Musharraf : Self Styled Saviour Stuck in a Rut

Personally, I am not a fan of any Pakistani leader, Punjabi, Sindhi, Muhajir or any other idiot. They are all duffers and retards to the last core. They neither have a calibre nor the backbone. It`s a sheer waste of time to even read the bullshit they print in media in the garb of words of political wisdom. They deserve proper jootian than any accolades from anywhere. They have done nothing but to screw the country to the best of their capabilities that even after 50 plus damn years they are contemplating on democratic vs. undemocratic governments.

Despite all the hovering bad karma, I somehow have a soft corner for Musharraf. Mainly for how he got into power. Also, he is one of the very few leaders in the history of Pakistan who has stood up and given a different impression of Pakistan to the rest of the world in times when the world was and is ready to rip the country apart. Self styled? I have some reservations on the use of this adjective.

What was/is Baenazir with a rosary in her hand? Unique Style!

What was Nawaz Sharif with a cook and hair-dresser accompanying him all over the world? Unique Style!

What was so special about the once upon a time,``Lion of Punjab`` ? Unique Style!

Let Musharraf proceed with his unique style as well. At least his style is different from that of the ones above. Now, do not get me wrong. His way of doing things is not taking consensus, but then he did not land in Pakistan as a ruler with a consensus. Why be surprised?

Interesting news item from today`s Nation daily.

Is this just another conspiracy theory? Did Musharraf know about Mushaf Ali Mir`s history before making him Air Chief? Was the crash of C-130 which killed Mushaf Ali Mir and many others just an accident?


Abu Zubaydah reveals Osama ties with Pakistan, S. Arabia

NEW YORK (AFP) - A top aide to Osama bin Laden told CIA agents in a drug-induced confession about secret connections between the al-Qaeda leader and top officials in Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, according to excerpts of a new book in Time magazine on Sunday.
Abu Zubaydah, captured last year in Pakistan, told US interrogators that long-time Saudi intelligence chief Prince Turki al-Faisal bin Abdul Aziz had secretly agreed to pay Osama as long as al-Qaeda refrained from promoting its political aims in the kingdom, according to the book.
He also said that high-ranking Pakistani air force officer Mushaf Ali Mir had agreed to provide al-Qaeda with protection, arms and supplies, Gerald Posner wrote in his new book ‘Why America Slept.’
The book gives a detailed account of how US agents used drugs and threats to scare Abu Zubaydah into confession, citing a ‘very senior executive branch’ official and another source from the Central Intelligence Agency.
Both Mushaf Mir and Saudi Prince Ahmed bin Salman bin Abdul Aziz, a nephew of King Fahd, knew that al-Qaeda planned an attack on the United States on September 11, 2001, Posner writes.
Neither man had enough details to warn Washington, and they couldn’t turn against Osama afterwards because he could expose their knowledge of the attack, the book said.
During his interrogation, US officials transported Abu Zubaydah to a mock Saudi prison to fool him into more confessions, the book said.
In the fake Saudi prison, he rattled off Prince Ahmed’s telephone number and told his captors that the prince would ‘tell you what to do.’
Zubaydah, captured in March 2002, was believed to be in charge of al-Qaeda operations and its top recruiter. He has been held in an undisclosed location since his capture.
Osama`s ‘terror summit’ in Afghanistan
Osama bin Laden held a ‘terror summit’ in Afghanistan to outline plans to use biological weapons in his next ‘unbelievable’ attacks, according to Taliban sources quoted by Newsweek magazine on Sunday.
‘Osama’s next step will be unbelievable,’ Newsweek quoted a ranking Taliban source as saying in an advance report of this week’s magazine.
‘His priority is to use biological weapons,’ the source told the magazine, claiming the al-Qaeda network already had such arms but now was addressing how to transport and disperse them.
The magazine quoted senior Taliban officials as saying that Osama, whose al-Qaeda network organised the September 11 attacks on New York and Washington in 2001, held his ‘terror summit’ in a mountain stronghold in Afghanistan in April following the fall of Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein.
‘The plan was reported delayed and revised after the capture al-Qaeda operations chief Khalid Shaikh Mohammed in Rawalpindi in March,’ Newsweek reported.
Abu Zubaydah reveals Osama ties with Pakistan, S. Arabia

