BURAIDAH, Saudi Arabia: Islam needs a Reformation. It needs someone with the courage of Martin Luther.

This is the belief I’ve arrived at after a long and painful spiritual journey. It’s not a popular conviction — it has attracted angry criticism, including death threats, from many sides. But it was reinforced by Sept. 11, 2001, and in the years since, I’ve only become more convinced that it is critical to Islam’s future.

Muslims are too rigid in our adherence to old, literal interpretations of the Koran. It’s time for many verses — especially those having to do with relations between Islam and other religions — to be reinterpreted in favor of a more modern Islam. It’s time to accept that God loves the faithful of all religions. It’s time for Muslims to question our leaders and their strict teachings, to reach our own understanding of the prophet’s words and to call for a bold renewal of our faith as a faith of goodwill, of peace and of light.

I didn’t always think this way. Once, I was one of the extremists who clung to literal interpretations of Islam and tried to force them on others. I was a jihadist.

I grew up in Saudi Arabia. When I was 16, I found myself assailed by doubts about the existence of God. I prayed to God to give me the strength to overcome them. I made a deal with Him: I would give up everything, devote myself to Him and live the way the Prophet Muhammad and his companions had lived 1,400 years ago if He would rid me of my doubts.

I joined a hard-line Salafi group. I abandoned modern life and lived in a mud hut, apart from my family. Viewing modern education as corrupt and immoral, I joined a circle of scholars who taught the Islamic sciences in the classical way, just as they had been taught 1,200 years ago. My involvement with this group led me to violence, and landed me in prison. In 1991, I took part in firebombing video stores in Riyadh and a women’s center in my home town of Buraidah, seeing them as symbols of sin in a society that was marching rapidly toward modernization.

Yet all the while, my doubts remained. Was the Koran really the word of God? Had it really been revealed to Muhammad, or did he create it himself? But I never shared these doubts with anyone, because doubting Islam or the prophet is not tolerated in the Muslim society of my country.

By the time I turned 26, much of the turmoil in me had abated, and I made my peace with God. At the same time, my eyes were opened to the hypocrisy of so many who held themselves out as Muslim role models. I saw Islamic judges ignoring the marks of torture borne by my prison comrades. I learned of Islamic teachers who molested their students. I heard devout Muslims who never missed the five daily prayers lying with ease to people who did not share their extremist beliefs.

In 1999, when I was working as an imam at a Riyadh mosque, I happened upon two books that had a profound influence on me. One, written by a Palestinian scholar, was about the struggle between those who deal pragmatically with the Koran and those who take it and the hadith literally. The other was a book by a Moroccan philosopher about the formation of the Arab Muslim way of thinking.

The books inspired me to write an article for a Saudi newspaper arguing that Muslims have the right to question and criticize our religious leaders and not to take everything they tell us for granted. We owe it to ourselves, I wrote, to think pragmatically if our religion is to survive and thrive.

That article landed me in the center of a storm. Some men in my mosque refused to greet me. Others would no longer pray behind me. Under this pressure, I left the mosque.

I moved to the southern city of Abha, where I took a job as a writer and editor with a newly established newspaper. I went back to leading prayers at the paper’s small mosque and to writing about my evolving philosophy. After I wrote articles stressing our right as Muslims to question our Saudi clerics and their interpretations and to come up with our own, officials from the kingdom’s powerful religious establishment complained, and I was banned from writing.

The attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, gave new life to what I had been saying. I went back to criticizing the rote manner in which we Muslims are fed our religion. I criticized al-Qaeda’s school of thought, which considers everyone who isn’t a Salafi Muslim the enemy. I pointed to examples from Islamic history that stressed the need to get along with other religions. I tried to give a new interpretation to the verses that call for enmity between Muslims and Christians and Jews. I wrote that they do not apply to us today and that Islam calls for friendship among all faiths.

I lost a lot of friends after that. My old companions from the jihad felt obliged to declare themselves either with me or against me. Some preferred to cut their links to me silently, but others fought me publicly, issuing statements filled with curses and lies. Once again, the paper came under great pressure to ban my writing. And I became a favorite target on the Internet, where my writings were lambasted and labeled blasphemous.

Eventually I was fired. But by then, I had started to develop a different relationship with God. I felt that He was moving me toward another kind of belief, where all that matters is that we pray to God from the heart. I continued to pray, but I started to avoid the verses that contain violence or enmity and only used the ones that speak of God’s mercy and grace and greatness. I remembered an incident in the Koran when the prophet told a Bedouin who did not know how to pray to let go of the verses and get closer to God by repeating, “God is good, God is great.” Don’t sweat the details, the prophet said.

I felt at peace, and no longer doubted His existence.

In December 2002, in a Web site interview, I criticized al-Qaeda and declared that some of the Friday sermons were loathsome because of their attacks against non-Muslims. Within days, a fatwa was posted online, calling me an infidel and saying that I should be killed. Once again, I felt despair at the ways of the Muslim world. Two years later, I told al-Arabiya television that I thought God loves all faithful people of different religions. That earned me a fatwa from the mufti of Saudi Arabia declaring my infidelity.

But one evening not long after that, I heard a radio broadcast of the verse of light. Even though I had memorized the Koran at 15, I felt as though I was hearing this verse for the first time. God is light, it says, the universe is illuminated by His light. I felt the verse was speaking directly to me, sending me a message. This God of light, I thought, how could He be against any human? The God of light would not be happy to see people suffer, even if they had sinned and made mistakes along the way.

I had found my Islam. And I believe that others can find it, too. But first we need a Reformation similar to the Protestant Reformation that Martin Luther led against the Roman Catholic Church.

In the late 14th century, Islam had its own sort of Martin Luther. Ibn Taymiyya was an Islamic scholar from a hard-line Salafi sect who went through a spiritual crisis and came to believe that in time, God would close the gates of hell and grant all humans, regardless of their religion, entry to his everlasting paradise. Unlike Luther, however, Ibn Taymiyya never openly declared this revolutionary belief; he shared it only with a small, trusted circle of students.

Nevertheless, I find myself inspired by Luther’s courageous uprising. I see what Islam needs — a strong, charismatic personality who will lead us toward reform, and scholars who can convince Islamic communities of the need for a bold new interpretation of Islamic texts, to reconcile us with the wider world.

The National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) released this week paints a bleak picture of Al Qaeda’s renewed strength and determination to attack America. And a major part of the blame, US officials charge, lies with someone President Bush has described as a critical ally in the war on terror: Pakistani President General Pervez Musharraf.

Since 9/11, Washington has looked to President Musharraf to uproot Islamic extremism in South Asia. Nearly six years later, however, Pakistan is still a nuclear-armed crucible of jihadi culture, exporting terrorists and destabilizing its neighbors.

For too long, Washington has coddled the Pakistani general, turned a blind eye to his crushing of democracy, and read too much into his pro-West rhetoric. The US must change course. And there are signs it’s about to. “There’s no doubt that more aggressive steps need to be taken,” White House spokesman Tony Snow said.

After almost a decade under Musharraf’s rule, Pakistan hasn’t changed much. He has initiated reforms and revamped the economy. But where he was expected to do most, fighting Islamic extremism, Pakistan’s record is most disappointing.

Al Qaeda and the Taliban use Pakistani soil as a haven and training ground. Recent deals between the government and Pashtun tribes have in effect ceded the border region between Afghanistan and Pakistan to the Taliban and their Al Qaeda allies. A big reason Al Qaeda’s influence is growing, according to the NIE, is the operational capability it enjoys in Pakistan.

Musharraf speaks of “enlightened moderation,” but he has done more to pulverize secular democratic parties than contain Islamist ones. It was his electoral rules that helped Islamist parties win their largest parliamentary representation ever in 2002, marginalizing the larger secular parties that threatened him.
Islamabad is happy to nab foreign jihadis when pressured by the West or ban extremist groups that get out of hand, but it has been reluctant to uproot the infrastructure of extremism.

Extremist groups proliferate and operate in the open. Musharraf finds them useful in convincing Washington and Pakistan’s middle classes that the military is all that protects the country from a Taliban-like Islamic state.

It is not a coincidence that the government’s recent battle against extremists associated with the Red Mosque came on the heels of nationwide anti-government protests following Musharraf’s summary dismissal of the country’s chief justice. Musharraf hopes that the crisis will persuade secular-minded Pakistanis to abandon the barricades and align behind him.

