:  Strange Democracy at Work

Mahboob A. Khawaja, Ph.D.

The relevance of so called liberal democracy has lost its meaning and purpose after the US sponsored crusade “War on Terrorism” against the Muslim people of Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan. The ultimate goal is occupation of the lands by force and political subjugation of the Muslim people to the US control and exploitation over the rich natural resources of the people. Occupied Iraq, Abu Ghraib and the on-going wars of corruption and treason in Afghanistan and Pakistan are the true role models of the American sponsored clichés of freedom and democracy. The THINKING PEOPLE of the Muslim world must know and recognize the facts of human life and look at feasible alternatives to make a navigational change for their own interest, security and sustainable future.  The onslaught of the continuing wars against Islam has exposed the mockery of the liberal democracy simply to be a myth to buy the people, off the people and far the people. Pakistani Generals, Bhuttos and Zaradri are the democratic myth perpetuated by the American strategic plan to foster terrorism, daily bloodbaths, social and economic chaos and rule of the PPP gangsters.

For over 50 years, Pakistan remains occupied by three major interest groups sharing the time, opportunities and resources of the besieged nation. The army, civil service and the neo-colonial appointed landlords. If there was any rational tolerance scale, Pakistani nation would certainly secure high marks on its standard of tolerance and survival under most unfavorable circumstances.

One of the pivotal factors supporting the notion of Western liberal democracies is that it provides opportunities for participation to ordinary citizens, right or wrong to culminate a sense of legitimacy for the election exercise and chose people of their interest to manage public affairs for a specified term. But the principles and standards for evil and good vary between the West and the Islamic world. Strange as is, in Pakistan, those who come to occupy the political offices never intend to quit the political power on their own except implication of military force through a coup. Comparatively, on occasions western democracies do encourage educated and competent citizens to strive for their high ideas and ideals and come to the front stage and demonstrate their intentions and will power to seek the goal of ideal public service agendas. E.H. Carr defines teaching-learning role of history and its value must not be ignored but preserved. Recall the Pakistani military dictators for the last forty plus years, they each consumed a decade or more to relinquish power, what was not theirs in any systematic and logical context. Ayub Khan was ousted by Yahaya Khan. General Yahya with the complacency of ZA Bhutto surrendered East Pakistan to India (now Bangladesh) to share power with Bhutto but was put under house arrest as Bhutto assumed the power that did not belong to him based on the verdict of the people. Rightfully, it was Sheikh Mujibur Rehman, leader of the East Pakistan Awami League who should have been sworn-in as the new leader of united Pakistan but it was treacherously undone by Yahaya and Bhutto. Both should have been tried as traitors in a court of law and punished. Not so, they were rewarded and Bhutto became the first civilian martial law administrator and self-made president of the defeated Pakistan in December 1971.   Dr. Ishtiaq Qureshi, editor of the Urdu Digest recorded it for the history (“Sukoot-e-Dacca sey Purdha utha Hay”- Facts are revealed after the Dacca Surrender) that “…in quest for its survival Pakistan lost its destiny. Yahay and Mujib stabbed the body of Pakistan with one dagger and Bhutto will stab Pakistan with another dagger.”

