The course a country is set on cannot be corrected without implementation of the rule of law. In our case the biggest impediment in its way is mega theft. And mega theft leads directly to undermining the security of the state. There is a very strong connection between the three.
Guarding state security has been the business of the army. The borders of Pakistan are constantly monitored and kept under surveillance in multiple ways. But there is no mechanism to keep constant watch on the subversion of the state by economic warfare, of which mega theft happens to be the chief enabling arm.
One wonders therefore if this lack of defense against the most favoured method of attack was a matter of deliberate policy. Given that this has been the case for a better part of 75 years, that makes for a lot of “deliberation” indeed.
Theoretically the assets/resources of all lesser states are potential targets for the powerful ones. And today economic war is the preferred method to subvert target states. The main allies of the predatory states in this endeavour are the elites of the target states themselves.
In the case of Pakistan, the reasons to bring the state to heel were more than the capture of the state resources alone. These were:
- For the U.S, to shear off and take control of Baluchistan.
- For the collective west generally, to retrieve Pakistan from the embrace of China.
- And for the world as a whole, to denuclify Pakistan.
Pakistan’s was a case therefore, where efforts to beef up national security should have been doubled and tripled. But this was not done. Instead, what was done however was to culturally accord to mega theft, total moral acceptance. And this was beefed up by what amounted to constitutional protection. Witness that all the mega thieves are well known with plenty of evidence against them, but none has been convicted, so much so that even an open and shut case like Hudaibya was bundled out by Qazi Faez Isa. On the other hand, forces whose job it was to guard national security, were held back by constitutional provisions. In short, this was a case of constitutional protection being afforded to those undermining the state, and in their case, the same constitution is invoked to obstruct action which furthers the cause of the implementation of the spirit of the law!
It is this which has brought Pakistan to the brink of economic collapse. It was Nawaz Sharif who set the ball rolling by buying wholesale into the neo liberal agenda. The army high command, though yet to be totally subverted, did chip in with a helping hand by affording protection to the mega thieves. And now when a small part of Bajwa’s assets have been made known, it may safely be assumed that at some point he had crossed over the line and joined the mega thieves.
Without this reorientation of loyalties, operation regime change would not have been possible. It was a sellout, plain and simple.
Will this lead to the usurpation of our nuclear assets and the undoing of the state is the question which should occupy our minds. Whether the subversion of the army high command had reached the critical depth required for “operation denuclify” to be put into action, we will soon know. Only if Gen Asim Munir turns out to be an entirely different animal from the one Nawaz Sharif assessed him to be, we may still have a chance of being salvaged.
So once more Pakistan is depending on Nawaz Sharif’s consistency in flawed judgement in his choice of army chiefs, to come to the relief of the country! And every lover of the Pakistan is hard at prayers that Nawaz Sharif’s assessment in the case of Gen Asim will turn out to be consistent with his previous record, and that once again he put his hand on the wrong man. Talk of small mercies!
P.S I did not think that Gen Asim’s being a Hafiz could turn out to be a gift for Pakistan. But if he were to decide to take guidance only from the Divine Word, [for which he does not even have to open the Book] and move without fear for the defense of his homeland, it just might just prove to be the blessing we’ve long prayed for.