The government was fully aware of what went on in the Red Mosque, just a mile from the powerful Inter-Services Intelligence headquarters. Yet Musharraf chose to ignore the extremists between January and June, even as they sought to impose Islamic law on the capital city. It was not until he sensed public anger at his dithering, and confronted a diplomatic crisis when the extremists abducted Chinese nationals, that he stormed the mosque.

Frustrated with developments in Pakistan, many in Washington look to elections and a civilian government for solutions. Democracy should be welcomed, but it will change little. The last time there was a transfer of power to a civilian government, in 1988, the military still chose the foreign minister and informed the prime minister that it would control the nuclear program, intelligence, security, and policies toward Afghanistan and India. This time, too, the military will continue to call the shots – especially when it comes to Afghanistan.

Without Pakistani cooperation, NATO and the US will have to substantially increase their commitments to contain the Taliban. That cooperation will not be forthcoming until the US addresses Pakistani interests. Afghanistan has always been a strategic concern for Islamabad. Pashtuns make up 40 percent of Afghanistan, but there are more Pashtuns in Pakistan, where they constitute 15 percent of the population. Afghanistan has never recognized the border (Durand line) between the two countries, and for most of Pakistan’s existence, Pashtuns in control of an independent Afghan state have been allied with India and laid irredentist claims to Pakistan’s Pashtun Northwest Province.

It was only when Pakistani-backed Afghan mujahideen or the Taliban ruled Kabul that Pakistan felt secure in its relations with Afghanistan. Pakistani generals counted on the “strategic depth” that their neighbor to the northwest would provide in a war against India.

These days, they see Afghanistan as an adversary. They are irked by Afghan President Hamid Karzai’s strong ties to Delhi and the mushrooming of Indian consulates across Afghanistan. The territory that they “owned” until 9/11, thanks to the Taliban, is now at best neutral and at worst the playground of their arch rival, India. Pakistan does not view Afghanistan through the prism of the war on terror, but in the context of its own vulnerabilities in the competition for power and influence with India. That’s why Islamabad has everything to gain by playing the Taliban card, giving its fighters and their Al Qaeda allies a lair in Pakistan’s border region, to keep Kabul weak and southern Afghanistan free of Indian influence.

In dealing with Pakistan, Washington has preferred to see the logic of the war on terror as self-evident, not recognizing that even close allies will not cooperate if it does not serve their interests. It is only by addressing Pakistan’s interests that Washington can secure greater cooperation from Islamabad.

Washington cannot give Pakistan the sphere of influence in southern Afghanistan that it desires to make sure it will not be encircled by India. However, Washington can give Pakistan greater interest in Afghanistan’s stability than it has now by encouraging Kabul to include Pakistan’s allies and clients in government; and more important, to finally recognize its international border with Pakistan.

A sidebar: in this entire article, you don’t see any admission that the US government and CIA created Osama bin Laden, the Mujahideen, or any of the other forces that today are called terrorists. The United States has always worked from a “throw away” policy, use a country to achieve their objectives and then toss them away to deal with the problems created because of it. Nor, do you see any admission that the US government is more willing to provide military equipment to Pakistan than they are textbooks and teachers, which would actually solve the biggest problem of poor education. Nor do you see any admission that the US foreign policy, in terms of the Middle East and South East Asia, is a failure because it has always tried to leverage one country against another: Pakistan vs. India and Palestine vs. Israel, for example.

Like I said in the opening notes to the article: the US government operates from a “head up the ass” mentality, with George W. Bush begin the poster boy. America can solve everyone else’s problems, but they just aren’t interested in solving their own. I would challenge the American media to pull their head out of their asses and present solutions to the Neo Nazis that patrol areas of the Northern United States; the Klu Klux Klan which has torment the African American population for decades; the poverty that grips the American people living in the “world’s largest democracy”; serial killers, rapists and other criminals that are resolutely Christian that populate the metropolitan cities and prisons; and please stop the Evangelical Christians that seem to believe that they know best and the rest of America is just “lost”; the media’s inability, or lack of access, to report on topics like torture, Gitmo, civil and human rights violations since 9/11 in the name of Patriotism; the growing gap between the haves and the have nots because of government policies giving more value to the wealth, while punishing the poor; it’s continued support of the tyrant governments in the Middle East, Africa and South America to assure that the American way of life is protected, while assuring that the world hates them for punishment that is unfairly doled out to poor countries; and it’s continued support of Israeli terrorist acts while punishing the Palestinian and Lebanese people for trying to live a normal life.

Hmmm… when you look at it in that context, the United States is another Pakistan with less media coverage.

The military is drawing flak for its expanded role in the political and other non-professional domains. The intensity of anti-army feeling and the frequency of its expression are unprecedented in post-1971 Pakistan.

The slogans and banners of the lawyers’ protest movement demanded time and again that the top commanders of the army return to the barracks. Some protesters were seen burning General Pervez Musharraf’s effigy in army uniform. A movement-song calling for army’s return has been doing the rounds recently. State authorities have registered cases against several lawyers or arrested them for displaying anti-military slogans. This did not deter them. However, the criticism has been aimed at the political role of the top brass of the army rather than the military as an institution or profession.

Anti-army sentiments are also conspicuous in the latest wave of suicide-bombings, targeting army and paramilitary personnel and police. The security of security personnel was never such a major issue in the past. They generally enjoyed respect in society, which appears to have dwindled since the beginning of the judicial crisis. The military in general and the army in particular also face criticism for business and commercial activities, which has shown unprecedented expansion during the Musharraf years.

The army is criticised and its personnel attacked by suicide bombers because it is viewed as the mainstay of the Musharraf government, whose recent policies have totally alienated Islamic and other groups.

Four features of the current situation need attention. First, societal groups, especially Islamists, are not unanimous in condemning the recent suicide attacks on security personnel. Second, even if these attacks represent a reaction to the Red Mosque incident, the suicide bombers could not have been ready for action within a day or so unless they were already present and prepared in the tribal areas and the adjacent districts. Third, government circles appear divided on firmly stemming extremism and militancy. Fourth, Islamic parties and groups maintain a distance from Islamic militants but sympathise with their causes.

Though Pakistan’s citizens have expressed deep concern over the recent spate of suicide bombings in various parts of Pakistan, they are not unanimous in categorical condemnation of specific incidents. They argue that the government’s pro-United States policy in Afghanistan, the Red Mosque incident, and the refusal to introduce a genuinely Islamic system are the main causes of suicide bombings.

The Mutahidda Majlis-e-Amal (MMA) and other Islamic parties and groups are extremely critical of the military action against the Red Mosque. Their narratives complain about the excessive use of force and refusal of the government to give safe passage to those inmates of the mosque who were willing to leave. The latter claim is not confirmed by any other source.

The MMA and other Islamic groups also claim that several hundred people (including children and women) were killed in Red Mosque and that the government buried most of them quietly in order to claim fewer deaths. These groups do not give any credence to the argument that the state cannot allow groups and movements to challenge its writ. They also refuse to explain their unwillingness to mediate the conflict between the government and the Red Mosque leadership when the latter began to defy the state authorities in January 2007. They stayed away to see how far the Red Mosque leadership would go with the self-ascribed mission of enforcing Islamic laws.

Islamic political parties oppose military action against the Red Mosque to show solidarity with hard-line Islamic movements and to deter the government from taking similar action in future. They also want to protect the political space made available to them by the government in the past.

These incidents confirm reports from international sources and Pakistan’s independent analysts that the tribal areas, especially northern and southern Waziristan, continue to be safe havens for extremists and Al Qaeda-type radical elements. This also exposes official claims that the military action in the tribal areas (2003-2006) was a success and that the September 2006 peace agreement with the tribal leaders contained militancy. The recent escalation of violence represents a failure of government policy on controlling extremism and militancy.

Islamic extremists and militant elements have also benefited from the lack of official unanimity in dealing with them. Some elements in the government have generally viewed them as friends because they counteract the mainstream and centrist political forces that openly challenge the legitimacy of the Musharraf government. Others view them as a problem rather than an adversary, often ignoring their activities. Take the example of the Red Mosque militants, who were allowed to terrorise ordinary citizens until they kidnapped some Chinese.

