Musharraf : Self Styled Saviour Stuck in a Rut

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I`ve checked back after a while, and it`s hard to read the comments in the order they were posted - can they be sorted chronologically?

Anyways, after reading all the feedback I`ll write a follow up article.

re: Hari and Dost-Mittar

No one in Pakistan is qualified to cast the first stone in Pakistan.

Hari, as to your questions, you have answered them yourself. Nawaz may be elected as the people`s choice, but even then he has to obey the law. Period. Nawaz never followed the laws; he made them to suit his interests and ignored them, when necessary. A political mandate does not mean a justification to ignore the law. As to Benazir being disposed of Leghari, it is was not so much as the machinations of the army, as it was it a struggle over constitutional powers.

What I suggested was not to compare the sins of Benazir with Musharraf or Nawaz, but to state simply there are no angels in Pakistan.

Ciao

#112, Ferozk:

Benazir is wrong. However, Mush and all the pakistani generals also take an oath to
uphold the pakistani constitution. Nawaz may be a scoundrel as mush constantly pleads his case, but Nawaz as a ``scoundrel`` was elected by full majority in pakistan. He is after all,
``peoples` scoundrel``. Perhaps, Nawaz reflected the prevailing culture and so does Benazir and a host of others.

If Nawaz was bad, then people would have decertified him in the next election.

Perhaps, Benazir feels her case to be strong, that her husband has been hounded for too long whereas other military men with even worse credentials get away from NAB; she may have felt that the whole thing in Switzerland was a set up--meaning the process of trial could be fair, but the Govt of Pakistan went out of its way to send appropriate documents naming her as beneficiary of corruption, as if Mush and others in Military are saints.
Benazir is no Mother Theresa, in the same token, Mush and company are no Nelson Mandelas.

Why is NAB not being aggressive and pro-active on other similar cases involving military men? Even when Benazir was PM, the military under Beg and company undermined her from behind and influenced the then President Leghari(I think) to depose her. That itself is unconstitutional.

Babu:

I agree with your post on teachers. Historically, Pakistani professional institutions have only hired recently retired faculty. They are older folks who would like to continue earning and living a busy life. The faculty has nevertheless come from reputable American and Canadian insitutes. Lahore University of Management Sciences however, has a visiting faculty program with McGill of Canada. I noted that the visiting faculty was advanced in age, but not yet retired. The older faculty members would be more economical than younger Pakistani NRP`s who are teaching in foreign universities.

ferozk#112:
You are right. If Benazir has violated the oath of secrecy, it is a serious offence. However, the question Hari is posing, I guess, is whether Musharraf is in a position to caste the first stone?

re: Hari

Hari, what Benazir did is open to debate and if she violated her oath, then it is an offense. What Musharraf may have or may not have done is another story and is, like all things, open to interpretation and debate. The fact that Benazir`s actions can be condoned in comparsion to Musharraf`s is a modus tollens and flawed. Wrong is wrong. It is that simple. Period. Just because Musharraf may have done wrong does not lessen the act of Benazir, because to do otherwise is to step upon a slippery slope of questionable principles.

To do otherwise, as you argue, is to create a legal distinction and we in Pakistan have suffered from too many legal distinctions in the past. In Pakistan, we need to learn to respect the law and yes, the law may be flawed, but it still needs to be respected and it should be respected by all regardless of economic status or political classifications or democratic or non illiberal identifications. The law is for all and sadly, that virtue is sorely missing in Pakistan, but we need to end that discrepency; not encourage it.

