiating table instead of neighbouring states.” (p.179)

There were other regional factors too: “Pakistan faced tremendous difficulties from its Islamic neighbours and the Afghan opposition to the Taliban rule. Iran, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan all accused Pakistan of supporting the Taliban movement. Iran...was quite vehement in peddling the theory that Saudi Arabia and the United States financed the Taliban movement and Pakistan played the role of an intermediary between the Taliban and these countries”. (p.189) Today the entire Pakistani population thinks the US actually brought the Taliban to power, including Brigadier Imtiaz Ahmad alias Billa of the ISI on a TV channel on August 19, 2009.

Shutting the door on ECO: If any of Dr Rais’ colleagues at LUMS believe that ECO was a great organisation and still holds promise of a kind of Islamic Common Market, they should read the following: “Rivalry with Iran and Central Asian state grew more intense and became unmanageable. Since the world community saw Taliban rule as extremely harsh, medieval, and discriminatory toward women and minorities, Pakistan’s association with them caused major image and policy problems for Pakistan.” (p.191)

Today, it is not only Iran from the original RCD which is covertly fighting Pakistan in Afghanistan together with India, it is also NATO member Turkey that shelters warlord Rashid Dostam and is aligned with India to oppose any future power projection of Pakistan riding on the Pashtun factor.

Persuade or become persuaded: The plight of Pakistan was actually far worse. It had failed to bring the mujahideen to heel on its policy against the Soviets. When the ISI could not persuade, it became persuaded. To this day retired officers are backing the groups abandoned by Pakistan in sheer desperation. Pakistan had a policy that never stopped slipping from its hands. The entire infrastructure of jihadi organisations led by semi-criminal clerics was fire handled by low-IQ officers that burned the hands of the state. The officers justified themselves by abandoning the state amid public applause. And today even the army chief may walk in fear.

The book says: “The United States, European countries, and even China, its closest ally, were offended by Pakistan’s failure to influence policy or politics of the Taliban on any issue. Even in the face of international isolation and harsh criticism Pakistan found it extremely difficult to extricate itself from the pro-Taliban policy, changing it only after Al Qaeda terrorists with links in Afghanistan struck on 9/11”. (p.191)

Power vacuum calls again: There should be an overhaul of Pakistan’s future strategy aimed at discrediting the slogan in Pakistan asking the US and NATO forces to quit Afghanistan as a precondition of peace. Take the following observation of Dr Rais: “Afghanistan’s neighbours, including Pakistan, have for long exploited the internal fragmentation and inter-group rivalry to advance their own strategic interests. The situation of Afghanistan after the departure of the Taliban with the international community’s focus on economic and political reconstruction is radically different. At the moment, Afghanistan’s neighbours are somewhat neutralised by the presence of American forces and those of other partners of the coalition against terrorism.” (p.213)

This news has not yet reached Pakistan. But after reading the book Pakistan should dread the power vacuum that will be created if the US and NATO forces quit Afghanistan as demanded by every TV anchor and defence expert in Pakistan. This time the regional neighbours are ready for power projection by the Pakistani strategists on the basis of another capitulation to the Taliban. India and Iran are allies, India has invested $1.2 billion in Afghanistan, has 4,000 workers on ground, a mountain regiment to protect them, and a military air base in nearby Tajikistan to welcome Pakistan’s next bout of strategic depth. *

[Mary]

regional literature: Strength of a nation

Reviewed by Altaf Hussain Asad
Sunday, 06 Sep, 2009 | 08:28 AM PST |



Inside Balochistan is an autobiography of the former ruler of Kalat state, Mir Ahmad Yar Khan Baloch. It is an important historical document which must be studied by all policy makers in order to ascertain what went wrong and where in the state of Balochistan.


Kalat State was the third largest state before the partition of the subcontinent. The Kalat dynasty ruled this area for almost three centuries.


The author claims that he introduced many revolutionary steps for the good of the people and depicts the immense love he had for the land and people of Balochistan.


This book is not only the autobiography of the scion of a dynasty that ruled this area, but it also sheds light on the geographical details as well as the flora and fauna of the entire area.

‘Geographically Balochistan holds an important position on the map of Asia. It is this geographical position that has made the inhabitants lead a strenuous life, for they had to face powerful enemies, more often in defensive wars.


It is on record that the Balochs were at war one time or another of their history with the Shah of Iran, Afghanistan, the Sikhs of Punjab, and the rulers of Sindh and the British, says Ahmad Yar Khan.


The Khan of Kalat shares with readers the steps taken by him to improve the lot of his people. ‘To relate some of the reforms, I may mention that mal-administration and corruption in body politic were rooted out.


For the first time in the history of Balochistan, the people were given representation in the affairs of national interest by the establishment of two houses of legislature — Darul Awam and Darul Umra — with a total membership of 87.
The department of justice was re-organised in the light of Islamic Shariah. Several of the heavy taxes were abolished; and the practice of the befaar system (labour without payment) was also done away with.’ This is how the Khan describes his style of governance.


He also states proudly that Kalat was the first state which entered into an agreement with Pakistan. However, later, the civil and military establishment dashed all the hopes of the Balochis and time and again they were dictated by the barrel of the gun.


Still, the author fondly remembers August 4, 1947 when Kalat signed an agreement with Pakistan.


Once again it would be better to hear the actual story from the Khan himself. ‘I remember that auspicious day which eventually became fateful , when on August 4, 1947 a treaty of “Stand Still Agreement” concluded between Kalat and Pakistan, was signed by myself, the Quaid-i-Azam and the British viceroy, Lord Mountbatten. On the strength of this fateful agreement, power was transferred from the British to Pakistan; and Pakistan got all the Baloch areas’, he recalls.


