Pakistan After The Assassination: Interview with Pervez Hoodbhoy

Re: # 59

Massaddi Mian:

Afsoos, Massaddi Mian.
"....Another fool who knows not a thing except blurting out blatant falsehoods. Out of the around 1.1 trillion spent around the world on the military, the US accounts for over $650 billion..."

From Chaltahai:
".... http://www.globalissues.org/Geopolitics/ArmsTrade/Spending.asp ...."

Afsoos, Massaddi Mian, bahut afsoos.
Kya aap chullu bhar pani mein doob saktein hain?

Kyon, itne kabil dimag ko kharab kar dala hai. Dimaagon ka khuda aap ko muaaf nahin karega.

MARTYR OF DEMOCRACY
Author: Francois Gautier on Wednesday, January 09, 2008 - 02:19 AM Printable page Email to a friend
Francois Gautier


Prime Minister Manmohan Singh described Benzair Bhutto as 'one of the outstanding leaders of our sub-continent, who always looked for reconciliation between India and Pakistan'.

Most magazines are doing cover stories on her.

Bhutto is on the verge of becoming a 'martyr of democracy'. It is a sad that a mother of three children was so brutally killed and we all mourn her terrible death.

Nevertheless, truth must be told. For, as usual, what the press says is not exactly what happened.

Firstly, under Bhutto, anti-Indian terrorism in the Kashmir region was fostered and increased. Benazir was also directly responsible for the ethnic cleansing of Hindus in Kashmir.

"She was instrumental in sponsoring jihad, openly inciting militants to intensify terrorism in India," says Ajai Sahni, the executive director of the New Delhi-based Institute for Conflict Management. "I find it very difficult to discover a single element with her relationship to India that is positive and for the betterment of her country or the region," he adds.

Remember how she was shouting her slogans of azaadi, and exhorting the people of Kashmir to cut Jagmohan, then governor of the state, into pieces, as in "jag-jag, mo-mo, han-han". She would say this while making chopping motions with her right hand as it moved from her left wrist to the elbow, leaving nobody in any doubt as to what she meant.

Secondly, under Bhutto, the Taliban formed and, helped by Pakistan's intelligence service, swept across Afghanistan and later hosted Osama bin Laden. It is a bit of an irony that she may have been killed by the very people she helped foster if at all she was murdered.

Thirdly, she deliberately increased tension levels and then threatened India with a pre-emptive nuclear strike. The tension peaked when Bhutto repeated her late father's immortal boast of waging a 1,000-year war against India. Even Rajiv Gandhi was forced to mock her in Parliament, asking if those who talked of a 1,000-year war could last even a 1,000 hours.

And fourthly, in her last speech before she died, she alluded to India as one of the threats Pakistan had to face, implying that if she was elected she would deal firmly with it.

Then why is it that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh calls her a friend of India and that Indians mount candlelight vigils in the Gateway of India for her?

I interviewed Benazir Bhutto twice, the second time as she was campaigning to be re-elected for a second term. The first question I asked, was about Kashmir, as she was the one who had called for Azad Kashmir, a Kashmir free from India, which had triggered the ethnic cleansing of most of the Hindus of the Valley of Kashmir -- 400,000 of them had to flee their ancestral land.

"You know," she answered, "You have to understand the Pakistani point of view on Kashmir. If one goes by the logic of Partition, then at least the Kashmir valley, which is in great majority Muslim -- and it should be emphasised that for long the Hindus Pandits in Kashmir exploited and dominated the Muslims, who are getting back at them today -- should have reverted to Pakistan. But let us say that officially we want to help grant Kashmiris their right to self-determination."

"That's the only reason?" I continued.

"No," answered Benazir. "It should be clear also that Pakistan never forgot the humiliating loss of Bangladesh at the hands of India, although India claims it only helped Bangladesh to gain its freedom in the face of what the Bangladeshis say was Pakistani genocide. Zia's emergence was a result of that humiliation."

"But Zia hanged your father" I interrupted.