Ciao

ahmadzai #105

`` The only problem I have in exchanges with you is that you get de-focused easily. My Iran thing was in response to your claim that Pakistan is not having good relations with Iran. I wrote about close cooperation. Where did I say that Iran is having close ties only with Pakistan or that it is not having any ties with India. Given the tight position that Iran is in today, it will like to have good relations with all those countries who may be able to drag it out of trouble in case the USA sets its agenda on it. Therefore, Iran is getting into all sorts of strategic relations with the regional powers and neighbors. However, I believe that if USA decides to make Iran its next target, India, Pakistan and Russia may not be able to do any thing for it, except that Pakistan may deny its territorial access. ``

Relations between Pakistan and Iran are not friendly. Iran wants friendly relations with Pakistan given US embargo on it. Pakistani leaders have pursued agendas that have angered the Iranian leaders. Khatami`s visit to Pakistan does not erase that. You deleted references to Iranian support for Northern Alliance and Iranian access to Indian exports to Central Asia. Pakistani leaders does not like these two things alone.

`` About teachers, the #s we are talking about is 200-500. Most probably, the foreign teachers will be funded by international agencies. Some of them, like currently in our educational system, will be paid by higher tuitions. ``

I would submit in the current climate that you are not getting 200-500 Westerners in technical fields to work in Pakistani universities. You can safely rule out females, married men with teenage kids from working in Pakistan. The real benefit of those Westerners or foreigners is the cultural aspect rather than the technical skills. Getting a few hundred Westerners in higher education will not solve the basic problem in Pakistan (in India to some extent) - lack of good elementary education. The money can be better spent attracting non-resident Pakistanis from the West.

#100,

...``americans have to provide...due share to pashtuns in afghanisthan``..

well, i couldn`t agree more. i wont be surprised if the american plans include carving a separate ``paktunistan`` out of NWFP and making it a separate country as a buffer between afghanistan and pakistan.

if the attacks from the nwfp belt don`t subside, you can bet this is going to happen. united states will not sit quiet to see taliban and al-queida regrouping and this option would be a distinct possibility.

how else can you pacify the uzbeks and other sections in afghanistan.

#107

talking of treason: how can any pakistani military govt, especially mush and his gang can file a treason case against benazir or for that matter any politician.

isn`t it treason enough to dispose an elected prime minister via coup, in this case nawaz sharif by mush and company.

mush and company stand on shaky grounds.

#38, Sridhar.

why do you want to contribute to Pak`s GDP? Acquiring knowledge as proscribed by koran is one thing, but somehow jehadi nutcases won`t allow the practical application of that knowledge.

Indian nurses, teachers to US, Europe is now old story.

There is going to be a massive nurse shortage in US, Europe as the population is aging.
Even US labor secy was saying that unemployed people should start training in nursing
to enter this field.

It is somewhat ironic that Pak is losing on big time Foreign Exch earnings by its islamic idealization. by this means, the religion discourages women as nurses. muslim women nursing other women is fine, but is big taboo for muslim women nursing muslim/non muslim men. The outcome of all this is Pak diminishes its capacity to earn money.
The void is filled by indian and philipino nurses. i haven`t seen any korean, chinese nurses yet!

what a waste for pakistan. During taliban time, women were barred from education completely. girls were allowed education upto 8th std or something and that too to learn koran and so forth. the same thing being created in nwfp and baluchisthan; it is only a matter of time when it is peddled in punjab and sindh.

if there is any profound statement that demonstrates what is pakistan today, it is that, in Pakistan, religion(Islam) has become a 24 hour occupation.

Religion should compliment life and not the other way around.

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Arjun_m #99

{{names of two of those arrested: Assistant Adjutant-General and Quartermaster-General, Lieutenant-Colonel Khalid Abbassi (posted in Kohat, North-West Frontier Province) and one Major Atta.

…

Further investigations reveal that Abbassi is a widely-respected officer in signals, and that he is also a very religious person. Apparently, he delivered lessons from the Koran every day to his junior officers, a trend that was encouraged by former dictator General Zia ul-Haq in the army, and which is still common nowadays.}}

Hmm … there was a plot in Pakistan in 1995 to carry out an Islamist military coup against Benazir’s government. The highest ranking officer arrested at that time was a certain Major-General Zahir-ul-Islam Abbasi. He was released from prison shortly after Musharraf’s putsch. He was a religious crackpot, as apparently were most of his co-conspirators (Tablighi Jamaat followers). Oddly enough, that case unravelled near Kohat.

