Lying To Ourselves

Bashir Bilour’s martyrdom, understandably, resulted in an outpour of sympathy and support. Unlike his brother, I have only heard good things about Bashir Bilour who was brave and steadfast in his stand against terrorism.

The attack on Bilour has reignited the debate on terrorism and its remedies, but with strong emotional overtones. That is a dangerous road to take.

Fahd Hussain and Feisal Naqvi are two people you can read and be assured that, mostly, they will talk sense. Emotion though often trumps reason, and this has been an emotional week. Yet what they betrayed in their moment of anger, of hopelessness, of pretty much sheer emotion, is that they, like many of our “intellectuals”, live in a bubble which doesn’t have much to do with reality.

I know this might not be the best time to burst this bubble, with grief and emotion still in the air, but I believe it is necessary if we are to overcome the menace of terrorism. I believe we owe Bashir Bilour some honesty.

Fahd and Feisal, the former more than the latter, lamented our inaction regarding the Taliban threat. One asked “what would it take for us to wake up?” and the other branded us cowards, over and over again, urging the Pakistani state to “take off its bangles and pick up the gun.”

This is the basic bubble, the belief that we haven’t fought back. Put simply, it is a myth of Mayan proportions.

By my reckoning, there are 4 distinct conflicts going on inside the country. The Balochistan crisis, the sectarian targeting of Shias (more massacre then conflict, I know), the political war in Karachi and the Taliban or TTP’s war with Pakistan.

Precious human lives, Pakistani lives, are lost in all of these, with none more equal than the other, right?

What has been our reaction to the first three conflicts?

Balochistan has been left on its own, with the FC tasked with both manning the borders and policing its vast interior, which largely means fighting off the Baloch nationalist/separatist elements. Meanwhile many have accused government figures of running the kidnapping for ransom rackets, apart from smuggling and other minor offences.

Shias have been pretty much mocked. No relief whatsoever and the press’ flirtations with them seem to have run the course now that their ISI funded champion of democracy, Nawaz Sharif, has formed an electoral alliance with ASWJ.

Karachi? MQM-ANP-PPP have been rewarded for the slaughter with five years in government and various plaudits by the intellectual community as harbingers of a secular and progressive Pakistan.

Let’s now review the “inaction” and “surrender” against the Taliban.

The military has been in the tribal areas since 2002. At present there are more Pakistani Army troops, roughly 140,000, in the “bad lands” than the total foreign troops occupying all of Afghanistan. Numerous operations have been conducted by the military in almost all of the tribal agencies and some adjoining areas, the most notable in Swat and South Waziristan, the former hub of TTP.

Not exactly turning the other cheek, is it?

They HAVE our attention. This is the ONLY battle we have chosen to fight, and we have been fighting, using the Army and the Pakistan Air Force, for years now. It is time to accept that, mostly because it’s the truth. It’s fact. People have died fighting, people have been killed and hundreds of thousands of IDPs are testament to it.

The second bubble is the numbers bubble. Feisal Naqvi quoted the 10,000 figure as the number of people killed by TTP in a previous article. Emotion however got the better of him this time and he resorted to a higher number, 20K civilians and 3K LEAs. Fahd Hussain went with the standard issue 40K number.

This is again false narration which lingers because we avoid specifics, and although it might appear to be a moot point, it is not.

The number of people killed by suicide bombings is 5 to 6 thousand. The official number of people, civilians and LEAs, killed by terrorists, including those in suicide bombings, was close to 10K at the start of 2011 and independent sources now put it anywhere from 15K-20K.

What we hear all the time though is the 40 thousand killed. Want to know why?

The combined death toll, killed by the army and by the terrorists, is where the 40 K comes from and depending on your source ranges from a low of 35K to a high of 44K by SATP.

I have failed to find the government’s tally on it, but by all independent accounts that I have come across, the military has killed more people, and possibly more civilians (12K from just 2008-2010 by one independent account), than the terrorists.

This is why anyone who actually knows this will never say “TTP killed 40K”. They will always say “Terrorism has killed 40K” Or “We have lost 40K to terrorism”.

That 40K has thousands and thousands of what are the "forgotten dead" of Pakistan. Numbering easily more than victims of suicide attacks in the last 10 years, these are the cursed civilians killed by their own military, lumped with the terrorists and disowned by the Pakistani press.

Why? Why has our “vibrant” media let the vile military off the hook when they have killed thousands and thousands of innocent civilians in collateral damage?