"Yes and I hate him and god the almighty already punished him for that," said Benazir, alluding to Zia's death in a plane crash. "But Zia did one thing right, he started the whole policy of proxy war by supporting the separatist movements in Punjab and Kashmir, as a way of getting back at India."

"What about Pakistan' nuclear bomb?" I asked.

"That's my father's work," she said proudly. "He realised, after having lost the 1965 and 1971 wars with India, that both numerically and strategically, we can never beat India in a conventional conflict. Thus he initiated the programme by saying that 'We will get the nuclear bomb, even if we have to eat grass'."

"But is it not a dangerous weapon if it falls in the hands of the fundamentalists of your country?" I asked.

"No such danger," Benazir answered. "Anyway, it is not only a deterrent against India's military conventional superiority and an answer to India's own nuclear capability, but also the ultimate weapon to re-assert Islam's moral superiority."

"We in Europe are going to unite in a Common Market, why don't Pakistan and India forget their differences and form some kind of confederation with other South Asian countries, instead of killing each other?" I asked.

"Pakistan and India were never one country," answered the imperious lady. "They were only kept together by force, whether by Mauryan, Moghul or British rule. Hindus have recognised the reality of Islam, and we needed our own country to feel free."

I was flabbergasted: here was a lady educated in Oxford and Harvard, who mouthed such irrational statements. She spoke good English, was pretty, articulate and pleased the press.

But when in power, she had to resort to anti-Indianism to please her voters. Her husband was known as Mr. 10 Per Cent. She was hounded out of power twice for incompetence and corruption.

Is she then a martyr of democracy?

History will tell.

Nasah, dear friend! Salaam.
Did you say,"..Dr. Hoodbhoy is a great scientist, great humanitarian, great antinuclear activist great educationist great physicist with a knack for explaining complex physical science riddles in easily understandable terms with originality..." in your post? You agree he is not a dumb moron from Sind!!
---------
Now now control yourself Nasah!

What I find most embarrassing and cringing is that Men and Women mostly from South Asia ( India, Pakistan, Bangladesh etc.) going berserk when they show their grief or sorrow at times. Tears roll down their the cheeks, they cry, pull their hair, beat their chests and wail loudly and curse! What a pathetic picture! That is what they did in New Jersey and in Toronto, in Karachi and Pindi.

That is what Benazir’s supporters have been doing all these days! That is what they did in New Jersey and in Toronto. Ooops - I forgot! Then they burn cars, businesses, loot, and kill and destroy their own if they are in Pakistan or in Delhi. !

Now why should Hoodbhoy criticize BB? Does have axe to grind against her? Now here comes one of your juvenile statements that Hoodbhoy is no political scientist to make a comment about her life! Really. Keep two political scientists side by side. They differ offer different interpretations. Some of it can be lots of Baloney and hot air.

What he said and wrote about her is all true. Her life is an open book for any one to see and read! Unless a person is illiterate and moron, one should be able to judge what she did to her country during her tenure. She was indeed a gutsy woman, secular etc. but, demagogue. If you keep aside your illogical thinking you may-God willing- come to the same conclusion!

She promoted Taleban in Pakistan, failed to remove Blasphemy and Hudood laws.: The whole idea of a woman’s evidence is equal to half of man’s. And it required four men to witness to verify the occurrence of rape of a woman is abhoring! These cursed laws were never removed during her administration! What else did she do for the poor in Pakistan? Should I say more?

Her family deserves sympathies from everyone so also millions of other unfortunates in Pakistan and else where. But you supporters who howl at the slightest criticism of hers should not turn blind eye to her flaws?

Now if you like go back to your wailing!

Wa Salaam, Wa Salaam.

Kamath

Re: # 47
Did You say,",..On contrary - Mushy for once is right... BB is responsible for her own death - at hands of taliban she helped created..."

Actually this statement is not true. BB's government funded the Talibani movement to bleed Hindoostan.

Kamath

Re: # 66

Good article...

but this was all very clear before... some people, like nasah, just fail to learn the lesson... BB is no martyr, she was the chief jihad driver in her time and she paid for her sins... justice served...

