Dan Qayyum, Sumayya Chawla, and Talha Mujaddidi from PKKH combine to bring you a message of hope, of Pakistan’s relevance in times to come, and of holding our own and being resilient against the many threats we face.
Pakistan’s time has come. InshaAllah we will rise and all those who have for 60 years predicted the fall of this great nation and have worked to destroy it, will perish.
Insha’Allah, there’s the brightest of futures for Pakistan, be a part of it. And there is dignity and glory in it for all. It is always darkest before dawn.
Also includes guest appearances from General Hamid Gul, Ali Azmat and Atif Aslam.
Takmeel-e-Pakistan is a movement that calls for the full realization of Iqbal’s dream – for making Pakistan what our forefathers intended it to be when they passed the Pakistan Resolution on March 23rd 1940. We have achieved the first part of this dream, the creation of the nation-state of Pakistan. Since then, we’ve been let down by our leaders, our politicians, and the subsequent generations who arguably became complacent and lost their way. Now is the time for realization of ‘Pakistan’.
InshaAllah in March 2010 we will gather for a grand occasion to celebrate Pakistan.
Under the headline of ‘New US Policy to Raise Aid for Pakistan’ (DAWN News, Friday 30 Oct) is the biggest and most worrying shift in US policy towards Pakistan. The outline for this new policy was made very clear by Senator John Kerry when he declared that “Pakistan is not only the headquarters of Al Qaeda today but could eventually become the epicentre of extremism in the world.” He went on to say that there was ‘virtually no Al-Qaeda’ in Afghanistan. He repeated the same old mantra that Pakistani intelligence agencies have used Taliban as a ‘hedge’ in the past and that there are concerns that they will continue to do so in the future. After all the denials by the American Ambassador in Pakistan in the aftermath of the KL Bill, that Pakistan’s ISI was not being accused of funding extremists and terrorists, this ‘policy shift’ is indeed a very strange development. Keeping in view the reports from the US media claiming that the Obama administration is now convinced that no amount of troop surge in Afghanistan can eliminate Taliban as a political and military force, a clear pattern is emerging in terms of the real intentions of the US towards Pakistan and perhaps the real reason why the Afghan war was launched in the first place.
The expected barbs were finally delivered. Not being able to uphold the brittle charm for long, Hillary Clinton gave in to the bigger temptation of voicing what she actually feels about Pakistan. Simply, that it is not doing enough to capture and kill the Al Qaeda leaders present in Pakistan. In voicing this belief, the Secretary of State has reiterated the position adopted by other US officials in the past. One that conveniently overlooks Pakistan’s past successes in arresting and killing scores of top international terrorists and thwarting major attacks.
This sharp rap on the knuckles comes after praising Pakistan for its untiring efforts in counterterrorism! What contradictions, that too in the space of three days. One may excuse secretary of state’s little outburst for having suffered three days of unrelenting criticism levelled against the United States. So what if she holds a key government office, almost second in importance to the Oval Office, she is human and may have retaliated in defence of her country, increasingly beleaguered in Afghanistan.
For the past 63 years – the life span of most countries of this region, South Asia has remained in a state of tension. The eight SAARC countries* that make up this geopolitically sensitive region, where a major chunk of the humanity lives, do not enjoy the kind of friendly and harmonious relationship with each other, as one would have expected. This despite efforts of some well meaning leaders like General Irshad, former Bangladeshi president, who tried to bring the people and the countries together on a single platform of South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) on the pattern of the European Union to help develop the region into a major economic and political bloc.
The South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) was established in December 1985 and, according to wikipedia: is the largest regional organization in the world by population, covering approximately 1.47 billion people.
The first seven SAARC countries were enthusiastic about the concept and keen for it to succeed. Conscious that this model of cooperation between countries was important for their progress and deliverance from pervasive poverty, they tried to make it work but in the end it simply died.
A lot can be achieved in two and a half decades. For an individual, its roughly one-third of the average lifespan. For a nation, its enough time for an entire generation to come through. A nation can be transformed from a marshy swamp into one of the largest economies of the world – as in the case of Singapore.
What did Indian Air Force (IAF) achieve in twenty six years while consuming over $2 billion? the answer to that is Zilch; Zero; Nada; Nothing – except a failed project and a continued embarrassment in the shape ‘Tejas’. Tejas LCA (Light Combat Aircraft, also known as Last Chance Aircraft) has gone many trials and tests and there’s no sign of induction as yet. It has now been announced to enter IAF in 2010.