The recent stepped-up violence is now threatening the Musharraf government and forcing top leaders to come to the conclusion that they can no longer ignore militant activities. These developments have also reduced the clout the sympathisers of militant Islamic groups have in official circles, at least for the time being.

The government faces two major problems in devising concrete policy measures to check the violence. First, the Musharraf government is more isolated now than ever. The political right and Islamic elements have either distanced them from it or openly oppose it. The extremist and militant elements have decided to hit the government as hard as possible. These elements may not be able to sustain the frequency and intensity of suicide bombings for a long time, but they have already undermined the credibility of the government.

Second, the restoration of the chief justice by the Supreme Court on July 20, coupled with the protest movement by lawyers, societal groups and political parties has eroded the moral basis of General Musharraf’s authority. This undermines his capacity to mobilise support for his policies.

Musharraf’s appeal to the people “to stand united against the extremists” is not going to win many supporters, mainly because he no longer enjoys credibility with liberal and moderate political circles. Musharraf is seeking their support to sustain his rule rather than re-arrange the power structure in Islamabad on liberal and democratic lines.

The crux of the problem is that Musharraf views his rule as a pre-requisite for addressing internal threats. The opposition political forces and independent observers view him as part of the problem and expect no significant improvement in Pakistan’s domestic situation as long as he retains his plans to contest elections for another term. His position has become more untenable after the Supreme Court judgment.

Karachi police investigation chief Manzoor Mughal says the man behind the “immature” bomb plot phoned police after having an apparent change of heart because of the many children at the site.

“Police have foiled an attempt to blow up a car bomb by remote control outside the Park Towers and defused 10 kilograms of explosives in a stolen car,” he said.

“Had it exploded, it would have caused a huge loss of lives.

“There were several hundred people inside Park Towers at the time we received the call from an unknown person that a bomb was about to explode.”

The warning prompted the cancellation of the official launch of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows at the Liberty Books shop in the shopping center in Pakistan’s largest city.

Police are trying to trace the call and are interviewing the woman from whom the car was stolen at gunpoint on July 10 for a description of the thief.

Around 2,000 Pakistani fans, mostly children and youths, had reserved copies of the book at the launch amid global Potter mania.

A wave of deadly suicide bombings and other attacks has claimed more than 200 lives in a week in Pakistan in apparent backlash violence to the Army’s deadly storming of a pro-Taliban mosque in Islamabad earlier this month.

But senior Karachi police officer Mohammed Javed says the design of the Karachi bomb, in powder form in two containers, in the car parked 200 meters from the site points to an “immature” attack plot.

“Police couldn’t find a trigger,” he said, adding that a walkie-talkie found in the trunk was apparently not wired up to the bomb.

“It looks like an immature attempt. It looks more like a threat.

“It does not have the signature of the hardcore militants we have been dealing with.”

It’s not just the American Muslims that condemn all acts of terrorism, but Muslims around the world. Don’t judge our religion based on the wackos that manipulate Islam for their own objectives.

According to some newspaper accounts the number of hard-core militants holed up in Lal Masjid were no more than two dozen. But the week long ’siege and hostage’ situation they created and the casualties they inflicted on trained soldiers dramatized the militants’ power and reach and raise questions about our own preparedness to meet such situations.

The Lal Masjid incident holds several important lessons, one of which is the need to review our ability to deal with such situations. Pakistan, being at the center of the war against militancy can only expect more, and not less, of siege and hostage situations in the days to come and therefore the need for soul searching.

Militancy is no ordinary crime and therefore cannot be dealt with through the normal crime-control mechanisms. Ordinary crime control rests on holding out a credible threat of death and execution, at the most, to the offender. A militant on the other hand not only proclaims readiness to die but also makes it known that before dying he wishes to kill many more. The traditional response therefore cannot contain militancy. What do you do with someone who is ready to die and also wants to kill?

The objectives of hostage-takers are quite familiar. They demand the release of fellow militants and safe passage to themselves at the threat of executing the hostages. States have, however, learnt from experience that once safe passage is allowed the hostage-takers are emboldened to commit more acts of revenge and militancy. It has therefore been an unwritten but universally accepted principle not to negotiate with terrorists.

In 1999 an Indian passenger airliner was hijacked from Nepal to Kandhar. The hijackers demanded the release of some militants in Indian jails. Initially the Indian government refused to negotiate but later under public pressure succumbed. The Vajpayee government relented and released the wanted militants. Two years later when Indian parliament was attacked in December 2001, New Delhi came to rue itself.

In the event of a policy of ‘no negotiations’, a state has to prepare itself to secure the release of hostages without being blackmailed and with minimum collateral damage. What is our record? A major incident of siege and hostage occurred on March 2, 1981 when a PIA plane bound for Peshawar from Karachi was hijacked first to Kabul and later to Damascus. Prolonged negotiations spread over two weeks were held with the hijackers. Finally about 50 activists in Pakistani jails were released in exchange for the release of hostages. Although press reports at the time said that Pakistan also seriously considered a daring commando operation but the plan was abandoned.

Another major incident was the taking as hostage of 370 passengers of a Pan American flight in September 1986 at Karachi airport. In a rescue operation twenty-three hostages were killed raising questions about ability to handle siege and hostage situations. The third incident is that of Lal Masjid. Keeping in view the casualties both of the militants and the trained professional soldiers and the duration of the operation, several questions arise that provide an occasion to pause and reflect on our preparedness to deal with such situations.

Nonetheless, there are instances of daring rescue operations carried out in hostile environment from which one can learn. One such incident is the well-known Entebbe airport operation. On June 27, 1976 an Air France flight with 250 passengers flying from Ben Gurion Airport to Paris via Athens was hijacked and taken to Entebbe, Uganda. It landed at Entebbe in the wee hours of June 28 to a warm welcome by the government of Idi Amin. The hostage passengers were taken to the airport terminal and guarded by Ugandan soldiers and the hijackers.

The hijackers demanded the release of convicted militants in jails in France, Germany, Switzerland and Kenya. The Israelis began negotiations to get the deadline set by the hijackers extended but secretly planned a rapid air assault, extraction and withdrawal operation. It was a highly risky operation as Uganda was a hostile territory. The Israelis however had decided not to yield to blackmailing.

According to plans five C-130 aircraft for the 200 strong assault force and two Boeings for medical and communication teams took off at 13.20 on July 3 on way to Entebbe. The Israeli cabinet was told of the plan to get its approval but only after the squadron was already airborne. The C-130s, carrying also some cars and jeeps, reached the destination at 23.01 only 13 seconds off the planned schedule.

The first team of assault commandos jumped from the aircraft even before it had taxied to a halt and ran towards the terminal building where the hostages had been kept. Resistance by guards was mercilessly eliminated. In the first phase the Israelis suffered only one casualty. Lt Col Yoni Netanyahu, the brother of Benjamin Netanyahu, was killed by a sniper shot.

The assault was completed in a little over three minutes. Another assault team had run to take over the control tower and the fuel stations and a third had gone to secure all access roads to the airport. Within seven minutes the hostages, the crew of the hijacked aircraft, the wounded and the dead Israeli soldiers had been evacuated and were on board waiting planes.

The Israelis had also brought heavy fuel pumps with them. These were used to refuel for the return journey from the Entebbe airport. With hostages and dead and wounded Israeli soldiers on board and the planes refuelled, they left the airport deserted with the dead bodies of eight hijackers. The Ugandan MiGs on the ground were also destroyed to eliminate any chance of chase. The entire operation was completed in less than one hundred minutes. As the international media broke the news, the hostages were already in mid air on way back to their country.

More than thirty years apart the Entebbe and Lal Masjid operations together bring into focus the need for our security agencies to set up a special rapid assault, extraction and withdrawal team. Practically led by Vice Chief of Army Staff General Ahsan Saleem Hayat, who is known for level-headedness and professionalism rather than for bravado and clenched fists, the GHQ seems well placed to give it a thought.

I followed it online until about midnight Pakistan time, but had other things to do so I don’t think that I have all the questions and answers that Craig got during the time he was online. What I have posted are the questions and answers for our domestic Pakistanis to read and comment on.