After the death of the Quaid, the people of Balochistan were manipulated by the rulers. The Khan of Kalat was imprisoned in 1958 and henceforth started the harassment of the Balochi people. Naturally, their anger, which has been building up over all years, has now erupted.


This book was first published in 1975 and its recent imprint is very timely. All those who want to know why Balochistan is in turmoil today must read this book.



Inside Balochistan: A political autobiography of Mir Ahmad Yar Khan Baloch Royal Book Company, Karachi


352pp. Rs695
http://www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/...th-of-a-nation

[Neo]

Is future of sharia with secularism?

BOOK REVIEW: By Khaled Ahmed

undefined Islam and the Secular State: Negotiating the Future of Sharia
By Abdullah Ahmed an-Naim
Harvard University Press 2008
Pp324; Price $35

The author links the concept of civic reason with the Quranic edict of shura or consultation even though it does not lay down any exact mechanism for this consultation. For the sake of avoidance of conflict in the modern state, he advocates consultation between the various communities inhabiting the state

Author Abdullah Ahmed an-Naim says: “This book is the culmination of my life’s work, the final statement I wish to make on issues I have been struggling with since I was a student at the University of Khartoum, Sudan, in the late 1960s. I speak as a Muslim in this book because I am accountable for these ideas as part of my own religion and not simply as a hypothetical academic argument.” And he has made us all think afresh about the nature of the state inhabited by Muslims.

There are many ways you can save the Muslims from going pre-modern and hurting themselves in the 21st century. Some of us say Sharia itself is secular and that the state after the first immaculate caliphs separated the religious from the political. Some others say the Prophet PBUH himself created a state that gave equal status to all Muslim and non-Muslim communities living in it. This book gives an inside view of how Islam needs to absorb some of the values of secularism that don’t militate against Islam.

The case is put like this: “The historical relationship among Islam, the state, and politics clearly reflects the permanent tension between claims of the conflation of Islam and the state and the need of religious leaders to maintain their autonomy from state institutions in the interest of their own moral authority over both state and society. The basic framework for the constant mediation of that tension was the expectation of Muslims that the state should uphold Islamic principles in fulfilling its obligations, on the one hand, and the inherently political and secular nature of the state, on the other.” (p.49)

The state is inherently bisected by its religious authority and its political exigencies. The ulema may insist on a seamless state but they often lack the power to implement what they have in mind; and since what they have in mind is not a functional Islamic state but a utopia based on theory, an Islamic state ruled by them may run the risk of becoming like all utopias, beginning with the one visualised by Plato. Dangers arise from the lack of the will of the ulema “to confront practical questions of maintaining the peace among local communities, regulating economic and social relations, or defending the realm against external threats”. The ulema may have to become users of force by cutting themselves off from the mainsprings of their theory of the state.

Author Naim refers to the authority of Ibn Taymiya (d.1328) to posit the possibility of a pragmatic state and its reliance on skill rather than religious piety with the support of the leading Islamic thinkers who asserted that ‘the selection of each public officer or magistrate should be based on the pragmatic requirements and the individual’s capacity to comply with the ethical and professional code of the job being assigned, not considerations of religious piety”. Ibn Taymiya cited in this context the example of how the Prophet PBUH repeatedly appointed Khalid bin Walid as commander of Muslim armies, despite his frustration and dissatisfaction with Khalid’s attitudes and behaviour from a religious point of view. (p.49)

Ibn Jawziya too thought that intelligence and practical wisdom should be the principle on which to run a government and held that it was only “through misunderstanding the political dimension of Islam that rulers misconceived the relation between Sharia and the actuality of experience” thus making serious mistakes under the rubric of applying Sharia. (p.50) The book points out that the same principle was favoured by Imam Ghazali too.

Naim tackles the more problematic question of the function of the state in regard to its population. He says: “Citizens often have a sentimental attachment to and identification with their state but this is not an essential characteristic of a state. The concept of the nation-state assumes common features, such as ethnicity or language, among groups that may identify with the state in this manner. But this can be misleading, because there is hardly ever a complete correspondence between a territory and the ethnic, religious, or other unity of its population. Such unity can be true of several groups within the territory of a state and may be shared by others living within the territory of another state. The fact that most states seek to cultivate feelings of uniform national identity is not a defining characteristic of the modem state.” (p.87)

What then is the defining characteristic of the modern state? The book brings in the concept of civic reason here: “The concept of civic reason entitles all citizens to publicly debate any matter that pertains to or reflects on public policy and governmental or state action, including the views of citizens about such matters.” Here the fundamental purpose is to allow all citizens of the state regardless of their religion and ethnicity to join the debate from their separate points of view. Naim says: “Muslims are of course free to observe the ban on riba personally or to organise zakat through civic associations, all through an entirely internal Islamic discourse. But if they wish to involve state institutions in the process, then they must provide civic reasons through a civic reasoning process in which all citizens can participate without reference to religion.” (p.93)

He links the concept of civic reason with the Quranic edict of shura or consultation even though it does not lay down any exact mechanism for this consultation. For the sake of avoidance of conflict in the modern state, he advocates consultation between the various communities inhabiting the state. And in this validation of the non-dominant communities together with the dominant ones he sees the function of the state as a neutral entity concerned with justice. And this no doubt is the fundamental characteristic of a secular state. *

[Lady Macbeth]

Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and Bin Laden, from the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001


GHOST WARS

Steve Coll
Penguin Press
Current Events/World History
ISBN: 1594200076

"Afghanistanism" used to be a derisive term in the newspaper world. It meant playing up news from obscure far-off places while neglecting what was going wrong on your own home turf.

No longer. Very few countries worldwide have been more important to the U.S. over the past quarter century than this remote, primitive, landlocked and little-understood area tucked in between Iran, Pakistan and the former U.S.S.R. In this weighty and immensely detailed book, Steve Coll, who reported from Afghanistan for the Washington Post (where he is now managing editor) between 1989 and 1992, sorts out for the patient reader one of the most complex diplomatic and military involvements the U.S. has experienced in this century.

