Energy, the Challenge for the world

Report in the Wall Street Journal of Oct 02:

For more than a century, producing power has been a matter of flipping a switch. Things won’t be that easy as the world goes for energy from renewable sources. Winds tend to blow harder at nights, a problem, since people use electricity mostly during the day. Sunshine can lose its intensity in seconds if eclipsed by a cloud, inconvenient for people who like their air conditioners to run steadily on summer days. Wind and solar energy cannot be stored, as storage technology is still embryonic. And so the search for ways to accommodate the vicissitudes of wind and sun continue to shape up as one of today’s great technological quests.  

Many countries are pledging to produce 20% of their energy from renewable sources within about a decade. This will be a major stretch. Recession has severely crimped renewable energy investment. Proposals to turn over large swathes of desert and coastline to renewable energy generation are encountering angry opposition.

Currently, every wind farm and solar installation has to be backed up by a nearly equivalent amount of conventional fuel to keep the power grid running. That raises costs. Also required is investment in high voltage transmission lines to carry renewable electricity from remote areas to the cities.

In 2008, thousands of wind turbines installed across the US collectively produced only 1.3 % of actual electricity. Most of the wind turbines are located in Bonneville service area at the Columbia river gorge. This Tuesday at 1.00 a.m the wind farms were cranking out 1,550 megawatts. By 7.00 a.m that fell to about 800 mw, just as people were waking up and turning on their lights and toasters. That night, when most people were asleep, wind power topped 2,000 mw.

Most of the electricity in the Bonneville area comes from hydroelectric power. Water release from the dams is reduced to  make use of the wind power, but when wind is blowing hard, Bonneville releases extra water down the spillways without generating electricity to protect the system wires from overheating. And when the wind is so strong that Bonneville cannot ditch enough water, the utility orders wind turbines to shut off.

Texas produces more wind power than any other state. At 3.00 p.m on Feb 26, 2008, wind farms were throwing off about 2,000 mw  electricity, enough to serve about one million households. Then a cold wave blew in making the Texans turn up their heat. However, by 6.30 pm – when energy demand typically peaks – wind production had cratered to about 360 mw.  Ercot, the operator of Texas electric grid scrambled. It cut off power to various industrial customers. To avert situations like these, Ercot has hired a company to provide, an hourly forecast of how the wind will blow at every wind project on the Ercot grid. A very expensive arrangement.

Just after midnight on Christmas morning, 2007, an unexpected wind surge hit Colorado, a state with a lot of wind turbines. It sent power production soaring on the system operated by Xcel Energy. “We were walloped” says the vice president of the company. To compensate, Xcel scrambled to dial down some of its fossil-fuel power plants. Those plants were never designed to ramp up and ramp down at the level we are asking them to do. In this age of renewable energy, “We are learning as we go”.

My question is, if the American are still learning, what hope have we of successfully harnessing wind and solar power at affordable cost. What has not been mentioned in the above report is that water is as much a renewable source of energy as is wind and solar. And we have the technology for harnessing water power to produce cheap and clean electricity.

Have Political appointments proper place in Foreign Service?

Dr. Hamida Rajput

Like each of their predecessors, President Zardari and PM Gilani are being charged with the appointment of their cronies to represent Pakistan as ambassadors.

This issue is as old as the country, though the contemporary challenge relates as much to popular skepticism about the huge amounts of money in politics as it does to the practice of appointing non-career and inexperienced citizens to these diplomatic jobs.

Recently for the first time in th ehistory of foreign service of pakistan,officers raised their voice and went to the court against the appointment of DMG officer as ambassador of pakistan to paris.however,it is ironical to note that none of them find it prudent to include other persons enjoying the perks and damaging the cause of country at state funds.the noted cronies appointed on the political basis are ambassador in UAE,UK,Newyork,washington,Brunei,iran and yemen .As sane citizen of pakistan,I would have included all the appointees whose qualification is nothing more than the friend or party loyalist.The zardari Gilani and kayani troika are getting their cronies appointed on prized postings but foreign office gurus don’t fell itr fit to raise voice aginst it.in england a new post of minister was created to accomadate one Kayani on diplomatic seat.It is neither pointed out in the press nor included in the case against Jehanzeb khan.why it was person specific,why not general against all pigmies out to grab the posts and do nothing but to damage relations during their hybernation period. My perspective is that the debate should have been multi dimensional. It must listen to all concerned and persons should go through a very thorough vetting process.

The argument in favor of career diplomats is that they have extensive multicultural experience and language skills, they know the art of diplomacy, and they understand the functions of a complex embassy environment. The best career officers also have mastered the challenge of representing U.S. administrations that have shifted policy positions, sometimes rather dramatically.

Political appointees, on the other hand, are reflections of the changing political scene. They have been in the trenches with the new regime during long campaigns or late night mehfils, a democratic process that never fails to capture the attention of our foreign friends. They also reflect the pluralism of our society, in most cases the high standards of professions as diverse as business, the law, academia or science must be tapped to serve but merit not affiliation should decide the appointments..

The vetting process must be extensive. It includes an IB investigation and foreign office panel should interview them to evaluate and explore every public utterance of the nominee.

Then the senate foreign relations committee should put the candidates through more rigorous questions designed to determine political vulnerability. The majority party in the confirmation process should try to know whether the other party has the evidence to embarrass the government over the appointment.

The chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee be given the power to decide whether to allow a nomination to proceed to a hearing and a vote.

When a nominee emerges through this process as a Senate confirmed ambassador, it must then be frustrating to read that somehow one's appointment is tainted because of legitimate and legal participation in the political process.

At present we are experiencing large share of duds, people who are all ready to embarrass the country. I think of the ambassador to Yemen a few weeks back, a former professor who was selected in part because he is best at sycophancy by PM Gilani. It might have been better if no one in Yemen would have noticed him.

Here is the ambassador who routinely fell asleep while talking, the victim of a strong appetite for free alcohol. These are exceptions, but the damage done far outlives the tenure of these sad cases. He is representing Islamic Republic with half naked wife in receptions and hotel lobbies in this conservative Muslim country.

To further impair the relations,he has been coming late to the embassy,discouraging his number to to work.He has been living in th ehotel sheraton on state expenditure since his arrival,taking his wife and young daughters to show ignorant people of sanaa the enlightened moderation every day.While sitting in the office neither he does nor he asks others to work.It is pertinent here to point out here that since last six years there was political ambassadors,he virtually kept embassy out of diplomatic business.it was considered that pakistan has closed embassy.When he left in last august the officer incharge who was from OMG kept his tradition alive.in may 2009,a officer from foreign service took over as CDA.He was looking like talibans and extermist but in few days he made the Embassy alive in all fields.He arranged community dinner on 11^th june a huge gathering at embassy.A fund raising function was arranged on 25^th june.Pakistan School sanaa celebrated its annual function with minister education presiding.The School was great concern for all pakistanis and yemeni parents in sanaa.the embassy has remained aloof and former principal has made it government school.this man took pain of reviewing syllabus,making it at par with international schools. He established computer lab, language lab, website and renovation of school at war footing. it was all done within six weeks of his arrival. He worked very hard to meet traders, government functionaries, awakened TDAP, BOI and ministry of commerce. He met governors, ministers and leading business people. it has made us for the first time proud of our embassy because news was almost every day on the government TV. People were talking about Pakistan . It is not the end of story; he has kept community involved in all activities to attract importers to Pakistani products. He visited prisoners in all towns of Yemen . He met lawyers, judge's ands law ministry officials just in three months of his tenure.

Visiting but he brought four ministers in two months. He went further and got approval from minister higher education for graduate classes in evening. He got plots from governors of Taiz and Aden . The first medical delegation of Yemen visited Pakistan in ramzan and second was about to leave in late October. Pakistani ministers of trade and industry and education were invited by their Yemeni counterparts. You would be surprised that how could I know all facts, for your kind information all was published in local newspapers. The most interesting was the 14^th august celebrations, which were held first time in our twenty years at such high scale in the Embassy.Yemeni graduates of pakistani universities were invited on Iftaar dinner,jouranlists and business people were invited to listen to the potential of pakistan in all fields.Iftaar was also arranged for all community and Chan Raat including eid millan where we all participated due to this officer.The arrogance of lady ambassador was felt by all ladies in all functions.