Same thing will happen to Mushy and other such jihad lovers... all in good time... it's the karma...

"She promoted Taleban in Pakistan, failed to remove Blasphemy and Hudood laws.:" (Kamath miaN)

Army promoted Taleban in Pakistan -- remember "strategic depth" -- "failed to remove Blasphemy and Husood laws" -- you surely have high expectations from a lowly frail woman in a "MANLY' medieval Pakistan -- a 'woman' who could not even visit the nuclear sites -- but you are upset at her because she did not remove those centuries ole entrenched monstrosities with a wave of her bangles -- saying be gone and they are gone -- did you want her to be assassinated 20 years ago

your enlightened Macho Musharraf could not clean those two shits in 10 years of a very secure absolute rule -- and you expect Benazir to do that in 2 very insecure years.

Man you are not only naive u r woman-biased male chauvinist pig -- such high expections from Benazir but none from the real male chauvinist pig Musharraf -- I would not take you seriously if you continue to show such an unbalanced comparative mind.

Perhaps the stupid Indians are in love with the dictator -- aren't they -- in fact in their hearts of hearts they ache and bleed for an army dictator in India -- to 'run their trains on time' -- don't they -- or to order them around with waving batons and barking orders.

ah those good old days of british Raj -- where have all those angrezi flowers gone -- alas no Field Marshall Manmohan Singh -- not even Maha Raja Manmohan Singh to take care of their order-craving Indian raiyat!

"You agree he (Hoodbhoy) is not a dumb moron from Sind!!" (Kamath)

Of course I agree -- I also agree that Einstein was not a dumb moron from Sind either -- yet Einstein used to beat his wife regularly -- with which I don't agree.

Kamath miaN why don't you understand -- that you can be Abussalam -- even bigger that Einstein in particle physics -- and yet go to Stockholm with two wives on each side to receive the Nobel Prize -- and still be called noble -- and for me Dr. Hoodbhoy is still a noble soul -- despite his beating of a dead wife and a dead mother of three children.

[...dead mother of three children...]

well, one child is already on taliban hitlist, the one who is the chief of PPP now, at 19 years of age... most likely he will follow the mom to the heaven...

There were a lot of mothers and children been killed by jihad this mother sponsored... so what are you going to do?... this is how things happen in pakiland...

Re: # 71 Nasah:
Now now Nasah dear boy: Salaam!

At this rate I don't think you can think straight and seperate two issues ie. military Vs Benazir Bhutto's Beatification by her supporters. Atleast some of her supporters can not think straight- just crowd mentality!

Next time when you see her photograph in a public place would you beat your chest and wail for a lost soul?

Kamath

Re: # 72 Mohar11!

It is unfair on your part not to extend one's sympathy for the grieving family no matter who they are, for they are no part of this Tamasha!

Kamath

Here is an article written by a noted writer in latest TIME magazine. I hope Nasah would read this!!
---------------- Article starts here --------------------
Martyr Without a Cause.
Thursday, Jan. 03, 2008 By WILLIAM DALRYMPLE
Time. com

Benazir Bhutto's assassination is a body blow to the troubled but strategically vital state of Pakistan. It removes from the scene a secular, liberal, pro-Western leader. It gives momentum to Pakistan's jihadis in their campaign to Talibanize the country, and it edges Pakistan closer toward Islamic revolution. Her death is also, of course, a tragedy for her family, including the three children she leaves motherless. But the horror of Bhutto's end should not blind us to her mediocre legacy, and it is misleading to depict her as any sort of martyr for freedom and democracy.

Why Pakistan Matters
Bhutto's instincts were highly autocratic. Within her Pakistan People's Party, she had herself declared the lifetime president and refused to let her brother Mir Murtaza challenge her for its leadership. He was shot dead by police officers while Benazir was Prime Minister; his wife Ghinwa and daughter Fatima believe Benazir was complicit in having him killed. She colluded in wider human-rights abuses. Amnesty International accused her government of having one of the world's worst records of custodial deaths, abductions, killings and torture.