The cast of characters is immense, rivaling for sheer size (and personal quirkiness) any novel by Dickens or Dostoyevsky. It ranges from four U.S. Presidents through a platoon of bemedaled generals from five or six countries and a regiment of scheming diplomats down to hard-pressed pilots, miserably ill-equipped guerilla fighters, steely-eyed assassins and suicide bombers. There are more political factions here than most readers will be able to keep track of --- not to mention the factions that spring up within factions. It is all quite dizzying, but also fascinating and important.

Coll is a conscientious reporter. He does his best to keep the reader informed and to make his more important players come alive as human beings. His book is not easy reading, but it rewards well anyone who buckles down and stays with it to the end.

A couple of general impressions: First, Coll demonstrates time and again how much of the really important things that government --- any government --- does in foreign relations is done in deep secrecy, far from the eyes and ears of the average consumer of "news." Secondly, he leaves the impression that disdain and hatred of non-Muslims is pretty much pervasive throughout the Muslim world, coloring the actions and judgments even of those Muslims whom westerners might not consider "extremists."

Another leitmotiv in this almost Wagnerian epic drama is a pervasive lack of interest on the part of American policymakers in the developing crisis in Afghanistan, followed by paralyzing intra-agency squabbles and turf battles once the threat of terrorism became unavoidable. One is reminded of Dickens's satirical governmental invention, the "Circumlocution Office" in Little Dorrit with its famous motto: How Not To Do It.

Coll covers in exhaustive detail the defeat and withdrawal of the Soviet Union; the factional warfare that ensued; the rise of the Taliban from a small cadre of student zealots to a force that ruled most of the country; the emergence of Osama bin Laden; the clumsy and ineffective efforts of the U.S. government to get meaningful cooperation from Saudi Arabia and/or Pakistan in stabilizing and democratizing the region; and the ominous events that led up to --- but did not precisely signal -- the attacks of Sept. 11th. He is especially good on the lack of interest and decisive action by the U.S. after the Russian withdrawal and on the paralyzing rivalries between competing governmental spook shops that caused this breakdown. Action plans would be developed, only to be derailed by fruitless internal debates and objections. "How Not To Do It" indeed!

An additional strength of the book is Coll's knack for thumbnail portraits of the participants. Most memorable are his word pictures of two CIA directors: the religiously driven cold warrior William Casey and the consummate organization man George Tenet. Also well done are his portraits of Afghan warriors like the unlucky Ahmed Shah Massoud (whose assassination closes the book) and Gulbuddin Hekmatyar. Osama bin Laden himself, though dutifully described, remains necessarily an offstage influence rather than a full-bodied presence. Both Pakistan and Saudi Arabia come off in Coll's pages as unreliable allies, to the point of being deceitful in their dealings with the U.S.

GHOST WARS is not beach reading by any means, but those who have the patience to get through it will emerge well informed indeed. Of course, everything changed on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001. Can a second volume be far behind?

[Singh]

India, Pakistan and the Secret Jihad

The 'Jihad' against India

Although written from an Indian perspective, Praveen Swami's book provides an interesting insight into the Pakistan Army's strategy of covert warfare.

By Ayesha Siddiqa


More than a decade ago when the Cold War was coming to an end, the one question which perturbed some people, especially those who had stakes in keeping the conflict going, was: What would they do with their lives? This is a question that a number of people in Pakistan and India, too, will ask themselves once peace is restored between the two countries. And this is most certainly a question that the army and its intelligence agencies will ask themselves, particularly those sections in Pakistan that had thrived on the mission of jihad. The Pakistan Army's involvement with the Afghan mujahideen in fighting the Soviet troops in Afghanistan is what laid the ground for jihad, which was then fought on other fronts as well. However, this is not a conclusion reached by the Indian author, Praveen Swami in his book titled, India, Pakistan and the Secret Jihad.

The recently published book tells the story of the jihad waged by Pakistan against India, dating back to 1947. Of course, the author does not view it as a freedom struggle but as an act of terrorism perpetrated by one state against the other. In fact, Praveen Swami chooses not to use the word 'militancy,' since this term also includes a non-violent struggle, which is different from the terror triggered by a combination of state and non-state actors. Although written from an Indian perspective, the book provides an interesting insight into the Pakistan Army's strategy of covert warfare. The book seems to suggest that what started after 1989 was actually a full-blown strategy put in place in 1947.

Praveen Swami's book uncovers an important facet of the Pakistan military's operational strategy, according to which it systematically planned to use covert warfare tactics to fight an otherwise conventionally strong India. Since the conventional military technological gap between the two adversaries did not allow Pakistan's Army to take Kashmir forcibly, it opted to use the low-cost and high-efficiency method of deploying both military personnel and non-state actors to fight the conflict. This, in Swami's view, was also considered a relatively safer option because New Delhi could not launch an attack on Pakistan every time it discovered a secret cell inside Kashmir engaged in terrorist activities.

According to this book, the attack by the Mohmand, Afridi, Wazir and Mehsood tribes in 1947 was a planned action choreographed by General Akbar Khan. Even Jinnah, Swami states, agreed with the general principle of the plan; in the Pakistani leader's view, the accession of Kashmir to Pakistan could not be stopped. In fact, the earlier leadership was not averse to the idea of capturing Hyderabad and Junagarh since they believed that Kashmir would, in any case, fall into Pakistan's lap. It was primarily the Radcliffe Award that upset the plan, which Akbar Khan then decided to correct through planning the covert operation. The main problem with the plan was its dependence on tribal warriors, because, at the time, the Pakistan Army was in the process of reorganising after 1947. The warriors lacked discipline and instead of heading straight towards Srinagar, they engaged in loot, rape and plunder in Baramulla. This allowed the Indian forces to gain time and push the tribal warriors back.