But alas! A political crony took over in mid September and all activities were suddenly stopped. He started reversing all his revolutionary decisions and only enjoying free dinners at the houses of influential Pakistanis, whose children study in American school. He is appointing his wife as headmistress as she was teacher in beacon house. He has dismantled the system of autonomy and accountability of teachers. He has kept school closed on the advice of incompetent teachers who did harm the school in past whereas all other private schools are open. Top of all the open door policy of Foreign office officer has been abrogated. The only good thing for this good old professor is his glamorous lady, who is seen like Indian ladies in all functions. We are really ashamed of his actions and behaviors.

You are kindly requested to give this piece of writing due place in your live discussion. if you want to disclose my name, I don’t mind, but embassy would surely try to punish me. I am ready to face it for the sake of my beloved country. Please wake up the rulers Yemen is one of the crucial markets where we can grab market if aggressive work is done. The good work has been stopped by this political crony in the interest of country.

 

Sanaa, yemen

I say dig him up and clone him!!

THIS IS THE WAY IT SHOULD BE..........

Harry Truman was a different kind of President. He probably made as many, or more important decisions regarding our nation's history as any of the other 42 Presidents preceding him. However, a measure of his greatness may rest on what he did after he left the White House.

The only asset he had when he died was the house he lived in, which was in Independence Missouri. His wife had inherited the house from her mother and father and other than their years in the White House, they lived their entire lives there.

When he retired from office in 1952, his income was a U.S. Army pension reported to have been $13,507.72 a year. Congress, noting that he was paying for his stamps and personally licking them, granted him an 'allowance' and, later, a retroactive pension of $25,000 per year..

After President Eisenhower was inaugurated, Harry and Bess drove home to Missouri by themselves. There was no Secret Service following them.

When offered corporate positions at large salaries, he declined, stating, "You don't want me. You want the office of the President, and that doesn't belong to me. It belongs to the American people and it's not for sale."

Even later, on May 6, 1971, when Congress was preparing to award him the Medal of Honor on his 87th birthday, he refused to accept it, writing, "I don't consider that I have done anything which should be the reason for any award, Congressional or otherwise."

As president he paid for all of his own travel expenses and food.

Modern politicians have found a new level of success in cashing in on the Presidency, resulting in untold wealth. Today, many in Congress also have found a way to become quite wealthy while enjoying the fruits of their offices. Political offices are now for sale. (sic. Illinois )

Good old Harry Truman was correct when he observed, "My choices in life were either to be a piano player in a whore house or a politician. And to tell the truth, there's hardly any difference!
I say dig him up and clone him!!

Shortages in Public Protection, Water and God Knows what else!

These days we are so bombarded by the Media about the shortages that we are facing, that we can no more react appropriately! Therein lies the salvation of the Government, as long as the public are so dazed by all the chaos eminating from the shortage drama, we the people can t recover and react to bring down the government and throw out the useless people who have failed to give us the stability we so desperately need!

The crimes against citizen’s lives has shot up! never before have we read, heard, and learnt of people being murdered as we do now! In short the agency paid to protect the public has failed! Police is too occupied providing protection to public servants and politicians, they have less or no time for us, the people of pakistan who pay their wage bills, ie their fancy bungalows, their latest cars their allowances, cell phones, and heaven knows what other perks they sneak off with !!!

The Sugar & Flour crisis has also been manipulated by the landed and industrial mafia who also sit in the halls of power, it is my submission, that all these so called shortages are attempts to buldoze their demands down the people and governments throat, where they already have support so the ones that end up getting hit the hardest are the lowest of the low who already barely survive! Manipulation is the name of the game! another one that raises its ugly head is the Petroleum Price! dont forget them!

While on the subject of shortages, the other day the PM got the opportunity to drop a couple of clangors! in a very nonchalant manner in passing! Yes I have already shared my concerns with you on the gravest crisis yet to shake up our Motherland, WATER . I dont just mean drinking water, I mean waters of our rivers that have already begun to run dry and  villages are cropping up on the alluvial soil of their beds!

For those of you who had yet to see the light of day back in 1962, the Indus Water basin Treaty will hold no significance except the comments that are made in passing; at the time, as public servant had the guts to question the then government about their plans to sign the treaty, he was subsequently threatened with his life, and told to stay silent, and to his dying day he spoke of the wrong that was perpetuated through its signing. He was none other than the renowned Masud Khaddarposh, the only public servant who spoke in the interest of the down-trodden and the harm to the Motherland, his notes of dissent on the Hari repost and the Indus water Treaty are on record for all to see.

The proof of that specific meeting on the treay are the two photographs recording the presence of Field Marshal M Ayub Khan, President of Pakistan, Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, Foreign Minister of Pakistan in a meeting with Key Establishment officials at the Civil Services Academy, in 1962. In one shot Mr. Masud is seen questioning the aspects of the treaty that concerned him most.

Today we see and hear of the impending doom that is to hit this country, thanks to key people who were paid millions by the Indians to stop the Kalabagh dam from being built! Our salvation lies in that dam we must see the light! and we must build that dam!

Aviation History

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (CNN) -- Six years ago an ad in the Sunday paper changed a young Pakistani woman's life and made aviation history.

Seven Pakistani women are trained to fly the country's F-7 fighter jets -- though none have seen combat so far.

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The ad read: "Pakistan Air Force recruiting females cadets."

Back then Ambreen Gul was 20-years old and living in Karachi. Her mother wanted her to be a doctor. She remembers her reaction when she told her she wants to fly.

"She was like: 'You're a girl,'" says Gul. "How will you do it? How will you fly?"

The following day Gul took the first step in proving her mother wrong. She was among the first in line at the recruitment center.

For nearly six decades it was only men who had flown Pakistan's fighter jets. Today Gul is one of seven women who are trained and ready to fly Pakistan's F-7 supersonic fighter jets.

"This is a feeling that makes you proud and makes you humble also," says Gul.

Humility doesn't mean lack of confidence.

"We can do everything better than the men," explains cadet Nida Tariq.

"We're more hardworking, more consistent and more patient," adds cadet Anam Faiq.

To become a fighter pilot takes three years of training at the Air Force Academy in Risalpur, Pakistan, where the halls are lined with grainy black-and-white pictures of nearly six decades of male graduates who went on to fly for the Pakistan Air Force.

The training is often intensely physical. Here, equal opportunity means equal treatment.

If they are not good enough as per their male counterparts, we don't let them fly," says commanding officer Tanvir Piracha.

Some of Pakistan's female pilots wear hijabs. Others prefer to go without the Muslim headdress. Most say changing the misconception of Muslim women is just as important as serving their country.

"Islam gives equal opportunity to females. Whatever we want to do we can," says pilot Nadia Gul.

"To tell you the truth I've been given equal opportunity or I suppose more than men have been given," says Air Force cadet Sharista Beg.

Air Force officials say fighter pilots are playing a vital role in the fight against the Taliban. They're training in counterinsurgency, collecting aerial intelligence and targeting militant strongholds in the treacherous mountains of Pakistan's tribal region along the Afghan border. Ambreen Gul says her goal now is to fly in combat.

 

"I would give my life for my country," she says.

But women rarely fly in combat anywhere in the world and it's never been done in Pakistan. It's another barrier Gul plans to break.

Independence

Extracted by me from the Internet sites through Google Search: { please read and understand then evaluate our circumstances from the stand point of a supposedly Independent country:

• Freedom from control or influence of another or others
• Independence is the self-government of a nation, country, or state by its residents and population, or some portion thereof, generally exercising ...
• free from external control and constraint;
• autonomous: (of political bodies) not controlled by outside forces; "an autonomous judiciary"; "a sovereign state”
• The state or quality of being independent; freedom from dependence; exemption from reliance on, or control by, others; self-subsistence or maintenance; direction of one's own affairs without interference.
• independence - freedom from control or influence of another or others

  independency

  freedom - the condition of being free; the power to act or speak or think without externally imposed restraints

  autonomy, liberty - immunity from arbitrary exercise of authority: political independence

  autarchy, autarky - economic independence as a national policy

  self-direction, self-reliance, self-sufficiency, autonomy - personal independence

  separateness - political independence;

Independence is the self-government of a nation, country, or state by its residents and population, or some portion thereof, generally exercising sovereignty.