Because collateral damage occurs in military operations, silly!!

Because military operations is what every pure breed human rights campaigner and progressive intellectual wants. Because if military operations are the cause of deaths of thousands of civilians, then what the hell am I supposed to sell?

The 40K thus remains intact and opaque, quietly drowning the forgotten dead in it even as the number is used to build a narrative in support for what killed them in the first place; military operations.

The last bubble is the bubble of ideology.

For some as yet undiscovered reason, a lot of people believe that they are on the left. They relate with leftist figures abroad and make fun of FOX News.

In an amusing twist, Mr. Naqvi pointed to the Newtown massacre and how the NRA punctured any chances of gun law reforms in the US. The irony is somehow lost on him but what he’s saying, using Patton’s golden words, is pretty much what the NRA have said, i.e.

“The only way to stop a bad guy with a gun; is a good guy with a gun”.

Here’s the thing.

We HAVE been fighting this enemy, and we have been fighting it, militarily, for longer than any other enemy in the last two decades. We HAVE KILLED thousands and thousands of terrorists, but even more of our own, innocent, people. And we don’t talk about them because that tells us the real ugly truth; we are becoming what we fight.

Understand this; when we kill thousands in collateral and don’t even care, don’t even acknowledge, and when we talk about drawing blood and about digging up corpses, the
Taliban have already won!

We are all in this together. We all need the madness to stop. We all mean well and we might be angry and grieved at this hour, but lying to ourselves won’t solve anything.

The Elusive Last Straw

I am such an idiot. I thought we should get that out of the way early.

Remember September?

When the whole blasphemy video thing happened? When the PPP “capitulated” to the religious right?

I remember certain people, who hold sway in the media, people who claim to be on the left, being deeply scarred by all of it. I remember their anger and outrage, and I remember them finally running out of patience with their beloved party.

I remember it being “the last straw”. And I remember believing them.

See. Idiot.

Corruption, poverty and just plain slaughter that goes on in Karachi everyday is not of much concern for the intellectually gifted. It’s the pandering to the religious right, the targeting of minorities and the evil machinations of the military that fuel their fury.

Admirable. And perhaps why September seemed like a turning point; a last straw. It was and it wasn’t.

September was a last straw that came after many last straws, and many last straws have come after it. Many will come. What will change? Nada.

There might be some noise made when the circumstances don’t allow otherwise, like in September, but most last straws don’t even register. The camel quite obviously is on steroids and the last straw is but a myth.

Proof, you ask me?

Well, what do you know about the Sunni Ittehad Council? Forget that religious parties are inherently against the “we want a secular state” brigade, the SIC also openly supported Mumtaz Qadri. Mumtaz Qadri, in case you have trouble recalling, is the man who killed Salman Taseer. Salman Taseer, in case you have more trouble recalling, is the man certain people remember every day as the hero who fought darkness, the knight in shining armour and other stuff in that category.

Now, there’s been an alliance involving the SIC and a “liberal” party Salman Taseer called his own. Et tu, anyone? Well, no one, at least no one in the “independent” media and hence; no last straw.

Moving on we observe that the independent media doesn’t only exercise its independence by giving the PPP a free pass. Enter Pakistan Muslim League Nawaz, hail Nawaz Sharif, the lord and owner of Punjab. There’s a strange kind of love for his highness Nawaz Sharif in our “leftist” press, despite his very Zia-ish roots.

I first noted that last year and asked Mr. Nadeem F Paracha about this most peculiar phenomenon. A reply has not been forthcoming.

It so happens that the saviours of our Shia community never question PMLNs shady links with Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, past or present. And whilst PMLN might have entered into a declared alliance with ASWJ again, during the by-polls, chances are Sana Bucha will talk about the weather when Mr. Sharif graces her show.

Here too the last straw, needless to say, remains unattainable.

What about the military then?

Military = Evil. So, Military+PMLN+PPP = Outrage. This is just simple math, right?

Not quite.

All of you will be pleased to know that in light of Supreme Court’s Asghar Khan case judgement, which stated that military was indeed involved in rigging elections, PPP have done the honourable thing.

The party proudly announced that they will not be probing Punjab owner Nawaz Sharif for taking ISI money and the Asghar Khan case was, their words not mine; buried.

The military interference and the ISI money and the stealing of the people’s mandate; all forgiven. Surely this is the bloody last straw?

In your horny dreams.