In Swami's view, this military fiasco did not, however, stop the army from continuing with its covert operations inside the now Indian-administered Kashmir. The author finds evidence of covert activities in 1955 and in October 1957 when an attack on a temple was carried out to incite Hindu-Muslim riots. The internal discontent was critical for planning any covert activities.

Interestingly, New Delhi's politics have never helped improve relations between the different ethnic communities residing inside Kashmir. This socio-political weakness was exploited by Pakistan's intelligence in planning Operation Gibraltar in 1965, says Swami, for which a master cell was set up in Kashmir in early 1965. The military operation was planned and executed by Maj. General Akhtar Malik, who was the general officer commanding of the Pakistan Army's XIIth Division. The general trained 30,000 troops to be dropped behind enemy lines in Jammu and Kashmir. The problem, however, was that Operation Grand Slam, which was initiated on September 1, 1965, was launched at the wrong place and at the wrong time, and provoked massive retaliation by India. In fact, the plan completely backfired, with India's XIth Corps capturing 362 sq km of Pakistani territory. More importantly, as pointed out by the author, a Muslim betrayed the plan to India.

The defeat in fulfilling its military objectives, however, did not deter the Pakistan Army from continuing with its covert activities, and a secret group called Al-Fatah was established in Jammu and Kashmir in 1969. More interestingly, the strategy of covert warfare was supported even by political leaders such as Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, who publicly lauded the gang responsible for hijacking an Indian airliner on January 30, 1971, contends Swami. Popularly known as the Ganga hijacking, the incident was read as Islamabad's explicit support to the hijackers.

The Pakistan Army's strategy got a fillip due to the conditions created as a result of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979. Co-opted by the US to operationalise a covert warfare in Afghanistan, the Pakistan Army managed to train about 80,000 insurgents and also developed a capacity to export insurgents to other places, including Kashmir and the Indian Punjab. East Punjab was viewed as a theatre of sub-conventional war where maximum damage could be done. The strategy worked out fine until India, under the Rajiv Gandhi government, decided to respond by setting up two offensive desks in the intelligence agency, the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW). The two desks, CIT - X and CIT - J, were responsible for carrying out terrorist operations inside Pakistan, which then forced the head of ISI, Lt. General Hameed Gul, to meet his counterpart in RAW and agree on the rules of engagement as far as the Punjab was concerned. It was agreed that Pakistan would not carry out activities in the Punjab as long as RAW refrained from creating mayhem and violence inside Pakistan. However, both these desks in RAW were dismantled by I.K. Gujral's government. The Indian government probably realised that encouraging covert warfare would not only destabilise bilateral relations but was also dangerous for the peace and stability of the entire region.

Unfortunately, this fact was not understood by the Pakistan Army. It continued to engage in covert warfare until it reached a dead end during the Kargil crisis and the 2002 India-Pakistan stand-off, says Praveen Swami. What the Pakistani strategists failed to understand was that the stability-instability paradox in a nuclear environment restrained a covert war against India. Given the nuclear deterrence on both sides, Pakistan could no longer afford to escalate tension by fanning insurgency. Although the author does not state this in his conclusion, the fact is that it is this realisation which seems to have influenced General Musharraf's decision to put obvious curbs on insurgency and negotiate peace with India.

Islamabad has definitely come to a point where it can no longer raise an existing issue with its adversary by using covert or overt military means, which means that the army is inclined to sort out the Kashmir issue. However, the question is: What would the army do with its covert warfare capability? More importantly, how will it deal with the jihadis who have been trained for years to fight a war in other territories? Reading this book, one wonders if it will ever be possible to produce such a detailed account of the years-long covert warfare in Pakistan. Perhaps someone close to the establishment might get access to confidential details in the same manner that Praveen Swami did when writing his book.

The 'Jihad' Against India

[Neo]

Nuclear Pakistan — setting the record straight, again

By Afrah Jamal

The Genesis of South Asian Nuclear Deterrence: Pakistan’s Perspective
By Naeem Salik Oxford University Press; Pp 350

Going nuclear is a lifestyle choice. For the original five, it was a vital symbol of power. For Pakistan, it is a necessary evil. With three nuclear powers in the region, Pakistan is the only one that gives the world sleepless nights. As their least favourite (aspiring) club member, Pakistan is used to being eyed with suspicion and treated with disdain. Naeem Salik believes that current debates on Pakistan’s nuclear stance are speculative at best and slanderous at worst. But since studies from Pakistan are rare, it is not always easy to counteract the negative propaganda and/or hysterical fear mongering. As world leaders eye Pakistan with increasing wariness, it would be useful to hear out the man once in-charge of the conception and development of a nuclear command and control system along with the ‘contours’ of Pakistan’s nuclear doctrine post-1998.

The shocking story of how Pakistan deceived the West and the West played along has been covered in other books. By coming out of the nuclear closet, both Pakistan and India set certain events in motion. With widely differing agendas (prestige and power for India, security for Pakistan), staying the course leaves each at completely different junctures. A stranded Pakistan is trying to live down the accusations of dealing in technology on the side, while a driven India is trying to live up to its image of a ‘responsible’ nuclear power.

What we get from this well-researched book is a comprehensive picture of India’s evolutionary nuclear programme, the subsequent development of Pakistani technology and a multifaceted view of the Indo-Pak missile technology programme. A Q Khan makes a mandatory appearance in Naeem Salik’s version of events, but since this book is not just about the nuclear godfather, his exploits find place in another book by Adrian Levy and Catherine Scott-Clark.