Background on Craig Cohen

Craig Cohen is a fellow in the International Security Program and Post-Conflict Reconstruction Project at CSIS. He currently is directing research on how to improve U.S. and U.N. capacity to anticipate, prepare for, and respond to conflict and collapse in large aid recipients - with a focus on Pakistan. Previously, he managed a working group on reconstruction and stabilization operations and authored the report “Measuring Progress in Reconstruction and Stabilization Operations.” Prior to joining CSIS, he worked with the U.N. and nongovernmental organizations in Rwanda, Azerbaijan, Malawi, and the former Yugoslavia.

The Questions

Washington: It is surprising that Pakistan, rather than of Saudi Arabia, has become the root cause of most of terrorism in the world. Why does the U.S. continue to support its government? Why can’t the U.S. take military action against terrorists being sheltered inside Pakistan?

Craig Cohen: Sorry about the delay. This is a good question to kick things off. The U.S. Government supports Musharraf’s regime because it feels it is the best chance America has to promote stability and sideline extremism. The question is whether this is as true now as it was after 9/11. The U.S. military doesn’t take overt action against terrorists inside Pakistan for a few reasons. One is that it’s not always easy to locate them. A military strike would also likely result in loss of Pakistani civilian lives, which would cause big problems in Pakistan. Pakistan is a sovereign country so the US works through the Pakistani government–the problem is that the government doesn’t really have sovereignty over the border region.

Freising, Germany: It sounds like the militants in the Red Mosque were highly trained and in possession of a large quantity of arms, including RPGs. I’ve read that the leaders of the Red Mosque were sympathetic to the Taliban. Is there any evidence that some of the militants inside the mosque actually were members of the Taliban?

Craig Cohen: First question is whether the Taliban are still a coherent organization with command and control. I suspect this may exist, but it’s much smaller than when they controlled Afghanistan. The problem though is that there are many Taliban sympathizers. Lal Masjid, for instance, had issued a fatwa that Pakistani soldiers who died fighting al Qaeda and Taliban were not shaheed, or martyrs. This is a big deal–when I was in NWFP last year, I heard this during a few of my interviews. It’s essentially saying the Pakistani state is acting against Islam, in the eyes of these folks. So the mosque is a sign of growing “Talibanization” of Pakistan. People have compared it here to David Koresh–but it’s more like David Koresh with 10% of Americans as Branch Davidians. That’s a big difference..

Lahore, Pakistan: In reaction to the “martyrdom” of the Red Mosque zealots, radicals in dozens of seminaries dotting Pakistan’s landscape will seek revenge on the state. To stem this, an increasingly authoritarian Gen. Musharraf will resort to force, in the process exacerbating the current tension and violence that has become the lot of the hapless Pakistani nation. The most tragic victim of this phenomenon of religious extremism vs. state authoritarianism is likely to be the faltering political process leading to the establishment of a liberal, Democratic dispensation in Pakistan. The United States can make amends for its embrace of military dictators in the past by insisting — in word and deed — on the holding of genuinely free and fair elections.

Craig Cohen: I agree with some of what you’ve written here. There probably will be a backlash, and Musharraf may have to use force. I suspect though that he will be much more reluctant to use force in Karachi or Peshawar than in sleepy Islamabad only a few blocks from ISI HQ. What’s interesting is what it took to actually precipitate this action–a string of escalating provocations since January–abducting women, setting up a Sharia court, issuing a Fatwa vs. a government minister, kidnapping police, street battles, killing a Pakistani soldier, etc. The threshold for action is considerable. I suspect that this won’t have much of a chilling effect vs. militants… I agree with you about free and fair elections. The U.S. government has been saying the right things on this–but we’ll see how things will play out.

London: How concerned are you that elements in Pakistan’s security apparatus may be in league with extremists in Pakistan’s Islamist movement — despite President Musharraf’s commitment to tackle Islamic radicalism?

Craig Cohen: This is the question that is always asked when considering how reliable of a partner Pakistan is on the “war on terror.” The conventional wisdom is that Pakistan distrusts that America will have the staying power in Afghanistan and will eventually walk away from its newfound friendship with Pakistan. For this reason, they have maintained “assets” who could help the government in Afghanistan or Kashmir if it felt squeezed with by India’s influence in Afghanistan. This may be true. It also may be merely that personal relationships exist between Taliban and ISI from back when they were on the same side in Afghanistan (which happened to be America’s side for a while as well vs. the Soviets)..

Washington: Craig: The David Koresh/Branch Davidians analogy is a great one, especially the point that it is as if 10 percent of Americans were Branch Davidians. What if anything can we in America do to help Pakistan “wean” their “Branch Davidians” from the “David Koresh” cult of fundamentalist Islam. Isn’t this a really big crisis? And if it really mattered to our lives here, shouldn’t we be spending far more attention on Pakistan than we do currently?

Craig Cohen: Thanks.. I think we have to be very careful here. On one hand, this is not our country and it’s very far away and we probably only understand a very small part of it. It’s like someone from DC going up to New England where I’m from and telling people what to do–folks wouldn’t care for that very much. Well, imagine what it’s like on the other side of the world. So the Pakistanis will be very sensitive to any US action that sounds like we’re dictating anything. On the other hand, as you point out, it matters to our security, and it matters to all those who believe in the spread of openness and prosperity. I think education should be a much greater part of our aid package to Pakistan. The administration has moved some in this direction, but it’s still only a drop in the bucket–the overall tenure of our aid to Pakistan is overwhelmingly short term security. We need to provide opportunities to young people in a way consistent with their culture and religion.

Acronym soup!: Help! NWFP? ISI HQ? Not all of us are up on our acronyms! Could you please spell out on first reference for a poor lost reader?

Craig Cohen: Apologies. NWFP is the Northwest Frontier Province (Pakistan is comprised of 4 provinces). It is out on the western border with Afghanistan. ISI is the intelligence services of Pakistan. HQ is headquarters! One thing that was amazing to me about Pakistan when I was there last year for about a month is how different it was in each part of the country. Lahore picks up its Punjab character, Peshawar is more like Afghanistan, Karachi is huge mess of a port city. There’s so much dynamism in Pakistan, its economy is booming (7% growth over five years), it’s not that everyone are Taliban or al Qaeda. It’s also a reason why I think a military dictatorship can’t last–it’s too much to ‘control’…

Fairfax, Va.: There was another attempt on Musharraf’s life recently. What would happen if he were to be removed from power? Should we all be concerned about the nuclear weapons falling into terrorists’ hands?

Craig Cohen: Another important (and common) question.. My sense is that if Musharraf were killed, either one of two things would happen. The military would step in and put in place another military leader who would carry on much as Musharraf has. Or Benazir would try to use it as an opportunity to return and press her cause for leadership. I’d be less concerned that there would be chaos and nukes in terrorists’ hands. Of course, there is an element of unpredictability with any violent changeover. It’s in everyone’s best interests to avoid it. This is one reason why I believe the U.S. government’s reliance on Musharraf and the military places us in a difficult spot..

Kalamazoo, Mich.: Hi Craig. Boy, the Taliban certainly appears to be resilient. To what do you chiefly attribute their staying power? Is it zeal, a sympathetic populace, a lack of military and political pressure on them, etc.? It just amazes me that these goof balls, who aren’t that far removed the Dark Ages, continually can challenge us like this. We’re basically fighting a bunch of baboons, but one must give them some props for remaining on the stage.

Craig Cohen: Hmm. Many are considered pious Muslims and lead simple lives and that’s admired by many Pakistanis. Also, of course, that they stand up to America, which is popular in much of the world. They are seen to have Pakistan’s interests at heart in Afghanistan.. Mao said something like insurgents swim like fish in the sea–these folks have the implicit toleration of many of the communities in which they live. I don’t think most Pakistanis want to live under Taliban-style rule, but neither do they want to live under America’s rule. The area out on the Afghan border is really difficult terrain. The central government in Pakistan has never really controlled this area. They have 80 thousand troops out there now, but they’re not really in control. Mostly they’re in the barracks after the peace deals they struck last fall. And fighting a counterinsurgency is not easy–look in Iraq.. What is worrisome is that US soldiers will have a tough time so long as the Taliban have safe haven in Pakistan. RAND’s Seth Jones did a good study that was published in Survival that looked at counterinsurgency operations over time all over the world–much more likely to succeed if you can cut off base of support.

