Grand Trunk Road

In 2002 Newsline reported on the death of Riaz Basra, a vital member and one of the founders of Lashkar-i-Jhangvi (LJ)

“Reportedly, the timing of his death was no coincidence: it is believed that the LJ has of late been providing shelter to Arab terrorists, their erstwhile comrades-in-arms in Afghanistan, who have fled to Pakistan in the wake of the US bombing across the border. With the operation against militants in full swing in the northern areas, some Arabs are said to have made their way to the teeming slums of Karachi, and the elimination of Basra was meant as a deterrent to terrorists across the spectrum. However, notwithstanding the closure of the training camps in Afghanistan, one wonders whether, given the large turnout at his funeral, and the numerous additional cross-currents that have recently come into play on the political landscape, this deterrent has come too late.”

Interestingly enough, the LJ and the Sipah-i-Muhammad Pakistan (SMP) are reportedly making a comeback in Karachi. Azharul Ashfaque’s much quoted report in DAWN adds that “Compared to the SMP, the sources termed the LJ militants more dangerous because of their links with al-Qaeda and the Taliban… while the LJ militants have links with some religious parties, some local leaders of a major political party were allegedly patronising the SMP militants…even though a neighbouring country and militants fighting in the Kurram Agency are supporting the SMP activists, the LJ has safe havens in the rest of the tribal areas, particularly in Waziristan.”

Near the tail end of the article the sectarian nature of the parties, particularly the LJ, segues neatly into the issue of a wider militancy in Karachi. It reminds me of LJ’s purported involvement in targeting foreign nationals in Karachi in 2002, a surprise to commentators because it traditionally targeted Shia Muslims. If LJ is linked to the recent militant attacks in Karachi then the nature of sectarian politics in Karachi – examined warily since 9/11 – will probably be wearing new colours. Theoretically it probably doesn’t come as much of a surprise since non-secular politics seem generally to be perceived as channels of resistance against a status quo. It is not what they stand for, which seems to be fluid and ritualistic but what they stand against.

Syed Saleem Shehzad (the knitter of grand narratives no matter how limited the facts) said that

“The militants on Sunday showed their muscle in their second home after the Waziristan tribal areas - Karachi, the financial hub of the country. A container truck carrying two armored personal carriers out of Karachi port was attacked by about 25 armed youths and set on the fire. The carriers were on their way to North Atlantic Treaty Organization troops in Afghanistan as part of one of the largest NATO consignments - 530 containers - to have arrived from Jabal-i-Ali in the United Arab Emirates en route to Afghanistan. (Asia Times Online broke the story that al-Qaeda planned to defeat NATO by cutting its supply lines in Karachi. (See New al-Qaeda focus on NATO supplies August 12, 2008.)

Asia Times Online has learned that top Taliban shura (council) commanders, including leader Mullah Omar’s deputy, Mullah Bradar, Ameer Khan Muttaqi and Akhtar Mansoor recently visited Karachi, and some of them remained in the city to plan further attacks.”

Interestingly then, Jang reports on the attacks in two universities in Karachi this week carries assertions by a student leader blaming the killings directly on the accumulation of weaponary under the ‘Talibanization’ of Karachi.

silsile toR gayaa vo sabhii jaate jaate
varnaa itne to maraasim the ke aate jaate

shikvaa-e-zulmat-e-shab se to kahiiN behtar thaa
apne hisse kii ko’ii shammaa jalaate jaate

kitnaa aasaaN tha tere hijr meN marna jaanaaN
phir bhi ik umar lagi jaan se jaate jaate

jashn-e-maqtal hi na barpa hu’aa varnaa ham bhii
paa-bajolaaN hii sahii naachte gaate jaate

uskii vo jaane usse paas-e-vafaa thaa ke na thaa
tum “Faraz” apnii taraf se to nibhaate jaate

An interesting sentence in a great post at the Pakistan Policy blog: “In a sense, Pakistanis face a choice between Iftikhar Chaudhry and Baitullah Mehsud. Eliminating the former is a vote for the latter.”

My interpretation of this (which is also something I agree with), is that the PPP has decided to abandon the cause of the restoration of the judiciary and this has come at the expense of the stability required to take on the threat of Baitullah Mehsud seriously. On the other hand, it is questionable whether the top leadership of the PML-N has the desire to attempt to take on the Taliban.

I was doing some googling about the infamous (but strangely under-discussed) program at the University of Nebraska to print textbooks for students in Afghanistan that were filled with images of war and violence and which turned out to be funded by an US government AID [Agency for International Development] grant to the University of Nebraska-Omaha and its Center for Afghanistan Studies.