A Q Khan’s involvement in nuclear proliferation has been established beyond a shadow of a doubt. The writer asserts that Pakistan’s military was kept out of the (nuclear) loop till the 1990s and remains unconvinced that Dr Khan’s network was officially sanctioned. Given that Khan ratted out his accomplices in a letter, the international jury is still out on the subject.

The book constantly alludes to striking contrasts between the treatments meted out to both nuclear states: the first to break rules gets a rap on the knuckles (absorbed by friendly neighbourhood Russian aid), an indulgent nod, and a civilian nuclear deal; the one to follow is left with disciplinary actions, sanctions, and a bad rep!

It also seeks to address some of the farcical evidence regarding our nuclear command and control. We are, after all, living in a neurotic society that is convinced that its assets are bound to be seized by allies and confronting a paranoiac world convinced of the same, only in their scenario extremists do the seizing. Salik is rightfully resentful of the tendency to overreact and, by taking readers through some of the practices Pakistan has set in place to safeguard its assets, makes a compelling case that merits attention.

Naeem Salik made an appearance at Johns Hopkins/SAIS and gave a presentation about the quality of Pakistan’s command and control and safety arrangements. In the opinion of an American scholar on South Asia who has lived and worked in both India and Pakistan, this optimistic representation is shared officially. While the scholar found Salik’s arguments to be persuasive and his assertions went unchallenged by audience members, the international media however remains sceptical, especially given the increasingly precarious security situation and regional instability. This scholar also had the impression that confidence within the US government circles has been shaken, and conceded that a strong Indian lobby might have tilted the US in India’s favour and, by contrast, tarnished Pakistan’s image. He further adds that the shifting views “grow out of what seems to be revealed facts about Pakistan that run against the long-standing traditional view that US and Pakistani security interests have a great deal in common, and security influentials (sic) on both sides can be counted on to cooperate on those matters the same way”.

Pakistan’s credibility is at an all time low. Clearly, some serious damage control needs to be done. But embarrassing disclosures are not the only problem. There is also a lot of disinformation out there. Simon Henderson, in his article ‘Investigation: Nuclear Scandal — Dr Abdul Qadeer Khan’ published in Times Online (September 20, 2009), has referred to a “Khan directed copy of Korean Nodong Ghauri” (missile). The author clarifies that “Ghauri, in its current configuration, does not even remotely resemble the original Nodong system” (p209). He also challenges claims of indigenous development of India’s missile programme, as he combs through a plethora of statements given for their domestic consumption.

Brigadier General (retired) Naeem Salik is an authority on nuclear proliferation and strategic/security issues. As a comparative study, his book does a fairly good job of reassigning blame proportionately. Moreover, it paints a reassuring picture of these immature nuclear powers learning to play nice by practising nuclear risk reduction tactics and CBMs (confidence building measures). And when Pakistan’s recent resistance to signing the Fissile Material Cut-off Treaty (FCMT) unless India was a fellow signatory is dismissed with an international headline ‘Pakistan Seen Undermining Prospects for Fissile Material Pact’ (Global Security Newswire, January 27, 2010), books like this assume an even greater relevance.

Afrah Jamal is a freelance journalist and former editor, Social Pages. She can be reached at afrahjh@hotmail.com

[Neo]

Book Review: Guilt By Association: Deception led US to War

June 19, 2010

Jeff Gates new book Guilt by Associationbelongs to the same genre of works that one may characterize as humanistic, developed by Noam Chomsky, William Blum, Kevin Philip, Peter Beinart, Edward Said, John Mearsheimer-Stephen Walt, John Perkins, and others. The latter two are the insiders previously working for the government (CIA) or the corporate sector associated with CIA.

From data collection to analyses, their approaches are different but the common thread that runs through their works is the desire to move the world from the paradigm of domination and plunder to a relatively more equitable relationship among the nations. That is why many would consider them as children of humanity.

For instance, Noam Chomsky’s Year 501 the Conquest Continues and his other works place the U.S. in the European tradition of colonial conquest and plunder, defining it as modern-day imperialism.

William Blum’s The Rogue State centers on the U.S. desire to control the planet in the name of peace and protection. His thesis is that the U.S. wants the world to buy its weapons. “[L]et our military and our corporations roam freely across your land, and give us veto power over whom your leader will be, and we will protect you.” Blum describes it as the cleverest protection racket.

Kevin Philip’s American Theocracy is also in the same line though more focused on the deadly combination of oil and religion as arbiters of U.S. policies. By all counts it is a profound work.

Peter Beinart’s The Icarus Syndrome narrows down on the fallout of the U.S. policy in remaking world after its image.

Edward Said’s Culture and Imperialism is a transformative work that traces culture role as informing the political and economic effort to control and consolidate the Western domination over others.

John Mearsheimer’s The Israeli Lobby and the U.S. Foreign Policy deals with the exaggerated American tilt toward Israel and the problems it has created to the U.S. image in the community of nations.

John Perkins’ Confessions of a Hitman is a testimonial work of a corporate employee trained to destabilize other countries through ill fated economic policies. In the process it exposes the linkage between American business and CIA sponsored subversion.

Why are these brilliant minds critical of their country? No doubt, their cause is unpopular with the powerful entrenched interests who often accused them of being anti-American. But they are not. Most of these writers share Edward Said‘s feelings about himself when he said, “It is part of morality not to be at home in one’s home.”

Jeff Gates follows their trail but with his own lantern. The imprint he leaves behind is easily discernable owing to its individuality, a sense of being earnest, and sincerity to his craft. His leitmotif is to unravel the machination and deception of the Jewish oligarchy at the micro-level, which he does with the skill of a consummate lawyer.

