If I am murdered…the ZAB saga! HP: A few quick points, I believe Kissinger has repeatedly denied havining issues such a specific threat to Bhutto..in fact he often praised him..`` a person who did not suffer fools gladly..and had plenty to contend with``

As far as 1971 is concerned, I don`t think Bhutto played sucha major role ..the Army with it`s strength flowing from the gun has never been interested in civilians as anything other than a junior partner..one also must`nt forget Bhutto`s strong links with several generals who coveted the top spot..Peerzada and Gul Hasan come to mind..

On a personal level...he was a far crueler person..while he was probably not responsible for the Kasuri murder..I know personally of one case where he had offered a substantial sum of money for a senior leader of the National Awami Party`s death to be ``arranged``..
His request to Akbar Bugti to ``arrange`` the death of Chaudhry Zahoor Elahi is well known as well..(Bugti refused..he said he was not a mercenary)..and at a much more brutal level what he did to members of the JI..especiallthe Amir Tufail..are to horrific to be brought up here...either way Bhutto created a culture of brutality that did not exist before ..and as what goes around comes around in life..he and his supporters paid the ultimate price..

If I am murdered…the ZAB saga! I don`t think ZAB was an enigma..he was a product of his time..he was a demagogue..and by being one..of that time he was automatically going to have a cruel side..think of him in comparison to Indira Gandhi and Mujeeb ur Rehman..

As far as the critique of destroying Pakistan`s economy are concerned..they are unfair, one forgets that almost every party in Pakistan campaigned on a leftist platform in 1970..as a result of all the economic inequalities in the 1960`s

His role in 1965 and 1971 are again overhyped..and a relfection with our person centric approach to history..the buck stops as it always should..at teh top. Bhutto did not order Operation Gibraltar..he might have been a supporter of it..but that is far cry from being the person who authored it...similarly in East Pakistan it was the Army regime which launched the operation against the Awami League..Bhutto can be faulted for being intransigent..but that did not stop Yahya Khan from convening the Assembly regardless of the PPP`s position..the smaller parties had already agreed to attend and the PPP could not have maintained a boycott indefinitely..

Neither Enlightened nor Moderate Omair: Their is a significant difference between a feudal mentality and being a rural or industrial feudal.

As we have argued the subject before I shall be brief..

* The Bhuttos were never a major land owning family of Sind

* Nawaz Sharif was of a Middle Class family

* Almost all of the Bengali PM`s even if they were Nawabs were not land lords in the West pakistni sense, because of land reforms introduced in the 50`s Landlordism was not a fact in politicians from East Pakistan.

* The problem is that the ruling establishment allies itself with small power groups which are easy to control. Jamali, Junejo and most of the PM`s of the 1950`s (except Nazimuddn and Suhrawardy) fit under that powerless category..Sardar Mengal gave an excellent example of that when he said (responding to the charge that he is using Punjabis to cover him his defense of the feudal system) that whereas 3 Sardars were against the Federal govt (Mengal, Marri, Bugti) the remaining 20+ Sardars were all with the government.

If the system ever allowed a natural evolution to occur and stopped interfering you would have seen the growth of a stronger Pakistani Middle class and not one created by fraud and patronage.

The Real Blasphemy The obvious Islamophobic and Facist comments of some interact posts aside. I found this nice article by David Aaronovitch on the issue:

Guardian

A few excerpts:

Imagine a similar film being made here featuring Lubavitcher Jews and suggesting the plight, say, of a child in a closed community. The child might talk about paedophilia in one of the many unregulated weekend classes, about the code of silence, all set against the background of a seven-branched candlestick, with the words of the Torah passing across her body. Then suppose it was made, not by a Lubavitcher, but by a rightwing member of the Conservative party, who had once called a Jew, a ``Christ-killer``, as Van Gogh once described a Muslim as a ``goat-fucker``.