Benazir Bhutto writes in the latest edition of satribune,

[The reason Musharraf wants to make Parliament subservient is that he can no longer preside over cabinet meetings. He misses the time when he could change laws at will through edicts. Whatever he wished, right or wrong, became law. He was surrounded by yes men and courtiers. Now he finds placating his own allies, what to talk of the Opposition, a frustrating task. If he doesn’t keep them happy, his allies stay away from the Parliament breaking the quorum, ending the session and embarrassing him.

He does not want to give up the army post. It is surprising that he is unable to find one amongst the many military colleagues whom he could trust as the new army chief. He wants everything his own way without realizing that political leadership is about give and take and about compromise. His inflexibility and refusal to see the other parties point of view has plunged the country into a grave constitutional crisis.

In retrospect, the lack of leadership qualities are unsurprising. Musharraf’s lack of leadership qualities gave birth to the ill advised Kargil adventure where Islamabad had to withdraw unilaterally after three thousand soldiers and officers gave their lives for the success of the operation. He joined the war against terror without consulting his handpicked National Security Council or handpicked cabinet. They too would have joined the anti terror effort and the country could have benefited by developing a consensus as well as getting better terms than Musharraf got, like debt write off.

Musharraf’s other bitter legacy is the rise in economic and political suicides, three near wars with New Delhi, deteriorating relations with neighbors Iran and Afghanistan, renewed violence in Karachi, the Okara Military Farms scandal where peasants are losing their lives because Musharraf’s cronies want their lands and blind eye to governmental corruption.]

I have been saying these things all along, much to the dislike of likes of air marshall. If a person is poor performet in his own field of specialization, how on earth can he be trusted for providing leadership?

PM,

No point in defending Air Marshal counterfeit coin. He is a rather caustic individual without a sense of shame or decency.

-YLH

pm:

i wont hear a word against mr. deseram cause mr. deseram use to umpire our cricket matches and on marginal lbw decisions, he would rule in my favour if i bought him booze before the match. and lokanathan, did you ever hear that joke from him about a woman, helium balloons and an airplane. and theo fernando, his daughter used to be a couple years senior to us in school and i can honestly say that even after all these years, she is still the finest looking dravidian woman i have had the pleasure of setting my eyes upon. also did you know mr vaz, our human-and-social bio teacher? (i think he was anglo-indian). i have heard that he may have passed away. mr. vas was by far the biggest bigot i have come across (you wont believe the things he used to say about blacks and bengalis) and as you can tell by reading this post, his ideas still continue to influence me deeply.

wrt to your questions, i did my o’s in ’87 and a’s in ’89. never played basket ball but played a lot of marren peetee on that damn court (and as a result turned into very good close-in fielder). i do however still remember who was on the basket ball team around that time. what is your involvement with st. pats? and are you still in the teaching business? and i remember reading some place else that you might be involved with kgs. if so, you might then know my mother who has been teaching there for a number of years. and if you know my mother, please don’t tell her about the crap i write here.

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TEACHING P[AKISTANIS,

Pakistan, because it has no identity cannot instill patriotism in its people and hence no one returns after studies abroad, except when sent back with ball and chains. The shortage of the educated in pakistan is so severe that even mushy is talking of importing them. The tragedy as usual is that no one in pakistan is ready to accept the reality, the society does not value adeucation of the secular kind, it is all in one book and that is why all are queing up in the madrassas.
The mushy will not talk about creating institutuions like the IITs, because it is impossible to create one in pakistan, all of the resources are with the military, the best medical and engineering instututions are for the faujis. Pak society does not value education, at best it camn only be poart of the fauji infrastructure to support invasion and military actions in tune with the pak heros of gaznavis.
There is no support for education, there are no scholarships, nothing like what I got in india. Based on the year ten results I got a scholarship that saw me through up to engineering, and was enough to caver all expenses including a little to sent home.
Value of education, that is what is lacking, not only in pakistan, in all islamic societies. There is no respect for the ducated, it is all for the mullah and one book.