New York: Pakistan consistently has succeeded in bargaining for U.S. financial assistance for promised shorter-term cooperation without actually ever completely delivering — almost like the dance of the veils — where the U.S. keeps purging money but never actually ends up getting what it wants. How can the U.S. ensure once and for all that the Pakistani institutional support of extremists and the use of terror as an instrument of state policy stops (without necessarily compromising for short-term gains with payoffs in dollars and F-16s)?

Craig Cohen: Great question. I guess I see it that the deal was essentially struck after 9/11. Musharraf was told ‘you’re with us or against us’, he made the turn away from the Taliban, he gave us all the access we wanted to fight the war in Afghanistan, and he’s said the right things on counter terrorism. In return, we’ve provided over $10.58 billion in overt funds since 9/11. Very little accountability to this money. Coalition Support Funds reimburse the Pakistani government for its role in the war on terror. They submit receipts, but it’s essentially a monthly payoff of $80-100m/month. We give them budget support which is essentially a direct cash transfer into their budget. Remember that Pakistan is ranked something like 141 out of 190 in Transparency International’s Corruption index… Unfortunately, I’m not sure if there’s a “once and for all” solution with Pakistan. Some in Congress have wanted to condition aid on CT cooperation, or on democracy, but if you are going to condition aid, you have to be prepared to walk away. The notion of the US walking away brings back memories of times in the past when we’ve done so, and poisons the relationship. I like the idea of spreading the money around to different partners rather than merely channeling everything through the central government. I think over the long term, if we continue to invest in Pakistan’s prosperity and openness, it will yield dividends. The tricky part is that in the short-term, you have to make sure US national security is not compromised, and this may take the use of hard power (the NYT ran a piece on an aborted military strike from 2005 a week or two ago). Once you do that, we could stir up the hornets nest…

Lyme, Conn.: Our military, reported on today’s television news, had several opportunities to attack al-Qaeda in Pakistan — yet a dispute between the CIA and the Defense Department called off the attacks. It was the administration’s decision that the attacks would have created a backlash that might have caused Musharraf’s government to be toppled. Yet, might crippling al-Qaeda have helped Musharraf create less of an opposition seeking to oust him? What are your thoughts on this?

Craig Cohen: Good question, speaks to my last point concerning the NYT story. I think a small, targeted strike in Pakistan would not topple Musharraf. We’ve probably done this in fact, though I’m not sure what we’ve officially admitted to. The Predator drones have fired missiles–like in Bajaur in January 2007. Even in the last few weeks, I believe NATO engaged in hot pursuit across the border. What was different about the NYT story was that it was a massive assault that was planned involving hundreds of American intelligence and military officers. This would probably have resulted in the deaths of many Pakistani civilians and probably would have been read as an invasion of sorts in Pakistan. It would have been wildly unpopular. Would it have brought down Musharraf? Maybe. Would it have captured OBL and if so, would it have been worth it? These are tough calls. I’ll tell you what worries me, though. What happens if there is a terrorist attack here in America that tracks back to Pakistan like with the July 7 subway bombings in London. I think there will be quite an uproar here for US troops to move across the border into Pakistan–the line will go something like, ‘how can we rely on Musharraf to keep us safe, etc.’.. Then there is trouble–to me that’s a real nightmare scenario, US troops in Pakistan. We think Iraq has been difficult…

Washington: The reaction was not as strong as one would expect in a city like Karachi or Lahore. There were no mass protests against the government, and mostly people supported the government for taking out these mullahs. In Pakistan, religious parties never have won more than 5 percent or 6 percent of the seats. Do you think it shows that the extremist are mostly in the NWFP area, and not throughout the country?

Craig Cohen: Fair point. I agree that the Pakistani government acted responsibly and competently with the Lal Masjid raid. They were patient, they brought in the religious clerics to negotiate. The militants discredited themselves when Abdul Aziz tried to escape dressed as a woman after declaring a willingness to be a martyr. And then the government took action to enforce the writ of the state. It helped Musharraf’s standing with most Pakistanis, in Washington, in China, etc. Even Benazir said it was the right thing to do. I don’t think ‘extremists’ are mostly in NWFP. I think views that we would find ‘extreme’ here in America–say, that al Qaeda did not carry out 9/11, are shared by a good deal of Pakistanis–there’s been some recent polling on this by Steve Kull. This doesn’t necessarily mean these folks advocate violence. As for the Islamist parties chances of winning elections, you’re right, they’ve never polled well, and this even when the leaders of the centrist parties (Benazir and Nawaz Sharif) are in exile. The opposing argument, of course, is that elections sometimes issue surprises. Look at Palestine–often considered one of the most secular Arab societies, etc, and Hamas wins and we’re caught off guard. Now, I’m not saying Pakistan is Palestine–very different situations–but you never know… I don’t think this is an argument for not supporting free and fair elections though. It just complicates things, particularly because Pakistan is a nuclear state.. The MMA politicians I met when I was in Pakistan on the lower levels were pretty practical and non-ideological.

Karachi, Pakistan: Should Pakistan not be allowed to live under “one-party (i.e. military) rule” for a little bit longer? China, Singapore, Chile and South Korea matured under dictatorships. And Japan, India, etc. blossomed under one-party rule. Each got to a certain level of political “maturity” before “free-and-fair” elections were held. On the contrary, in Gaza, Lebanon and Iraq, “free-and-fair” elections have created nightmares.

Craig Cohen: Good question! Well, ultimately, this is for the Pakistanis to decide. I think you’re right that ‘free and fair’ elections do not always lead to peace and harmony. In fact, there’s some good research out there that indicates that pushing for elections too early can actually promote conflict. On the other hand, it strikes me that Musharraf has a pretty narrow basis of rule and its shrinking every day. Now perhaps the Red Mosque raid will instill confidence in him around the country, but between the Chaudhry-inspired protests, the Corps Commanders having to issue a declaration of support, inflation rising, etc, these aren’t good signs. Is a smooth and peaceful political transition possible in Pakistan? I hope so..

Kalamazoo, Mich.: Hey, look Cohen, who’s kidding who — the goal here is to make sure we don’t have any more airplanes flying into buildings. Decent, hard-working people went to work in those towers on Sept. 11 and a few hundred of them had to leap to their deaths while almost self-combusting from the heat. You strike me as the type who forgets that. No real American gives a hoot about the tribal and political issues over there. If Musharraf isn’t the guy, then we go to Plan B. But we can’t have them projecting anything outside of the Pakistan/Afghanistan border. Good men are dying while you and I type this — don’t ever forget that either.

Craig Cohen: Sorry you feel that way, I agree that our national security has to be our number one concern. It’s not a black and white world though. It’s not like Musharraf or “Plan B” simply pushes a button and the problem goes away. Like Secretary Rumsfeld famously said, are we killing more terrorists than we’re creating. We could kill a lot of folks in Pakistan, but that won’t necessarily make us safer. I have the utmost respect for our military and civilians who put their lives on the line every day for us.

Twin Cities: Our foreign policy leaves me in a dizzy: We created the Islamic mujahideen Frankenstein monster to fight the “evil” Soviet empire, and now that monster is coming back to haunt us. Has there been a rethinking in our long-term foreign policy that we must deal with threats differently (peacefully/multilaterally/or some other way) than assigning labels and creating new monsters?

Craig Cohen: Good question. This is sort of the point I’ve been trying to get at. That our leaders are often caught in such a short time line of decision-making, we can fail to look ahead and see the problems lying off on the horizon. Yes, we need to deal with the problems we face today, but we can’t lose sight of those looming around the corner. Any leader–whether George Bush or Pervez Musharraf–faces this dilemma.

Craig Cohen: Okay, folks, have to run. Thanks so much for all those who stuck with this, and sorry to those who submitted questions I didn’t get to answer. Have a good one..

Personally, I think that Craig did a really good job covering the spectrum of questions and giving as clear an answer as possible to each one. More importantly, if we look at the questions, we can get a pretty good idea of what the American people may be thinking about Pakistan.. I stress the may be thinking.