I came across a very interesting collection of journalistic cop-outs regarding this issue from 2002 compiled by Jared Israel. His entire website is fascinating to me because it contains some very non-mainstream interpretations of recent history, which, although I disagree with most of them, make for interesting reading. Anyway, in the article about the textbook scandal, he questions the unwillingness of any major newspapers (apart from the Washington Post) to discuss this matter in any depth.

For example, he quotes the Boston Globe’s UN Bureau chief:

“The obstacles to accomplishing that goal are enormous. What few schools impoverished Afghanistan once had - about 2,000 - are now all virtually destroyed, pummeled by gunfire or turned into refugee camps. Teachers here have not been paid for months, even years. Those schoolbooks that still exist are pro-Taliban screeds and deemed unusable.

and wonders why she didn’t see fit to mention the origin of these textbooks to begin with. It really is inexplicable. Here’s another quote from the Sydney Daily Telegraph:

“In a symbolic break from a war-scarred past, children opened new textbooks written by Afghan scholars based at universities in the US.

and finally, most jarring of all, from President Bush:

“And before the end of the year, we’ll have sent almost 10 million of them [that is, new textbooks] to the children of Afghanistan. These textbooks will teach tolerance and respect for human dignity *instead of indoctrinating students with fanaticism and bigotry*.” — My emphasis - Radio Broadcast, March 16, 2002

The optimist in me thinks that if it is possible to do so much to influence an entire generation of Afghans in such a relatively short amount of time, then it must surely be possible to do the reverse. It also gives me hope that the problems within Islam, (described by the famous term “Islamofascism” that is so ubiquitously thrown around in the same circles that a generation ago supported the policies of Reagan which created these textbooks) are not so insurmountable as they appear to be right now.

Update: I’ve been reading around a bit more on the same website and I came across an absolutely stunning interview of Zbigniew Brzezinski which I’m probably the last person in the world to read since it’s from 1998.

So, despite the warm fuzzy feelings that many Pakistanis have for Obama, I will never trust a US president on whose foreign policy advisory team Zbigniew Brzezinski is prominently featured.

A kidney patient, Roha Bibi, 50, left her house with her husband, four daughters and two sons. She said that they became sandwich between the local Taliban and the military. “We can’t communicate it to the Taliban that their activities have rendered hundred of thousands of people shelter-less. At the same time we don’t have any hopes with the government that it would do something better for us,” she said.

The scale of the wrongs done to the people of the tribal areas of Pakistan and the challenges of the current situation are so enormous that one can understand, if not approve of, the ANP-led provinicial government’s inaction since it came to office. The latest news is a two-day workshop on the future of FATA, held in Peshawar, that concluded yesterday. Reading Afrasiab Khattak’s recommendations, I agree with all of them. Now if only they could a get a move on!

Over the last month or so I’ve been really enjoying reading the columns of Mosharraf Zaidi in The News. Here’s the latest: Measuring the Jamaat’s descent and I must say, it’s a brilliant read. It’s bound to be controversial among the more liberal readership of the paper because if there’s one thing that individuals on either side of the political (in Pakistan, it’s more religious than political or religio-political?) divide will never admit, it’s how much they need each other.

Zaidi mentions, towards the end, how the absence of an intellectual religious orthodoxy in Pakistan has pushed the religious right into the purview of religious militants. I remember thinking about this when I read the New Yorker article about the famous former Egyptian jihadi Dr. Fadl and his criticism of Al-Zawahiri. Unfortunately, it’s usually the case that the only effective criticism of a movement (effective to its adherents) is one that comes from within.

What was Khalid Hasan thinking when he wrote this column in today’s Daily Times:

WASHINGTON: Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) Co-chairman Asif Zardari’s accusation in a Sunday Times interview that President Pervez Musharraf diverted United States funds meant to aid the war on terror into some slush fund to aid rogue members of the military intelligence, has been greeted with disbelief on Monday by those who know how the system actually works.
[...]
Every dollar paid out is carefully scrutinised and accounted for, leaving no room for any money being siphoned off, as has been alleged.
[...]
Multi-tiered system: An intricate, 10-step multi-tiered system has been put in place by the two governments to process the transactions. The reimbursement claim entered under CSF is gone over by a special unit based in the US embassy in Islamabad known as Office of the Defence Representative in Pakistan (ODRP), currently headed by an admiral. The US ambassador validates the claim, which is then sent to CENTCOM headquarters in Florida, which passes it on after satisfying itself that all is in order.

