Pakistan Liberals going Extinct...Save it, please

Notes from Delhi

Save it, please
by Rabayl Manzoor

gives it to lousy liberals
Let them in




The audacity of these non-liberal sorts is getting appalling. Why, just the other day I was at the signal waiting for the red light to turn green, when the pesky little kid started cleaning the windshield of my car without my consent! Have they no manners? And that irritating lady who simultaneously continued rapping at my car window while I was just trying to listen to my music in peace? The woman had no sense of privacy or decency! How dare they intrude on my life? I certainly do not intrude on theirs, do I?


’m not sure if you’ve heard but word on the street is that there’s an important species about to become extinct in Pakistan.

Even if you’ve not seen one yourself, chances are you hear about them every single day. Nary a day goes by without reading about this particular breed of being in every single newspaper and magazine published here. We’re collectively bombarded about this group’s existential crisis so much that it seems that it is perhaps the most important group in Pakistan.

If it’s not obvious enough, I’m talking about the so-called death of liberals in Pakistan. Liberals as a species are dying and soon enough will be extinct. I should know because I am one. Suddenly we seem to have woken up to the idea that our existence is under threat because of some amorphous, intractable, violent monster also known as the “Other”.

Because we are the educated, well-heeled lot, having had access to all institutions this country has to offer, we obviously know better than “all of them” who are the illogical, dangerous lot out to kill us. Of course we do not blame anyone but them for their lack of education, opportunity and “middle class” mindset. Had they just tried hard enough like we all did, they too would have been smarter, successful and better smelling. And of course to ‘us’, they are a unified, homogenous entity with an agenda: the liberals versus the non-liberals, the hoity-toity versus the hoi polloi, the You-and-Me’s versus the All-of-Them’s. There’s no one left in between ‘us’, the enlightened, and ‘them’, the emboldened!

The audacity of these non-liberal sorts is getting appalling. Why, just the other day I was at the signal waiting for the red light to turn green, when the pesky little kid started cleaning the windshield of my car without my consent! Have they no manners? And that irritating lady who simultaneously continued rapping at my car window while I was just trying to listen to my music in peace? The woman had no sense of privacy or decency! How dare they intrude on my life? I certainly do not intrude on theirs, do I?

What could possibly be more ridiculous than forty thousand of these illiterate buffoons showing up on the streets to celebrate the murder of one of us? Is there a more stark proof of how utterly outnumbered we are on the streets of Pakistan? Our once impervious, protected space has been hit by a stampede, and now ‘they’ are not taking no for an answer.

As if that wasn’t enough, now more and more of them want better wages. Worker strikes have become commonplace due to some bizarre imagination on their part. (That must be it, right?) They have suddenly realized that they should get the sort of wages us liberals do without getting even remotely more educated or talented.

I went to a meeting recently where concerned liberals who owned these companies were discussing how to get rid of their employees with minimum inconvenience. One of the smartest liberals in the meeting said that we should tell these workers to “suck it up”. Because this particular clever liberal owns an NGO and had obviously thought a lot about poor, ignorant people, we all thought it was indeed an astute observation.

I’m not sure when we ceded political space to these goons we love to hate, but I have a dreaded feeling we never really participated in the national conversation in the first place. This intellectually superior group of ours (or the most recent mutation of it anyway) was always too busy to attend a political rally, too pensive to distribute pamphlets door-to-door, and far too wise to mingle with the masses. It is beneath us to persuade the proletariat, dahlin’.

So how do we escape this horrible situation? How do we ensure that our dying breed survives? We’re not willing to reproduce as much as them. We’re not willing to become less intelligent or attractive either. We don’t even want to meet these people to learn about their survival instincts. (Natural selection, anyone?)

The only way we can overcome this existential threat is to utilize a three-pronged approach. First we need to build an even more robust infrastructure that keeps the non-liberals out of our space. We need to have more clubs, hotels, restaurants and airports that are exclusive and inaccessible to anyone who does not subscribe to our liberal lifestyle. Secondly, we need to make private education and private healthcare even more expensive. The former will ensure our liberals are smarter and richer, and at least a few them can employ critical thinking if there is an extreme need for it. The latter will ensure that non-liberals die out by way of natural selection. Lastly, we need to continue writing and ranting in English newspapers (like this one) so that fellow liberals are aware of our dilemma. Everyone needs to know just how bad things are for us now that we can’t even publicly announce that we will not fast or pray at work.

