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Fog Of Deception In Islamabad

Ahmed Quraishi - 8/26/2008

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan—The circumstances surrounding the impeachment of President Musharraf are downright suspicious. After a failed attempt to please Washington by destroying the ISI, the PPP government decides to seize the Presidency. Obviously, controlling two of the three centers of power in the country – presidency, premiership and the military – will ensure the government’s success in a future attempt and will send a clear signal to the nation’s security establishment that the plan to topple the Pakistani military, which entered its decisive phase last year, is complete.

Already Mr. Zardari, the de facto chief executive, has sent a veiled threat: His government will investigate where the Pakistani military spent the U.S. war money. The accusation is that it went to ISI. There couldn’t be a more accurate echo of American sentiments than this

If this were Iraq or Afghanistan, this would have been the perfect occupation government. That we have reached such a low point without even a war imposed on us is a sad statement on our affairs. No brownie points here for figuring out who is the ultimate beneficiary. Already Pakistan is in the throes of major destabilization. The unnecessary and untimely impeachment has already sparked a reaction from a wobbling economy: the Rupee fell to 74 to a U.S. dollar early this week.

It is stunning that Pakistanis can’t find saner voices in politics or the media anymore. The game couldn’t be clearer than this. The U.S. army chief Adm. Mike Mullen was told to his face in Rawalpindi last month that his army in Afghanistan is supporting terrorism and separatism inside Pakistan. Security officials in the NWFP government are reporting that a majority of weapons seized from terrorists are Indian origin. Secret photographs of the Kabul-based terrorist leader of the Balochistan insurgency visiting New Delhi are in the hands of Pakistani officials. This impeachment is an unaffordable distraction. Unless, of course, it is a deliberate fog of deception.



The disinformation campaign on President Musharraf itself raises many questions. No sooner the PPP announced the decision, U.S. and British media outlets wasted no time in churning out solemn editorials celebrating Musharraf’s removal. There are also fabricated stories about the Pakistani president placing distress calls to Mr. Bush. Why would the Americans want to support a President who they say deceived them and whose military establishment is treacherous in their eyes?

The latest creative American idea on subduing the ISI – apart from this impeachment – comes from Mr. Harlan Ullman, a Washington columnist with strong ties to U.S. military: “Pakistan should create integrated and joint operations centers at ISI or Army GHQ with U.S. military, State Department, law enforcement and intelligence officers in residence.”

Mr. Ullman, of course, didn’t conceive this idea while taking a shower, just as the leading pro-Bush magazine, the Weekly Standard, was not shooting from the hip when it wrote exactly ten months ago: “A large number of ISI agents … should be thrown in jail or killed. What I think we should do in Pakistan is a parallel version of what Iran has run against us in Iraq: giving money [and] empowering [anti-state] actors. Some of this will involve working with some shady characters.”

The grip of the Pakistani military over the security of the country and its ability to protect the homeland’s strategic interests in the region are being systematically targeted since 2005, when a strategic decision was made to end Pakistan’s ability to influence events beyond its borders, especially concerning Afghanistan and Indian-occupied Kashmir, and abort the nation’s nuclear and missile programs. Pakistani authorities have just begun to speak up, shyly. I wonder what they are waiting for. One day when the full details are out, it’ll be clear how Pakistan was subjected to one of the most concentrated campaigns of destabilization through covert action, an idea heavily borrowed from Cold War’s best experiments in Latin America. Mr. Negroponte should know.

President Musharraf can be questioned on many things, particularly the NRO. But making the impeachment of a lame-duck president the do-or-die moment for our nation when the homeland is under siege by our enemies is like playing flute while the Titanic sinks.

While saluting Pakistan on its 61st Independence Day, let’s remember what our Founding Father said in 1948:

“The weak and the defenseless in this world invite aggression from others. The best way we can serve peace is by removing the temptation from the path of those who think we are weak and, for that reason, they can bully or attack us. That temptation can only be removed if we make ourselves so strong that nobody dare entertain any aggressive designs against us.”