Murder maddens and some good people have accordingly gone mad. On one centre-left website, a Dutch writer expressed fury that a TV presenter had argued that the killing meant Dutch society had to do some ``soul searching``. ``Dutch society has (to do) much soul searching?`` the writer (taking the handle of ``Voltaire``) asked angrily, adding: ``Theo wasn`t killed by Dutch society but by a Muslim. But then Muslims rarely do much soul searching.``

See that? In a blink of a cursor? See how ``a Muslim`` so quickly became ``Muslims``? There are a billion Muslims with a hundred thousand interpretations of the Koran, but they are all now transformed into the Muslim who killed Van Gogh.

Jirga injustice Ms Sarwar: I have an objection to the extensive usage of the word Jirga by people. The term Jirga is commonly used by Pashtuns and does not apply to other ethnic communities to my knowledge. Most cases of gang rapes have seemed to occur in Southern Punjab and were organised by ``Panchyats``.

Benazir Bhutto Visits the Bay Area Mantolives you said:, the PPP`s popular vote was still 3 times as much as the MMA and considerably more than the King`s league....

That`s incorrect, the Kings party fielded less candidates then the PPPP

Bush Off the Track Bush probably will win, but that`s what Vajpayee and his bunch of Modi extremists thought as well...

Iran’s Bid for Regional Power Very accurate lines Omair: the term often used is that Israel is demographically doomed. There is an interesting parallel between what is happening to Israel and what happened to the Crusader state of the 12th century. Similar to those days, the Arabs remain divided and militarily outnumbered at any one time..simply because the Arabs have engaged in piecemeal war with Israel, even when Israel was created in 1948 Israeli troops at anyone time were numerically equal to the forces opposing them.


If you think about it besides the demographic challenge people forget the internal change that is happening to Israel, because of the higher population growth rate the conservative Jewish groups are now in ascendancy over the secularists. This is reflected in the electoral strength of the right wing groups opposed to peace. Internally in the USA the ``dilution`` or ``integration`` of the Jewish community into American society is reaching un precedented levels. While that does not mean that those people of Jewish descent are any less Pro Israel (to understand what I mean ..consider the role of the Irish Americans vis a vis the IRA) it does mean a weakening of interest in ever relocationg to Israel and that may effect the level of support people are maybe willing to contribute. Because of this contrast the gap between Jews in Israel and those in the diaspora is increasing and one could argue people like Ariel Sharon have more in common with Yasser Arafat than the head of AIPAC.

Why not a well thought out constitution? Constitutions are made by lawyers, politcians and philosophers. You don`t have to be a newspaper reader for that, you have to believe in certain concepts which have been around since the dawn of man. Justice, reciprocity, transparency and consensus are all concepts engrained in every successful society.

Why not a well thought out constitution? Urstruly: I agree with your premise, I make no excuses or defence of the Army, however one reason for it`s relative success under Musharraf is that Musharraf co-opted the reform movement in his initial days. Also I would disagree with the assumption that with time the system would have cleaned itself up. While One would hope that would be the truth, if the PPP or PML-N had completed one full term in office they would have done everything possible to ensure their re election. Unlike The ``Agencies`` who mainpulate subtly political parties tend to rig elections very openly and very shamelessly. If That had happened in 2002 under Nawaz Sharif and he had succeeded in his coup against the COAS, I doubt there would have been much left of Pakistan to talk about..


PaagalInsaan: Good point!!

Why not a well thought out constitution? 14:Urstruly: BB`s support for the repeal was more about payback against Leghari than any political vision. Consider despite all the comments about how Musharraf and his mainpulation of the political landscape, he has allowed enough room for political parties(minus the PML-N) to organise and reform. Nothing stops the PPP or other groups from reforming their own political structure, making it more democratic (I believe Aitaza Ahsan published an excellent piece of research in 1998 about ways to devolve and democratise the PPP).

If you want to curb the Intelligence Agenciesyou do it through reforming dismissal powers like 48 2B and not it`s out right repeal, you do it through laws bringing the Intelligence Agencies under civilian monitoring and greater transparency. Unfortunately our political parties intentions are different, they want to control Intelligence agencies and use them against their opponents.