I wonder if there’s a connection with the current Abbasi dude.

Alephnull:

There is a flaw in your following argument:

`` It’s not Indians who rely on Pakistani pharmaceuticals to keep the costs of medication down. It’s not Indians who travel to the ‘enemy country’, jeopardizing the national honour and dignity, for heart surgery....``

1. Pakistan`s population is 140 million. You think that only 1 person out of this population may be requiring heart surgery to be sent to an enemy country? Try to answer honestly why would one young girl be sent to India at a critical time of mending the fences under a whitewash of negotiations offered by Vajpai.

2. Yes, Pakistanis may be using the smuggled products. The cost has been externalized. Remember that it is India that would be interested in `exporting its unemployment`. I know I am expecting too much from you to fathom what does this translate into economically. But I am open to debate. OK try to answer this question - would it be India who is dying to get the flights over Pakistan restored or Pakistan vice versa?

However, the rest of your arguments support my viewpoint about hostility of Indians towards Pakistan. And this should be an eye opener for Chowksters of Pakistani origin.

You wrote:
``Your expectations of a ‘positive response’ to Pakistan’s ‘offer’ of a ‘joint control of infilitration’ are rooted in notions of India-Pakistan equal-equal..... ``

My response:
You are supporting my point that Indians are waging an undeclared war on Pakistan and have converted the war on terrorism into a war against Islam too in their homeland. This is also negating your Government`s invitation for peace talks, exactly what I said in my post. Don`t you then think that its hypocrisy on part of Indians?

You wrote:
``You have gotten hold of the wrong end of the proverbial stick. Eventual MFN status may be WTO-mandated..... ``

My response:
Through your hate filled messages, you are again supporting my point that an average Indian, under the influence of Goebblish propaganda of your extremist Government, has turned so much against Pakistan that each of them is fighting a war against Pakistan and Pakistanis externally and against your Muslim population internally. So the differentiation between broad-minded secular education of India and ``narrow-minded madrissa based``education of Pakistan has faded. This is precisely my argument.

You wrote:
``I care very little for the opinions of spoiled rich urbanites in Srinagar, nurturing Islamist delusions .... ``

My response:
I rest my case. Under the Goebblish propaganda of your Government, an average Indian is blind to giving voice to Kashmiris, blind to what CNN and BBC say on the matter, blind to what happened in the valley when your PM was having an all important meeting, etc.

You wrote:
``More generally, Indians have become quite wise to frantic attempts by Pakistan’s ruling class to control perceptions of reality. Attempts to pass off Pakistani agitprop as the objective truth aren’t going to get very far today. ``

My response:
Therefore, Vajpai`s invitation for peace talks is indeed a white wash and reflective of hypocritical attitude. On perceptions versus reality, you are most welcome to read my exchanges with Babu on Kargil story in intertactive board on my homepage at this website. Again, your hatred should be an eye-opener for people of Pakistani origin on Chowk. Your statement is truly supportive of my argument.

You wrote:
``Ahmedzai, did you hear of the recent extermination of Ghazi Baba by the BSF? He was a Kashmiri freedom fighter from Bahawlpur, Pakistan. ...``

My response:
Kashmiris are living in Diaspora all over the world. They have every right to run a freedom movement from any place. We can discuss this issue in detail. On another front for example, if today I decide to get involved with Afghan politics no body can stop me from doing so, because I am an Afghan in Diaspora.

You wrote:
``One can awaken Sleeping Beauty but not beauties pretending to be asleep. Slumber on in your delusions. ``

My response:
This is a cheaply borrowed and gaudy statement at best and verbal masterbation at worst, much in line with Indian Government`s ``cross-border`` musings for self pleasure of Indians.