Pakistan’s own ambitious JF-17 project was launched in partnership with China in 1995. In just eleven years and with just $500 million spent, the JF-17 was flying in Pakistani Airspace on March 23rd 2007 – with the maiden flight having taken place much earlier in 2003.
“I shall watch with keenness the work of your Research Organization in evolving banking practices compatible with Islamic ideas of social and economic life. The economic system of the West has created almost insoluble problems for humanity and to many of us it appears that only a miracle can save it from disaster that is not facing the world. It has failed to do justice between man and man and to eradicate friction from the international field. On the contrary, it was largely responsible for the two world wars in the last half century. The Western world, in spite of its advantages, of mechanization and industrial efficiency is today in a worse mess than ever before in history. The adoption of Western economic theory and practice will not help us in achieving our goal of creating happy and contended people. We must work our destiny in our own way and present to the world an economic system based on true Islamic concept of equality of manhood and social justice. We will thereby be fulfilling our mission as Muslims and giving to humanity the message of peace which alone can save it and secure the welfare, happiness and prosperity of mankind”.
Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah’s speech on the inauguration of State Bank of Pakistan: 1st July, 1948
In his recent interview Gen Athar Abbas director general Inter services public relation said that military can buy time and soften the situation. According to him military operation is not the full action that government of Pakistan and its people will take against these anti-Pakistan terrorists and foreign elements in Waziristan. There is another important part of this operation; government coming down and taking control of the situation.
This is where most of Pakistanis put blame on the government that it is not doing its job and are afraid of bad consequences. But we, the people of Pakistan fail to recognize that it is not only the government rather it is us, we are part of this failure, as we are not playing our part. We are not taking the right steps ourselves then he can we blame just the government. Indeed this does not absolve government of its responsibilities.
Two years ago, when isolated reports in the Pakistani media accused the United States of playing a double game in Afghanistan, most commentators dismissed them as conspiracy theories and kneejerk anti-Americanism. Today those reports dominate the mainstream Pakistani media. The distrust is so serious that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had to turn her first official visit to Pakistan into a firefighting mission, kicking off a charm offensive to win over skeptic Pakistanis.
Swat is now gradually returning to being land of peace, brimming an essence of happiness; as the serenity prevails, as the bliss reigns, once again. This wasn’t the case a few months ago. The terrorists in Swat, causing misery and pain to the locals, beheading innocent, abducting girls, beating old, did not know that the valiant sons of this soil will soon come for the rescue of populace held hostage.
The terrorists overlooked the fact that Pakistan Army’s soldiers have been at the vanguard always for their homeland; bursting with nationalist spirit, show not a trace of anxiety at presenting fresh blood to further enrich the sanctity of this soil. The heroic story of Major Abid Majeed bears testimony to this reality. Read the rest of this entry ?
Pakistan was once only an inspired vision. In 1947, through great sacrifice, a miraculous new nation was born. With its people energised and free, it seemed there was no height Pakistan would not scale. Now, many decades later, as we look back on years of strife, division and poverty cultivated by generations of misguided leaders, we find ourselves wondering how this glorious inheritance became so spoiled. Atif F Qureshi examines the causes of the calamity, in particular the explanation that trumps all others – the import of Western political, legal and economic systems. Detailing why these methods are wholly unworkable for an independent Muslim nation, he examines how Western concepts such as socialism and English Civil Law have led to crises ranging from economic stagnation to terrorist insurgencies. Yet the decline is not irreversible. Qureshi outlines policies that by returning to core Islamic values will revive, rejuvenate and revitalise this beautiful nation. From defence and the environment to education and banking, every aspect of national planning is explored. He shows how in spite of all the travails, Pakistan is well-placed for a glorious future. After all, a manifest destiny awaits…
To Our Elite And Not Just The President: Was a reception for a foreign guest more important than sharing the grief of your people?
More than one hundred innocent Pakistanis killed in one day, more than two hundred in less than a month. Attacks linked to our own and America’s failed Afghan policy. Attacks supported by anti-Pakistan forces in the region and not just unknown ‘extremists’. Children left without parents, a nation terrorized. And the response of our political elite? Dinner, toasts and merrymaking in Islamabad. Was a reception for a foreign guest more important than sharing the grief of your people? A shameless foreign-backed ruling elite.