I’ve done my part in helping to save us by letting you know what’s really plaguing our country. I can now relax in liberal complacency and enjoy being the cleverest liberal on the block.

Speak now or forever hold your piece.

Rabayl Manzoor teaches Economics and Politics, and lives in Karachi out of habit rather than choice. She may or may not reply to e-mails at rabayl@gmail.com

Talking to the Taliban

Last November, I provided testimony for the British Parliament's Foreign Affairs Committee, which along with that of many others helped inform a report the committee issued on March 2, giving its view on policy toward Afghanistan and Pakistan. It concluded that, "the US should not delay its significant involvement in talks with the Taliban leadership." This report comes at a time when the newspapers are featuring more success stories in Afghanistan than they have for many years. ISAF generals claim with conviction that intensive operations in the country's troubled Kandahar and Helmand provinces have dealt a serious blow to the Taliban. So the American reader might be wondering: why is the British Parliament proposing talks with the Taliban?

For one thing, those talks are already happening. New America Foundation President Steve Coll reported in the New Yorker on February 28 that the Obama administration had already entered into direct, secret talks with senior Taliban leaders. And Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, speaking at the Asia Society on February 18, called for the Taliban to break with al Qaeda -- a statement that essentially reiterated a familiar U.S. position, but has been interpreted as a signal of increasing acceptance of a Taliban role in Afghanistan, as long as al Qaeda is kept out.

More broadly, though, the committee's conclusions reflect the need for a broad political solution to end the conflict in Afghanistan. While I had no role with the committee except as a witness to their inquiry, I agree with their conclusion that a political exit strategy is needed. The U.S. has, as the report says, a "rapidly closing window of opportunity" for a reconciliation process, and indeed for any kind of political stage-setting for a successful withdrawal of its forces from the front lines of fighting in 2014.

An exit strategy should not mean abandonment, nor should political reconciliation mean handing the country over to the Taliban. But facts must be faced: Over the next five years, Western military and economic support to Afghanistan is going to reduce dramatically, and it is wholly unclear that the country is ready to deal with the effects of more limited inputs. The Brookings Institution's excellent Afghanistan Index is brutally depressing about the capacities of the Afghan security forces: attrition rates, meaning desertion, are around 3 percent per month meaning that about one-third drop out every year); no Afghan army unit is capable of fighting without U.S. elements being embedded among them; and even the best units lack the capability to operate without U.S. intelligence, logistical, and equipment support.

Yet by 2014 the Afghans are meant to take the lead in combat operations across the country. Whatever progress has been made in killing Taliban and disrupting their networks over the past six months, therefore, may be for nothing if the insurgency only needs to survive until U.S. forces leave. And despite the knocks that they have taken, the Taliban are still not out for the count: assassinations of political leaders, the Brookings index also tells us, increased fivefold from 2009 to 2010. And journalists in Ghazni and Khost have reported that the Taliban were operating openly in town centers in those provinces towards the end of 2010.

A U.S. military operation that is about to scale down therefore has the task of taking the Taliban from a situation where it operates openly in major towns, to one where it does not operate at all. Otherwise, if the Taliban can only survive until U.S. forces draw down, then they will be a presence in Afghanistan for many years to come. Afghan leaders, whoever they are, may well eventually make peace with them. The only question is when -- and whether the West will have a say in the peace agreement that is reached.

Whatever kind of closed-door talks are happening -- and they may well be aimed at persuading specific individuals to make their peace with the Afghan government, rather than achieving a broader political settlement -- they are unlikely to end the insurgency. They can at least, however, establish a mechanism for communication between the Afghan government and the Taliban, with U.S. facilitation and buy-in. This mechanism could build trust, enable reciprocal humanitarian gestures, and be the basis for discussion of a ceasefire and perhaps a lasting peace. The United States has urged its own allies to adopt such mechanisms in the past, and (though it took time) it proved effective in Northern Ireland.

To be sure, the future of Afghanistan does not only have to do with reconciliation efforts. The question may not be only whether the Taliban accepts the Afghan Constitution, as Secretary Clinton said they must, but whether the Afghan president will do so himself. When his term ends in 2014, the Constitution says that he must step down. The United States is going to need to have a strategy to handle this situation, because almost every scenario has its dangers. If he leaves, who will replace him? If he stays, what credibility will the Constitution have?

