The govt and the judiciary have not just betrayed Allah and Rasul Allah (sm), they have betrayed their oath and constitution as well.

The munafiq judiciary of Pakistan which protects Riba and wages a war with Rasul Allah (sm), is now destroying Pak army by blaming the agencies for missing persons. Now read this article by one of the most rabid anti-army liberal and pro-judiciary secular. He clearly accepts that there is a massive kidnapping for ransom industry thriving in North Waziristan where at any given time, almost 1000 people are kept as hostages for ransom by TTP and all kind of criminals. Now where is CJ and his Madar pidar azaad adlia which have always protected the terrorists but is vehemently attacking the army and ISI ????

Pak army is not crazy to pick up ordinary people from streets and kill them. Only an insane idiot would say that. Either the terrorists are killed in action or go over to Afghanistan and thus their families report them as missing to malign the army or they are kidnapped by TTP and other gangs and still the blame is put on the army. The judiciary should behave wisely, else if a coup can be staged against an elected President in Egypt, it can also be done here. This is what the nation desire anyways. The govt and the judiciary have not just betrayed Allah and Rasul Allah (sm), they have betrayed their oath and constitution as well. May Allah's curse be upon them.

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Saturday, July 06, 2013

The terror syndicate

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Babar Sattar

Legal eye The writer is a lawyer based in Islamabad. PML-N stalwarts declared immediately after the election that the ruling party’s top three priorities would be the economy, the economy and the economy. One hopes that two things are clear to thinking minds within the party in this first month: that the economy cannot really blossom if the country is suffering a reign of terror, and that perpetuation of terror and crime is what the TTP and its syndicated subgroups do for a living; they will not reconsider their ideology and politics or undermine their financial interests and source of power because the new governments in the centre and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa refuse to denounce them outright. The government has decided to convene an All-Parties Conference on terror. It will be a complete waste of time if the agenda is limited to innocuously condemning terror, endorsing talks with terrorists and passing other banal resolutions declaring respect for the sovereignty of other states while asking them to reciprocate. Let this be a two-part APC. The first part should be focused on helping the politicos fully understand the nature of the cancer eating Pakistan up. Once they know how things really are, then ask them to deliberate the best way to curb terror and build public opinion behind the agreed anti-terror framework. Let the army, the intelligence agencies and civilian law-enforcement agencies give in-camera briefings to the politicos and explain to them the horizontal, non-hierarchical functioning of the TTP and how it has granted franchise to subgroups engaging in crime and violence or entered into joint ventures with the LeJs and LeTs where it is more suitable. If they still support talking to the TTP as the best way to liquidate our terror network, ask them to consider what will become of the crime and terror subgroups that have presently been subsumed by the larger TTP brand but are functionally autonomous and not under the TTP’s control. Today’s Pakistan is like the nightmare where danger is approaching you fast but your body turns numb and refuses to respond. Our misfortune is being stuck with a national leadership – political, military and religious included – that either doesn’t understand the sense of urgency that must attach to rooting out terror or lacks the resolve and courage to take up such a daunting challenge. But in the event that we were to wake up from this nightmare and find our leaders willing to take responsibility for the future of our state and society, here are a few things they might wish to consider. As Austin explained, a sovereign is one who doesn’t habitually obey the command of another within a given territory, while others habitually obey his command within such territory. Now if Pakistan is a sovereign state it cannot tolerate the existence of sanctuaries where the TTP or other non-state actors don’t habitually obey its command and have established their own writ. Once those living within such sanctuary recognise that the command of the TTP, backed by threat of sanction, is more potent than that of the state of Pakistan, it is the end of Pakistan’s claim to sovereignty in relation to such territory. The concept of territorial sovereignty is not just theoretical. It is a functional necessity. First of all, there can be no such thing as shared sovereignty, unless those sharing power respect the legitimacy of the source distributing it. So for example, in a federation, the federal and provincial governments share power. But such power flows from the constitution, the legitimacy of which is recognised by both. In the TTP’s case it is monopoly over use of force within its sanctuary that forms the basis of its authority. As its ability to inflict violence on the state of Pakistan increases, so will its claim to additional territory. Second, unless Pakistan carves a tribal agency as TTP-land and treats it like an autonomous state, the flow of men, material and money back and forth will continue. Pakistan will remain at the mercy of the TTP and its crime syndicate, which will retain its ability to attack the Pakistani state and its citizens at will. Let us understand that if we agree to talk to the TTP and the talks succeed, what will change is not the ability of the TTP to attack us, but only our presumption about its will to do so. Pakistan is a big country. And in this age of terror and non-state actors, the distinction between hard and soft targets has ceased to exist. You may be able to protect the GHQ, air bases or VIPs with added layers of security, but how will you protect every school, every state building, every commercial complex, every residential compound, every policeman, judge, prosecutor, every bus and every camping site? So long as there remain non-state actors on our soil, whether motivated by an ideology of bigotry and hate or employed as mercenaries by foreign enemies, the problem of terror will remain alive with its bite. So here is the bad news. If talks with the TTP happen and succeed, they will result into nothing more than a temporary tenuous truce. The terror syndicate functioning under the TTP umbrella is no hierarchical disciplined organisation that will liquidate itself if Hakimullah Mehsud calls it a day and Ehsanullah Ehsan announces such retirement from his undisclosed location. The underlying radical ideology and political economy of terror is such that if the present faces are won over by the state, their more hard-line cousins and joint-venture partners will render them irrelevant and march on. The terror syndicate is getting stronger and more resourceful with every passing day. Forget the foreign funding for a moment. The two main sources of funding of the terror network are kidnapping and extortion. According to one unempirical estimate, on average there are around one thousand kidnapped citizens held for ransom in North Waziristan at any given time. The story of extortion is even more alarming. All kinds of extortion rackets – some franchised by the TTP and others just making hay while they can – are collecting money from anyone who has the ability to pay. The state as we know is unable to protect the life and property of citizens. Now if you could pay off the TTP in return for a promise not to be harmed, wouldn’t that be a rational choice for a businessman within the TTP’s firing range (which now unfortunately extends across most of Pakistan)? And then the TTP provides citizen services as well. If you have a house or land that is under someone’s occupation, you can either engage with the crackling justice system, grease your way through and wait for years as ‘due process’ lingers on, or you can outsource the task to the TTP or its local franchise and get instant results. In a functional state people pay taxes in return for protection of their fundamental rights and liberties and pay fees for provision of services. Is it not ironic that prosperous businessmen of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan are forced to pay jizya to the TTP to be left in peace? And is it not frightening that some are willingly reaching out to these merchants of terror for adjudication and resolution of private disputes? When the diktat of the TTP becomes more effective than the writ of the state and when the terror syndicate appears more resourceful than institutions of the state, can there be a conclusion other than that the state is falling apart? As the APC meets to discuss our terror problem, let Chatham House rules apply. Let the security establishment share the scope and magnitude of the problem with our representatives and let the anonymity of those engaging in such debate be guaranteed. For if the ability of our policymakers to formulate a rational policy on such a crucial issue is sabotaged due to personal safety concerns, we’re already past the tipping point. Email: sattar@post.harvard.edu