With attributes like these, Guilt by Association is a masterful study of how a “land grab” named Israel operates at the American expense. It is also an exhaustive study of how a small U.S. minority can manipulate the policies of a superpower for the benefit of the so-called Jewish homeland. More than that, it is a study of the criminalization of the American politics and economy. Combine the three aspects and one finds himself reading a book that is at once scholarly and yet free from the tedium of being pedantic, dealing with people and their wiles in pursuing a ruthless Zionist ideology and its grab for other’s land. In this sense, it has more than one dimension – a manual of subversion, a mix of psychology, brain manipulation, coercion, money laundering, and worst exploitation of human emotions.

To sift the myth from reality and facts from fiction, Gates applies the “game theory,” a branch of applied mathematics, to the Zionist manipulation of the U.S. political and economic scene. The game theory is a helpful tool in his hands to explain the role of each player in his strategic posturing. Thus as he explains it, there is the “target,” who is to be enfeebled and discredited; the “manipulator,” who plans and employs human consciousness to set the dynamics into motion against the backdrop of shared beliefs of Judeo-Christianity, democracy, and war against terrorism.

In pursuing their goals, the Israelis have layers of operatives whom Gates splinters into agents, assets, and helpers. Agents of course are trained for a job; assets are those who can be baited into empathizing with an intended cause for money, influence, sex, or ideology. Even a president can be made a pliable peddler for pro-Israeli policies through such means. Helpers are a corps of workers who give helping hand to Israeli operations. They could be as many as 7000 in London alone. As they say themselves, “[t]here are a lot of guys at the working level up here [on Capitol Hill] … who happen to be Jewish, who are willing to look … at certain issues in terms of their Jewishness. … You can get an awful lot done just at the staff level.”

With all these cadres in place, the mode is sophisticated meandering through a maze of actions. To begin with, the Israelis have chalked out dossiers of psychological profiles of individuals who can be influenced owing to their inclination or vulnerability. Jeff Gates mentions two such incidents where Jewish women used their charm on at least two presidents. For laundering money to have political clout he has a long list of beneficiaries of Jewish generosity from presidents to lawmakers, including recent presidential aspirant John McCain and White House inmate Barack Obama.

Validating his game theory, Gates mention, among others, two instances. Both are relevant to our times.

In the 1980s Libya was hot in the news for its vanguard role in supporting the Palestinian cause. Israel decided to neutralize Qadhafi through a three-phase action plan, which Jeff Gates spells out as pre-staging, orchestration, and provocation.

As pre-staging, messages are transmitted from the Libyan soil to its embassies to set off a chain of terrorist acts. The intension is obvious. Such messages are prone to interception. And that brings Libya blinking as a terrorist state on the intelligence screens in Europe and elsewhere. The U.S. shows its gullibility and accepts such doctored messages as real.

The Orchestrating phase activates the Mossad operatives to terrorist acts through proxy. The Israeli target is to get some Americans killed so that the U.S. is lured into killing those whom Israelis consider as offensive to their cause.

In the provocation phase, Berlin’s La Belle Discotheque is blasted, killing an American serviceman.

Enraged, 160 American, German, and British aircrafts unload 160 tons of explosives on Libya killing 40 civilians, including 2-year old Qadhafi’s daughter.

Berlin’s selection as the site for the terrorist attack is important as the ripple effect would be felt all over Europe convincing even cynical regimes about the Israeli plight surrounded by a sea of Muslim states.

Second, it will give the West a much needed new enemy of “radical Islam” against the backdrop of a winding cold war.

Third, it will alienate the Muslim world from the United States, eventually forcing Americans to identify themselves with Israel.

Here Jeff Gates cites a senior Mossad operative saying 15 year before 9/11 that after neutralizing Qadhafi, Iraq and Saddam Hussein will be their next target, “We are starting now to build him up as the big villain. It will take some time, but in the end, there is no doubt that it ‘ll work.” The rest is history. Saddam was hanged, and his country was decimated.

Gates is convincing in linking Berlin’s and 9/11 incidents to Israeli plan of bringing out U.S. total support to its security concerns in the Middle East.

He finds the genesis of the Israeli plan to involve U.S. in its war against its neighbors when Ariel Sharon’s staged an armed march to Temple Mount in the year 2000. It took Palestinians a year to start a series of suicide bombing as expected by Israel. The U.S. and Europe were of course prompt in condemning suicide bombing. But Israel was looking for something more. Iraqi support to Palestinian cause was worrisome and so was its economic and military rebound after the Gulf War. Iraq had to be axed, minimizing threat to Israel.

Gates quotes Sharon and Netanyahu saying that only when Americans “feel our pain” would they understand the Israeli plight. “Both men mentioned a weighted body count of 4,500 to 5,000 American lost to terrorism – the initial estimate of those who died a year later in the Twin Towers of New York City’s World Trade Center.”

[Neo]

September 11, 2001 is another orchestrated event to give Israel the much desired edge over others in the region. Two preparatory steps in Jeff Gates calculus were necessary to make this tragic event happened.

One, how to create a mental environment supportive to March 2003 invasion of Iraq? This called for a massive exercise in brain washing sustained and made plausible by a believable theoretical framework provided by Samuel Huntington 1993-1996 The Clash of Civilization.

Two, how to make people believe that Iraq was behind 9/11, and that it had weapons of mass destruction? Gates characterizes this effort as “the displacement of an inconvenient truth (that Iraq had no role in 9/11) with what people could be induced to believe. The emotionally wrenching nature of that event played a key fact-displacing role.”

But mere publication of a plausible work would not have helped unless it was critically acclaimed by the media, and academia owned it. Gates says “100 academies and think tanks were prepared to promote it, pre-staging a clash consensus five years before 9/11.”

As a capper, it would need a legislative act to legitimize Iraqi invasion. The Iraq Liberation Act of 1998, made possible by the cumulative efforts of pro-Zionist lawmakers like John McCain, Joe Lieberman, and Jon Kyl, should be seen against this scenario. Gates could have also said that the Iraqi Liberation Act of 1998, when 9/11 was still three years ahead, was a prelude to the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003. This implies that the plan to invade Iraq was already in gestation; 9/11 was a ruse.