Rationally, two opposing forces cannot be combined in one nutshell. Good and evil each has its own connotation, identity and characteristics. Educated ZA Bhutto was eloquent speaker but egoistic, naïve and power-hungry, not sincere to the cause of Pakistan. Bhutto family alive or dead continued to be a dominant factor in Pakistan’s political life for almost forty years. They conspired to grab political power and even dismember half of the Pakistan to satisfy their political greed. ZA Bhutto, Benazir Bhutto, two of her brothers  none of them died for Islam, nor Pakistan or democracy but simply met their ambitions. Now Asif Zardari the widower of Miss Benazir Bhutto claims to have the inheritance of her secret but suspicious will to lead the party and ultimately hold the political power in Pakistan. Is it a political joke or puzzled game waged against the innocent victims – the ordinary citizens of Pakistan?  Who is Zardari?  A middle school drop out, son of a Karachi cinema house and now charged with approximately 12-15 cases of corruption and money laundering schemes in Pakistan and Switzerland. For the record, he is said to have been indicted along with his wife Benzair Bhutto for the money laundering case in Pakistan and Switzerland. The regime under Zardari maintains a vicious network of corruption, nepotism and treason against the interest of the masses. Recently, upon disclosures that the law minister Babarr Awan stalled the Supreme Court verdict to open investigation of the money laundering case against Zardari. It is well known that thugs and thieves are always afraid of the judge. No wonder, most of the Zardari cabinet ministers turned out for a public showdown to express political solidarity with the accused Awan in the Supreme Court hearing. Do they have any political credibility to govern Pakistan? Is this is what the ordinary Pakistani folks wanted to see in a liberal democracy working progressively in Pakistan? People are not part of the political working and the powerhouse is maintained by the US sponsored agenda, the Pakistani military Generals and some segments of the bureaucracy. The real issue is how to change the malfunctioning of the so called democracy in Pakistan?  It is a working democracy off the people, buy the people and far the people.

More than a decade earlier, realizing the crux of the problems, I wrote series of articles  “Pakistan: Enigma of Change” visualizing the systematic choices for workable social, economic and political change, away from the military dictators  as it was the time of General Musharaf rule, and proposing concrete steps for remaking of the public institutions  while phasing-out the neo-colonial organizations and phasing-in the new people-based institutions of political governance to set the progressive stage for change and reformation in Islamic Pakistan. Musharaf was not different than any other corrupt military dictators who stole wealth and time for change and left the nation in extreme chaotic conditions and with American dollars framed Pakistanis as the object and victims of the US sponsored global terrorism. Under Zardari regime, Pakistanis are experiencing the daily bloodbaths and killings of the innocent civilians at a scale unknown to its history. In 2009 alone, 12,900 civilians were killed directly or indirectly by the proponents of the “terrorism” including the ruling regime under Zardari. The US claims to have invested 10 billion dollars in General Musharaf regime and the same goes on unabated under the current working of democracy in Pakistan. There are wrong people, with wrong agendas and doing the wrong things to dismember Muslim Pakistan. General Musharaf’s treason to Pakistan was well fed and he maintains $1.4 million mansion in London under the British security protection sponsored by the US. Zardari has number of convenient choices available to be living in Dubai, France and Switzerland in many splendid palaces purchased by money laundering schemes - the inheritor of Bhutto’s family.

Is there any law to bring these perpetrators of heinous crimes against the people to accountability in Pakistani court? It seems that Chief Justice Iftikar Choudry is determined to see that happened but the corrupt official infrastructures would stall all the legal deliberations to come to just and fair conclusions. After all, there are hundreds and thousands of Bhuttos, Zardaris and Musharafs who live on foreign aid and US paid bribes to ensure the working of a new form of liberal democracy in Pakistan. Eric Margolis is a reputable Canadian journalist who specializes on Pakistani and Islamic affairs. His article” Zardari Our man in Islamabad” (01/2010) is quite telling. He was warned to stop writing and making secret disclosures of the Bhutto-Zardari’s regime political conspiracies and was warned to leave Karachi or liquid acid will be thrown on him. Paul Craig Roberts is another well know respected America scholar who writes on the real world affairs. In one of his recent write-ups “Muslims are their own Worst Enemies” 03/2010, ICH analyses the Pakistani dilemma:

”At Washington’s behest, the government of Pakistan is conducting war against its own people, killing many and forcing others to flee their homes and lands. The Pakistani government’s war against its own citizens has caused military expenses to soar, putting Pakistan’s budget deep in the red. Deputy US Treasury Secretary Neal Wolin ordered the Pakistani government to raise taxes to pay for the war against its own people. http://news.antiwar.com/2010/02/12/us-treasury-dept-presses-pakistan-to-raise-taxes/  The puppet ruler, Asif Ali Zardari, complied with his American master’s orders. Zardari declared a broad-based value added tax on virtually all goods and most services in Pakistan. Thus, Pakistanis are forced to finance a war against themselves.”

