It was important for the U.S to rehabilitate Benazir during Musharraf’s reign, because she was a better class of U.S poodle. Musharraf needed help from the U.S and so had to bend to its desires. But if he was going to rehabilitate Benazir, he would have to treat many others similarly. This is where the genesis of the NRO, the most ignoble and dishonest piece of legislation, was grounded. Musharraf, in order to keep himself in power, bartered away Pakistan’s interest and gave a new lease of life to some of its arch criminals.
The idea of the NRO was first made acceptable to some of our liberal “intellectuals”. After they lapped it up, they sold it to the people of Pakistan. Benazir Bhutto, whom every hypocrite insists on calling “Mohtrama” and a ” Shaheed” was every bit as crooked as her husband, and fully deserved him. This was a Bonny and Clyde team and operated as such. Haqqani was their point man and pimp. And now we have Bud Abbot and Lou Costello [Nivaz and Shibaz] both white washed by the NRO and running affairs of the country–a pair which is equally lethal for Pakistan as were the Bonny and Clyde duo. Patriotism, and a genuine commitment to Pakistan has become so unfashionable that “liberals” of our country feel positively uncomfortable with the appellation. Theft and BMWs are the current fashion.
The culture of unrestrained corruption does many things to a people. But the worst it does as its sway becomes unchallenged is that nothing remains sacred anymore. Society descends into being a whorehouse, where pimps and prostitutes survive best, and all that is noble and decent is at a discount.
Col Shuja Khanzada, the Punjab Home Minister was a committed patriot and did what he could for his country. For his efforts he was left dangling–done in by the “elite” who rule our destiny and sell off whatever part of this destiny they are capable of.
And yesterday he was assassinated.
A friend I trust emailed me after attending Shuja’s funeral. He informed me that the Colonel’s widow had confided to relatives just three days before his murder that he had expressed a foreboding about the designs of Rana Sanaullah.
Why I would number the Rana among the prime suspects of Shuja’s murder is because of the positions taken by the Rana and Shuja on the most explosive issue of the day. This was the case of the longest intermittent rape in history i.e. the rape of young kids in Kasur which had gone on unabated for nine long years. Rana Sanaullah was the one leading its cover-up. He is on record as having said that this never happened. Shuja was leading the effort to uncover the crime and bring the criminals to justice. On the very day Sanaullah denied that this horrendous crime had ever taken place, Shuja acknowledged not only that this monstrous crime had indeed taken place, and that the police had video evidence of this bestiality, but also that the intelligence agencies had had information about this for some time!
When two ministers of the same government have such totally contrary takes on the same issue, there has to be a rat somewhere.
It is now for the army to find this rat and squelch it.
The army must investigate and lay bare the extent of Punjab government’s nexus with, and sponsorship of, extremist groups in the province which includes criminal gangs.
It cannot afford to pussy-foot within the bounds of a purposefully skewed constitution any longer. It has firmly to decide if or not, it is fighting a war for Pakistan’s survival.
If it is fighting this war, and there is little doubt that it is, then it must act like an army deployed for war. In the loss of Col Shuja Khanzada the army has lost a prime ally to enemy forces. To determine the extent and depth of influence of these forces is something the army can ill-afford to neglect.
Such neglect will lead to the men in trenches refusing to be fully vested in the military’s efforts. Already the daily exodus of thieves and thugs from Pakistan, some of whom flee having been accorded full VIP protocol, must crush the spirit of those who carry out the orders of their generals by putting their lives on the line. Deep inside every soldier must by now know that the whole game being played out in Pakistan has some linkage to plunder; and that every woe of Pakistan–the wretched poverty; the hopelessness; the total injustice; the utter lack of governance etc, have their roots in the plunder of Pakistan by its elite. This is where the root cause lies, which eventually impels the deprived of society to take on society, even if it means blowing themselves up in the process. For them, in the very act of final nihilism lies their ultimate empowerment, and their actualization is the act of their ultimate act of revenge against society.
No army can fight unless those at its lowest rungs willfully translate the directives of their generals into action.
Intrinsically the soldier at the rock bottom, has more in common with those he is fighting against, than he has with the elite or with his general.
This soldier is the ultimate resource of the general. Without the soldier, the general is nothing. But the general is not the ultimate resource of the jawan.
The generals must therefore realize that they must not take the jawan for granted. This is going to be a long war. The soldier will fight it willingly only if he has a stake in it. The slogan of nationalism cannot work too long, especially not when the generals have made themselves an entirely different category by continually voting themselves ever new privileges. At the end of the stream of blood the jawan must see the dawning of an era of economic and legal justice for the class he belongs to.
This will not happen when every single day those most responsible for the wretchedness heaped on Pakistan escape with their plundered wealth to new pastures and “freedom”.
The army now seems to be losing its way. And with it, it will lose the esteem of those who have vested their last hopes in it.