General Mirza Aslam Beg, Former Chief of Army Staff, Pakistan
The Abbottabad episode of 2 May 2011 provides the opportunity to restore our national sovereignty and establish new level of relationship with our immediate neighbors and countries beyond. “It is a blessing in disguise” to restore national honour and dignity. In fact, the 2/5 episode was a hoax and a big lie, the same as 9/11 episode was a big lie for an excuse to launch the Crusade against the Muslim World.
Osama’s look-alike prisoner from Bagram, was picked-up and brought to Abbottabad and killed in cold blood, in front of his family members, who were living there. In fact, Osama had been killed in Afghanistan some time back and his body may still be lying in a mortuary in Afghanistan. They showed a bullet-ridden picture of Osama, which was two years old and another photo which had no resemblance with him. His body was dumped into the sea, so hurriedly to hide the crime, committed in such a clumsy manner. The 2/5 episode was the finale of the 9/11 lies and was meant to achieve three main objectives: (One) With mission accomplished, Obama was to gain political advantage in the forthcoming elections; (Two) To find an excuse for the withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan. (Three) To defame the Pakistan government, the Pakistan Armed Forces and the ISI. On all the three counts Obama has gained and Pakistan now is reeling under pressure, blaming its own Armed Forces and the ISI, for the failure to safeguard territorial sovereignty, not knowing that we ourselves have pillaged Pakistan’s sovereignty as a matter of political expediency. It’s a sad story but needs to be remembered.
With the first military take-over of Ayub Khan in 1958, the American entered Pakistan and established their tentacles and got so entrenched, that they were able to boot-out Ayub Khan, when found “getting too big for his boots. Ironically a political movement was launched to replace him with Yahya Khan, who became the catalyst for the dismemberment of Pakistan. Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, took over as the first elected Prime Minister of Pakistan. He was a visionary leader and a statesman, and didn’t fit into the ‘American agenda of Great Game on the Global Chess-Board.’ Thus he became an unwanted leader, because he opened the way to China; he gave the idea to King Faisal to assume the leadership of the Muslim World, and he laid the foundation for Pakistan’s nuclear programme. Therefore, he had to be punished and “made a horrible example” at the hands of military dictator and a compliant judiciary.
General Zia joined the American war against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan from 1980-88. During this period, the CIA established a vast spy net-work in Pakistan, gaining access into our national institutions, the media and the civil society. After the Soviet retreat, Americans turned their back on Afghanistan and Pakistan, denied power sharing to the Taliban and induced a civil war and got Zia removed from the scene, because he was promoting the Mujahideen cause. Benazir Bhutto took over in 1988, and soon came under pressure to “clip the ISI wings” because the Americans were awed by the ISI’s professional prowess of defeating the Soviets in Afghanistan. The ISI was ruthlessly purged and Pakistan lost its eyes and ears into Afghanistan. In 1998, when Nawaz Sharif carried out atomic explosions in response to the Indians, he became “an undesirable person”. A political movement was started, supporting military take over in 1999. This was the time, the Americans were ready to launch the Crusade against the Muslim World and played the 9/11 drama. Musharraf was pressurized to accept all the seven conditionalities forced on him. He decided to join the war against our brotherly Muslim country and subsequently allowed the American marines and the CIA to monitor the entire Pak-Afghan borders and pulled-out ISI from these areas, thus bartering away the territorial sovereignty of Pakistan. By this time RAW had already established its spy network in Afghanistan and joined hands with the CIA, infesting Pakistan’s entire border region with enemy agents and provocateurs, and by 2005, succeeded in turning the Afghan war on Pakistan. The recent Raymond Davis arrest has revealed that the CIA and RAW had penetrated deep into Pakistan and were responsible for insurgency in Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhawa provinces and most of the terror attacks taking place in Pakistan. Therefore our government rightly decided to reclaim the lost territory, using the Pakistan Army and the ISI. They are in action, and have earned the ire of US government, who are feeling so uncomfortable.
It is interesting to note that for 9/11 episode the Americans did not blame their armed forces or the intelligence agencies for their failure to protect the country from the catastrophe. Similarly, after the attack in Mumbai in 2009, the Indians did not blame their armed forces or the intelligence agencies. Rather, they pointed their finger directly towards Pakistan, while the Americans put the entire blame on Osama and Al-Qaeda. No wonder, the CIA and RAW joined by sympathizers in Pakistan, now are putting the blame on Pakistani Armed Forces and the ISI, who have sacrificed so much in blood and sweat, to safeguard national sovereignty.
The Americans made a monster of Osama and Al-Qaeda, who, after 1990, in fact had no role in Afghanistan, nor in Pakistan. The Al-Qaeda may have carried-out a few suicide missions against American targets, while sitting idle in Afghanistan from 1996 to 2001, but the western media blamed them for most of the terror acts in Afghanistan and the region, “to create an Enemy” and to demonise the freedom movement of the Afghans. In fact, after 9/11, Osama had been hiding in caves and culverts and had lost his clout and that is the reason that on his death, there has been no visible reaction. Osama’s myth, so assiduously created, has exploded.
The 2/5 episode “is a blessing in disguise” for our government, the Armed Force and the intelligence agencies, to act in concert and weed-out enemy agents and provocateurs, ruthlessly. In fact a kind of “large scale fumigation campaign would be necessary to eliminate the termites, eating into our very foundation.” The process has already begun in Balochistan and must be expanded to cover entire Pakistan. Once our national sovereignty is restored, it will provide the foundation to establish, meaningful relationship with our neighbors and countries beyond. In fact, a complete re-think is needed, to re-structure our relationship with the United States of America, in particular.
The Elegy. The Pakistani nation has had such high expectations from the democratic government to deliver a sovereign parliament and an independent judiciary –the guarantors of national sovereignty, but unfortunately both the institutions have been so methodically suppressed to render them ineffective. In fact, our national sovereignty has been debased and humiliated by one and all who mattered in Pakistan, in the same manner as Mukhtaran Mai, the helpless Pakistani woman, lost her honour in broad day light. Don’t cry Pakistan!!
General Aslam Beg is one of the most authoritative analysts in Pakistan. He can be reached at friendsfoundation@live.co.uk