The term independence is used in contrast to subjugation, which refers to a region as a "territory" —subject to the political and military control of an external government. The word is sometimes used in a weaker sense to contrast with hegemony, the indirect control of one nation by another, more powerful nation.

Independence can be the initial status of an emerging nation (often filling a political void), but is often an emancipation from some dominating power. It can be argued that independence is a negative definition: the state of not being controlled by another power through colonialism, expansionism or imperialism. Independence may be obtained by decolonization, or by separation or dissolution.

Although the last three can often coincide with it, they are not to be confused with revolution, which typically refers to the violent overthrow of a ruling authority. This sometimes only aims to redistribute power—with or without an element of emancipation, such as in democratization—within a state, which as such may remain unaltered. The Russian October Revolution, for example, was not intended to seek national independence; the United States Revolutionary War, however, was.

Autonomy (in slight contrast) refers to a kind of independence which has been granted by an overseeing authority that itself still retains ultimate authority over that territory (see Devolution). A protectorate refers to an autonomous region that depends upon a larger government for its protection as an autonomous region. The dates of established independence (or, to a lesser degree, the commencement of revolution), are typically celebrated as a national holiday known as an independence day.

Sometimes, a state wishing to achieve independence from a dominating power will issue a declaration of independence, the earliest surviving example being Scotland's Declaration of Arbroath, and the most recent example being Abkhazia's Act of State Independence. Another example is the U.S. Declaration of Independence issued in 1776.

Causes for a country or province wishing to seek independence are many. Disillusionment rising from the establishment is a cause widely used in separatist movements, but it is usually severe economic difficulties that trigger these groups into action. The means can extend from peaceful demonstrations, like in the case of the Indian independence movement, to a violent civil war.}

 

During our recent 14th August ceremonies and celebrations a thought struck me, what is it that we are actually celebrating?!

1947? what is it about? obtaining freedom from the Indian/British control and domination? what else did it really mean for us and for those who finally accepted and agreed to allowing us our freedom?

Because as far back as I can remember we have always been in chains, of one form or another; when, I ask you, have we ever been really free?! simply put, NEVER!

We have, from day one, been getting handouts with conditions and provisions, we never suffered in our existence because we believed that our fore-fathers did that for us, when they fought for the independence, of the Muslims; we have not suffered in the process of building this Motherland, not an iota!

We have not given, never given of ourselves, while we have stood on the sidelines and let others do what they deemed fit even though we knew that it was NOT in the Motherlands prime interest, but in an individual’s personal interest to do so. By our silence we have unwittingly led them to believe that we support them or at least, don't disagree with what they do in the rape of the poor and down-trodden and the Motherland that is now ours to contend with.

Contend with it we must if we seek a future full of promise for ourselves and for the generations to follow, only you and I can through our single effort can unite each one together if we try!

It is not too late let us begin the silent revolution, not through bloodshed but through creating the awareness needed to unite!

There is no better time than right now!

Is it not time for reconciliation and change?

Everyday the papers and the TV are focused on just one aspect of our existence in the Motherland; is this hype about attracting viewership? I ask myself, or is it out of true concern for this land and its people? You be the judge.

I ask because is it not high time that we focused on the core issues plaguing our beloved Motherland, and discussed solutions to the challenges that face us all.  Is it because we are now an intellectually bankrupt lot of people, ore are we all too self-centered that we cannot see beyond our our immediate selves.

WE are also busy making sure that the education that our future generations are getting is soold and out of date that the are not equipped to handle this country’s challenges. It is only when these younger Pakistanis get to go abroad that it dawns upon them how ill equipped and insufficient their years of hard work in School and college has been!

More importantly how different the method of delivery of their knowledge is abroad there is no parrot style ‘rattoe-ing’ of  material involved there. no crib-sheets to memorize or guess papers to cram. Its all in the way their methodology…..aur ithar hum maar kha jahtain hain!

This must change, not just in the elite schools, colleges and universities but in every institution and I include the madrassas too!

Its time to call a spade, a spade, to end all that mud-slinging and take the turn required to begin the bulding into a unified country and a nation, because in it lies our salvation, not the begging bowls syndrome that comes second nature to us, but by the whole country tightening our belts even doing without what we enjoy most our our will that we impose on one another work only to creat the building blocks that we need to build the nation all over again.

Now is the time for reconciliation and change!

Organized Crime in Pakistan Feeds Taliban

Michael Kamber for The New York Times

 

 

A laborer worked on a security wall being constructed by a local business association in Karachi, Pakistan.

• By SABRINA TAVERNISE

Published: August 28, 2009

KARACHI, Pakistan — Taliban fighters have long used this city of 17 million as a place to regroup, smuggle weapons and even work seasonal jobs. But recently they have discovered another way to make fast money: organized crime.

Skip to next paragraph

Notes from Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq and other areas of conflict in the post-9/11 era.

 

Michael Kamber for The New York Times

Pashtuns fleeing violence have flocked to Karachi areas like Sorabgoth, where poverty may bolster crime and militancy.

The police here say the Taliban, working with criminal groups, are using Mafia-style networks to kidnap, rob banks and extort, generating millions of dollars for the militant insurgency in northwestern Pakistan.

“There is overwhelming evidence that it’s an organized policy,” said Dost Ali Baloch, assistant inspector general of the Karachi police.

Jihadi-linked crime has surfaced in other Pakistani cities, like Lahore. But Karachi, the central nervous system of Pakistan’s economy, and home to its richest businessmen, is the hub. It has been free of the bombings that have tormented Pakistan’s other major cities this year, and some officials believe that is the result of a calculated strategy.

“This is where they come to hide, where they raise their finances,” said a counterterrorism official in Karachi. “They don’t want to disturb that.”

The danger is not of a Taliban takeover — Karachi is run by a powerful secular party that despises the Taliban — but of an urban sanctuary for financing and equipping the insurgency from this southern port.

These criminal syndicates helped drive kidnappings in Pakistan last year to their highest numbers in a decade, according to the police, and they have also generated a spike in bank robberies. Eighty percent of bank heists are now believed to be related to the insurgency and other militant groups, authorities say.

“The Taliban are a group of thieves,” said a currency exchange owner here who was robbed of nearly $2 million last year and who did not want to be identified for fear of further trouble. “If it was God, they’d steal from him, too.”

Pakistani counterterrorism officials say they believe that kidnapping for ransom may have been the single largest revenue source for the Taliban’s top commander in the country, Baitullah Mehsud, before he was killed this month in an American drone strike.

Last year, Mr. Mehsud’s network may have held as many as 70 hostages, said a Pakistani counterterrorism official who did not speak for attribution for reasons of protocol. Control over these criminal networks and the money they generate may have been at the center of what seemed to be the struggle over who would succeed Mr. Mehsud.

“The world thinks this is about religion, but that’s a mistake,” said Sharfuddin Memon, director in Karachi of the Citizens Police Liaison Committee, a crime watch group run by members of the business community. “It’s about money and power. Faith has nothing to do with it.”

The kidnappers who took Shawkat Afridi, a prominent businessman, last year, did not make a single mistake, the family said. A caller breathed his demands into the phone in a bewildering array of accents. First he sounded like an Afghan. Then like a Mehsud tribesman. After more than 50 phone calls over five months, Mr. Afridi’s family finally agreed to pay $2.5 million for his release.

“We understood he was not an ordinary kidnapper,” said Gul Afridi, the victim’s brother. “There was no way out.”

Typical of such cases, the group, which the police said was Taliban-related, had chosen its target carefully: the Afridis are rich businessmen who supply fuel to NATO forces in Afghanistan. Other recent cases include a prominent film distributor, the owner of a textile mill and a personnel manager at a pipe manufacturer.