Paul Craig Roberts reflects on the combined factual treachery of the US sponsored terrorism against the Muslims and Islamic movements in Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan:

“This makes the U.S. government a “state sponsor of terrorism.” For confirmation, one of the U.S. paid operatives, who conducted terror operations in Iran, has ratted on his terrorist supporters in Washington. Abdulmalek Rigi, leader of the Baloch separatist group responsible for several attacks, was recently arrested by the Iranians. Rigi admitted that the Americans in Washington assured him of unlimited military aid and funding for waging an insurgency against the Islamic Republic of Iran. (Read his confession here:  )

…..The U.S. and its NATO puppets have been killing Afghan women, children, and village elders since October 7, 2001, when the U.S. military invasion “Operation Enduring Freedom,” a proper Orwellian title for a self-serving war of aggression, was launched. The U.S. installed puppet president of Afghanistan, Hamid Karzai, is bought and paid for with U.S. dollars.”

The new generations of educated and proactive Pakistanis face many pressing challenges for change and reformation of the political gangesterism institutionalized by the Zardari regime in collaboration with the few army generals. Could some of the young and conscientious Generals of the Pakistani military come to rescue the nation and clean up the stinking political mess for a new beginning of a truly democratic rule and sustainable future?  The challenge is within from the corrupt politicians and their few accomplices in the army, not outside from India as often ignorant and bribed Pakistani writers would allege. The Zardari regime has no vision nor can be a hope for the future-making of Pakistan. They are thugs and indicted criminals now tuned gangsters as Saeed Qureshi, Upright Opinions (“Ministers or Gangsters” 05/26/2010), identifies them. They are being bought and sold at the global political market to commit treason against their own masses. The working patterns and outcomes are similar as is in Iraq and Afghanistan. The US sponsored money, bribes and death squads to promote its dictum of democracy.

Paul Craig Roberts adds that: “the money that Washington gives Karzai finances the corruption that supports him. Karzai’s corruption and his treason against the Afghan people encourage the Taliban to keep fighting in order to achieve a government that serves Afghans instead of Washington, D.C.

Without the puppet Karzai selling out Afghans to Washington, the U.S. would have already been driven out of the country. With Karzai paying Afghans with American money to fight Afghans for the Americans, the war drones on into its ninth year.”

There is no reason to disbelieve Paul Craig Roberts as he is a scholar of intellectual integrity and global credibility: The THINKING PEOPLE of Pakistan and Pakistani intellectuals abroad must take notice of the facts on the ground that the US will continue to finance Zardari gang and the “war on terrorism” to create more terrorism and dismember Muslim Pakistan. The challenge is urgent and critical for the young and educated generation of Pakistanis to have conducive opportunities for systematic change and reformation of the obsolete neo-colonial run politics. Zardari and the gangsters would not go voluntarily unless forced to quit the political powerhouse. The insurmountable challenge is how to safeguard the interest of the people of Pakistan and phase-in a non-partisan government under proactive, committed and intelligent leadership to plan and deliver the Islamic democratic system and services for the best of the deserving people.

Allah has promised to change the conditions of the besieged people to favorable future if they wanted a change and were working to make it happen: “Allah does not change the condition of people unless first they change themselves.”  (Al-Qura’an, Surah Al-Raad.).

(Dr. Mahboob A. Khawaja specializes in global security, peace and conflict resolution, and comparative cultures and civilizations, and author of many publications including Muslims and the West; How America Lost the War on Islamic Fundamentalism; To America and Canada with Reason; “Pakistan: Enigma of Change”, “Pakistan: Leaders who could not lead”, “Pakistan: how to make sense out of nonsense”,  “Pakistan at Crossroads”,  “ How the US and Britain Lost the Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan?”, “To President Obama-War is War, Not Peace.”