Far from reforming herself in exile, Bhutto, as recently as this fall, kept a studied distance from the lawyers' movement that led the civil protests against President Pervez Musharraf's unconstitutional attempts to manipulate the Supreme Court. She also sidelined those in her party who supported the lawyers. Later, she said nothing to stop Musharraf from ordering the expulsion of Nawaz Sharif to Saudi Arabia, which removed from the election her most formidable democratic opponent. Many of her supporters regarded her deal with Musharraf as a betrayal of all her party stood for. Her final act, in her will, was to hand her party to her husband, as if it were her personal family fief.

Bhutto was a notably inept administrator. During her first, 20-month premiership, she failed to pass a single piece of major legislation, and during her two periods in power, she did almost nothing to help the liberal causes she espoused so enthusiastically to the Western media. Instead, it was under her watch that Pakistan's secret service, the ISI, helped arm the Taliban and facilitate its rise to power in Afghanistan. And she did nothing to rein in the agency's disastrous policy of training Islamist jihadis to do the ISI's dirty work elsewhere. As a young correspondent covering the conflict in Kashmir in the late 1980s and early '90s, I saw how, during her premiership, Pakistan sidelined the Kashmiris' secular resistance movement and instead gave aid and training to the brutal Islamist groups created and controlled by the government. Had Bhutto taken a more robust stance toward the jihadis her intelligence services were patronizing, it is quite possible that 9/11 would never have happened--and she would still be alive.

Bhutto was above all a feudal landowner (her family had a lot of property in Sindh province) with the sense of entitlement this produced. Democracy has never thrived in Pakistan in part because landowning remains the base from which politicians emerge. Pakistani democracy is really a form of elective feudalism. Bhutto nominated her feudal friends and allies for seats, and these landowners made sure their peasants voted them in.

Behind Pakistan's swings between military government and democracy lies a continuity of élitist interests: to some extent, Pakistan's industrial, military and landowning classes are all interrelated, and they look after one another. They do not, however, do much for the poor. The government education system barely functions in Pakistan, and for the have-nots, justice is almost impossible to come by. This pushes the poor into the arms of fundamentalists.
Western commentators tend to see political Islam as an antiliberal and irrational form of "Islamo-fascism." Yet much of the Islamists' success in Pakistan and elsewhere comes from their ability to portray themselves as champions of social justice, fighting Westernized élites--like Benazir Bhutto. Her reputation for corruption was gold dust to these Islamic revolutionaries, just as the excesses of the Shah were to his opponents in Iran 30 years earlier. During Bhutto's government, Pakistan was declared one of the most corrupt nations in the world, and she and her husband Asif Ali Zardari were charged with jointly laundering no less than $1.5 billion through Swiss bank accounts. (The charges against Zardari still stand.)

Corruption among the élite and the failure of the state to provide justice and the most basic necessities for the poor are two of the principal reasons for the rise of the Islamists in Pakistan. They are the only force capable of taking on the country's landowners and their military cousins. That is why, in recent elections, the Islamists have hugely increased their share of the vote and why they now control much of the west of the country. Benazir Bhutto was a brave, gutsy, secular and liberal woman. But she was a central part of Pakistan's problems, not a solution to them.

Dalrymple's latest book, The Last Mughal: The Fall of a Dynasty, Delhi, 1857, was awarded the Duff Cooper Prize for history

Something written by someone who KNEW both ZAB and BB....
Those with access to The Friday Times can really learn
something from Kahlid Sahib's full length article.
This one below is from Daily Times....



Benazir and her detractors — By Khalid Hasan

Those on the left did not wish to forgive Bhutto his deviation from what they viewed as the true path of socialism. Those on the right considered him the very epitome of the devil. But how many people in Pakistan’s villages really care about that part of ZAB’s life?

Benazir’s passing is being mourned by many in this country. She made friends easily and she had the gift of keeping them. She spent her teenage years as a student in America and she retained the links dating back to those halcyon days. There is much that has been said and written about her since her death and much will be said and written about her in the years to come. She has been praised for her courage, her intelligence, her sophistication, her determination and her beauty. There have also been those who have chosen the occasion of her death to attack her.