I look forward to your comments and analysis of this great session… maybe we should think about doing something like this here in Pakistan with some of the different political and religious party leaders. If anyone is interested, start the discussion in the comments and we can move it out to a formal section of this blog to better discuss the whos, hows and when… being that it’s an election year, it would make for interesting viewing/reading to have a debate between the potential candidates for Prime Minister to have them define what they actually plan to do for Pakistan if they are elected.

If Pakistan wants free, fair and transparent elections, I firmly believe that a series of debates, both online and on television, must be included in the election process; otherwise, it will be more of the same politics and more of the same corruption.

Pakistan speak your mind!

Saturday morning, in the heat of the domestic news coverage of the Lal Masjid siege, I switched over to CNN to watch a CNN Special Investigation Unit piece called “Pakistan: The Enemy Within” hosted by Nic Robertson. What I saw was an absolute mis-representation of Pakistan and its position in the global War on Terror. Now, for a while, I thought Nic Robertson was a crack reporter that didn’t really know what he was talking about, but the program that CNN aired 3 times Saturday and another 3 times Sunday, was a complete factual mistake. I thought that CNN, being one of the oldest and strongest cable news channels, would have a couple of fact checkers to verify that Nic wasn’t being lead around by the nose again. But again, I was wrong there.

Now you are probably going.. ” what do you mean lead around by the nose again?” Well, Nic Robertson has had a couple of his “investigative” pieces discredited in the past including a piece that he did in 2005 when he repeated a discredited link between Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and Saddam Hussein. In that piece, the CNN Senior International Correspondent repeatedly stated that Jordanian-born terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi “was dubbed the al Qaeda link to Saddam Hussein” in 2003, forgetting that it had been completely discredited. Although al-Zarqawi was the leader of the Iraqi insurgency, there were no links to indicate cooperation or coordination between Saddam and al Qaeda. Nic felt comfortable basing his statements on a speech given by President George W. Bush and the then Secretary of State Colin Powell’s pre-war address to the United Nations.

Nic, and CNN, aired the comments even though a CIA assessment found no conclusive evidence that Saddam harbored or gave aid to al-Zarqawi. Al-Zarqawi led a terrorist group unaffiliated with al Qaeda, which was “as much in competition as in cooperation” with al Qaeda according to Roger Cressey, a former counter-terrorism official on Bill Clinton’s National Security Council.

And last summer (2006), during the Israeli bombing of Lebanon, he repeated his “stellar” journalistic sense when he was led around by Hussein Nabulsi, a Hezbollah press officer, during a report from Beirut on Anderson Cooper’s “Anderson Cooper 360″ July 18th broadcast. Nic flaunted his “exclusive” exchange with a Hezbollah press officer showing how Israeli bombs had struck civilian areas of the city, not the Hezbollah headquarters, but something was very odd about this broadcast, as the camera was being directed by the Hezbollah and not Nic Robertson. While CNN anchor John Roberts sang praises of his bravery, Nic Robertson kept very quiet about the unvarnished propaganda that he had aired for Hezbollah, leading to NewsBusters comparisons with Peter Arnett, a disgraced journalist who allowed himself to become the mouthpiece for Saddam Hussein during the Gulf War. It wasn’t until the July 23rd episode of Reliable Sources, when Howard Kurtz attempted to provide cover for Nic Robertson to admit that he had been “guided around like a dog” shooting exactly what Hezbollah wanted him to shoot.

Howard Kurtz: “Isn’t it difficult for you as a journalist to independently verify any claims made by Hezbollah, because you’re not able to go into the buildings and see whether or not there is any military activity or any weapons being hidden there?”

Nic Robertson: “Well, Howard, there’s no doubt about it: Hezbollah has a very, very sophisticated and slick media operations. In fact, beyond that, it has very, very good control over its areas in the south of Beirut. They deny journalists access into those areas. They can turn on and off access to hospitals in those areas. They have a lot of power and influence. You don’t get in there without their permission. And when I went in, we were given about 10 or 15 minutes, quite literally running through a number of neighborhoods that they directed and they took us to.”

He goes on to defend that he didn’t have time to look through those buildings as it was a very rushed affair. I think that Michael Reagan, son of former President Ronald Reagan, did a great job in tagging you for what you are “Terrorist News Network” and in Frontpage
Magazine.

But Nic, the investigative piece that you did on Pakistan was not a rushed affair. You should have had plenty of time to confirm the stories and people that you interviewed if you wanted to portray a true picture of the extremist problem in Pakistan, and I stress the “IF.” So, let’s look at your newest “journalistic” faux pas and understand your credibility as CNN’s “Senior Investigative Correspondent.”

“Pakistan: The Enemy Within” is another in a line of anti-Pakistan, anti-Musharraf pieces that have been done by CNN. CNN has shown that they have lost the ability to be unbiased in their reporting. While neither is a newbie reporter, both made crucial mistakes in their “journalistic work” when compiling these “investigations,” making me, and many other Pakistanis wonder, if CNN has given up on fact checking and presenting news, rather than propaganda.

The Mistakes

Now, I’m sure that many of you are wondering what mistakes Nic Robertson made that would draw this kind of response. Other than only interviewing people that were anti-Musharraf, there was no attempt to expand on any information that was presented in the piece, leaving many unanswered questions, which I will ask and answer in tomorrow’s continuation of this post.

Let’s start with the basic mistakes that anyone with a computer and an internet connection would be able to find. The most basic mistake was the reference to the “Governor North Waziristan” Muhammad Ali Aurakzai. Now, if you look at a map of Pakistan, you will find that North Waziristan is a part of the North West Frontier Province (NWFP). North Waziristan is in essence part of the FATA region of Pakistan and the Government of Pakistan’s representative there is a Political Agent, not a Governor. However, the gentleman that was referred to as the “Governor North Waziristan” is actually the Governor of the NWFP. Further, if you go to Google (you might have heard of it) and search “Governor North Waziristan” the only site that comes up is CNN’s; whereas, if you search on “Ali Muhammad Jan Aurakzai,” you find numerous references, the foremost being the NWFP Government’s home page, where he is listed as the Governor of the NWFP.

Did no one fact check this before it was aired?

Moving on, Nic Robertson interviewed a journalist named Amir Mir and repeatedly described him as “a controversial journalist and critic of President Musharraf.” For those that don’t know, Amir Mir refused to accept the All Pakistan Newspaper Society’s award for Best Investigative Journalist, as stated in a letter, “my inability to receive the award from a military dictator - General Pervez Musharraf - who has trampled the Constitution time and again since his military takeover in October 1999 and has no respect or the supreme law of the land.” His anger was rooted in him being dismissed from his job as Editor of the Lahore weekly The Independent because he would not stop posting his articles in the South Asia Tribune, which was banned in Pakistan due to its anti-Pakistan reporting. There are stories that Amir challenged President Musharraf to charge him with sedition, but obviously a credible source for Nic Robertson’s saucy piece on Pakistan’s extremist problem.

I was shocked that Maulana Abdul Rasheed Ghazi was included in the “journalistic piece,” when it is blatantly obvious that he is a terrorist, bragging about his meetings with Osama bin Laden and his ridicule of the Musharraf government. How many of you recognize this name? That’s right the Deputy Leader of Lal Masjid and Jamia Hafsa, who is now embroiled in a battle with the Pakistan Army from inside Lal Masjid. Maulana wasted no time in bashing President Musharraf and the Pakistan Army for their inability to bring him to justice while sitting right in Islamabad. Now, anyone who knows how to read will find that Maulana Abdul Rasheed Ghazi and his brother, Maulana Abdul Aziz, have long espoused extremist tendencies, dating back to both democratic governments of Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif, neither was able to bring either of the brothers to justice or curtail their extremist activities.

So are you going to interview Osama bin Laden next about George W. Bush and Bill Clinton’s inability to take him down?

You also missed a couple of other mentionables that were missed in Nic Robertson’s investigative piece:

Benazir Bhutto was forced to handle another extremist organization known as Tehrik-i-Nifaz-i-Shariat-i-Mohammadi (TNSM), a banned organization that still operates in the tribal and FATA regions of Pakistan, founded during her first government by Sufi Muhammad. It occupied the strategic highways and trade routes including the silk route which connects Pakistan to China to fulfill their demand of implementing the Sharia in Pakistan during the 1990s. The militants demanded the enforcement of Islamic laws and threatened to continue to block the major trade routes connecting the country to China and Afghanistan. The standoff came to a head at the Saidu Sharif Airport, in the Swat Valley, when the Frontier Constabulary, a paramilitary organization, was used to arrest Sufi Muhammad. This only gave rise to Fazal Ullah, the son-in-law of Sufi Muhammad, who now leads the organization, which is expanding quickly due to the over 100 illegal FM radio stations that are used to preach their message. Today, TNSM is carrying out extremist activities in those same regions forcing citizens to rid themselves of television and computers, calling them the sins of the West. In the past few days, they have also been responsible for attacks on the Pakistan Army moving throughout the Malakand division of Pakistan.

