- (July 2006)
While everybody is looking at North Korea.
North Korea has never sold weapons of mass destruction to anyone, nor has it
sponsored a revolution in a nearby country. Pakistan, on the other hand, did
both. Its chief scientist (and national hero) Khan sold nuclear secrets to
everybody who was willing to pay for them. The ISI (Pakistan's secret services)
supported the Taliban and Al Qaeda. North Korea does not hide terrorists.
Pakistan, instead, is the most likely hiding place of Osama bin Laden, Mullah
Omar and all the others most wanted by the USA.
North Korea is not destabilizing any democracy (just itself). Pakistan's ISI
continues to meddle into Afghanistan's internal affairs and is most likely
responsible for the recent resurgence of terrorism in Afghanistan.
North Korea does not sponsor any terrorist group bent on attacking its neighbors.
Again, Pakistan's ISI supports terrorist groups based in Kashmir that have
caused in India the largest number of civilian casualties registered by any
known terrorist group.
Pakistan is also the Islamic country that has carried out the most scientific
religious cleansing in the world: whereas there are still Christians and Jews
in most Arab countries (albeit rapidly dwindling), Pakistan has virtually erased
the Hindu and Buddhist minorities that constituted almost 25% of the
population in 1949. Pakistan has also helped the Taliban turn Afghanistan into
a purely Islamic country, wiping out the Buddhist and Christian minorities.
Unlike North Korea, that bans religion and therefore has no religious fanatics,
Pakistan has the largest number of madrassas (Islamic schools) in the world:
a staggering 40,000. In many of them pupils are required to memorize the
sentences of the Quran that mandate the holy war against the infidels and the
sentences that promise paradise to martyrs (better known as "suicide bombers").
And public universities are not any better: they are mostly controlled by the
Islamist parties.
Unlike North Korea, that is geographically and ideologically isolated, Pakistan
sits right in the middle of Asia, connecting the Indian and Chinese subcontinents
to the Middle East, and is home to the second largest population of Muslims,
that are identified as brothers by all other Muslims from Morocco to Indonesia.
Last but not least, North Korea has boasted of having nuclear weapons but never
actually tested one. Pakistan has tested one.
There is no question that North Korea represents a danger for the Far East
(and, eventually, for the USA's West Coast), but obviously there is one country
that is potentially more dangerous for the world at large.
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- (February 2006)
The source of the problem
For decades India has accused Pakistan of sheltering, training and funding
the Islamic terrorists that have repeatedly hit India, targeting both the
military and civilians. (Note that no major
terrorist attack has ever been carried out by Indian extremists against
Pakistani civilians).
The Musharraf regime has ceretainly curbed Pakistan's support for terrorist
groups, but India still accuses Pakistan of tolerating training camps and
funding sources for terrorist groups that have not even thought of disarming.
The actions of those terrorist groups are the very reason that India refuses
to solve the Kashmiri issue with Pakistan: nobody likes to negotiate under
threat. Musharraf has done something, but has shown no real commitment to
uproot the insurgents and restore order in Pakistan-controlled Kashmir.
Pakistan was also the main culprit in the saga of the Taliban. They were formed
in Pakistan, they were trained and funded in Pakistan, and, after being
massacred by the USA, they took shelter in Pakistan, which they still use as
a base for their (increasingly deadly) operaitons. Again, Musharraf has
occasionally cooperated with the USA in cornering the Taliban, but mostly
he has contented himself with "saying" that he cooperates. Again, the fact
that Pakistan tolerates the action of these insurgents makes it difficult for
Afghanistan to close the chapter of its civil war.
Osama bin Laden is almost certainly hiding in Pakistan. Again, Pakistan has
showed some willingness in arresting members of Al Qaeda who are stupid
enough to hide in the main cities, but has rarely challenged their domination
in the provinces at the border with Afghanistan, preferring the same philosophy
of "live and let live".
Finally, Pakistan's most famous man is
Abdul Qadeer Khan, the scientist who developed Pakistan's nuclear program and
gladly sold nuclear technology to Iran and North Korea, thus creating the
two most pressing problems for the USA.
(See Khan: the first nuclear terrorist).
Somehow Pakistani leaders have always managed to appease the USA. The USA
tolerated Pakistan's support for Kashmiri terrorists. The USA tolerated
Pakistan's support for the Taliban regime. The USA tolerated Pakistan's
development of a nuclear bomb. All of this was done in the name of winning the
Cold War, since Pakistan remained (throughout its turbulent history) a trusted
ally of the USA, particularly when India was a friend of the Soviet Union.
