Our troubled past and uncertain present – II
So in one fell swoop India scored above us and the Jewish intelligentsia spun out a cogent strategy of "dual containment" to project India as a counterpoise to China.
The custodians of our ideological frontiers then swung into action and decided to use the jihadis as our very own strategic tools. With US assistance disappearing on us and our economy nose-diving, we kept dissolving one assembly after another, tinkering with the appurtenances of democracy, while our militarised and delusional mindset led us into allowing India to determine the timing of testing our nuclear device, at a moment when our coffers were quite empty.
India had tested when her treasury was brimming with resources achieved through a successful privatisation programme. All this while, Pakistani World Bank pundits, sitting in faraway Washington DC, would scoff at India’s ‘Hindu’ rate of growth of two per cent per annum, since Pakistan’s was said to be six per cent. On top of this, we pulled a military fiasco in Kargil. The failed strategist of that disastrous military engagement then proceeded to intervene and usurp power, ostensibly to clean our Augean stables and to put us back on track. But his greedy circle of sycophants and cronies lured him into malingering and enjoying the trappings of power and he was shallow enough to succumb.
However, after a failed referendum he was at a dead-end, when 9/11 came to his rescue. Therefore, when he was asked by George W, "Are you with us or against us?", he was so relieved that he was being asked that he did not have the wit to add a proviso such as "with you, provided you write off Pakistan's debt". He merely said "with you". So naturally George W fell madly in love with yet another Pakistani ruler offering the US another cheap deal, the same old three billion dollars, the same old thieving and worse, the same old jihadis, this time perpetrating their jihad on the hapless Pakistani citizenry, while American citizens' lives could be secured.
Today, there seems to be a more humane president in the White House and we seem to have a more sensible army chief who does not appear to have a gargantuan appetite for power and appears to be more into soldiering. The citizenry can only hope that he will soldier on to provide security where security is most due, which is to all of us citizens of Pakistan. If any terrorist organisation has been banned, then the ban must not be violated, notwithstanding the chicanery of half-baked lawyers parading as ministers. The disgusting attitudes prevalent in the Pervez Musharraf phase of our dismal recent history must be conclusively buried. And clearly after all that Pakistanis have suffered, there can be no justification whatsoever for any ‘strategic assets’ being maintained by our covert security apparatus that kill and maim our own people.
Published in The Express Tribune, July 12th, 2010.
The custodians of our ideological frontiers then swung into action and decided to use the jihadis as our very own strategic tools. With US assistance disappearing on us and our economy nose-diving, we kept dissolving one assembly after another, tinkering with the appurtenances of democracy, while our militarised and delusional mindset led us into allowing India to determine the timing of testing our nuclear device, at a moment when our coffers were quite empty.
India had tested when her treasury was brimming with resources achieved through a successful privatisation programme. All this while, Pakistani World Bank pundits, sitting in faraway Washington DC, would scoff at India’s ‘Hindu’ rate of growth of two per cent per annum, since Pakistan’s was said to be six per cent. On top of this, we pulled a military fiasco in Kargil. The failed strategist of that disastrous military engagement then proceeded to intervene and usurp power, ostensibly to clean our Augean stables and to put us back on track. But his greedy circle of sycophants and cronies lured him into malingering and enjoying the trappings of power and he was shallow enough to succumb.
However, after a failed referendum he was at a dead-end, when 9/11 came to his rescue. Therefore, when he was asked by George W, "Are you with us or against us?", he was so relieved that he was being asked that he did not have the wit to add a proviso such as "with you, provided you write off Pakistan's debt". He merely said "with you". So naturally George W fell madly in love with yet another Pakistani ruler offering the US another cheap deal, the same old three billion dollars, the same old thieving and worse, the same old jihadis, this time perpetrating their jihad on the hapless Pakistani citizenry, while American citizens' lives could be secured.
Today, there seems to be a more humane president in the White House and we seem to have a more sensible army chief who does not appear to have a gargantuan appetite for power and appears to be more into soldiering. The citizenry can only hope that he will soldier on to provide security where security is most due, which is to all of us citizens of Pakistan. If any terrorist organisation has been banned, then the ban must not be violated, notwithstanding the chicanery of half-baked lawyers parading as ministers. The disgusting attitudes prevalent in the Pervez Musharraf phase of our dismal recent history must be conclusively buried. And clearly after all that Pakistanis have suffered, there can be no justification whatsoever for any ‘strategic assets’ being maintained by our covert security apparatus that kill and maim our own people.
Published in The Express Tribune, July 12th, 2010.