Dr. Ayesha Siddiqa also gives a clear account that the Deobandi seminaries grew at a much faster pace in the federal capital during the period of liberal governments (Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif). Since 1990, 34 seminaries were set up in Islamabad. While during the ultra Islamic dictator rule of General Zia-ul-Haq, seminaries mushroomed around the country with the full support of the dictator that ruled with a hardline Islamic rule of law that saw media silenced and citizens publicly tortured for being “un-Islamic.” It is the same General that removed the Western style military officers in favor of middle class, conservative Muslims that would carry on his charge of bring Pakistan under Sharia law. During this dark point in Pakistan’s history, the United States government, CIA and other allies, gave their full support to the ruling dictator while turning their back on the growing problem in Pakistan.

Nawaz Sharif, a creation of the ultra Islamic Zia rule, has been a regular supporter of the Islamization of Pakistan to the extent that he passed an amendment to the Constitution of Pakistan allowing for accused criminals to decide between the Sharia or Judicial courts. Nawaz was also Prime Minister when the infamous nuclear tests were carried out in Pakistan, in response to the India nuclear tests. His regular alliances with the religious parties have assured them a clear voice in the politics of Pakistan.

Also, in Nic Robertson’s fervor to paint President Musharraf as the reason for the extremist problem, he chose to disregard volumes of information and references, both in the international media and intelligence organizations, of Pakistan’s Inter Services Intelligence wing who hold deep ties to the Taliban from the time of the Soviet conflict. It was during this conflict that the ISI became one of the world’s most feared intelligence agencies because of it’s ability to infiltrate any group, organization or Pakistani citizens life to determine if they were doing anything “un-Islamic.” The ISI was used by General Zia to spy on Pakistani citizens, politicians and media personnel; while the CIA and United States government used them to train and indoctrinate people into the Mujahideen to fight the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. That Mujahideen is today known as the Taliban.

The most disturbing part of the program was when former head of Pakistan’s Inter services Intelligence (ISI), Lieutenant General Hamid Gul, appeared on the screen. Are you serious? Do you know who this man is?

For those who are not familiar with Pakistan, Hamid Gul is one of the strongest supporters of the Taliban that ever existed, with the Asia Times dubbing him the “Godfather of the Taliban,” and providing comprehensive understanding of where his support lies.

If you look at the Wikipedia entry for Hamid Gul, the first paragraph states:

“Lieutenant General Hamid Gul is a retired Pakistani general most famous for heading ISI after the Soviet War, and for instigating the Kashmir insurgency in 1989 with the support of Mujahideen that fought in the Soviet war.”

But since I am not some one that bases my judgment on just one reference, I again used Google to see what else Nic Robertson had missed.

The International Herald Tribune says “Hamid Gul, the former Director General of Pakistani intelligence, remains a public and unapologetic supporter of the Taliban, visiting madrassas and speaking in support of jihad at graduation ceremonies.”

In an interview with Arnaud de Borchgrave, United Press International Editor at Large, the introduction reads:

“The retired Pakistani general who is closest to the Taliban and Osama bin Laden contends the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on New York City and Washington were the work of renegade U.S. Air Force elements working with the Israelis. Gen. Hamid Gul led Pakistan’s Inter Services Intelligence during the war against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. Gul serves as an adviser to Pakistan’s extremist religious political parties, which oppose their government’s decision to support the United States in any action against Afghanistan’s Taliban regime. Gul contends bin Laden had nothing to do with the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, saying instead that they were the work of the Mossad, the Israeli intelligence service — a version of events that has been endorsed by Islamic fundamentalist clerics and is widely accepted by Muslims throughout the Arab world.”

Hamid Gul says:

“I know bin Laden and his associates. I’ve been with them here, in Europe and the Middle East. They are graduates of the best universities and are highly intelligent with impressive degrees and speak impeccable English. These are people who have rediscovered fundamental Islamic values.”

“The destabilization of Pakistan is part of the U.S. plan because it is a Muslim nuclear state. The U.S. wants to isolate Pakistan from China as part of its containment policy. President Nixon’s book “The Real War” said China would be the superpower of the 21st Century. The U.S. is also creating hostility between Pakistan and Afghanistan, two Muslim states to reverse the perception that the Islamic world now has its own nuclear weapons. Bush 43 doesn’t realize he is being manipulated by people who understand geopolitics. He is not leading but being led. All he can do is think in terms of the wanted-dead-or-alive culture, which is how Hollywood conditions the masses to think and act.”

In response to the question “were you a fundamentalist in the days of the war against Soviets in Afghanistan when you worked closely with the CIA,” he replied: “Not as much as I am today.”

In response to a question about the Taliban, he replied

“They represent Islam in its purest form so far. It’s a clean sheet. And they were also moving in the right direction when this crisis was cooked up by the U.S. Until Sept. 11, they had perfect law and order with no formal police force, only traffic cops without sidearms. Now, in less than two weeks, they have mobilized some 300,000 volunteers to fight American and British invaders if they come.”

The International Institute on Counter-Terrorism did a much better job of portraying the true Hamid Gul:

“Hamid Gul was the DG of the ISI under Mrs.Benazir Bhutto during the first few months of her first tenure as the Prime Minister (1988 to 90), but she removed him from the post following the fiasco of an attack by the Afghan Mujahideen and Osama bin Laden’s followers which he had organized in a bid to capture Jalalabad from the control of the then Afghan President Najibullah’s army in 1989. The attack was repulsed by the Afghan Army after inflicting heavy casualties on the invaders.

After his retirement, Hamid Gul joined the Jamaat-e-Islami (JEI) of Qazi Hussain Ahmed and worked for some years for the Pasban, the militant youth wing of the JEI. He is no longer with the Pasban. He now owns a flourishing road transport business and has been at the forefront of all anti-Musharraf and anti-US activities by ex-servicemen. He has also been helping the Neo Taliban and its Amir, Mulla Mohammad Omar, in running their training camps in Pakistani territory. He has also rallied the support of many ex-servicemen for the current agitation by the lawyers and the JEI against Musharraf over the suspension of Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhary, the Chief Justice of Pakistan’s Supreme Court, on March 9, 2007.”

They go on to discuss other former ISI officers that are connected with the Taliban and Jihadi activities in Afghanistan and Pakistan, including Lal Masjid.

Pakistan’s liberal newspaper The Daily Times, Khalid Hasan provided great insight into the “strategic advisor” to the MMA, Hamid Gul, stating “Hamid Gul’s agenda – which he barely conceals – is to create a deadly nexus between Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iraq. Those who know Gen Gul say his objective is to widen the nexus to include Iran, Sudan and Saudi Arabia,”Arnaud de Borchgrave, United Press International Editor at Large, after September 11th, wrote at great length about the involvement of Pakistan’s ISI and Hamid Gul in the attack on the twin towers:

“A ranking CIA official, speaking anonymously, said the agency considered Gen. Gul “the most dangerous man” in Pakistan. A senior Pakistani political leader, also on condition of anonymity, said, “I have reason to believe Hamid Gul was Osama bin Laden’s master planner.”

And in another piece by Arnaud:

“The man who engineered the victory of Pakistan’s fundamentalist parties was Hamid Gul, a retired former head of the Inter-Services Intelligence agency (ISI) who acted as “strategic adviser” to MMA. Gen. Gul’s reward: a Senate seat. Some 300 ISI officers who had been working with Taliban prior to September 11 and were transferred to regular army units have now been returned to the intelligence agency. NWFP and Baluchistan are once again privileged sanctuaries for al Qaeda — a clear and present danger for President Bush’s war on terror.” This week, Gen. Gul publicly praised MMA’s top leaders as “saints just like [former Taliban leader] Mullah Omar” and hailed Saddam Hussein, Col. Moammar Gadhafi, Fidel Castro, the Assads (father and son) in Syria, China and Iran for “standing up to America’s new world order, the cruelest system on earth. But we have the nuclear capacity, a gift from God, to resist its imposition on us.”