Gates cites an important individual named Philip Zelikow, executive director of the 9/11 Commission. He was addressing September 10, 2002 audience of University of Virginia:

Why would Iraq attack America or use nuclear weapons against us?

I’ll tell you what I think the real threat [is] and actually has been since 1990 –

it’s the threat against Israel. And this is the real threat that dare not speak its

name, because the Europeans don’t care deeply about that threat, I will tell you

frankly. And the American government doesn’t want to lean too hard on it rhe-

torically, , because it’s not a popular sell.

Critiquing it, Gates says, “Zelikow omitted that candor in the 9/11 Commission report.”

Such devious cover-ups are usually associated with Third-World nations who are believed to be gullible and thus can be deceived. But here we are ironically encountering a superpower said to be free, has a vigilant press and a powerful Congress and yet the administration succeeds in deceiving people – that too without a whimper causing a major calamity to a segment of humanity (Muslims in this case). Gates dares to expose this criminality.

One should not however get the impression as if this is the only deception the U.S. played on its people. Gore Vidal’s The Golden Age has the narrative of a novel but it is history he writes without being irreverent that otherwise he is known for. According to him, it was Franklin Roosevelt who provoked Japan to attack Pearl Harbor, Harry Truman scorched Hiroshima and Nagasaki to dust on pretense that a million Americans would lose their lives even when the military heads disagreed. Vidal cites three serious works like Charles A. Beard’s President Roosevelt and the Coming of War, Robert A. Stinnet’s Day of Deceit, and Gar Alperovitz’s The Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb and the Architecture of an American Myth to validate his assertion.

To people who think democracy is open and that it is people’s will, which is sovereign forget that democracy is a process that calls for shrewd management. Otherwise, it can backfire, hurting people at the hands of special interest groups who may deflect the process toward the fulfillment of their own parochial agenda. In this sense, democracy is a challenge to a people’s genius asking for their ability to sift right from wrong. Media which is considered to be a watch dog can become somebody else’s dog, susceptible to influences — acting as anesthetic to the people. If this can happen in the U.S., it can happen elsewhere too. Unfortunately, there are no exceptions.

Gates touches a few other important bases like demand or purchasing-power economics as against supply-side economics, privatization, and globalization. He shows reasonably well that supply-side economics based on the Chicago model is a root cause of our problems jeopardizing the world economy and creating monopolies. He does not, however, expose the privatization issue and its ramifications for the economy in general or how public interest is hurt, especially when it goes in the hands of international controllers of businesses. Privatization experience especially in a country like Pakistan has not been of much help in increasing efficiency or cost saving, as its proponents claimed. Public accountability to which utility services were amenable has now diminished as their ownership has moved to private hands. Karachi Electric Supply Company is one such instance.

While I agree with Gates that U.S. is guilty by association in its exaggerated tilt toward Israel, I disagree with part of his thesis giving me the impression as if it is only Israel making use of the United States. Accepting it would mean as if the Americans are too simple to care for their interests. On the contrary, there is a great deal of evidence to suggest that it is a two-ended relationship. Maybe I discuss it later.

Tariq Jan is a research scholar working with IPS Islamabad. He is also Member Board of Advisros, Opinion Maker. He has authored several books including ‘Secular Threat To Pakistan.’

He is also a visiting professor to Fatima Jinnah University for Women, Rawalpindi.

Book Review: Guilt By Association: Deception led US to War

[Lady Macbeth]

Assassination has long been an appealing subject for male novelists. Geoffrey Household’s “Rogue Male” (1939), Richard Condon’s “Manchurian Candidate” (1959), Frederick Forsyth’s “Day of the Jackal” (1971), Don DeLillo’s “Libra” (1988) and James Ellroy’s “American Tabloid” (1995): all are fictions plotted by men about men plotting to murder other men.

A CASE OF EXPLODING MANGOES

By Mohammed Hanif.

Mohammed Hanif’s exuberant first novel, “A Case of Exploding Mangoes,” extends this tradition of assassination fiction and shifts it east to Pakistan. The death at its center is that of Gen. Muhammad Zia ul-Haq, president of Pakistan from 1978 to 1988.

Zia’s fate is one of Pakistan’s two great political mysteries, the other being the assassination of Benazir Bhutto. The established facts concerning his death are as follows. That on Aug. 17, 1988, after inspecting a tank demonstration in the Punjab, Zia boarded a C-130 Hercules — “Pak One” — to fly back to Islamabad. That he was accompanied on board by a number of his senior army generals, as well as by the American ambassador to Pakistan, Arnold Raphel. That shortly before takeoff, crates of mangoes were loaded onto the plane. That shortly after takeoff, the C-130 began to fly erratically, alternately dipping and rising: a flight phenomenon known to aviation experts as “phugoid.” And that the plane crashed soon after, killing all on board.

Theories as to the cause of the crash have ranged from simple machine failure to the idea that one of the mango crates contained a canister of nerve gas, which, when dispersed by the plane’s air-conditioning system, killed both pilots. Among those many groups or persons suspected of being behind the assassination — if assassination it was — are the C.I.A., Mossad, the K.G.B., Murtaza Bhutto (Benazir’s brother) and Indian secret agents, as well as one of Zia’s right-hand men, Gen. Aslam Beg.

“A Case of Exploding Mangoes” is set in the months before and the days after the crash. Far from coming to a conclusion about the cause of Zia’s death, Hanif gleefully thickens the stew of conspiracy theories, introducing at least six other possible suspects, including a blind woman under sentence of death, a Marxist-Maoist street cleaner, a snake, a crow, an army of tapeworms and a junior trainee officer in the Pakistani Air Force named Ali Shigri, who is also the novel’s main narrator.