Some of the attacks have come from those whom she considered not acquaintances but friends of many years. She is no longer around to answer her detractors and she would have perhaps chosen to say nothing had she been alive, as she tended to do when attacked. But it does make you wonder.

For some it is difficult to distinguish between the political and the human. Politics always has a human dimension. People are not naïve. They know the failings, the foibles and the weaknesses of their leaders, but they overlook them because they can take a larger view of what their leaders stand for. When the American people wept at the assassination of John F Kennedy, it was not they were unaware of his personal failings, including his profligacy. And yet at that moment of supreme sorrow and unspeakable loss, they chose to leave all that aside. Perhaps history does not really care about, much less record, the compromises great public figures make or the errors of judgement they commit. What lives on is what they have accomplished and what they have left behind.

Take Benazir’s father, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto. To this day, there are those who want him to be remembered for the fact that he drank. That was the general platform they chose to attack him from during the 1977 elections and the mysteriously-backed PNA protests. Those on the left did not wish to forgive Bhutto his deviation from what they viewed as the true path of socialism. Those on the right considered him the very epitome of the devil. But how many people in Pakistan’s villages really care about that part of ZAB’s life? Nearly thirty years after his death, he remains a living symbol of the rights of the poor and the dignity of the deprived and exploited. In the minds of the people of Pakistan, he remains a martyr unjustly hanged by a brutal military dictator.

Benazir has been dead less than a week and she is already under attack. My friend Shuja Nawaz said to me, “I do not like the sudden spate of churlish pieces that have begun appearing about her. None of us is fault-free. She lived larger than life for Pakistan and she died for Pakistan.” I am sad to see some who were known to be close friends of her and whose counsel she sought at various stages of her life, declaring open season on her. I suppose never having had to deal with the harsh realities of politics, they can afford to sit in judgement on those who have.

Some of the things written about her are downright libellous. I cannot help recalling that when Musharraf overthrew the Nawaz Sharif government, there were quite a few in the writing tribe who thought the General to be the best thing to have happened to Pakistan. One of them suggested in a newspaper article that this time the army should clean up the mess created by politicians by working with civil society, completely bypassing politicians.

A New York tabloid carried a particularly scurrilous piece about Benazir in which she was described as “a splendid con, persuading otherwise cynical Western politicians and ‘hard-headed journalists that she was not only a brave woman crusading in the Islamic wilderness, but also a thoroughbred democrat”.

The writer whose name I had not heard before and do not wish to hear in the future, went on to call Benazir a “frivolously wealthy feudal landlord amid bleak poverty”. She was further castigated as “the scion of a thieving political dynasty,” more concerned with power than with the well-being of the average Pakistani. Her programme, he went on to declaim “remained one of old-school patronage, not increased productivity or social decency”.

Not long ago, this writer called upon the US government to change the map of the Muslim world, for “stability” by dividing Iraq, creating an independent Kurdistan, breaking up Pakistan, creating an independent Balochistan and handing over the NWFP to Afghanistan. Clearly his vision of Pakistan does not coincide with Benazir Bhutto’s. I would like to add that many Pakistanis have been circulating this rubbish on the Internet.

New Delhi-based William Darlymple’s diatribe called Bhutto’s Deadly Legacy, carried both in London and New York, is not much different from John F Burns’ derisory obituary in the New York Times. Can it be that a former colonial looks upon popular leaders from the old lands of the Raj differently from the way we see them? After all, millions of Pakistanis continue to adore Benazir, so there must be a reason for it. Why should Western readers be denied the ability to see Benazir through Pakistani eyes?

