Pygmies in Punjab

Is the dogfight between Governor Salmaan Taseer and Rana Sanaullah for real? I don't think so. It's just to take cheap shots at each other. If Taseer was that serious about the Sharifs' flirtation with the Punjabi Taliban he would have flown his Cessna straight to Chaklala and driven the hill to the don who sits in splendid isolation plotting how to save his Swiss millions. Mr Congeniality, the Italian-styled prime minister (how many suits does he own?) still can't get over Zardari gifting him the prime ministership.

Taseer should stop begging Chief Minister Shahbaz for a bullet-proof Merc; he should be raising hellfire strafing the terrorists stalking his province and killing people. If he can't do it or as Sanaullah crassly compares his worth to a tissue paper, than Taseer has no business to be occupying the Governor's House in Lahore.

What is shocking is to see Sanaullah – why must our provincial and federal law ministers forever look like underground gangsters out of Godfather? -- appear in talk shows the day after innocent Ahmedis get butchered in their two places of prayers. The brothers Sharif couldn't have chosen worse spokesmen than the real estate developer Rana and Siddiqul Farooque. All that you see of the latter on the TV screens is ink-black crop of hair on his head and a mask of hair, same dye, on lower half of his face with black surma (kohl) in his eyes. He outshouts the other participants including the anchor. Quite a yeller, he is.

While these midgets in the government, opposition and coalition slug it out every night on TV, America readies for a "unilateral strike" on Pakistan. The Washington Post reports the CIA has the "authority to designate and strike targets in Pakistan without case-by-case approval from the White House," on grounds of "solid intelligence" of the presence of 'high value' targets inside Pakistan. For example, if tomorrow the American spy machinery discovered Al Qaeda hoods come over for a cup of tea, Multani halwa and chat with the Punjabi Taliban, bang! South Punjab will get hit.

The drones are ready.

"The US options for potential retaliatory action rely mainly on air and missile strikes, but could also employ small teams of US Special Operations troops already positioned along the border with Afghanistan", reports the American newspaper. This was enough to send Rehman Malik, our part-time security chief scurrying to Lahore. He almost lost his life when his plane tilted on one side after having burst one of its tyres. The same day another family tragedy almost materialised when his brother was chased down a road by kidnappers in Islamabad. Troubles come in three – the same day Malik air-dashed to Karachi to recover Riaz Laljee, Zardari's business buddy.

Now you understand why I call Rehman Malik a "part-time security chief." Instead of attending to the Punjabi Taliban and their partners, Al Qaeda, he's too busy fire-fighting the bushfires ignited by his political party and its co-chairman.

"The prevalence of elite interests over national interests, the misuse of ideology, the distortion of democracy, the misuse of force and the military, the misuse of foreign policy to promote sub-national agendas, the undermining of civil administration, civil society and the rule of law, the mismanagement of the economy and political and moral corruption on a treasonable scale" exacerbate the security challenges and the state of terror in Pakistan, says former diplomat Ashraf Jehangir Qazi, our longest-serving ambassador to India.

Invited by the Oxford and Cambridge Society in Islamabad to talk on the 'War on Terror,' Qazi opened his lecture with a statement saying that the 'war' had spawned "hypocrisy" across the world starting with America, Britain, the UN and Pakistan. Each of these entities used it to "intimidate, coerce and invade territories" as per their own blinkered viewpoints. He quoted the great Winston Churchill who said: "I'm strongly in favour of using poison gas against an uncivilised society" while commenting on the British use of poisonous gas on the Iraqis during the First World War.

More recently, the former American ambassador to India Robert Black told Qazi immediately after 9/11, "History now begins for us." Obviously, the Americans were outraged and, in the words of intellectual and humanist Howard Zinn, "were judging the rest of the world including Pakistan according to their own ideals."

So even if Rehman Malik or Shahbaz Sharif or Salmaan Taseer declare Punjab Taliban-free, but if the US army sees its spy satellites tell a different story, get ready for military action in the plains of Punjab, okayed or not okayed, by the Pakistan Army.

Why was terror allowed to take root in Punjab in the last few years? Did we not know that many madressahs straddling southern Punjab were terrorist training camps teaching their youth to blow themselves? Of course we did. While our politicians were enriching their vote banks by being in bed with the banned militant groups, our bureaucrats were looking the other way allowing these charlatans to kill and attack mosques and public places.

Where were the army and its spy masters, the ISI, during this time?

I put this question to Ashraf Jehangir Qazi who had clubbed the 'establishment' with the politicians for our pathetic state of security today. I had hoped he would give me a direct answer, but I forgot that he's a diplomat who cannot outright put the full blame on the establishment. He dodged my question. "The army today has rid us of terrorism in Swat and FATA but it needs support from the civilian government that has not played the role it should have while dealing with the IDP (Internally displaced persons) issue."

Three weeks ago we sat at the same place to hear Qazi's cousin Ahmed Rashid lecture us on terror. He is perhaps the only author on terrorism who has won international acclaim worldwide. His book Descent into Chaos, written two years ago, chronicles the army's dubious role under military dictators like Zia and Musharraf. Ahmed Rashid gave us a chilling account why Islamic extremism, allowed to flower and prosper, is now "stronger than ever."

He told us how "intimately linked Pakistan is with the Taliban and other militant movements, while remaining the US main ally in war against terror."

One left the lecture with a heavy heart. It was humanly impossible to imagine that our past and present civilian and military leadership wilfully and immorally led its 170 million citizens into a pit where only stark poverty, illiteracy, medieval obscurantism, religious extremism, suicide bombers and sectarian death squads hold sway.

Did I miss out another evil we face today? Yes. Energy crisis! "I met Ambassador Holbrooke recently and he said to me that our energy issue was more deadly than the Taliban," said Ahmed Rashid at the end. "You know what that means? More poverty for the masses which in turn will give a surge to radicalisation during the long hot summer."

Well, one person who won't be feeling the pinch is the president who according to estimates spends Rs1 million a day on his upkeep when 13 crore Pakistanis live under Rs150 a day!

Instead of planning an attack on Pakistan, the Americans should be attacking our poverty and corruption of the highest if they are really sincere about helping us.