Though just 10 percent of kidnappings are connected to the Taliban, according to the police, the ransoms they generate — generally $60,000 to $250,000 each — collect more money than all the other cases combined.

“They’re real professionals,” said Ahmed Chinoy, a textile manufacturer who is the deputy head of the citizens committee, which was established in 1989 by the business community to protect against encroaching crime. “They know for sure that whoever they take can afford to pay.”

The same goes for bank robberies. Raja Umer Khattab, a senior police officer in Karachi’s Special Investigations Unit, noticed something strange early last year. The robbers had beards and bigger than usual guns, and, unlike ordinary thieves, they tended to kill the security guards. They were taking the banks’ surveillance systems, along with the cash.

“We started seeing a different kind of crime — more professional, more aggressive,” he said in an interview. “We realized these criminals were linked to jihadis.”

Mr. Khattab dug further. These criminals switched cellphone SIM cards like bus tickets, and had a code word for every neighborhood. Last August he made a series of arrests and a bomb exploded under his car. Shrapnel scars still mark his neck.

 

Notes from Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq and other areas of conflict in the post-9/11 era.

A recent influx of people in Karachi displaced by the military’s offensive in the northwest has expanded opportunities for the Taliban. Many are Pashtuns, the ethnic group most closely associated with the Taliban. Fanned by local politicians, ethnic tensions erupted in clashes that killed dozens this spring in Karachi. The authorities say Taliban-related crime has dropped greatly since then, with the arrests of the crime leaders breaking networks, among them, the gang that kidnapped Mr. Afridi.

But many of the networks are still in place, crisscrossing the city like a web, with strong links to Taliban sanctuaries in the northwest.

In the case of the heist at the money exchange last year, two security guards, who were from the Mehsud tribe, carried out the robbery. The exchange’s owners believed the men were working directly for Mr. Mehsud. They were uneducated and had been told that the exchange was taking money from the C.I.A. and that its dollars were the proof.

“They were brainwashed,” said one of the owners, who asked not to be identified for fear of retribution. “They were told, if you do this, it’s good for Islam.”

In many ways, it is the Pashtuns who suffer most. Militants extort money from the biggest oil traders to the smallest house servants, and Pashtuns can do little to resist, because their families remain in areas that the militants control.

Shahid, 22, a shy servant in Karachi, squirms when he describes how half of his $100 monthly salary goes to the local militant commander in his village, near the Afghan border. He did not want his full name used for fear of Taliban retribution. The commander was once a bus conductor, but has grown rich in his position, hoarding more than 200 sport utility vehicles, Shahid said.

Refusing has consequences: Four who recently fought the extortion turned up dead, Shahid said. Their bodies were not allowed a burial in the village, a sign of shame.

“If we give, we’re in trouble, and if we don’t give, we’re in trouble,” said Abzal Khan Mehsud, a member of the Oil Tanker Owners Association, who said he had not been able to go to his village for years out of fear of the militants who control it. “We’re being ground down in between.”

In a gritty industrial area of north Karachi, businessmen have taken matters into their own hands. Idrees Gigi, a textile manufacturer, is building a tall cement wall along the edge of his property. On the other side is Sorabgoth, a bone-poor Pashtun neighborhood.

The hope is that the wall will help shield his factory from crime, but security precautions do nothing to address the real problem, which Mr. Gigi believes is poverty. Parts of Sorabgoth lack roads and running water.

On a recent Saturday, young men scrambled past the wall over a river of red wastewater across a footbridge made of drainage chutes. Mr. Gigi employs thousands of residents, and has built four schools, but it is not enough.

“The worse the economy is, the more jihadis it will create,” he said. “This is a money war.”

Nature abhors a vacuum.

Apropos the article you shared about `Blackwater' (a great Doobie Brothers song incidentally) which belies the propensity of Pakistanis to blame all their woes first on the departing British `colonials' and lately on the American `dogs' and the Indian-Zionist conspiracy nexus.

Nature abhors a vacuum.

When will we learn that we need to unite and become a cohesive and strong entity through nation-building and good governance?

Of course the Americans will exploit the huge vacuum in leadership and fissures in national unity.

Nature dictates this; if it isn't the Americans, it will be someone else (Taliban, Shaitan, Iran, Kirgistan - you get the drift).

So in my not so humble opinion, we need to start a movement to first stop cribbing about how the Amercans(cowboys) and Indians are manipulating us, stop being `martyrs and victims', get our collective act together and build a bastion of strength through the glue and grit of the common folk and silent majority.

Easier said than done.

But who said Rome was built in a day?

Please feel free to distribute this as you please.

Naveed

Jinnah revisited, thank you Jaswant Singh

By Beena Sarwar

 

Yesterday at 18:30

Scan from PIA's 'Hamsafar', Aug 2009 issue, with Azad's lyrics and a picture of the postage stamp featuring Hafeez Jullandari whose lyrics later became Pakistan's national anthem

I first learnt about Pakistan’s original national anthem, especially commissioned by Mr Jinnah from the poet Jaganath Azad of Lahore, in ‘Hamsafar‘, Pakistan International Airlines’ monthly magazine in its August issue when flying back from Lahore on Aug 9. This national anthem lasted only until Mr Jinnah’s death – after which his successors commissioned a more Persianised one that Hafeez Jullandari wrote. Please note, you would never have read this in any official literature a couple of years ago, 'enlightened moderation' notwithstanding
A subsequent article in The Kashmir Times, confirmed this startling (for me) information, Jinnah’s Secularism: A Hindu wrote Pak’s first national anthem. And then I learn that Zaheer A. Kidvai talked about this in his blogpost of May 03, 2009, Windmills of my mind - 'A Tale of Two Anthems', thanks Zak)
Also see: ‘Censoring the Quaid’ by Dr M. Sarwar, Aug 7, 1991 The Frontier Post)
Here’s my article on the Jaswant Singh-Jinnah controversy, published in Hardnews, New Delhi (Sept issue), and The News on Sunday,Pakistan.
Jinnah revisited, thank you Jaswant Singh
How did Mohammad Ali Jinnah — the ‘architect of Hindu-Muslim unity’ — end up founding a ‘Muslim country’?
By Beena Sarwar
Generations have grown up in India and in Pakistan fed on distorted versions of history. Attempts to counter these versions don’t go down too well at home, as Jaswant Singh found when he challenged the Indian version that lays the entire blame for the Partition on the shoulders of Mohammad Ali Jinnah, ignoring the parts played by Nehru, the Congress and the British.
Ironically, while eulogising the country’s founder as the Quaid-e-Azam or Great Leader, Pakistan has also censored him, sweeping aside his guiding principles, secularism and insistence on justice and constitutionalism. Similarly, in India Mahatma Gandhi is eulogised while his guiding principles and insistence on non-violence are made increasingly irrelevant.
Each side conveniently forgets the extremisms of its dominant faith. Hindu extremism existed well before 1947 (remember who killed Gandhi) as did Muslim extremism, particularly since 1857, when the British drove a wedge between the two religious communities. Both continue to feed off each other.

Official textbooks, policies or public discourse ignore the findings of scholars like Mubarik Ali, Ayesha Jalal and K.K. Aziz in Pakistan, and Romila Thapar, K.N. Panikkar and Sumit Sarkar in India whose work is based on solid research and facts rather than emotive myths. There is no official support for a joint history project.

Jaswant Singh’s latest work on Jinnah had not hit the Pakistani bookstalls at the time of writing. But from reported and televised statements and published extracts his thesis appears to be similar to Ayesha Jalal’s seminal work The Sole Spokesman: Jinnah, the Muslim League and the Demand for Pakistan (Cambridge University Press, 1985).
The controversy arises not from what Singh has written but from who he is: a founding member of the BJP, a party that has long attempted to communalise or saffronise India’s history. Given this agenda, what is surprising that not that the BJP sacked him or that the Gujarat government banned his book, but that Singh did not expect this. After all, he is not the first BJP leader to acknowledge Jinnah as secular — L.K. Advani did that during his groundbreaking June 2005 visit to his birthplace Karachi. The BJP didn’t go as far as expelling him, but he did have to resign as party head.

