You can’t shut us up, Mr. Zardari

17th November, 2008 | Dan Qayyum

“The notion that a radical is one who hates his country is naïve and usually idiotic. He is, more likely, one who likes his country more than the rest of us, and is thus more disturbed than the rest of us when he sees it debauched. He is not a bad citizen turning to crime; he is a good citizen driven to despair” (H. L. Mencken)

If the above definition stands valid, then we’re all radicals. If one has to take a positive out of the disastrous last 9 months that the PPP has been in power, it will be that finally, we may be seeing the beginning of the end of this failed system. Everywhere you look there’s despair, anger and resentment building in the hearts of our countrymen. Be it the botched aid efforts in Baluchistan where the victims continue to beg for help, the unprecedented rise in energy prices, the continuing terrorist attacks inside Pakistan and in our border areas carried out by the those who wish to see our destruction (which sadly includes those who have been thrust upon us by outsiders, in the shape of the current ‘democratic’ government).

They would do well not to underestimate the power of the people. We’re used to living a life concerned only with ourselves and our immediate surroundings, blaming everything on the ’system’, failing to understand the suffering of our brethren and admitting that we, by encouraging this corrupt and failed system, are just as much to blame.

This time though, its our own survival which is at stake. Whether its power breakdowns, rising costs of food / education / healthcare, street crime and the rising violence – every one is being made to suffer in some way or the other. Add to that the war being waged on our Western borders, even if some of us would like to bury their heads in the sand and ignore it.

The nation is divided, half patriots and half traitors, and no man can tell which from which.

Our very existance is under threat with both exernal as well as internal forces hellbent on changing the geography of Pakistan. Huge billboards promoting the idea of a greater ‘Pashtunistan’ are openly being erected in NWFP while traitors like Brahmdagh Bugti is allowed to freely incite hatred and terrorism against Pakistan. If they’re allowed to continue, thats half the country gone. Simple as.

Sadly, they ARE being allowed to continue. Infact the PPP government appears to be bending over backwards to facilitate the wider game plan.

Aside from deliberately creating and facilitating Pakistan’s economic crisis (Source | Source | Source) in order to justify leading the nation right into the IMF Trap, have a look at the kind of comments our ‘leaders’ have come up with recently, on the subject of US attacks on Pakistan soil:

We don’t have the capability to stop US attacks – Defence Minister Ahmed Mukhtar

Would be nice if they’d let us know before attacking – Zardari

These attacks can affect relations between Pak / US – Zardari

Attacks difficult to explain - Zardari

PM Gilani justifying US attacks

Corner a dog and you watch its bollocks grow. Zardari and Gilani need to grow a pair. Infact just comparing them with a dog is an insult – to dogs everywhere. Apologies.

Ofcourse all of this comes in the backdrop of the recent revelations of the agreement reached between Zardari and the US in September, as reported by the Washington Post:

Washington Post: Pakistan and U.S. Have Tacit Deal On Airstrikes

PKKH: A Queit Deal With Pakistan

JANG: ‘We’ll keep compalining and you just ignore and carry on’

Zaid Hamid: PPP Facilitates the invasion of Pakistan

The PPP government has recently passed a bill which basically allows the FIA to arrest any one speaking out against this government’s policies online. [More]. This is in addition to Zardari’s instructions to the FIA to to hunt down Pakistanis responsible for circulating jokes about Mr. Zardari through emails and text messages.

We understand this puts us at risk, but as Edmund Burke once said, “All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing”

To announce that there must be no criticism of the president, or that we are to stand by the president, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public. (Theodore Roosevelt, 1918)

I believe that applies to us just as well

Is there not some chosen curse, some hidden thunder in the stores of heaven, red with uncommon wrath, to blast the man who owes his greatness to his country’s ruin?