Why not a well thought out constitution? I agree with your premise Mr Samad, Pakistan`s political parties have failed in rpesenting an alternative to the existing system or even a code of conduct on how to prevent a repeat of the previous problems.

What is left of Civil society in Pakistan needs to design an alternative and put pressure on whoever comes to pwoer to push through these reforms. however in the end I would say no system will succeed if the people dont` fight for it and protect it..

Why not a well thought out constitution? My comments: I`ll try to be brief ..

I think a crucial flaw in the arguments presented by this writer: the american constitution example misses a crucial point, while Pakistan may be perceived to be a quasi presidential system that is not the case, in the US system civilian oversight plays a big role in government, and more importantly you have a powerful upper house which protects the rights of the states against the rue of the majority. Pakistan does not have that, the senate has limited powers and although that has changed thanks to Musharrafs intorduction of pasisng the finance bill through the senate, the senate being indirectly elected is essentially a place for loyalists or rich people.

A rule of thumb in Pakistan, whenever you have indirect elections, you create an electoral college which is easy to manipulate and prone to horse trading. At all times direct elections should be preferred. Another rule of thumb is that the solution to Pakistan`s poltical classes tendency to rig elections is to remove executive appointments of the CEC, another suggestion is to have more elections and reduce the terms of the government. The standard term should only be 4 years and the provinces should not have elections at the same time, so half way through each term two of the provinces should be in an election cycle. And so should a direct election to the senate through a PR system be every 3 years.

Other important points: Devolve power to the provinces leaving with the federal government ONLY, Defence, communication, Foreign Affairs and fiannce, give the provinces taxation and collection powers over all taxes except income, customs, sales, and turn over.

Merge the Tribal areas with NWFP and create a 5th province out of the Northern areas, Chitral and Kohistan.

All non elected appointments should be senate ratifiable.

Also create shadow cabinets in the provinces so as to give the opposition room to develop alternative policies, and transfer PAC`s to the opposition. At all times respect the popular mandate that means you invite the largest party to form the government even if it may not win a vote of confidence.

Open Letter to Prime Minister Jamali Omair & Feroz: I hope all is well, I would like to mention something, I have a disagreement with the concept of technocrats and supporting a Presidential system.

Technocrats maybe useful as part of any government but only to a point, while the Shaukat Aziz`s of the world can give (when left alone) Pakistan a decent growth rate. But remember I believe Ayub Khan`s finance Minister Shoaib Khan gave Pakistan double digit growth. The reality is like the India shining policy promoted by the NDA coalition in India, the people are not stupid, despite the increase in revenue and upsurge in economic activity people in both nations realise something very basic, if all the money is only being spent on pet projects and for the rich it is of little benefit to the average person. The average person is concerned about the cost of electricity and gas, the cost of petrol and diesal, law and order, educationa dn healthcare. Running a business or working in a dictatorship is very different from running a country, when you run a country you need to have the pulse of the people. That is something technocrats rarely have, and they are in normal democracies dependant on a leadership with political vision to be able to understand that...

The argument over feudalism is one I have made many times, feudalism in the old sense of the word has vanished in Pakistan, what we have now are Military and Industrial Feudals who have inter married with the old landed aristocracy.

My argument against the Presidential system is a bit different, normally a Presidential system in the US model has a form of electoral college to ensure all federating units are properly represented come election time. This is lacking in Musharrafs election, he was ``elected`` initially under a referendum that was and is a joke. This was followed by a indirect election done under a Parliamentry system vote of confidence!

Pakistan`s probelms have always come down to two issues, the centralisation of power in Islamabad and the corruption of power..not of money. To imagine a Presidential system will make things better or depending on technocrats solely...is to insult the intelligence of the people.

Open Letter to Prime Minister Jamali Yaay from Nawaz Sharif to Chory Shujaat...boy have we gone full circle. Hell give Junejo some credit, for someone who was also a nobody at least he took a stand. So much for Jabal...

Role of Pakistan Army Under Musharraf Just Stinks Feroz: I disagree with one of your comments, Qazi Hussain Ahmad has no constituency in Waziristan, the JUI may have but not the JI.