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan—One hundred and ten killed in one day. More than two hundred dead in less than a month. If this were any other country, emergency would have been declared, nation would have been mobilized, and intellectuals would have moved to question the policies of rulers who draw their strength from Washington and London and not from the people and the interests of Pakistan.
There has always been in American foreign policy circles a virus called arrogance, caused by the hereditary assumption that Americans know better than others. Surprisingly, this does not always prove the case, but the condition seems highly resistant to treatment, even by experience.
There seems a high probability that the disease has struck Obama administration policy circles dealing with Pakistan. (We will leave aside the case of American relations with Afghanistan.) This administration came to office with a conviction that the Afghanistan problem is a problem because it actually is a Pakistan problem, Pakistan being a large country possessing nuclear weapons and a great many Pashtuns, who are the people from whom Taliban are recruited.
Afghanistan is a country with one-sixth Pakistan’s population, with a great many Pashtuns, too, harboring only a 100 or so members of al-Qaeda (if we are to believe the American national security adviser, Gen. James Jones), whereas popular opinion in Washington is that Pakistan is rife with them, and the country is on its way to becoming a “breeding ground” for terrorists who wish to invade the West, blow it up with nuclear weapons obtained from Pakistani stocks, and establish a new global terrorist caliphate amidst the ruins.
The GHQ attack effectively derailed the parliamentary debate over Kerry-Lugar bill and gave a breathing space to the isolated pro-US government in Islamabad. It allowed Shah Mahmood Qureshi to do his Munich-style appeasement and sell out the Pakistani nation to Washington. Without the GHQ attack, the government could never have scuttled the expected Parliament resolution against the US aid conditions. The subsequent attacks on Pakistani military personnel were not the usual Taliban-style terrorism.
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan—There are certain questions that are beginning to come to one’s mind the more one sees targeted attacks against the military in Islamabad.
While soldiers and officials have been targeted by the “Taliban” – which has now become such an all-encompassing category that it defies explanation and allows so many elements to exploit the label for their own ends – primarily in the areas of the ongoing military operations, there is a new pattern that needs to be identified and discerned. Read the rest of this entry ?
After attacking Pakistan’s military and intelligence capabilities, US officials now turn to the nationalist Pakistani media. US ambassador Anne W. Patterson already has set a precedence by applying pressure on a Pakistani newspaper to silence a longtime critics of US policies. Now it’s Madam Clinton’s turn.
62 years ago on this day (October 27, 1947) India landed its army at Srinagar airport to occupy Kashmir. The disaster would have happened, but could have not continued, if the political foot soldiers, like the one mentioned below, had not been first cultivated by the Indian state. While narrating the events of 1947 in his autobiography ‘My Life and Times’(1992: Allied Publishers, New Delhi, India, p39)The late Syed Mir Qasim, once a puppet chief minister of Kashmir, and himself a front-ranking foot soldier, writes:
In 2005, Iraqi Police arrested and locked up TWO British operatives in Basra who were dressed in local Arab gear, shooting at innocent civilians in a busy market with automatic rifles and driving a vehicle laden with explosives, intended to go off in the middle of the busy market. British tanks tore into the prison and rescued both these men. In Pakistan, it seems all the Americans need to do is make a call to the Interior Ministry and have their terrorists released.
There have been several incidents during the last few months of foreigners carrying illegal arms in the federal capital. Some foreigners were found not only carrying illegal weapons, but also threatening, harassing and frightening the public in Islamabad. The law enforcement agencies have been particularly efficient in tightening security measures around the city as a response to citizen complaints.
In the most recent incident, four American nationals who were disguised as Afghans were caught with illegal arms on Tuesday at a posh sector of Islamabad inhabited mostly by senior Pakistani diplomats and politicians. The police personnel intercepted two suspicious vehicles and recovered illegal weapons from in posession of the Americans in both vehicles.
ISLAMABAD – FOUR American citizens were caught red-handed by Capital Police in the early hours of Tuesday for photographing sensitive buildings. All four were dressed in traditional Afghan outfits and were found to be in possession of illegal weapons and explosives
According to details, police personnel deployed here at Nawaz Chowk, sector F-8, intercepted two suspicious vehicles in the early hours of Tuesday. During the search, police recovered weapons from their custody. The riders of these vehicles were found to be American citizens. They were all dressed as Afghans.
