Posts Tagged ISI

Pakistan’s foreign policy: Escaping India?

17 October 2011
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By Raza Rumi:

As Pakistan negotiates with a critical moment of its 64-year-old existence, there is nothing more urgent than to review its foreign policy goals and the assumptions that define them. It is an open secret that the unelected institutions of Pakistan for decades have designed controlled and implemented its foreign policy, often at variance with Pakistan’s own pragmatic self-interest. Such have been the contours of Pakistan’s foreign policy perspective, that the institutional interests of its all-powerful military and the allied intelligence complex dominate the definition and outcome of an imagined “national-interest”. Considering how Pakistan finds itself locked in a battle of nerves with the United States since the strike on Osama bin Laden’s compound in the garrison town of Abottabad, on May 2, 2011, there is perhaps no better time for its elites to review and redefine what passes for foreign policy. (more…)

My Wikileaks story was re-published

30 July 2010
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The Australian picked up my story from Express-Tribune and republished it with minor edits.

It was good to see this link

Wikileaks and our fantasies

29 July 2010
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My new oped for Express-Tribune

The Wikileaks’ damning half-truths pertain to the anti-war movement within the US. This has caused embarrassment to the US war architects and stirred the military industrial complex and its cousin, the corporate and embedded media. Similarly, what has been said about the role of Pakistan and its globally famed Inter Services Agency (ISI) is not something that is really a revelation and is more or less an open secret. Three important questions need to be considered before Wikileaks can be taken seriously.

Do field reports from individual sources, especially disgruntled, anti-Pakistan Afghan nationals constitute ‘evidence’? No. Is there sufficient evidence to substantiate the startling sensational pieces of information? Perhaps not. Is the Pakistan-ISI role central in the Taliban insurgency within Afghanistan? No clear answers can be determined due to the complexity of the Taliban resistance and the involvement of multiple players. (more…)

Institutions, accountability and the UN Report

12 June 2010
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The UN Report is a historic document for it brings forth a set of findings and actions that should become the cornerstone for democratic mobilisation in Pakistani politics

The UN fact finding report on Benazir Bhutto’s murder is a scathing indictment of the Pakistani state and its dysfunctional institutions. However, sections of the media have seized it as a glorious opportunity to target the PPP itself by squarely apportioning the blame on Rahman Malik and Babar Awan – the two characters who are now punching-bags of the right wing. Not that Malik or Awan are spotless revolutionaries, but they are no different from the other political actors. After all, Pakistani politics is a nefarious web of patronage, sycophancy and shady deals, often involving the state and its agencies. The reason for targetting these two individuals is simple: they are close associates of President Zardari who, according to the Punjabi urban legends, is the alleged killer of Mohatarma.

Now that the UN report has exonerated Zardari of the crime, a few TV anchors and several writers in the vernacular press are hell-bent on proving that the real reason for Bhutto’s murder was the whisking away of a backup vehicle. Such a narrative ignores the gritty and ugly realities of our polity. The reason is quite clear: public discourse must be shaped in a manner that minimizes the embedded, historical role of the praetorian state, intolerant and suspicious as it is of alternative sources of power. In this case, it would be the popular legitimacy which Benazir Bhutto enjoys even in the grave.

The ‘establishment’

The UN report has attempted at a loose definition of what constitutes the Pakistani establishment, and places its intelligence agencies at the core of such a power-centre. In recent days, this has been derided by the usual suspects. First, the Urdu columnists whose careers have been shaped and enriched by invisible hands. Second, the TV anchors whose shows have lost all credibility. And lastly, the audience they cater to: the conservative mindset which cannot forgive the Bhuttos for being pro-poor, Sindhi and secular. (more…)