Cooperative Research provides a time line with Hamid Gul’s involvement with the Taliban and al Qaeda.

Outlook India has a story called “Jews Attacked The WTC” which is nothing more than Hamid Gul telling his thoughts about the foolishness of the Pakistan - US relationship, but the interesting part is that it was written by none other than Amir Mir, the same journalist that Nic Robertson sang praises.

Needless to say, the internet is full of respected journalists writing about the voracity of Hamid Gul’s support for the Taliban and al Qaeda, yet Nic Robertson felt that he was a “qualified source” to speak on extremism in Pakistan, while never once asking about his own links and activities in their support.

I won’t even get into the comments that Nic Robertson made about a radical mosque in Walthamstow, UK that teaches extremism to British born Muslims or the over 200 terror cells that MI5 has under observation. Be clear here: British born, British raised, British educated, turned extremist in Britain, but because of a 3 month trip to Pakistan; Pakistan is the hub of terrorism in the world.

Are you going to claim that the Neo-Nazis and the Klu Klux Klan also came to Pakistan to learn how to terrorize Americans?

I should make it clear that I am neither a journalist or investigative reporter, just someone that is familiar with how research is done correctly. Looking at these shining examples of “journalistic” quality, it is very easy to understand that Nic Robertson and CNN did nothing more than promote the extremist and terrorist cause with their program “Pakistan: The Enemy Within.” This is obviously an attempt by CNN to blame Pakistan for the US military’s and Coalition forces failures in Afghanistan. When the world’s strongest military machines has to rely on a 3rd world country to stop terrorism, then exactly what are all the spy satellites and intelligence officers for? Or you could ask the Mayor of Kabul, Hamid Karzai, why he has been unable to raise an army, gain the support of fellow Afghanis or stop the massive increase in the poppy fields since the fall of the Taliban? But then he will say “Pakistan isn’t doing enough.”

Tomorrow, I’ll pick up with the questions that Nic Robertson didn’t ask and why they are crucial to the debate on the extremist problem in Pakistan. But as I wrap up today’s post, I remind you that the media is a wonderful tool for propaganda and that you should always check what you see on TV with respected newspapers around the world. To put together the numerous citations that I have for part one of this post, I used Google and a list of the names from the program. If I can do it, so can you.

Don’t be fooled by the media into believing that they are telling you the truth.

UPDATES:

It seems that I am not the only one who wrote about this docudrama:

Pakistan: Threat from Within - CNN Documentary - I am the Pakistani-American blogger he refers to

Reply to a British Presenter - Another harsh review

Also, from what we are reading in the domestic media, CNN has been banned access to government briefings by the Prime Minister and the President, which could now extend to any government functionary. They were also denied access to Lal Masjid, the reason given was that the government’s media managers were angered at the airing of the same CNN special that I have called factually incorrect and nothing more than another anti-Pakistan episode from CNN. A CNN spokesman had the following to say “The action by the Pakistan government is regrettable. We remain committed to reporting from Pakistan.” Don’t you mean lying about Pakistan?

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In addition, there are confirmed reports that President Musharraf’s plane came under rocket fire, but the ISPR has denied this claim saying that it had nothing to do with the President. President Musharraf is in Quetta today to tour the flood affected areas in Baluchistan.

This may be a response to the Lal Masjid siege, but another foolish step by the extremists. Over the past 24 hours, Ghazi Abdul Rasheed, the Deputy Leader of Lal Masjid, has made promises to lay down his weapons and release all the hostages inside, only to renounce it within hours. He has also repeatedly put forward the demand that he be allowed safe passage from Lal Masjid to any location of his choice in Pakistan with his family. His justification is that his brother was humiliated on state-run Pakistan Television network, which has been denounced by President Musharraf, and treated with no dignity. He said that the people that have surrendered to the security forces have been made to disrobe before they were arrested. And lastly, he claimed that the government was parading these Taliban in front of the media to cause further humiliation to them. For all of these reasons, the Deputy Leader of Lal Masjid feels that he should not be arrested, instead given safe passage.

Again the logic of the Deputy Leader shows numerous faults:

1. When he claims to be concerned about the sanctity of life of the students held up with Lal Masjid, he refuses to allow them to leave the masjid, nor will he surrender himself. It also seems that the only lives that have any sanctity are those of the students inside Lal Masjid, as last night the terrorists fired rocket launchers at an Armored Personnel Carrier and intensified their attacks on the security forces. If you are so concerned with the sanctity of the lives of the people inside Lal Masjid, surrender yourself to the security forces and bring this to an end. Rather, you continue to make inflammatory statements that “we will not surrender and will fight to the death.” Fine, you can fight to the death, but release the women and children hostages that you have taken.
2. The Deputy Leader feels that he has done nothing wrong, repeatedly stating that he is not a criminal. I think if you ask Osama bin Laden, he will say the same. I’m sure that Saddam Hussein said the same thing from his arrest to when he was executed. There are over 25 police cases registered against Ghazi Abdul Rasheed, not counting the potential of numerous dead bodies inside Lal Masjid. You must stand for all the deaths, vandalism, kidnappings, hostages and attacks that have been carried out from Lal Masjid, as you are the one that continues the fight. You choose to take the law into your own hands, which is not acceptable in any country of the world, and must be brought before the courts for judgment and, if found guilty, sentencing. Add to that the fact that you have provided a safe house for terrorists from TNSM, who I have written about in detail in other post on this blog, and Jaish-e-Mohammedi, a Kashmiri terrorist organization, and you regular support for the Taliban and Al-Qaeda. For those that are not familiar, the black flag that flies outside of Lal Masjid is the flag of Al-Qaeda.
3. He is right that ever person that has surrendered to the security forces has been asked to take off their shirts. This would not have occurred if the Deputy Leader didn’t tell the entire domestic media that they would carry out “thousands of suicide attacks” around Pakistan if the government were to use force against them. Again, the embarrassment that the people that surrender are feeling is because of the numerous incendiary statements that you have made against the government. And the brainwashed students are still talking about suicide attacks in the country to retaliate for the government’s action against the terrorists. There are no guarantees that there are not suicide bombers coming out of Lal Masjid and there is no reason that anyone surrendering should be trusted not to carry one out, which is why all the surrenderer’s are being moved to Adalya Jail for processing and clearance. Again, potentially innocent people are suffering because of your poor decision making and foolish rhetoric.
4. The Deputy Leader of Lal Masjid claims that they are under attack even though they wish to surrender and that the government should stop firing on the masjid. Excuse me?! If we go back to the day that started this siege in motion, it was radicals from Lal Masjid that were firing live bullets, grenades and molitov cocktails at the security forces, while the security forces fired tear gas cannisters in return. Even today, the extremists inside Lal Masjid are firing heavily on the security forces with advanced weaponry that is not in the hands of the normal, law abiding citizen.
5. Even the religious clerics that were trying to broker a peaceful end to the siege have told the Deputy Leader of Lal Masjid to surrender and be arrested to avoid the additional loss of life of innocent people. Maulana Fazl-ur-Rehman, who since Wednesday has been trying to convince Ghazi Abdul Rasheed to surrender and let the courts decide the cases against him; this morning on GEO TV flatly said that he must give himself up for arrest now, as there are no other options. The reply from the terrorist: “We will never surrender and will fight to the death.” As reported in the domestic media this morning, the Ulema (religious council) has warned all masjids in Pakistan not to speak about Lal Masjid and Jamia Hafsa in their Friday prayer speeches.
6. According to a survey announced last night, 82% of Pakistan supports the government’s action against Lal Masjid and wants to see both the Ghazi brothers brought to justice for their behavior, their insult of Islam and the nation of Pakistan. This is further evidenced by the sheer number of phone calls being placed to domestic talk shows commending the government and the security forces on the patience and tolerance that they have shown throughout this stand-off and the support of the military action. I am looking for the hyper link to the survey, as it was reported in the media this morning.

Surrender is your only option… and that is unconditional… we as Pakistani will accept nothing less.

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