So to recap, in the space of a half a week, the PPP and PMLN have combined to

1) Protect election rigging, the famed will of the people.
2) Give cover to military interference and protect culprits in this regard.
3) Form alliances with sectarian outfits blamed for much of the violence against Shias in the country.
4) Form alliances with religious outfits supporting the murder of a sitting governor over the blasphemy law.

And yet no last straw. Actually, no straw at all.

Since 3rd December, when SIC-PPP alliance came to light, till today, 9th, here’s how the honest and upright, the “dissenters”, have reacted:

Express Tribune, famous for their knack of spotting ASWJ flags, did not have an editorial on ASWJ-PMLN, nor did these teary-eyed Taseer fans give space to PPP-SIC. The newspaper also abstained from commenting on PPPs general amnesty for military interference.

Not a single one of Tribune’s “always excellent” op-ed writers was bothered by these trivial happenings. In fact the folks in this “newspaper”, God bless their unbiased heart, did not even report the SIC-PPP alliance.

Dawn News did not see it fit to write an editorial on ASWJ-PMLN, PPP-SIC or Amry-PPP-PMLN. They did not publish a single op-ed column on these developments as well.

Zero editorials or op-eds by The Nation. I could go on.

Beyond pathetic isn’t it. Depressing even.

All is not lost though, for these people will find their voices again once the PPP and PMLN are not in the picture.

Now when that happens, and it will happen, I would be thankful if everyone, respectfully, tells them to take their appreciation for Taseer, their concern for the Shias, their disdain for the deep state, alongside that elusive last straw, and shove it up their ass.

Obama, Israel & America's Problem

Change never came to America. Guantanamo was never closed, American support for dictators never waned, the Bush war crimes never made it to court and Obama added a few of his own. In fact, murder has been made legal by a man whose supporters oppose the death penalty.

On top of it America’s “unique (read shameless) defence partnership” with Israel continues at the cost of blown up children.

I think most American liberals realize this, even if they won’t admit it. The left in the US would have been appalled by all that Obama has done if it were John McCain doing it. So why haven’t they lashed out against Barack? The “our guy” mentality? Perhaps. But is there more to it?

Mitt Romney talked after defeat about Obama giving things to certain groups and, in a way, he was correct. Obamacare, birth control, gay marriage, immigration and taxing the rich, Obama has pushed, or at least talked about pushing, the right buttons for his support groups.

While the left counts it's victories, human rights and peace are the casualties and there’s no one left to talk about them. Where once an American liberal was criticizing the right for Bush bombing everything that moved, he would now say “See, our guy is bombing people too” pointing to Pakistan, Libya or Yemen.

Obama has thus single-handedly killed the “Let’s stop bombing people” argument from mainstream American discourse.

In the context of Israel’s latest killing spree, all of this looks particularly depressing, especially for people outside the USA. Obama had given hope not only to Americans, but also to many victims of US foreign policy. That got a boost recently with the frosty relationship between Obama and the Israeli Prime Minister. So to see Barack perfectly adapt to the role of Netanyahu’s bitch leaves us with one question.

What the hell happened?

Well, AIPAC is one answer. Money is the other.

The American Israeli Public Affairs Committee has been accused of spying for Israel in the past. Apart from that, AIPAC is the most prominent, and arguably most powerful, of the many PACs that lobby for Israel in Washington.

According to MapLight, Pro-Israel groups’ contribution to US Congressional campaigns in the last 2 years stood at $ 9.9 million. By contrast, Pro-Arab groups contributed a whopping $ 85,950 over the same period. These groups have considerable influence on US foreign policy, and use anti-Semitism propaganda against anyone who challenges the Israeli right wing narrative, stifling space for debate.

Still, they aren’t the root of the problem, or the decisive factor in formulation of American foreign policy. That crown goes to money.

How?

Obama wasn’t always the stout Israeli he is today. Before becoming a United States Senator he was actually very perceptive of the woes of Palestinian people. As you make your way up the American political ladder though you need some financing, and that is where the likes of AIPAC come in, along with banks, oil companies, defence contractors and other assorted do-gooders.

The American political system ensures that the financing bug catches you early, before you make an impact on the national stage. So the powers that be can mould any young aspiring politician in their own image before the general population catches a glimpse of him/her.

And it doesn’t end there. As a politician aspires for higher office, he needs bigger cheques and as the cheques get bigger, the conscience gets smaller. It simply doesn’t matter then who’s the guy running for office.