Ali is irreverent, lazy and raspingly sardonic, and his obvious fictional predecessor is Joseph Heller’s Yossarian. Indeed, like “Catch-22,” “A Case of Exploding Mangoes” is best understood as a satire of militarism, regulation and piety. Much of Hanif’s novel is set in the Pakistani Air Force Academy, an institution staffed by crazies and incompetents who could have walked straight out of Heller’s novel. Among them are Lieutenant Bannon, known as Loot, a languorous American drill instructor who douses himself in Old Spice, and Uncle Starchy, the squadron’s laundryman, who — as we witness in a fine scene — self-medicates with snake venom, using a live krait as his syringe. The academy cadets, meanwhile, are so maddened by celibacy that they have sex with holes in their mattresses, and so erotically sensitized that copies of Reader’s Digest circulate as substitutes for pornographic magazines.

In the midst of all this lunacy is Ali Shigri: sane, if not entirely so, and bent on revenge. Ali is convinced that his father, Col. Quli Shigri, was killed on the orders of General Zia. By way of retribution, Ali develops an intricate assassination plot, which involves Loot Bannon, Starchy’s snake and “Baby O” Obaid. Baby O is Ali’s best friend and occasional lover. His idea of relaxation is to watch “The Guns of Navarone” while wearing Poison perfume, and he occasionally imagines himself to be the avian hero of “Jonathan Livingston Seagull.”

The novel cuts cleverly between Shigri’s self-told story of his assassination plans and third-person scenes from the last months of the man he is trying to murder, General Zia. Zia’s depiction is one of the book’s great achievements. Hanif summons all his satirical disdain for this pious and violent man, whose years of power have left him “fattened, chubby-cheeked and marinating in his own paranoia.” At morning prayer one day, Hanif writes, Zia “broke into violent sobs. The other worshipers continued with their prayers; they were used to General Zia crying during his prayers. They were never sure if it was due to the intensity of his devotion, the matters of state that occupied his mind or another tongue-lashing from the first lady.”

The jokes start early in “A Case of Exploding Mangoes,” and they keep on coming. There are times when the novel feels just a touch too fond of its own one-liners. Satire is, after all, a comic mode that asks to be taken seriously. Certainly, this novel doesn’t have the sustained black anger of “Catch-22,” a book that — as an early reviewer observed — seemed to have been “shouted onto paper.” But there are shocking scenes in Hanif’s novel, and the shock they deliver is greater because they occur as interludes to the comedy. One subplot involves Zainab, a blind woman who is to be stoned to death for adultery, even though this alleged offense occurred while she was being gang-raped. Shigri himself is arrested and incarcerated in a torture center in Lahore Fort. From his cell, he listens to the screams of other prisoners being branded with Philips irons, and communicates through a hole in the wall with a man who has been in solitary confinement for nine years.

During Shigri’s time in Lahore, it emerges that his father was responsible for converting the fort into a torture center. “Nice work, Dad,” Shigri observes wryly. “A Case of Exploding Mangoes” is full of such topsy-turvy moments or incidents of farcical reversal. Absurdity operates as a scalable quality in Hanif’s vision of the world: it is visible in tiny details and geopolitical shifts alike. The largest of these reversals concerns America’s foreign-policy relationship with radical Islam. For as Hanif reminds us, America enthusiastically collaborated with General Zia to finance, train and supply the Afghan mujahideen in their insurgency against the Russians during the 1980s. It was Zia who permitted the shipment of American arms and billions of American dollars to the rebels, and who allowed the border regions of Pakistan to be used by them as a haven and training base.

Hanif has written a historical novel with an eerie timeliness. It arrives as NATO troops battle the Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan; as General Musharraf fights Islamic extremism within his own country; as Pakistan assimilates yet another unsolved assassination; and as the menace of Al Qaeda persists worldwide. The most darkly funny scene in “A Case of Exploding Mangoes” imagines a Fourth of July party in Islamabad in 1988, hosted by Arnold Raphel. The American guests dress up in flowing turbans, tribal gowns and shalwar kameez suits, by way of ridiculous homage to the Afghan fighters. Among the invited guests is a young bearded Saudi known as “OBL,” who works for “Laden and Co. Constructions.” As OBL moves through the throng, various people stop to greet him and chat. Among them is the local C.I.A. chief who, after swapping a few words, bids him farewell: “Nice meeting you, OBL. Good work, keep it up.”

[Sikander]

Title: Mein Kampf

Author: Adolf Hitler

Co-Author: Heinrich Himmler

The book was originally entitled Four Years of Struggle against Lies, Stupidity, and Cowardice. Hitler's publisher reduced it to My Struggle (Mein Kampf). The book is a mixture of autobiography, political ideas and an explanation of the techniques of propaganda. The autobiographical details in Mein Kampf are often inaccurate, and the main purpose of this part of the book appears to be to provide a positive image of Hitler. For example, when Hitler was living a life of leisure in Vienna he claims he was working hard as a labourer.

In Mein Kampf Hitler outlined his political philosophy. He argued that the German (he wrongly described them as the Aryan race) was superior to all others. "Every manifestation of human culture, every product of art, science and technical skill, which we see before our eyes today, is almost exclusively the product of Aryan creative power."

Adolf Hitler warned that the Aryan's superiority was being threatened by intermarriage. If this happened world civilization would decline: "On this planet of ours human culture and civilization are indissolubly bound up with the presence of the Aryan. If he should be exterminated or subjugated, then the dark shroud of a new barbarian era would enfold the earth."

Although other races would resist this process, the Aryan race had a duty to control the world. This would be difficult and force would have to be used, but it could be done. To support this view he gave the example of how the British Empire had controlled a quarter of the world by being well-organised and having well-timed soldiers and sailors.

Mein Kampf : Nazi Germany