In Pakistan, this pettiness triggers off a puerile satisfaction that ‘their’ communal-mindedness has been exposed, for all ‘their’ posturing on democracy. But then, as some Pakistani newspaper columnists and editorials have commented, no one here (let alone from among ‘our’ right-wing nationalists, the BJP’s counterparts), is likely to embark on similar research on an Indian leader.

We know that Jinnah was an unlikely contender for a ‘Muslim leader’. But in Pakistan, there will be no public mention of his non-fasting during Ramzan or ignorance about the Muslim prayer. Jinnah’s marriage to the Zoroastrian Rati Petit is similarly glossed over. Jinnah joined Congress in 1906, remained a member after joining the All India Muslim League (AIML) in 1913, and brokered the Congress-League Lucknow Pact of 1916. Ever the constitutionalist, he played a key role in the formation of the All India Home Rule League pushing for India’s recognition as a British dominion, like Ireland or New Zealand. How did this ‘architect of Hindu-Muslim unity’, as Sarojini Naidu termed him, end up founding a ‘Muslim country’?

Jinnah’s differences with the Congress developed after the arrival on the scene of the populist M.K. Gandhi, coincidentally also a Guajarati lawyer. Jinnah, believing that independence could be achieved through constitutional means alone, opposed Congress adopting Gandhi’s non-violent civil disobedience movement to gain swaraj (self-rule) and the use of religious symbols to achieve this end — the Hindu symbols used by Gandhi or the Muslim slogans raised by Muhammad Ali and Shaukat Ali Jauhar. He was aghast when Congress, prompted by Gandhi, decided to join the Indian Khilafat Movement as a means to boost the anti-imperial, nationalist movement in India. Many saw this as a defining point of Hindu-Muslim unity. Jinnah disagreed. He termed the Khilafat as communal and religiously divisive, resigned from the Congress and turned his attention to the Muslim League and the political enfranchisement of Indian Muslims whom he increasingly saw as his constituency.

In The Sole Spokesman, Ayesha Jalal explains that Jinnah was not thinking of a ‘separate Muslim state’ when he argued for ‘weightage’ — giving Muslims representation on the basis of political significance rather than population. He demanded a disproportionate 33 percent representation for Muslims in each state or province where they formed a minority (averaging 15 per cent of the population) except where they formed over half and up to two thirds of the population — Kashmir, Hyderabad (Deccan), Bengal, NWFP, Balochistan, Sindh and the Punjab.
When the Nehru Report of 1928 (authored by Motilal Nehru) rejected this and other demands, Jinnah responded with his Fourteen Points of 1929, enunciating his conviction that Hindus and Muslims would eventually have to part ways politically if Indian Muslims were to obtain political representation. He turned to the idea of a separate state or states for Indian Muslims “within the Indian federation” — his vision right up to the months leading to Partition, according to Jalal. His demand for ‘Pakistan’ was basically a “bargaining counter” to gain leverage: he wanted to keep his options “open for a constitutional arrangement which would cover the whole of India” and steer a path between majority and minority while giving himself a role at the centre. The Muslim League’s famous resolution of Lahore, March 23, 1940, calling for the formation of Hindu and Muslim states in India as a condition of independence, makes no mention of ‘partition’ or ‘Pakistan’.

This is because Jinnah’s vision for ‘Pakistan’ did not entail the partition of India, writes Jalal, but “its regeneration into an union where Pakistan and Hindustan would join to stand together proudly against the hostile world without. This was no clarion call of pan-Islam; this was not pitting Muslim India against Hindustan; rather it was a secular vision of a polity where there was real political choice and safeguards, the India of Jinnah’s dreams.”

This strategy backfired firstly because the British, eager to cut their losses and leave, rushed ahead with Partition. Secondly, rather than agree to Jinnah proposal (an undivided Indian federation with a weak centre), the Congress saw the advantages of an India divided but with a strong centre and separation of the provinces outside its ken (keep those wild western tribes at bay) — even at the cost of dividing Punjab and Bengal. Jinnah found this division abhorrent, resulting in what he called a ‘truncated and moth-eaten’ nation.
Jinnah’s attempts to give Pakistan direction are reflected in the decision to commission a Hindu poet, Jaganath Azad of Lahore, to write Pakistan’s national anthem, in the provisional Assembly’s first constitution-making act — the appointment on August 10 of a Committee on Fundamental Rights and Matters relating to Minorities, headed by Jinnah himself — and in his first speech to the Constituent Assembly on August 11, 1947, outlining his vision for the new nation.

This speech, meant to be his political will and testament according to his official biographer Hector Bolitho (Jinnah: Creator of Pakistan, John Murray, London, 1954), talks first about the inherited problems of the new country — the maintenance of law and order, with the State fully protecting “the life, property and religious beliefs of its subjects”, the “curse” of bribery and corruption, the “monster” of black-marketing, and the “great evil” of nepotism. He then discusses the issue of Partition (”the only solution of India’s constitutional problem”) — history would judge its merits or demerits but since it had happened, “we should wholly and solely concentrate on the well-being of the people, and especially of the masses and the poor.”
He urges the assembly members to “work in co-operation, forgetting the past, burying the hatchet…If you change your past and work together in a spirit that everyone of you, no matter to what community he belongs, no matter what relations he had with you in the past, no matter what is his colour, caste or creed, is first, second and last a citizen of this State with equal rights, privileges, and obligations, there will be no end to the progress you will make.

“I cannot emphasize it too much. We should begin to work in that spirit and in course of time all these angularities of the majority and minority communities, the Hindu community and the Muslim community, because even as regards Muslims you have Pathans, Punjabis, Shias, Sunnis and so on, and among the Hindus you have Brahmins, Vashnavas, Khatris, also Bengalis, Madrasis and so on, will vanish. Indeed if you ask me, this has been the biggest hindrance in the way of India to attain the freedom and independence…
“Therefore, we must learn a lesson from this. You are free; you are free to go to your temples, you are free to go to your mosques or to any other place or worship in this State of Pakistan. You may belong to any religion or caste or creed that has nothing to do with the business of the State… We are starting with this fundamental principle that we are all citizens and equal citizens of one State…. Now I think we should keep that in front of us as our ideal and you will find that in course of time Hindus would cease to be Hindus and Muslims would cease to be Muslims, not in the religious sense, because that is the personal faith of each individual, but in the political sense as citizens of the State.”

The issues he outlined still haunt India and Pakistan today. His successors were quick to reject his vision. After Jinnah’s death on September 11, 1948, the assembly commissioned a new national anthem, consigning Jaganath Azad’s lyrics to history. Jinnah’s speech of Aug 11 was literally censored “by hidden hands”, as Zamir Niazi, the late chronicler of media freedoms details in his book ‘Press in Chains’ (Karachi Press Club, 1986). And a month after his death, his successors passed the Safety Act Ordinance of 1948, providing for detention without trial — that Jinnah had in March angrily dismissed as a “black law”. It is inconceivable that Jinnah would have agreed to the ‘Objectives Resolution’ that the Constituent Assembly passed in March 1949, laying the basis for formally recognising Pakistan as a state based on an ideology.
We are still paying the price for these follies. Thank you Jaswant Singh, for reminding us.

American NGO Covers For Blackwater In Pakistan?

 

Reports suggest Pakistan has expelled a US Blackwater mercenary, but Pakistanis ask, ’Who rules our streets, the Pakistani government or the Americans?’ And who let them in?

In May, a US diplomat was caught arranging a meeting between a suspected Indian spy and senior Pakistani officials in the privacy of her house.  In June when Pakistani officials confronted Washington with evidence that terrorists in Pakistan were using sophisticated American weapons, US media quickly leaked stories about American weapons missing from the US-trained Afghan army.  And now reports confirm that the dirty secret arm of the US government – the mercenaries of Blackwater – have infiltrated sensitive regions of Pakistan.  Blackwater works as an extension of the US military and CIA, taking care of dirty jobs that the US government cannot associate itself with in faraway strategic places.  The question: Who let them in? And who deported one of them, if at all?

by AHMED QURAISHI

Last month a group of concerned Pakistani citizens in Peshawar wrote to the federal interior ministry to complain about the suspicious activities of a group of shadowy Americans in a rented house in their neighborhood, the upscale University Town area of Peshawar.