Meanwhile, Afghanistan's powerful neighbors -- Iran, Pakistan, China, India, and Russia -- need to be persuaded to play nice when the United States leaves, and support initiatives that will unite Afghanistan, rather than keeping it mired in war and instability. That's easier said than done, but at least the ingredients exist for a mutually beneficial peace in the region.

Additionally, the U.S. military has not solved Afghanistan's strategic problems, but it has learned from its own mistakes, improved its performance, and achieved some significant tactical successes that can inform the work that civilian agencies (State Department, USAID, the CIA, Coalition Embassies, the U.N., the NATO civilian representative, and so forth) do in the coming years. The most important is that just as it worked well to bring all U.S. forces under the ISAF commander, so likewise there ought to be one civilian visibly in charge of U.S. policy towards Afghanistan (who would, de facto, be leader of the international pack as well).

Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan Richard Holbrooke came close to filling this role, but it probably ought to be a Kabul-based position, not Washington-based or shuttle diplomacy. It would resemble the ill-fated proposal to have UK politician Paddy Ashdown as a super-envoy, mooted back in 2007; but this time the nominee should be an American, and given a role more palatable to the Afghans -- this new appointee's job would not be to tell Karzai what to do, but instead to prepare the Afghan government for the challenge of fending, essentially, for itself.

This super-ambassador should read the committee's report, in full. Among the gloomy but well-argued opinions expressed therein, he or she will find one theme that is more optimistic: A number of us who testified thought that the withdrawal of international forces might actually be good for the Afghans. That's because the coalition's presence and behavior is infantilizing the Afghan government, as former diplomat Rory Steward once described it. By doing almost all the fighting against the Taliban, providing a huge cushion of money that protects the Afghan government from the worst consequences of their own mistakes, and laying down the law on a wide range of policy and military issues, the international community is providing incentives and making it easy for Afghans to do nothing.

As one of the witnesses proposed, "we need to back off and give Afghans some space to work things out themselves." If the coalition's departure is organized strategically, gradually, and in a manner that allows Afghans space, dignity, and some degree of confidence that the West has their backs, then it might reverse these incentives. And perhaps, to amend slightly Shakespeare's words, there may be nothing that will become us in Afghanistan like the leaving it.

Gerard Russell is a research fellow on Afghanistan and Pakistan at the Harvard Kennedy School and lived in Afghanistan from 2007 to 2009.

BY GERARD RUSSELL, MARCH 10, 2011

Thursday, March 10, 2011 

CIA bamboozled by computer software expert

The CIA had a business relationship with a degenerate gambler, according to sources. Photo: Reno News

Officials from the Central Intelligence Agency were bamboozled into using a phony software program that its creator claimed could help intelligence, military and law enforcement personnel in detecting terrorist plots. Besides the CIA, the U.S. Air Force was also a victim of the same scheme.

An intelligence source told the Law Enforcement Examiner that federal agency personnel are not revealing information regarding the alleged hoax citing national security concerns.

Some sources claim the hoax has cost the federal government upwards of $20 million since 2003, when it contracted California computer programmer Dennis Montgomery, now 57-years old, to decipher coded messages hidden in the TV broadcasts of Arab news network Al Jazeera using a software he developed.

The U.S. Justice Department, which received orders from two federal judges to keep details of the technology out of public view, claims it is guarding state secrets that may threaten national security if revealed.

Originally a biomedical technician with an alleged gambling problem, Montgomery cloak-and-dagger activities caused terrorism scares as well as late night White House national security briefings.

Even Montgomery’s former lawyer, Michael Flynn, says he believes Montgomery is a con man and the Central Intelligence Agency and the Air Force repeatedly and completely missed the warning signs.

According to his former lawyer Flynn, Montgomery will soon go on trial in Las Vegas for allegedly trying to pass $1.8 million in bad checks at casinos. He also made headlines in Nevada when he claimed Governor Gibbons accepted bribes, which was never proven.

In spite revelations of Montgomery’s shady background, the federal government has not attempted to charge him with any wrongdoing.  Also, neither the Pentagon or the CIA attempted thus far recovered any of the taxpayer money paid to Montgomery in his large-scale scam.