The number plates on both vehicles (IDM 2030 & LG 501) were found to be fake. The police personnel called for backup when the Americans refused to allow them to search the car. High Ranking Capital Police officials reached the site within minutes and had the vehicles searched, recovering 2 M-16A1 rifles, 2 handguns and 2 hand-grenades.
The police held the American citizens in custody for an hour before the Interior Ministry interefered and had them released without charge even as preliminary investigation was being carried out.
Much hue and cry has been made out of the Aid US has given to Pakistan over the years. However, all this Aid amounts to pittance when we realize that US has given Pakistan over a period of 60 years only $8.9 billion dollars in economic assistance. This amount is less than even the remittances that Pakistanis would send this year which would amount to a little more than $9 billion dollars. The military aid that the US has given to Pakistan over the past 62 years amounts to $14.7 billion, which includes $5 billion dollars which were given to Pakistan during the Zia years to drive the Soviets back from Afghanistan thus signaling the end of the Cold War. In short, Pakistan won the war for the US for just $5 billion which speaks volumes about the efficiency and determination of Pakistan Armed Forces.
This $5 billion not only covered the cost of arming and training Afghan fighters and the supply of stinger missiles which were instrumental in bringing down Russian air power but also helicopters and other weapons and fuel needed to defeat the Soviets. It was a war in which many Pakistani fighter pilots also laid down their lives in an effort to drive the Russians away from Afghanistan.
A senior US diplomat in Afghanistan has become the first such person to resign in protest at the war against the Taliban, the Washington Post reported. State department employee Matthew Hoh, posted to Zabul province, said he quit because he had doubts about why the US was fighting, the paper reported. His resignation letter, written last month, prompted officials to offer him alternative jobs, but he declined.
President Barack Obama is considering future US strategy in Afghanistan. In quotes published in the Washington Post, Mr Hoh wrote to the US state department personnel section: “I have lost understanding of and confidence in the strategic purposes of the United States’ presence in Afghanistan. “I have doubts and reservations about our current strategy and planned future strategy, but my resignation is based not upon how we are pursuing this war, but why and to what end.”
Erdogan pledges unwavering support against terrorism
A delegation headed by Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan called on President Asif Ali Zardari at Aiwan-i-Sadr yesterday and discussed bilateral relations, their countries’ strategic partnership and ways to enhance economic activities. Briefing the media, Spokesperson former Senator Farhatullah Babar said the President while interacting with the Turkish Prime Minister remarked that Turkey and Pakistan today find themselves at crossroads of history.
While referring to the shared cultural heritage and mutual influences on literature and language, the President emphasized the need to enhance existing relations at all levels including trade, defence, energy, commerce and communication sectors.
(Turkish Prime Minister addresses the Parliament. Click here for details)
“I fear there will be a bloody revolution in India,” a retired Indian military officer remarked to this writer and other guests during a recent visit to New Delhi. It was shocking to hear the comment from a soldier, in a country that supposedly had given a voice to its huge population and was believed to be all-inclusive.
It is obvious that India’s much-praised democracy hasn’t brought any real change in the lives of millions of Indians. That some of the poorest men and women are now up in arms in parts of India is evidence enough that democratically elected governments must do more to provide rights and justice to the rural poor and ensure even-handed development in different parts of the country.
The Naxalite violence in India has caused pain to most thinking Indians. For them it is a matter of anguish that a growing number of Indians are disillusioned with their country’s democracy and see no hope of benefiting from India’s steady economic progress. They have picked up the gun to fight for their rights.
Dan Qayyum, Sumayya Chawla, and Talha Mujaddidi from PKKH combine to bring you a message of hope, of Pakistan’s relevance in times to come, and of holding our own and being resilient against the many threats we face.
Swat is now gradually returning to being land of peace, brimming an essence of happiness; as the serenity prevails, as the bliss reigns, once again. This wasn’t the case a few months ago. The terrorists in Swat, causing misery and pain to the locals, beheading innocent, abducting girls, beating old, did not know that the valiant sons of this soil will soon come for the rescue of populace held hostage. 
In 2005, Iraqi Police arrested and locked up TWO British operatives in Basra who were dressed in local Arab gear, shooting at innocent civilians in a busy market with automatic rifles and driving a vehicle laden with explosives, intended to go off in the middle of the busy market. British tanks tore into the prison and rescued both these men. In Pakistan, it seems all the Americans need to do is make a call to the Interior Ministry and have their terrorists released.