Musharraf continues a tradition of cunning diplomacy, delivering very little
to the USA but receiving in return the right to continue doing very little.
Again, Musharraf is exploiting the geopolitical situation of Pakistan:
Pakistan is now essential to the new USA strategy in the region (e.g., for
surrounding Iran) the same way that it was essential to the USA strategy
during the Cold War (when it was a thorn in the side of the Soviet Union).
But the status quo will eventually expose Pakistan's responsibility.
There are two major crises (in Kashmir and Afghanistan) that cannot
reach closure because of Pakistan's only half-hearted cooperation.
And there are countless countries that claim a right to become nuclear
powers based on the fact that Pakistan did it (if Pakistan, why not Iran
or North Korea or, for that matter, Venezuela?)
The longer it takes for Pakistan to clean up its borders, the clearer it
will become that Pakistan has been and still is a major source of problems.
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- (November 2005)
The roots of Islamic terrorism.
From the BBC News website: "Police in the Pakistani province of Punjab have arrested 90 people after protests against an alleged desecration of the Koran.
Police officials say the unrest began after rumours spread that a Christian man had set fire to a library containing copies of the Koran.
The crowd set fire to two churches, two school buildings and some houses."
(Previously, Muslims of Egypt had attacked a Coptic church and killed three people
because they thought a play staged at the church was offensive to Islam).
The usual pattern repeats itself. Whenever Muslims have grievances, even the
most stupid ones, they decide that their grievances are of the utmost importance
and immediately resort to violence.
The fact that they don't even wait for an investigation is telling: the purpose
is to be violent (against infidels) not to right a wrong.
The fact that they use violence (not discussion or the courts) is also telling:
Islam is about killing, not about peaceful coexistence.
One wonders what will happen now. Will those churches and schools be rebuilt?
Will the criminals who committed this act be treated... like criminals?
Or will the Christians simply moved to another country?
There is a reason if very few non-Muslims live in countries with a strong
Muslim population. Who wants to share a country with them?
Last but not least, let us hope that Pakistan and all Islamic countries
recognize the right of people to burn the Quran, just like people are free
to burn any other book and even national flags.
The only thing that is special about the Quran is that a lot of people get
killed worldwide based on its teachings. Other than that, it is just a book.
Hopefully the free world will enforce the right of anyone to burn any book
they choose to burn, whether scientific, literary or religious.
I have better things to do with my life than burn books, even religious ones
that caused so many tragedies to the world, but I hope that someone in Pakistan
is defending my right to burn any of them.
Certainly this kind of events shed a lot of light on the roots of Islamic
terrorism. If a bunch of "good" Pakistani citizens wreak so much havoc because
someone burned (or is suspected to have burned) a book, it is not difficult to
imagine how some Muslims decide to blow up dozens of people in the name of
whatever religious or political idea they want to defend.
The roots of Islamic terrorism lie with "moderate" Muslims, not with a bunch
of extremists. In a sense, "moderate" Islam is an oxymoron.
When will the Islamic world wake up?
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- (March 2005)
Khan: the first nuclear terrorist
Abdul Qadeer Khan, the scientist who developed Pakistan's nuclear program,
has admitted selling nuclear secrets to just about everybody: Libya, North
Korea, Iran. Any country that was willing to pay was likely to obtain the
secrets to build nuclear weapons. No, it was not done in the name of Islam:
North Korea's regime is ferociously atheist and has persecuted all religions.
And colonel Qadafi can hardly be called a good Muslim. Khan did not quite tell
all the truth when he confessed publicly on television (february 2004) because
the USA has then unveiled much more than he wanted to admit. His office was
basically a nuclear bazaar, and he personally traveled around the world to
offer his merchandise. The money that he made did not go into state coffers
but into his own bank account. As far as crooks go, this Khan ranks as one of
the most cynical in the entire history of humankind.
Basically, Khan alone created more nuclear powers than the USA or the Soviet
Union. Worse: he did not care that each of his customers were regimes that
had routinely massacred their own people, thus proving how little scruples
they would have in using nuclear bombs.
Khan may go down in history as the vanguard of the ultimate evil, the terrorists
who will eventually destroy the human race.
Shame on the Pakistani people who consider this man a hero: how low have the
Pakistanis fallen to treat like a hero the first nuclear terrorist, a man who
was willing to kill millions in order to gain a nice personal profit?