Darlymple concedes that he met the lady only once. That one meeting he has used with variations to hawk in various articles. Like the legacy of all historic figures, Benazir’s legacy will also be a mixed one, but it should be presented in the context of Pakistan’s realities, not without them. Neither the Burns’ obituary nor Darlymple’s piece explained the real battle fought by Benazir on behalf of Pakistan’s civil society against the country’s domineering military and its intrusive intelligence services. In his 1994 piece on Benazir, Darlymple made fun of her Urdu accent and found it strange that she should have liked a certain make of ice cream, which to him was proof enough that she was a feudal princess?

Then there are Western commentators with connections to the innards of their governments, including intelligence services. They are a class apart. Take Arnaud de Borchgrave for one, who consistently berates Pakistan, predicting its disintegration every other week. He met Benazir Bhutto in Washington many times and he has been spicing his articles with quotes from unnamed sources claiming that Osama bin Laden lives in Hayatabad, Peshawar. He has never explained why he has so far failed to collect the $50 million reward riding on Osama’s head.

After a succession of nasty pieces about Musharraf, the military and the ISI, this week he chose to attack Asif Zardari in a column called “Absurdistan” (which is what he thinks of Pakistan). Some idea of Count de Borchgrave’s political judgement can be had from his extolling of Farooq Leghari as “Mr Clean” and the great white hope for Pakistan’s future. The Count’s bottom line remains unchanged. Just as Pakistan was doomed under Musharraf, it will remain doomed because its largest political party has chosen Zardari as leader.

I should add that one of the Count’s oft-acknowledged sources in Pakistan is Gen Hamid Gul. Need more be said? Perhaps we should listen to him and anoint Sardar Muhammad Farooq Khan Leghari as our present and future president and confer the title of Duke of Chotti on him as well.

Nasah sahib,

Re: #70

(Perhaps the stupid Indians are in love with the dictator -- aren't they)

Nope. The "stupid" Injuns love Mushy no more than they love BB. It is just that BB (and the whole Bhutto khandaan) were no great democrats.

Regards

#76 Posted by Ras on January 9, 2008 6:47:07 pm



New Delhi-based William Darlymple’s diatribe called Bhutto’s Deadly Legacy,


A new delhi based reporter said that!! then, obviously, all the things about her authorizing the islamic jihadi thingy must not be true...


Darlymple concedes that he met the lady only once.


And bush has never met osama ...so when bush says osama is responsible for 9/11, he must be lying..

Posting this on behalf of Masadi sahib who has yet again been banned by chowk

Regards

Masadi sahib says:

{{{

Chalta writes "
http://www.globalissues.org/Geopolitics/ArmsTrade/Spending.asp"


The graphs show exactly what I said, that the US spends by far more than the rest of the world combined
US total $650 billion, world total (including the US) $1.1 trillion now do the simple subtraction, if that is not expecting too much from your brain (Chalta), and you'll note that the US accounts for more than 50% of world spending.

}}}

Lacking in self esteem pathetic Indians and Pakistanis would rather quote trashy English, American and European writers like William Dalrymples, Wolperts and Hutchinsons -- about the history of India and Pakistan than the native scholar sons and daughters of the soil who know their native country and their culture their economy, their history, their politics, their religions, inside out with their intricate hidden native nuances.

The writings of the native scholars will head for the trash bins of India and Pakistan -- but the white trash will be picked from the trash bins of the Western rejects and kissed and respected as the Holy Grail by the Gungadins of the subcontinents and repeated in quotes ad nauseam.

That William Dalrmple guy whose ancestors only 150 years ago put to death 5 innocent children of his “Last Moghul” with their swords in the open Delhi market place outside the Red Fort – in broad day light -- is definitely entitled to write the 'Last' and final word on the "Last Moghul” of the 'Last Indian' subcontinent.

Now who will read the native scholar Khalid Hasan when there is someone like William Delrymple from the West’s pimpled expertise on the native Pakistani Benazir – who met Benazir once and who never lived in Pakistan.

This is what 200 years of British rule has done to the self respect self esteem and the self confidence of an average educated inferiority complexed Indian and Pakistani elite.

No wonder Akbar Allahabadi had this lament:
“Boot Dawson nay banaya maiN nay ek mazmooN likha
Mera mazmooN ru geya har tarf joota chal geya”