An NGO calling itself Creative Associates International, Inc. leased the house.  CAII, as it is known by its acronym, is a Washington DC-based private firm.  According to its Web site, the company describes itself as “a privately-owned non-governmental organization that addresses urgent challenges facing societies today …Creative views change as an opportunity to improve, transform and renew …”

The description makes no sense.  It is more or less a perfect cover for the American NGO’s real work: espionage.

The incorporated NGO is more of a humanitarian front that alternates sometimes for undercover US intelligence operations in critical regions, including Angola, Sri Lanka, Iraq, Gaza, and Pakistan. Of the 36 new job openings, the company’s Web site shows that half of them are in Pakistan today.  Pakistan is also at the heart of the now combined desperate effort by the White House-military-CIA to avert a looming American defeat in Afghanistan by shifting the war to its next-door neighbor.

In Peshawar, CAII, opened an office to work on projects in the nearby tribal agencies of Pakistan. All of these projects, interestingly, are linked to the US government.  CAII’s other projects outside Pakistan, are also linked to the US government.  In short, this NGO is not an NGO.  It is closely linked to the US government.

In Peshawar, CAII told Pakistani authorities it needed to hire security guards for protection. The security guards, it turns out, were none other than Blackwater’s military-trained hired guns.  They were used the CAII cover to conduct a range of covert activities in Pakistan’s North West Frontier Province. Continue reading…

In the video above, the anchor of a TV channel details the origin and functioning of Blackwater, to its viewers in Urdu. The organization, a contractor of the US military, came into limelight when their inhuman treatment to Iraqi prisoners especially those in Abu Ghuraib Jail were exposed by a committed journalist.

The infamous Blackwater private security firm operates as an extension of the US military and CIA, taking care of dirty jobs that the US government cannot associate itself with in faraway strategic places. Blackwater is anything but a security firm.  It is a mercenary army of several thousand hired soldiers.

Pakistani security officials apparently became alarmed by reports that Blackwater was operating from the office of CAII on Chinar Road, University Town in Peshawar. The man in charge of the office, allegedly an American by the name of Craig Davis according to a report in Jang, Pakistan’s largest Urdu language daily, was arrested and accused of establishing contacts with ‘the enemies of Pakistan’ in areas adjoining Afghanistan.  His visa has been cancelled, the office sealed, and Mr. Davis reportedly expelled back to the United States.

It is not clear when Mr. Davis was deported and whether there are other members of the staff expelled along with him. When I contacted the US Embassy over the weekend, spokesman Richard Snelsire’s first reaction was, “No embassy official has been deported.”  This defensive answer is similar to the guilt-induced reactions of US embassy staffers in Baghdad and Kabul at the presence of mercenaries working for US military and CIA.

I said to Mr. Snelsire that I did not ask about an embassy official being expelled. He said he heard these reports and ‘checked around’ with the embassy officials but no one knew about this. “It’s baseless.”

So I asked him, “Is Blackwater operating in Pakistan, in Peshawar?”

“Not to my knowledge.”  Fair enough.  The US embassies in Baghdad and Kabul never acknowledged Blackwater’s operations in Iraq and Afghanistan either. This is part of low-level frictions between the diplomats at the US Department of State and those in Pentagon and CIA.  The people at State have reportedly made it clear they will not acknowledge or accept responsibility for the activities of special operations agents operating in friendly countries without the knowledge of those countries and in violation of their sovereignty.  Reports have suggested that sometimes even the US ambassador is unaware of what his government’s mercenaries do in a target country.

Official Pakistani sources are yet to confirm if one or more US citizens were expelled recently.  The government is also reluctant in making public whatever evidence there might be about Blackwater operations inside Pakistan.  But it is clear that something unusual was happening in the Peshawar office of an American NGO.  There is also strong suspicion that Blackwater was operating from the said office.

There are other things happening in Pakistan that are linked to the Americans and that increase the chances of Blackwater’s presence here.

These include:

1.       One of the largest US embassies – or military and intelligence command outposts – in the world is being built in Islamabad as I write this at a cost of approximately one billion US dollars. This is the biggest sign of an expansion in US meddling in Pakistan and a desire to use this country as a base for regional operations.  Interestingly, US covert meddling inside Pakistan and nearby countries is already taking place, including in Russia’s backyard, in Iran, and in China’s Xinjiang.

2.      A large number of retired Pakistani military officers, academics and even journalists have been quietly recruited at generous compensations by several US government agencies.  These influential Pakistanis are supposed to provide information, analysis, contacts and help in pleading the case for US interests in the Pakistani media, in subtle ways.  Pakistanis would be surprised that some prominent names well known to television audiences are in this list. Continue reading…

[Right: The American NGO that works for US government has almost half of its international vacancies in Pakistan. Three weeks back, its director in Peshawar was found contacting anti-Pakistan elements in the Pak-Afghan border area].

3.      CIA and possibly Blackwater have established a network of informers in the tribal belt and Balochistan; there have also been reports of non-Pakistanis sighted close to sensitive military areas in the country. Considering the intensity and frequency of terrorist acts inside Pakistan in the past four years, there is every possibility that all sorts of saboteurs are having a field day in Pakistan.

4.      Members of separatist and ethnic political parties have been cultivated by various US government agencies and quietly taken for visits to Washington and the CENTCOM offices in Florida.

The possibility of the existence of mercenary activities in Pakistan is strengthened by the following events:

5.      Pakistani officials have in recent months collected piles of evidence that suggests that terrorists wreaking havoc inside Pakistan have been and continue to receive state of the art weapons and a continuous supply of money and trainers from unknown but highly organized sources inside Afghanistan.  A significant number of these weapons is of American and Israeli manufacture.  Indians have also been known to supply third-party weapons to terrorists inside Pakistan.

6.      Some Pakistani intelligence analysts have stumbled on circumstantial evidence that links the CIA to anti-Pakistan terror activities that may not be in the knowledge of all departments of the US government. One thing is for sure, that CIA’s operations in Afghanistan are in the hands of dangerous elements that are prone to rogue-ish behavior.

7.      In May, a US woman diplomat was caught arranging a quiet [read ’secret’] meeting between a low-level Indian diplomat and several senior Pakistani government officials.  An address in Islamabad – 152 Margalla Road – was identified as a venue where the secret meeting took place. The American diplomat in question knew there was no chance the Indian would get to meet the Pakistanis in normal circumstances.  Nor was it possible to do this during a high visibility event.  After the incident, Pakistan Foreign Office issued a terse statement warning all government officials to refrain from such direct contact with foreign diplomats in unofficial settings without prior intimation to their departments.

8.     Pakistani suspicions about American foul play inside Pakistan are not new.  On July 12, 2008 in a secret meeting in Rawalpindi between military and intelligence officials from the two countries these concerns were openly aired. The Americans accused ISI of maintain contacts with the Afghan Taliban. The Pakistani answer was that normal low-level contacts are maintained with all parties in the area. NATO and the Kabul regime were doing the same thing in Afghanistan. In return, the Pakistanis laid out evidence, including photographs, showing known terrorists meeting Indian and pro-US Kabul regime officials. Was the United States supporting these anti-Pakistan activities is the question that was posed to the US military and CIA.

9.      Further back into history, in 1978 the ISI broke a spy ring made up of Pakistani technicians working for the nascent Pakistani nuclear program who were recruited by CIA.  Pakistan chose not to raise the issue publicly but did so privately at the highest level in Washington.

Now there are reports that the Zardari-Gilani government is consulting Pakistan’s Naval headquarters on a proposal to construct a US navy base on the coast of Balochistan.  When things have reached this level of American meddling in Pakistan, Blackwater seems like a small issue.  Some Pakistani analysts are of the view that elements within the Pakistani security establishment need to be very careful about where they intend to draw the red line for CIA operations in and around Pakistan.