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- (February 2004)
Crocodile and nuclear tears in Pakistan.
Pakistan's top nuclear scientist, Abdul Qadeer Khan, has publicly confessed
that he helped Iran, Libya and North Korea acquire nuclear technology.
Pakistan was the USA's closest ally in the region, as
India was friendly to the Soviet Union and Iran had become an Islamic
republic in 1978. Pakistan helped the USA stage the Islamic insurrection
that defeated the Soviet Union in Afghanistan. Pakistan was a strategic
wedge in a region that was mostly anti-American. Now we know what price
the USA paid: Pakistan was not only allowed to develop its own nuclear
bomb, but was also allowed to leak nuclear secrets to fierce USA enemies
such as Iran, Libya and North Korea. This is either another case of the
CIA's pathetic failure to protect USA interests around the world or a case
of the USA planting th4 seeds for its own future troubles.
There is another lesson to learn, here. If Libya had not surrendered its
nuclear program, we would not have learned of Pakistan's illegal nuclear
activity. If Saddam Hussein had not been deposed by the USA, Libya would
not have surrendered its nuclear program.
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- (October 2002)
Pakistan and Kashmir towards democracy.
Pakistan held the first parliamentary election since 1999, when Musharraf
removed a corrupt parliament and assumed dictatorial power.
Kashmir (currently still part of India) also had parliamentary elections at
state level.
The best news is that both elections were absolutely free and marred by very
little intimidation.
In Kashmir the National Conference (the party of Kashmir's traditional dynasty),
which supports union with India, has
lost half its 1996 seats in the state's parliament. This is hardly a surprise
given India's extremist attitude on Kashmir, not to mention 60,000 deaths since
the partition of India and Pakistan. The United Nations mandated a
referendum for the region more than 50 years ago, and the current prime
minister has vowed never to allow one. Well, the people think otherwise.
The winners of this election (the National Congress and the People's Democratic
Party) are both in favor of negotiations with the separatists. It took half
a century to talk sense into the minds of Indian politicians.
In Pakistan, given the expectations, Musharraf's party has disappointed,
and the moral winners are the two main opposition parties, the
People's Party (PPP) of Benazir Bhutto (currently abroad to avoid arrest on
charges of corruption) and the Muslim League (PML-N) of Nawaz Sharif
(currently abroad to avoid arrest on charges of corruption).
Musharraf's party won more votes than anyone else alone, but certainly not
enough to rule alone.
Needless to say, this vote is a rebuke to Musharraf, and most likely has to do
with Pakistan's desperate economy rather than with the war in Afghanistan
(of course, the fact that Musharraf bent to all American requests and did not
get anything in return does not help improve his image).
It is, of course, sad that so many Pakistanis are still willing to vote
with such extremely corrupt politicians as Bhutto and Sharif.
However, Musharraf is not the only loser.
All the extremist parties (ANP, MQM-Altaf, Jaey Sindh, Baluch)
are facing a crushing defeat.
In fact, even the Islamic party, the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA),
whose percentage has increased making it the third largest party,
is winning votes mainly in the traditional sanctuary of the Taliban
(western border regions), and that is probably a protest vote against
Musharraf's support of the USA (more evidence that the Taliban were a
Pakistani invasion force).
The vote is very fragmented, each party winning in a region and losing in
others. It may be time for Pakistan to reassess its identity (Pakistan is
a British invention, and collates together ethnic groups that have quite
different traditions).
See the Indian subcontinent timeline
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- (May 2002)
Osama's next target: Musharraf?
While American and British troops have been obsessed with searching the
northeastern mountains of Afghanistan bordering on Pakistani tribal areas,
and accusing Iran of pourous borders, Pakistani intelligence has consistently
been pointing to its own cities as the natural hideout for Al Qaeda leaders.
The USA seems to believe that Al Qaeda finds support among the tribes that
support the Taliban.
The Americans seem to believe that Taliban and Al Qaeda leaders have regrouped
along the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan, even though very few of
them have been found.
Pakistani intelligence thinks otherwise: Arabs are not popular in that region.
Almost all the Al Qaeda operatives arrested by Pakistan were turned in by
tribal members. Besides, there is no evidence that Al Qaeda was
running any operation from that region, while there is evidence that Al Qaeda
had bought and rented buildings in major Pakistani cities.