Currency swap: President stresses swift progress

Published: March 11, 2011

Zardari emphasises the need for early finalisation of a currency swap agreement with China.
ISLAMABAD: President Asif Ali Zardari has emphasised the need for early finalisation of a currency swap agreement with China, saying such arrangements should also be made with Turkey and Sri Lanka to promote trade.
He was speaking during a meeting at the President’s House on Thursday. Briefing the media, the president’s spokesperson Farhatullah Babar said that State Bank Governor Shahid Kardar gave a briefing on progress made so far on currency swap arrangements with China.
Talking about Turkey and Sri Lanka, he said that Turkey has responded positively to such arrangement, adding that a Pakistani delegation recently visited Sri Lanka and held meetings with the State Bank of Sri Lanka governor.

PTI decides to move court against 2008 polls

LAHORE: The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf (PTI) has decided to move court to get the February 2008 polls declared null and void, alleging the elections were held with bogus voter lists. 

Flanked by PTI Lahore President Region Mian Mehmood ul Rasheed and Dr Yasmin Rashid, PTI Secretary Information Omar Sarfaraz Cheema demanding fresh polls said parliament, which came to existence as a result of 2008 polls, had no legal validity after it was proven that 45 percent votes included on voter lists were bogus.

Citing the data of NADRA, Omar Sarfaraz Cheema said over 30.2 million people were not given the right to vote despite the fact that they possessed the National Identity Cards (NICs). He said that every year, 1.8 million youths were reaching the age of 18 but under a planned scheme, they were deprived of their right to vote. 

Omar Cheema stated that the ‘so-called democratic parties’ were ruling the country on bogus votes for which they should feel ashamed of themselves. “Bogus parliament should be declared null and void, and fresh polls under an independent election commission should be held now” said Omar. To a question, he said the PTI was adopting the legal way and if necessary, it might also launch a movement against the corrupt rulers.

our correspondent
Friday, March 11, 2011

Veena Malik threatened by the Taliban

Malik says the letter has been sent from a Ahmed Masood of the Taliban.

Actress Veena Malik on Thursday claimed she had been threatened by the Taliban.

Malik, who is currently in India appearing on television shows for the cricket World Cup, told Express 24/7 that she had received a letter from the Taliban four days ago via a media house in Pakistan. On the authentication of the letter, Malik said she had spoken to representatives of the media house, who confirmed its legitimacy.

Malik says the letter has been sent from a Ahmed Masood of the Taliban. The contents of the letter threaten to give Malik ‘exemplary punishment for her work in India’, she claims. Malik said that the letter also threatens her family and that if anything happened to them she would hold the government responsible.

She said that she will not seek asylum in India, stating that running away was not an option and that she would return to Pakistan. Malik said that the Indian authorities had provided her with security and she was getting in touch with Pakistani authorities to inform them of the situation.

Malik had recently participated in the fourth season of the Indian reality show Bigg Boss.

Published: March 10, 2011

1,500 forged CNICs seized

By Our Staff Reporter | From the Newspaper

March 9, 2011 (2 days ago)

RAWALPINDI, March 8: Three female and one male officers of the National Database and Registration Authority (Nadra) were reported kidnapped on Tuesday but were found in police custody for fraud.

Civil Lines police released them after registering a case and recording their statements. Rawalpindi police said the four were arrested on the complaint of a citizen that they were issuing forged Computerised National Identity Cards (CNIC) from a van of Nadra`s mobile facility.

A raiding party led by SHO Raja Shakeel of Civil Lines Police Station caught the accused in action near Chaklala Scheme III and recovered 1,500 allegedly forged CINC cards from them.

According to complainant Niaz Ahmed Kiani of Gulraiz Colony, the Nadra officials were making forged CNICs in connivance with the administration of some housing schemes.

A senior Nadra official, however, said the cards seized by the police had been surrendered by people.

***

Population census, poverty survey to co-exist for first time: Palijo

Population census, poverty survey to co-exist for first time: Palijo

KARACHI: Sindh Culture Minister Sassui Palijo said Thursday that a population census will be conducted in Pakistan after many years and the people of Sindh should come forward and show their strength by providing precise figures so that real statistics could be ascertained.