Oh, really? Disbelief by all who know how the system actually works? Somebody should have sent a memo to everyone at the US Government Accountability Office who worked on their report, published on 24 June of this year, entitled U.S Oversight of Pakistan Reimbursement Claims for Coalition Support Funds (PDF)
From the summary:

While Defense generally conducted macro-level analytical reviews called for in its guidance, such as determining whether the cost is less than that which would be incurred by the United States for the same service, for a large number of reimbursement claims Defense did not obtain detailed documentation to verify that claimed costs were valid, actually incurred, or correctly calculated. GAO found that Defense did not consistently apply its existing CSF oversight guidance. For example, as of May 2008, Defense paid over $2 billion in Pakistani reimbursement claims for military activities covering January 2004 through June 2007 without obtaining sufficient information that would enable a third party to recalculate these costs. Furthermore, Defense may have reimbursed costs that (1) were not incremental, (2) were not based on actual activity, or (3) were potentially duplicative. GAO also found that additional oversight controls were needed. For example, there is no guidance for Defense to verify currency conversion rates used by Pakistan, which if performed would enhance Defense’s ability to monitor for potential overbillings. Defense’s guidance does not specifically task ODRP with attempting to verify Pakistani military support and expenses, despite recognition by Defense officials that such verification is best performed by U.S. officials in Pakistan, who have access to Pakistani officials and information. As such, ODRP did not try to verify Pakistan CSF claims from January 2004 through August 2006.

From the Washington Post article on the report:

The Bush administration has paid Pakistan more than $2 billion without adequate proof that the Pakistani government used the funds for their intended purpose of supporting U.S. counterterrorism efforts, congressional auditors reported yesterday. Their report concluded that more than a third of U.S. funds provided Pakistan since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks were subject to accounting problems, including duplication and possible fraud.

A truly memorable example, from the actual report:

For example, the most recent Pakistani navy claim (June 2007) includes cost categories titled “vehicle damage” and “cost of vehicles repaired” but no details were provided to explain the differences between these two categories and there was insufficient detail to determine whether some or all of the claimed costs were unique or duplicative. Despite this lack of detail, we found that Defense paid the Pakistani navy an average of over $19,000 per vehicle, per month (more than $3.7 million per year) to operate, maintain, and repair a fleet of fewer than 20 passenger vehicles without sufficient information to determine that these costs were not duplicative.

A conclusion, from near the end of the report:

ODRP [Office of the Defense Representative to Pakistan] officials said they doubted that ODRP would ever be able to full verify actual costs in Pakistan. First, the Pakistani military reports costs to ORDP that are already aggregates of many smaller costs that ODRP cannot directly monitor. Furthermore, according to ODRP, electronic record keeping is rare in the Pakistani government, and collation may entail a certain amount of approximation and aggregating.

Dawn

PPP spokesman Farhatullah Babar, who is a member of the committee which is drafting the charge-sheet, told Dawn that it had made “significant progress”.

“It will be an unimpeachable document supported by documentary evidence of all the acts of omission and commission committed by (President) Musharraf that make him liable to impeachment several times,” Mr Babar said.

47. Removal [22][or impeachment] of President.
[22A](1) Notwithstanding anything contained in the Constitution, the President may, in accordance with the provisions of this Article, be removed from office on the ground of physical or mental incapacity or impeached on a charge of violating the Constitution or gross misconduct.
(2) Not less than one-half of the total membership of either House may give to the Speaker of the National Assembly or, as the case may be, the Chairman written notice of its intention to move a resolution for the removal of, or, as the case may be, to impeach, the President; and such notice shall set out the particulars of his incapacity or of the charge against him.]
(3) If a notice under clause (2) is received by the Chairman, he shall transmit it forthwith to the Speaker.
(4) The Speaker shall, within three days of the receipt of a notice under clause (2) or clause (3), cause a copy of the notice to be transmitted to the President.
(5) The Speaker shall summon the two Houses to meet in a joint sitting not earlier than seven days and not later than fourteen days after the receipt of the notice by him.
(6) The joint sitting may investigate or cause to be investigated the ground or the charge upon which the notice is founded.
(7) The President shall have the right to appear and be represented during the investigation, if any, and before the joint sitting.
(8) If, after consideration of the result of the investigation, if any, a resolution is passed at the joint sitting by the votes of not less than two-thirds of the total membership of [23][Majlis-e-Shoora (Parliament)] declaring that the President is unfit to hold the office due to incapacity or is guilty of violating the Constitution or of gross misconduct, the President shall cease to hold office immediately on the passing of the resolution.