Terrorist attacks in major Pakistani cities have become more frequent and better
planned than in the past, a fact that is hard not to notice.
Al Qaeda may be taking advantage of India's aggressive stance. Right now,
India's prime minister is Osama's best friend.
As India forces Pakistan to protect its borders, Al Qaeda can take advantage
of reduced security inside Pakistan to penetrate into its main cities.
India's aggression is creating
a vacuum inside Pakistan that Al Qaeda may well be exploiting.
The biggest risk for America right now is not that Osama bin Laden hides in
a remote village or in a cave, but that he is directing terrorists in the
Pakistani capital and preparing the assassination of Pervez Musharraf, a man
whom Osama must obviously hate from the bottom of his heart.
See the Indian subcontinent timeline
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- (December 2001)
Pakistan's support for terrorism is an interesting story.
Pakistan has a history of being run by the most corrupt governments in Asia
and/or crazy dictators, whether Benazir Bhutto or Nawaz Sharif or the various
military establishments that deposed them.
Pervez Musharraf is a general who seized power in 1999 with broad approval
from a population totally disgusted by politicians.
Musharraf has been making progress in several areas, but has to cope with
a legacy that is basically a national catastrophe.
The source of its problems are two: the Arab countries and the USA.
The Arab countries sponsored Islamic groups fighting India in Kashmir and
the Soviet Union in Afghanistan.
The USA co-sponsored the groups fighting the Soviet Union.
The remnants of those wars are there to haunt the whole world:
Osama Bin Laden
(empowered by the USA and Saudi Arabia), the
Taliban (installed by Pakistan
and funded by the Arabs) and the terrorist organizations in Kashmir.
Musharraf has three key problems to solve that affect the entire world:
the ISI, the Kahmir militants and the nuclear secrets.
They all originate from the quarrel with India over Kashmir that began in 1948,
yet another proof that the USA cannot ignore distant regional crises: they
eventually come back to haunt you.
1. They key agency behind all these operations has been the
Inner Services Intelligence (ISI) that was trained and beefed up with help
from the CIA.
The ISI has become a dangerous mix of ambitious nationalists and religious
extremelists.
The ISI sponsored both the mujaheddin who fought against the Soviet Union and
the Taliban that fought against the mujaheddin.
The ISI has become so influential that the government of Pakistan had to
recognize the Taliban (one of the few countries to do so) and defend them
when world-wide criticism started mounting in 1999.
The ISI used Afghanistan as a training camp for the terrorists that it was using
against India in Kashmir.
2. Kashmir has always been a thorny problem for every Pakistani government since
India refused to let Kashmir freely choose its future. Pakistan fought war
after war with India over Kashmir and it is hard not to sympathize, since India
always refused to allow a referendum in Kashmir.
Unfortunately, Indian stupidity has basically helped create anti-Indian
extremism within Pakistan.
Today, there are at least three major Muslim groups fighting for the
liberation of Kashmir: the Lashkar-e-Toiba, the Harkat-ul-Mujahedeen and the
Hizbul Mujahedeen.
All of them have been trained in Pakistan and Afghanistan, by either the ISI
or Osama Bin Laden's Al Qaeda.
The Lashkar-e-Toiba is the militant wing of a religious organization,
Markaz Dawa-ul-Arshad, that was founded in 1987 with Arab money and based
in a Pakistani town (it runs schools, factories, mines), whose objective is not
only the liberation of Kashmir bus also "jihad".
The Lashkar-e-Toiba has enrolled large numbers of volunteers from Arab
countries and from Pakistan, just like Al Qaeda.
In August the Lashkar-e-Toiba unleashed a terrorist campaign against India
that killed nearly 100 hindus and recently attacked the Indian parliament.
In october 1999 Osama bin Laden had called for a jihad against India and this
acts seem to be the logical consequence of that call.
It almost sounds like, defeated in Afghanistan by the USA, Muslim terrorists
are now shifting their attention to India.
3. Another effect of India's stupidity has been the development of Pakistan's
nuclear arsenal. As India pursued its nuclear ambitions, Pakistan had to follow
suit. China helped Pakistan build its own nuclear facility.
Pakistan tested its first nuclear bomb in may 1998, the first Muslim country
to do so, a reason for national pride.
Sultan Bashiruddin Mahmood used to be the director of the
Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission (PAEC) and the
chief designer of the country's main nuclear reactor.
In 1999 opposition to the treaty banning nuclear tests became a holy cause
for Muslims worldwide and particularly in Pakistan.