IMPORTANR EDUCATION ACT

tHERE IS ONE SYMBOLIVC AND MOST POWERFUL ACT TO IMPROVE EDUCATION IN PAKISTAN, start a college to honour abdus salam, a scholarship in his name, a monument to him.
The pathetic pakistanis on the chowk will not even dare to write an article about him on his bairth day, the shameless so called journalist of the variety of bina sha can write aboit pak mangos, never about a pak nobel laurette, because he was a kafir.

faisal:
You may have a point, although one wonders how many such good teachers would need to be imported to make any significant impact on the cultural landscape/dominant Paki ethos. And at what cost?
And, to take nothing away from the likes of Messrs. Dhanapala, Fernando and Lokonathan, I dare say that you give `em (the Lankans generally) a bit too much credit. For every Mrs. DeSeram, there is well, a Mister DeSeram ;-)
That local students pay more heed to the words of `foreign` teachers is more a reflection of the sad state of natoinal self-esteem than a necessary superiority of what they bring to the table.

btw, when did you do your o`s and/or A`s from St. Pat`s anyway? If you played any basketball there, we probably have met.

pm:

my own experience tells me that importing teachers from abroad (at any level) is a good idea even if it is suggested by a villain like mush. most of my teachers in o and a levels at st. pats were sri lankan christians. and while their teaching skills were not that different from that of their pakistani counterparts, their more important contribution was that they imparted to us, an ethos which was very different from the dominant paki ethos. as result, even people with problematic backgrounds such as kashmiris (the biggest pain-in-the-necks), pathans and punjabis came out with a pretty tolerant outlook. in comparison, in u.s. i met paki students from elite schools such as aitchson who gave me the heebee jeebees when i got to know their outlook on life.

re. ironman #34
``Romair is like a sailboat. He goes whereever the wind takes him (but will write 5 paras justifying it).``

It`s true, Romair`s verbosity can be a little irksome (but this entails a choice- whether to read him or not)-- but the charge of fickleness is definitely not on! Especially in a world where the alternatives are forever `bad` and `worse` (not `good` and `bad`) there is nothing wrong with changing ones position as circumstances and new knowledge demand. Ignorance would likely lie more in sticking dogmatically to one`s position in a dialectical setting --whether the dialectic be a general `good versus evil` or one played out as democracy versus authoritarianism.

In trying to understand the machinations of the Musharraf, it`s helpful to remember the maxim on absolute power. To my mind, Musharraf now seems to liken himself a Julius Caesar; only the exigencies of living in the twentyfirst century compel him to put any sort of democratic facade over what must be regarded as his regime.

It`s a pity. Perhaps those with any influence over the general would do well to recommend him Oliver Cromwell.

rgds,
PM

re. #various by echoooobooom:
While there is some merit to your brown sahibism discourse, there is little to your characterization of Iran, North Korea and Cuba as worhty icons of dignified polities. Given the contradictory philosophies and politics of those three regimes/nations, it is apparent that the only criterion for earning your respect is that they resist Western (read the white man`s) influence. I suspect France and Germany would, in the current circumstances, have topped your list-- were it not for the fact that they are too Caucasian and for your liking, and erstwhile colonists to boot. (Let`s not mention the Moghuls-- at least they were Muslim).

The sheer poverty of your thesis is clear in your citing North Korea as a a nation of ``dignity and honour``. Perhaps the willingness to allow millions of one`s countrymen (read subjects) to starve to death in the pursuit of the wet dream of civilizational ascendency is the new touchstone of Dignity.