This she said while talking to media, on her return from Islamabad, where she attended the meeting of BISP poverty survey programme under the chairmanship of Pakistan president. Palijo represented the Sindh province in this meeting.

Palijo said that President Zardari desired real facts and figures to be ascertained in the poverty survey and population census adding that the future policies will be formulated accordingly with the true representation of provinces on the basis of records.

Palijo further said that this is the first time and in PPP’s government that the BISP poverty survey was initiated alongside the long-standing population census. NADRA has already sped up the process of issuing CNICs for male and female members and through its modernised system it will also reject fake and duplicate votes, she added.

The minister further said that rigging would be curbed in next elections and according to new population census, real figures of the province will be obtained, which will be helpful for the proper representation of provinces.

She further said that under the 18th Amendment, culture, education and tourism departments/subjects would be transferred to the provinces up to March 15. staff report

***

Over 37m ‘dubious’ voters found in existing electoral rolls

Of the total 81.21 million voters registered in the 2007 electoral list the authenticity of 45.67 per cent voters could not be verified.

ISLAMABAD: 

Almost half, or around 45.67 per cent of the total 81.21 million voters in the 2007 electoral rolls were dubious, if not downright bogus, raising serious doubts on the credibility of the electoral process of the country and authenticity of the 2008 general elections.

In its first phase of preparations for the new electoral rolls, the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) has found that over 37 million voters registered in the electoral register compiled in 2007 were dubious as they were either duplicated, multiple or bogus entries.

Of the total 81.21 million voters registered in the 2007 electoral list, on the basis of which the 2008 general elections were held, the authenticity of 37.18 million voters could not be verified when the ECP tallied this data with the National Database and Registration Authority (NADRA) based system. This constitutes 45.67 per cent of the total voters who were registered in the electoral list.

The ECP has started a process of compiling new computerised electoral lists. The first phase of this process has been completed. The verification process revealed that only 44.02 million voters could be verified.

Of the 81.21 million, a total of 37.12 million voters were registered on the basis of computerised national identity cards (CNICs), 29.05 million were registered on the basis of manual identity cards (old identity cards), while another 15.02 million were registered without identity cards during the preparation of the electoral rolls in 2007.

In 2007, the ECP had decided to make computerised electoral rolls and compiled a draft voters list where millions of dubious voters were chucked out and the data contained over 52 million voters. The then opposition and now ruling party Pakistan Peoples Party, led by its assassinated chairperson Benazir Bhutto, had moved the Supreme Court and the incumbent judiciary led by Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry to direct the ECP to make fresh registrations, waiving the condition of holding a computerised identity card.

The judiciary had given the ECP one month to complete the process since the election dates were already announced. Under the hustle, the ECP revisited its draft electoral list and included the leftover voters.

Now, the ECP has started a process of preparing fresh electoral lists in collaboration with NADRA. The first phase of this process was to verify the existing voter list by comparing it with the data available with NADRA. This process has been completed now.

In the second phase, the ECP will begin a door-to-door registration and verification process in June while it intends to print the final computerised electoral list by December this year.

The results of the first phase show that among the dubious entries made in 2007 electoral rolls, there were 2.14 million people whose CNICs have now been declared invalid due to a variety of reasons, and there were 2.49 duplicate entries of CNIC holders.

There were 6.469 million duplicate entries of manual NIC holders while another 11.05 million entries made on the basis of manual NICs do not exist in NADRA’s database.

Secretary election commission Ishtiaq Ahmed Khan said that after the verification of 44.02 million genuine voters from the 2007 electoral rolls, NADRA has added another 36.52 million voters from their CNIC database bringing the total number of eligible voters in the country to 80.54 million.

By Irfan Ghauri

Published: March 9, 2011

The shootout, the US agent and the media

By Bahram Zackarya, on March 9th, 2011

In late January, Raymond Davis, an American working in Pakistan, allegedly shot and killed two men who he claimed were trying to rob him. Soon after the shooting it emerged in the Pakistani media that Davis was a CIA operative, but that information did not surface in the US media until weeks later. That is because – at the behest of the US government – many media outlets there withheld that information. It was not until the UK’s Guardian newspaper reported that Davis worked for the CIA that the US media began acknowledging it.

Continue reading The shootout, the US agent and the media