Mahmood was active in promoting that cause in the newspaper Nawa-e-Waqt
(the same newspaper that opposes collaboration with the USA and claims
the World Trade Center was blown up by Israel).
In 1999 Pakistan decided to sign the treaty and stop nuclear tests.
Mahmood immediately quit and founded an Afghan relief agency, the
Ummah Tameer-e-Nau (Muslim Community Reconstruction),
with strong ties to the Taliban government and to the charity organization
Al Rashid Trust, that in turn has ties to Al Qaeda (Osama Bin Laden).
Almost all the contributors to Mahmood's charity are wealthy Arabs.
Now the USA suspects that Mahmood has provided nuclear information to Osama Bin Laden.
Apparently, a search of UTN's offices in Afghanistan yielded terrorist plans and
documents about building nuclear weapons.
These are difficult problems for Musharraf to solve. They are compounded by
internal problems that are not less titanic: 55% of Pakistani adults are
illiterate (Arab "friends" spend millions to indoctrinate youths to fight
in the name of Islam but nobody spends a penny to teach how to read and write
to millions of children), drug addiction has become a widespread problem in
the areas bordering Afghanistan and Kashmir, child mortality is one of the
highest in the world, and most of the rural population is always on the verge
of famine and at the mercy of all sorts of diseases.
These are all factors that, in most countries, would trigger a revolution and
favor the radical parties. Luckily, the Pakistani people have shown a level of
wisdom that is rarely found around the world:
the good news is that the religious extremists in Pakistan never fetch more than
a handful of votes. This seems to be yet another example of Arab interference.
Pakistan would probably be a much more quiet and responsible country without
all the money that Arabs lavish on the religious institutions for the purpose
of sponsoring Islamic terrorism.
Musharraf is the first Pakistani leader who seems serious about fixing all
these problems, problems that were largely caused by the interference of other
countries.
Musharraf has already removed a few ISI officials and has begun to cut off
support for Kashmiri terrorists. Unfortunately, India is currently run by an
idiotic nationalist who is
making Musharraf's job a lot harder than it should be.
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- (March 2000)
Clinton mistakes Pakistan for India.
America often does this: support the wrong one and thereby create a bigger
problem than the one it was trying to solve. During his visit to the Indian
subcontinent, Bill Clinton was obviously trying to appease India and distance
America from Pakistan. After all, Vajpayee is the freely elected
leader of the world's largest democracy, whereas Musharraf is a military
dictator. After all, America's business interests lie in India, certainly not
in Pakistan. After all, India is strategically far more important than Pakistan.
In doing so, Clinton is forgetting that principle does matter, and eventually
principle does come back to haunt America's foreign policy: India is the one
that annexed Kashmir against the will of the population, India is the one
that has refused to allow any referendum in Kashmir, India is the one that
has been repeatedly accused of all sorts of human rights abuses in Kashmir.
Nobody even in India doubts that the Kashmiris truly despire India and want
to secede. It is just that Indian politicians have assumed Kashmiris' opinion
does not count. America will pay a dear price if it fails to realize that
Kashmir is entitled to self-determination just like Bosnia, that Kashmir
is entitled to protection against an arrogant imperialistic power just like
Taiwan against China.
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- (October 1999)
Pakistani army takes over fight against corruption.
Pervez Musharraf, the general who seized power in Pakistan and promised to
clean up the country from corruption, is right in just about everything he said.
The president he deposed, Nawaz Sharif, is a multimillionaire who in 1993 paid
$60 in taxes and has subsequently found guilty of tax evasion and convicted to
pay $50 million, which he has never done, and in 1997 jailed the investigator
who had published a report about his wrongdoings. The international community
was at least embarassed to have to deal with such a corrupted individual,
whom regrettably the Pakistanis elected democratically.
Sharif's own fight against corruption focused on his predecessor and permanent
nemesis, Benazir Bhutto. While it is not hard to believe that Bhutto also was
guilty of corruption, it is likely that Sharif's investigation was politically
motivated and was mainly interested in keeping Bhutto in exile.
Sharif is a despicable man, who has stolen billions of dollars from the treasury
of a poor country. The clashes in Kashmir were useful to deter attention from
his crimes against the nation, but the limit had already been reached.
The new ruler does not seem to have personal ambitions and does not have the
charismatic aura that would make him eligible for dictator. Hopefully, we
will do some long due clean-up and restore a minimum of rule of law.
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