The video above, courtesy, The Nation, Jeremy Scahill explains what’s Backwater and how does it operate. Jeremy Scahill (born c. 1974) is an American investigative journalist with expertise on a number of global issues, most notably the recent rise of private military companies.^] He is the author of the international best-seller Blackwater:The Rise of the World’s Most Powerful Mercenary Army. The book won the George Polk Book Award. He serves as a correspondent for the U.S. radio and TV program Democracy Now!.

CHOKEPOINT

Signs of future strategy

Gulf States financing Pakistan insurgency

America's top diplomat for Afghanistan and Pakistan says the deadly Taliban insurgency in those countries relies heavily on funding from the oil-rich Persian Gulf.

American Military Base in Islamabad

by Shakil Ahmad, Australia

President,University of W Sydney-ERP Union, Journalist Intl Press, Australia

-

It’s an open secret that the Americans use their embassies to conduct intelligence and covert operations in the host country. There is no need to go in the explanation of such operations, as we clearly understand the America is involved in anti-state activities in Pakistan. Besides the official attachments of their civil and military personnel in our establishment and cantonments, they have created a scattered network of minor covert command centres in different key locations in Pakistan. Following the attacks on some of their such centres, specially the Marriot Hotel, Islamabad and Peshawar, they manipulated to have a formally protected command centre along with a military base in disguise of Embassy in Islamabad.

They secured a very precious and strategic land of 18 acres just on the very back of the Presidency, at a dirt cheap rate of Rs 1 billion only. As they want to live next to their friends, the puppy and puppet rulers of this nation. Who granted them this a land? Nobody else but our democratic leadership while ensuring their traditional commission. Following the failure of buying the Marriot Peshawar, they are going to make a state within state by building a de facto military base in disguise of an embassy, the world’s second largest American embassy in the world. It would be equipped with all necessary command, control and communication hardware along with hundreds of soldiers on this military base. And above all, it’s around the Presidency, Parliament, Secretariat and GHQ. What else they may wish for? Without firing a single bullet, they are getting a de facto control of the nerve centre of Pakistan, to take charge of Presidency, parliament and GHQ, as they did in Iraq. Where is the writ of Zardari and Kiyani now? Isn’t a seamless challenge to their so called bloody writ, which they rut every time before their own people.

What the hell an embassy is meant to do on a foreign soil. It’s only to coordinate and bridge the diplomatic ties between the two countries. But neither they grant visas to Pakistanis easily nor they involve in any promotion of trade and technology. Then what are they are doing? They are simply coordinating and facilitating the military operations, political manipulations bedsides sponsoring the Politicians, Generals, Journalists, Scholars and NGOs through media to destroy the socio-political and econo-religious fabric of Pakistani society. The current strength of 750 personnel in US embassy is already more than the double of it’s limit. Now around 1000 strategic civil and military personnel are preparing in US to report to this new military base, in disguise of an embassy in Islamabad.

Our civil and military leadership has turned their eyes blind to their such activities. Just because they are their subordinates. The planted NRO criminals are looting and deceiving the nation in the name of democracy, whereas the sponsored military is fighting their war to eliminate all such elements resisting the American agenda, under the cover of war of terror. Who are these people? They are the traitors of this nation, who not only sacrificed the integrity, peace and prosperity but also the honour by selling the daughters of this nation to please their American masters. Just wait and see, whose daughter is the next? Don’t they deserve to be made a symbol of Ibrat?

Everybody should realize the gravity of the situation and do whatever he can in his personal, political or official capacity to rescue Pakistan. It’s a constitutional binding upon all to disobey any unconstitutional, unlawful and any such order which is against the interest of the nation. Anybody who supports such a sponsored leadership, due to his personal liking or interest, is indirectly involved in the treason against the state and it’s people and would be responsible for any national disaster. A leader or an officer by himself is nothing without the support of workers or subordinates. Now it’s a test of our conscience, whether we prefer the national interest over the personal benefit or not. If we can’t, then there is no need to cry when suffering from poverty, injustice and humiliation all around. Only those nations survive and are respected, whose people sacrifice their individual interest over the collective benefit and sort out the evils. Choice is simple. Be remembered like a rich but hated Mir Jafar or live like a nationalist but honoured like in China.

WE are Pakistanis First & Foremost, our salvation lies in it!!

This is very simple to achieve, and the quickest way is to start with oneself, I mean YOU, yes! YOU; Believe you are a Pakistani first and ONLY a Pakistani, nothing else matters or counts Forever!

Then make or convince your own family to change their thinking process that they are ONLY Pakistanis.

Then move to your inner circle of friends and make them understand that they are Pakistani first and ONLY Pakistani

And so on, if each one of us can do this every day, day after day, 365/12, we will just begin to build ourselves into a NATION as the Quaid e Azam envisioned

Our recognition around the world is that we are PAKISTANI and our salvation on earth, lies in building a strong, “united, faithful and disciplined” country called PAKISTAN,

We will then automatically think first of our country, the MOTHERLAND,

also then ask yourself what it is that you can and must do for your Motherland not what can the Motherland do for you!

May the Almighty give us all the strength to give up our old hateful thoughts and ways and single mindedly accept Pakistaniat

Have a great Day!Pakistanis, where ever you may be!

People of Pakistan Unite under The Crescent & Star!

Get rid of all the party flags we proudly wave... and rally under the one and only Crescent & Star!

Parcham e Sitara e Hilal... Stand together against all the enemies of our Motherland! Now is the defining moment!!!!

We all need to motivate everyone else to decide on aday when we can all make a protest in a unique way so that our numbers simply are so overwhelming that the message is loud and clear; Lets organise the movement of people to demonstrate against the enemies of our Motherland ...any ideas? use my blog if you like..... here we can all rally together and plan a movement like no other before UNITE!! its high time we became one Nation! Lets all join the Movement for UNITY!

Corruption the cancer that has wrecked Pakistan

Having been away in a foreign land for the better part of 5 weeks, I can only say its really good to be back! Yes indeed there is never any place like home, in this case The Motherland, may it always be secure and peaceful.

So what have I learnt, while abroad you may well want to know, the thing is there are always 2 sides to everything,; and so it was in USA. I told you about the traditions and the respect for the law, the considerate humane approach, the respect for individual’s rights; the list goes on and on.

Amidst, all this there rises the ugly head of corruption, while I was there I learnt of 9 Mayors of various towns/cities being arrested for their misdeeds, a Senator who had to resign because he was a married man and was having a relationship with another woman, then there is the matter of the doctors who are under investigation for the death of Michael Jackson, because there is evidence that some wrong doing has occurred.

The Law enforcement and the justice systems work hand in hand to address all the ills of their society; that is why they are held in high regard and society responds to the system as it works to protect each individual while ensuring due punishment for wrong doings.

So, back home why are we any different, lets admit it we are ! the sooner we accept it the sooner we can start to bring about the change. You and I are the ones that must assume the responsibility of starting by first as individuals we refuse to be part of the cancer, if you see or hear that an elder is not fair in their dealing then you and I must stop them then move outwards into society, if we set a goal to convert one person at a time and each converted person does the same we will become a formidable force to reckon with! It is the power of one.

You all of the younger generations, must vow right now  not to facilitate, be a part of or allow anyone to perpetuate the Cancer of Corruption. This is paramount for our survival, look around you point the finger, blow the whistle, or whatever it takes but stop it!

Dont tell me about the powerful people who are corrupt, they only are because we do not raise an objection, if we did and we demanded that both arms of the system take responsibility, then they will be left with no other choice but to do our bidding!

For you and me to make it work we too must come out of our drawing rooms and classrooms to object.

That is all it takes! believe me!

Not a Drop to Drink!

ISLAMABAD (Online)- Pakistan is fast moving from being a water stressed country to a water scarce country which could put heavy brakes on economic growth and government should accelerate its efforts for setting up new water reservoirs and dams on emergent basis to cope with the looming water crisis.
This was stated by Mian Shaukat Masud, President, Islamabad Chamber of Commerce & Industry (ICCI) in a statement.