This is why despite stabbing America in the back, and then slitting her throat, the bankers were paid upwards of 7 trillion dollars by the US Government. Meanwhile, the much vaunted Dodd-Frank, a bill meant to regulate said bankers, never saw the light of day. Now these are people that hurt Americans, that have public opinion stacked against them enough to ignite the occupy wall-street protests. They got 7 trillion dollars.

That’s the power of money in the United States political system.

The foreign policy isn’t too different from the monetary policy in that it is also dictated by campaign contributors like AIPAC, oil companies and defence contractors. And while these are devastating for the rest of the world, they also harm the general American public.

The media machine can spin it as much as it wants, but when you support occupation and dictators, oppress the people and use holy warriors to fight the USSR, there is bound to be blowback. It is not because “they hate our freedom”.

Apart from global enmity towards Americans, which often has violent manifestations, there are other repercussions for them. Many freedoms that the American people fought hard to attain over decades have been forfeited as a consequence of their campaign contributor devised foreign policy.

Think the Patriot Act and what it has done to privacy in the United States, and of course President Obama now has the authority to murder any American he wants. Think the $ 1.3 trillion the US has spent on wars in Afghanistan and Iraq while American schools face budget cuts and teacher layoffs.

Not a pretty picture is it. There are people in the US who realize all of this and are trying to push back. So far though, it’s not working.

This is because as much as money in politics is a curse, it does not hold a candle to money in the media.

The run-up to the 2012 US Presidential election threw up two candidates that could have changed things.

Ron Paul has been an outspoken critic of America’s foreign and monetary policy for a very long time. His supporters thought this could be his year, but if you oppose the system, it strikes back.

The media machine, subservient to money, did a tremendous and sometimes brutal job of destroying Paul’s candidacy. Even with Paul polling 2nd or 3rd in Republican primaries, the anchors at CNN, MSNBC and especially FOX, simply refused to discuss him. When he was given airtime it was to criticize, mock or dismiss his campaign.

His stances were against most power wielders in America, i.e. campaign contributors. In the end, Paul announced he would stop active campaigning, shockingly, because of a lack of funds.

The other candidate to challenge the system went straight for the jugular; money. Buddy Roemer didn’t mince words. He rejected the “Washington is broken” line, insisting that it was corrupted. The corrupter of course was money, so Roemer designed his campaign in a way that would protect him from influence.

According to his website, Roemer accepted no PAC or Super PAC money. He did not accept contributions from any corporation and not from lobbyists. Contributions were accepted only from the general public, fully disclosed and topped off at $100.

He really was asking for it. The GOP and the media never invited him to any of the 23 republican debates and if it wasn’t for an appearance on the Colbert Report, many people wouldn’t have known he was running for President.

Roemer and Paul looked like serious men and, whatever the merits of their positions, actually talked about policy. The media however spent more time promoting a candidate who didn’t know what Libya was and one who wanted the Moon to become the 51st American state.

This didn’t happen only because journos are stupid assholes, it happened because the media is corrupt. Everything on it is monitored and controlled by the people who pay the bills, and there are marked lines you are not allowed to cross. When the lines are crossed, retribution is savage.

Dan Rather was a CBS anchor for 24 years and probably bought his own lies about freedom in America. One fateful day he did the story about George W. Bush going AWOL back when America was bringing democracy to Vietnam. He was shown the door.

Rick Sanchez is another one. He suggested, and later apologized for suggesting, that Jews controlled the American media. He was proved wrong by a prompt firing from CNN.

Therefore, it’s safe to say that the media doesn’t provide information, it filters information. In doing so it protects the interests of those with money. Hence you see top CNN whore Wolf Blitzer running for cover in Israel as actual journalists are targeted and killed in Gaza.

There is still dissent that gets through, but the system works overtime to plug the gaps. With Obama, the establishment has found the way to shut up the increasingly annoying folks at Hollywood, and the Bill Mahers and the Jon Stewarts. And when the left isn’t going to call you out because you have bought their man, you can do whatever you want.

The politicians are under control on both sides, be it republican or democrat, in both houses, Congress and the Senate. The media makes sure that doesn’t change, it makes sure the focus is not on real issues and it obfuscates repercussions of money-driven policy.

Thus the policies don’t change and the atrocities never stop. In the end, what the American people get to choose is only the colour of the man who will do war crimes in their name.

Black just means lesser dissent.

"I’ve been in this business a long time and believe me there is essentially no difference from one administration to another no matter what the platforms.... The foreign policy stays the same, the monetary policy stays the same." – Ron Paul, on Obama and Romney.