On the subject, in reply to bbabu`s kind offer to pay for your one-way trip to NK, you write (#10):
Whenever someone suggests that one should move to the countries one cites, it is a clear giveaway that the argument is lost. Did you ever abandon someone simply because he/she said that someone else is better than you or him/her. Did you ever move into a family who were doing better than yours.
Your argument would only be valid if you are living in Pakistan, or some such country which you would at least wish wish to see act with more dignity and honour. The analogies with spouses/families are, otherwise, terribly flawed, given that you are under no compulsion to live where you do, instead of in North Korea.
So, if you have any honour and dignity to back up your bluster, please simply tell us which corner of the axis of Dignity you have chosen to call home: NK, Cuba or Iran?

But then, confusion seems to be your stock trait. This from your #17:
``Never ever confuse progress & success with riches. USA is respected (feared) for its ability to summon its presidents to its of law and inquisition.`` .. If you think it is its armament & money , you are mistaken. USSR never commanded this respect even though they were ahead in space program at one time and had a large army and army as well.``
Could you be more confused and confusing? First, the USSR was `respected` in the sense of being feared, as much as the US, and then some, during the Cold War. Or perhaps you were still proverbably in the 70`s during the 80`s. Or perhaps the Islamic General Zia-ul-Haq really liked USSR more than the US but, being a (closet) compulsive brown sahib, couldn`t help himself prostrate before Uncle Sam.

``USA is respected (feared) for its ability to summon its presidents to its of law and inquisition.``
Utter rubbish! No one fears the US for its democractic credentials. Just ask Mr Chomsky! You`d have to be living on Mars (and not even presently) to believe that it is anything but it`s armament and money (more pointedly, its power to inflence how much of these things YOU have) that are the source of any respect, in the sense of fear, they command.
Yes, the US is also respected, in the non-fearing sense, for its democratic traditions. The thing is, buddy, the countries you mention as icons of H&D are diametrically opposed to these traditions. So, in the words of James Brown, ``Who do you love??``

``Except for Malaysia & Iran--all muslim countries ruled by machhar types, pregnant-ducks-in-uniforms, are NOT treated with honour and dignity by ANYONE``
Iran is treated with honour and dignity?!? I guess Najaf on 25 Aug 2003 was an indication of just that dignity afforded the Iranis, even by their fellow religionists.
Malaysia? Yes, I admire Matahir (reservedly), but who`s confusing ``progress and success with riches`` now? Or do you believe that Malaysia would be `respected` by the West were it not an investment heaven, or by its Eastern neighbors were it as economically poor as, say, Myanmaar?

Looking forward to answers from you that will be more than empty rhetoric.
rgds,
PM

re. the proposed hiring of overseas teachers
Pakistan`s biggest problem is hardly its lack of `quality` Higher Education. (And here is where I fully concur with echooooboom). As if planting foreign seeds in local soil will somehow result in better sod!!
The need of the hour is a respect for law, inlcuding the law that states that monies set aside for primary schools must be spent on primary schools. It would help, of course, if there was enough of dignity and honour among Pakistanis-in-power to actually think seriously about empowerment of the masses before giveing in to wet dreams of achieving technological parity with our neighbours. We already produce high quality medical/technical professionals. Most of them now live in Suburbia, USA and Canada. Little wonder, given the utter absence of Law in the Land of the Pure.

Romair #35

`` This is one of the best moves made by any govt. I am all for it. The best thing anyone can do is to learn from others, who know more. It doesn’t matter if they are foreigners. Why else do Indians (or Pakistanis or anyone else) come to USA to study? Instead of Pakistanis spending hundreds of millions in sending their kids abroad to learn from foreign scholars, it is much better to bring the scholars to Pakistan, and save the foreign exchange. ``

It is a stupid idea because most top researchers will not come to Pakistan or even India.

Learning is not just about teachers but also about students and facilities. You do not get to interact with foreign students and to see foreign facilities.