He said according to official reports the per capita availability of water in Pakistan has gradually dwindled from 5,260-cubic metres in 1951 to about 1000-cubic metres in recent years and if this trend continued, it could go as low as 550-cubic metres by 2025, which shows the gravity of the situation.
He said the water shortage issue has not been given the level of attention it needed and cautioned that if appropriate steps are not taken country could face a water & food crisis even worse than the current power crisis.


He said in addition to the urgent construction of new water reservoirs and small dams, government should launch serious water conservation initiatives to improve the efficiency of water use, particularly in agriculture sector,which claims more than 90 percent of the available fresh water resources.
Mian Shaukat said Pakistan can save enough water by adopting latest technology and making a partial shift from lower-value, water-intensive crops to high-value and more water-efficient crops.
He said Pakistan is mostly using flood irrigation in agriculture while it should explore the use of drip or spray irrigation, which makes better and efficient use of water resources.

The report above as well as the photos are in fact obtained from the web, just to help you visualise the looming crisis that we as Pakistanis are about to face in our Motherland!

Scenes like those above have haunted me throughout my life's journey in my Motherland, while growing up while living in various cities and while driving around the length and breath of Pakistan.
In Sindh, in Baluchistan, in the Frontier and in Punjab, the scenes are virtually the same; I have stop here to narrate a story from a friend who had served in uniform, while posted in the tribal areas of Baluchistan, he actually came across groups of settlements around what one would term a water-hole, straightaway the vision of a shaded pool surrounded by tall shady trees comes to mind, but in fact what was there was a pond of green slime, where every human and animal went for whatever their needs were; drinking, washing, and anything else that may spring to mind....no exaggeration!
This friend an officer leading his group of men were camped close by and he directed his jawans to move one of their water tanker trailers, that they tow behind a jeep, to within the settlement's perimeter. He then proceeded to encourage the curious children to take a drink of clear fresh water, but they shied away!! wanting to know what it was!! when told it was water, their eyes popped open wide in disbelief; he had to drink some to help them grasp the reality, but while doing so the reality he was trying to come to terms with himself was the sight of these adults and children living and growing up around this stagnant stinking slimy green pond that served as their source of the elixir of life!

Later that very same day he was visited by angry disgruntled tribal members who demanded to know what on earth he thought he was trying to do; he tried to pacify them and began to explain his very innocent intentions to help the people to source good clen fresh clean water. While the tribals finally understood his honourable intentions, they demended that the bowser be immediately withdrawn from their neighbourhood, as they had no intentions whatsoever of getting them all used to this water which would only be there while the soldiers were around! "What will happen when you are gone?" they asked, where will we find or get more of it, there is no way we can bring it from wherever you have managed to get it


That was in the early 1070s! the situations have not got any better, in fact memories of water wastege, haunt me now as I observe how we hose down our driveways to remove the sand from the places where our cars are parked, cleaning women thoughtlessly pipe in hand water flowing sweep away car are washed everyday as if they are about to be taken into a mosque! on my road we have 4 such homes where a minimum of 3 cars per househould get this pakofying treatment every day!! Can toyu believe it!??

Not to mention how we wash our faces and brush our teeth, with the water flowing away down the drain, what about the winter time when we open the tap to get hot water we let it flow till it is hot , imagine how much we waste; ever notice how the kitchen help have the tap running all the while when the dishes are being washed? Well, the truth is I too am guilty of all of the above, but, not anymore, changes have been made to conserve the water in our home, so thatwe save, it for our tomorrows.
Please give this precious resourse some serious thought, dont waste water in your glass while drinking save it for later dont throw it away, I beseech you, please.

One summer when I was living in the UK, there was a terrible drought, washing cars was banned! I could not stand the sight of my dirty car so on the weekend I collected the soapy water which came out of the washing machine, and took it to wash my car, while another bucket collected the rinse cycle water, bye the time I was finishing I noticed a Bobby (cop) walking up to me and began to question me for having broken the ban! I explained what and how I had done it, he ended up telling me it was a great idea and that he would do likewise! getting full use of the water that way!
Apparently a neighbour had watched me and alerted the police!

Cause & Effect

The innocent people of this Motherland, inherited from the will of intentions of Mohammad Ali Jinnah Quaid e Azam, have been both intentionally and carelessly led down the proverbial garden path, by the 2nd and 3rd generations of Baboos who run this Motherland, seriously believing that they have be ordained into the ruling elite, conveniently forgetting who pays their wages and all their benefits , fringe and stolen! They are in fact, in the simplest of terms, civil servants in the employ of the state, to manage it. Just like the Armed Forces are likewise employed to defend it! Not the establishment or the Bureaucracy!

How and why you ask, aghast at such a suggestion! Simply put in one word, EDUCATION.

Having grown up going to a range of schools from some that had class rooms without roofs and doors to 'tatties' (toilets) in Gujranwala (late 1949-51)! to the posh upper class ones like Trinity School, Karachi, run by the great old lady Miss Dickens, (early 1950 s), Saint Josephs Convent (Sister Cecelia), Saint Francis Grammar School, Quetta ( Father Cadeireo, later Cardinal), Saint Marys PAF School, Peshawar (Father Grant) where I got the basic grounding in my EDUCATION and went to College at Edwardes College, Peshawar, (Phil Edmonds, aka Baba) my greatest Teacher and Mentor in EDUCATION and life!

While this was unfolding, I noted how my family ensured that the children of the cook of many years, were also getting an EDUCATION, not just at school but at home with exposure to a better life style! The result was that they all studied to BA level before one son became an executive in an Insurance firm in the 1960 s, one daughter married a Businessman living in East Pakistan, one daughter joined the Nursing Services in the PAF Medical Corps and married an airforce officer! the youngest was still studying when I lost track of them; the father was a young tea picker in the Kangra Valley who got a job as a masaalchee before I was born. He retired as the Head Chef of the PAF Officers Mess, at Mauripur in the 1970 s!

Now coming back to the realities of today, EDUCATION has failed us or we have failed it, and in turn failed the entire Motherland; have you noticed, how I avoid the use of the word Nation, and choose the word Motherland? reason, we are NOT a Nation yet after 60+ years! sadly.

Upon analysis, I concluded that over the last 60 years, our EDUCATION system has steadily deteriorated, despite everything the money pumped into the sector by entrepreneurs, wishing to make a buck did not provide EDUCATION. How, well for starters we did not research or develop our syllabus to keep pace with modern times, we did not spread it to the lower levels of the population and if we tried it was too little too late!

More importantly, the delivery system for EDUCATION has been 'nakas' as we say in the vernacular. We have nuclear scientists, aviators, miners, medical men, you name them we have them, and we have Baboos but we do not have top level,high grade teachers! not enough of them at all for 16 million population!
There are not enough Top Quality colleges and Universities for the profession of EDUCATION.
Why? its obvious!!! the wages they get don't draw or attract the finest brains in the land! so there isn't a demand for EDUCATION institutions; and that's where we have failed our Motherland and the hapless EDUCATION fraternity.

We are still continuing to give little priority to EDUCATION in the budget and unless more generous allocation is made we will slide further down the tube to oblivion among the lessor developed states in the world, sad but true!

I returned to the Motherland in the mid 80s and very quickly realised the problem, first I went around requesting people to make me the minister of EDUCATION, and they laughed when I told them why! then I went around wanting then (Baboos) to make teachers the highest paid cadre in the land, they laughed again!! I ask who's laughing now! not me! I ground my teeth with frustration and my dentist got rich! but still I wasn't able to make the difference.

So, here is, what we all must do, put one child/person through school so they can develop in to contributing members of society, at any level, along side that push for more allocation in Federal and Provincial budgets in EDUCATION and only elect those to the Parliament who have a sworn commitment to further the cause of EDUCATION!
Maybe, one day, someone who is a daily wage laborer will sit down at his home and browse the net and say, Amen!