Numbers of Terror.

A while back I came across a claim regarding Pakistan’s human loss in the so called War on Terror; 43,733 Pakistanis have been killed by the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan. Nothing startling, the TTP have all the requisite appetite for mass murdering, not to mention the tools and the 40,000+ figure has been doing the rounds for a while. Yet this was not just anyone stating the figure, it was a retired army brigadier and current “security analyst”.

Here is the claim.





Since the man had some security credentials, and since he had the number down to the last digit, I thought he would be a good person from whom to inquire about the source of the figure and break down of the casualties.

Mr. Munir however instructed me to use Google and find out myself. I did what I was told, and I would like to share what I found.

Google showed that the 40,000 plus innocent Pakistanis killed by terrorists figure is used basically by the who’s who of Pakistani journalists, which meant it couldn't be true. Predictably enough, I wasn't able to find any article quoting the source. The first source I found with any detail of the data was a blog by the name of FATA Awareness Initiative.

The FATA Awareness Initiative blog has data till the mid of 2011 and claims that terrorist attacks across the country have left 10,268 civilians and 3,549 security personnel dead since 2003. Total therefore comes up to near 14,000. The method for data collection isn’t clear.

The South Asia Terrorism Portal was seemingly more credible. At the time of quoting they had data till October 14, 2012.

The SATP believe that since 2003 14,510 civilians and 4,687 security personnel have been killed in Pakistan by terrorists. This would add up for a total of around 20,000.

The SATP website claims that figures are compiled from news reports and are provisional. The website also states that for the years of 2011 and 2012, these figures include killings in Karachi.

Note that in both cases, the FATA blog and the South Asian Terrorism Portal, very high numbers of terrorist fatalities are reported. SATP reports as many as 24,930 terrorist/insurgents killed by the Pakistani security forces.

It is not clear if this number includes civilians killed by the security forces. A report titled “War Related Death and Injury in Pakistan” by Neta C. Crawford, Boston University, available on the internet could suggest so.

According to the report, in the three years of 2008, 2009 and 2010 around 12,000 Pakistani civilians died at the hands of their own military. The number of dead terrorists in the SATP data also spiked against these three years.

The report cites two sources, the Pakistan Institute of Peace Studies and the US National Counter-terrorism Centre, to suggest that during the same 3 years somewhere in the range of 7,000 to 8,000 Pakistani civilians were killed by terrorists.

In short, more Pakistani civilians died at the hands of Pakistani military during the operations than by terrorist attacks, for the 3 years.

The data thus far, however well researched, is still not official and mostly based on media reports, therefore the deviations. It wasn't until I came across a report by the Islamabad Policy Research Institute for any official data to come to light. In the IPRI’s report titled “Pakistan: A Victim of Terrorism - III”, the Government of Pakistan, Interior Ministry data is presented.

According to the Interior Ministry of Pakistan statistics quoted in the IPRI report, up till January 2011, 7770 civilians and 2704 personnel of Law Enforcing Agencies had been killed by terrorists, or the TTP.

This amounts to a total of 10474 Pakistanis killed by the terrorists, till January 2011. Either they have killed over 30,000 more in the last year and a half, or some people in the media have their facts horribly wrong.

Speaking of horribly wrong facts, there are some to be found about the terrorism in Karachi, aka target killings. A conservative estimate presented in the Friday Times by A.K Chisti suggests that in the year 2011 approximately 1,891 people were killed by in the city, bringing total death toll to around 7,000 from 2007-2011.

I call it conservative because according to Human Rights Commission of Pakistan 1,138 people were killed in Karachi just in the first 6 months of 2011. The figure for the first 6 months of 2012, according to HRCP, is 1,257 dead.

That means over 8 thousand people have been killed by Karachi terrorist groups. The Pakistan Body Count website tracks suicide bombings and drone attacks in the country. PBC puts the death toll from suicide bombings at 5,246 and from drone attacks at 3,028.

What that means is that the Karachi terrorists have killed roughly the same number of people as killed by suicide bombings and drone attacks, combined.

The most significant figure in all of this though is 0.

0 is the number of times drone strikes have been suggested as a way to tackle the deadly terrorists in Karachi.

0 is the number of military operations conducted during the last 5 years to flush out the terrorists from Karachi.

0 is the number of media houses, or personalities, willing to even name the Karachi terrorists.

Chances of Pakistan winning its fight against terrorism with such blatant hypocrisy crippling the discourse?

Zero.