Conspiration Against Pakistan

[Areff]

How A Few Pakistanis Conspire Against Pakistan Military & ISI

Submitted by Aurangzeb on December 23, 2011 – 10:01 pm

One day an idea is discussed on Twitter in Pakistan. Next day, an anti-military draft is released in Hong Kong, and another submitted to the Supreme Court in Islamabad.


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ISLAMABAD, Pakistan—Here is an interesting sequence of events that shows how Pakistan’s military and its main foreign intelligence-gathering agency, the ISI, are targeted from the inside by a group of Pakistanis conspiring against a vital pillar of the State.

One day, a group of Pakistanis linked to foreign embassies decides to launch a legal campaign to oust and prosecute the two generals that lead the army and the ISI.

The next day, a rights group based in Hong Kong issues a detailed slanderous paper full of lies and insinuations against our military, mirroring and endorsing biased and motivated propaganda coming from foreign countries. Of course, the Pakistani viewpoint is not reflected in the document.


On the same day, a case is filed in the Supreme Court demanding Army chief Gen. Kayani and ISI’s Lt. Gen. Pasha are tried for treason.

What is Kayani and Pasha’s crime? The two have overreached – in the eyes of the conspirators – in probing whether someone from Pakistan wrote a secret memo to the US government seeking support to mount a coup against the country’s military and intelligence leaderships, replacing them with US stooges.

As government’s probe flounders and suspicions arise of a possible cover-up, the two generals approach the Supreme Court to ensure such a probe happens.

What the generals did was legal and respectful of the law. After all, what spy agency in any country wouldn’t show interest in a conspiracy targeting the institution and involving a foreign government?

THE CONSPIRACY

Probing possible internal breaches to national security is inherent to the job of ISI and should be backed by the government and the military. But for some reason this did not suit newspaper editor Beena Sarwar, TV producer Fifi Haroon, New America Foundation fellow Najam Sethi, and UN coordinator Marvi Sirmed.

There are indications that Farahnaz Isphahani, President Zardari’s media adviser and Husain Haqqani’s wife, is behind the idea of demanding the resignations of the two generals. But there is no evidence implicating her.

On 18 December, their timeline on Twitter [see the screen shot] goes something like this:

Beenasarwar: it gets curious and curiouser. Firs this Mansoorijaz pops out of the woodwork in USA, now this Shafqatullah in Canada #memogate

Fifiharoon: @beenasarwar you mean it gets more & more ridiculous! We should petition CJ to take suo moto notice of ISI as a threat to Pakistan

Najamsethi: @fifiharoon @beenasarwar What a good idea! We should draft an alternative petition signed by 100 prominent citizens & send it to CPJ ASAP

Marvisirmed: @najamsethi BTW, I have got around 20 citizens on it already. @fifiharoon @beenasarwar

Someone might say this is legal too and nothing wrong in it.

It looks like that. But wait. The conspiracy goes beyond Pakistan’s borders.

The very next day, 19 December, a draft is ready and released as promised by Mr. Sethi. But it comes out of Hong Kong, from the offices of an NGO called Asian Human Rights Commission. The AHRC is a private group dominated by Indian activists.

The group issues an Urgent Appeal.

Also on 19 December a petition is submitted in the Supreme Court in Islamabad against Pakistan Army and ISI chiefs demanding their resignations and trial for treason.

WHO ARE THE CONPIRATORS?

Ms. Beena Sarwar is a cheerleader for Indian supremacy over Pakistan. She endorses Indian political claims in disputes with Pakistan.

Mr. Sethi, along with his wife, work for a US think tank and are recent converts to the US government view on Pakistan and its future. Their daughter, Mira, landed a job at Wall Street Journal, a US paper that promotes anti-Pakistanism. Her first assignment … you guessed it right: attack Pakistan’s military.

Mrs. Marvi Sirmed works for the UN office in Pakistan. She’s been leading frontal attacks on Pakistan’s military and ISI in newspapers and TV appearances, endorsing every word about them coming from adversarial foreign governments. In a recent TV appearance, she ridiculed the entire premise behind Pakistan’s rise as an independent nation. Unfortunately, Pakistani laws do not incriminate anti-state speech. It is not clear if her opinions are endorsed by her employers.

AHRC’S APPEAL

The Indian-dominated rights group released on 19 December the draft that Sethi, Sarwar, Haroon and Sirmed conceived on the 18th.

Now look at how they twist facts and spread lies against Pakistan’s military institutions:

1. FIRST CLAIM: The AHRC decides in its document that Mansoor Ijaz “wrote” the secret memo, implicitly absolving Husain Haqqani from at least coauthoring the memo, if not authoring it outright. This case is being reviewed at the Supreme Court of Pakistan. AHRC unwittingly exposes its bias and political agenda in this one line.

2. SECOND CLAIM: The AHRC meddles in Pakistani politics by attacking the opposition leader Nawaz Sharif, the mover of the petition on the secret memo. AHRC says Sharif was “groomed as a politician during the period of the military dictator.” Of course, the founder of the incumbent ruling party that AHRC seeks to defend was also groomed under a military dictator. This is conveniently overlooked.

3. THIRD CLAIM: AHRC demands that the two generals resign and be put on trial in the same way that Husain Haqqani was forced to resign and stand trial. The comparison is incorrect because the evidence exists on conspiring against the State in Haqqani’s case. The accusation that the army and ISI chiefs are conspiring against an elected government is a conspiracy theory at best.

4. FOURTH CLAIM: AHRC fully endorses in its document the politically motivated US and Indian propaganda against ISI. It concludes its appeal with this sentence: “It is also alleged that the ISI is involved in bomb blasts and assassinations in neighboring countries and providing training to the Mujahideen.”

A couple of foreign governments are targeting Pakistan’s military and intelligence as a policy. The army and ISI chiefs are the preferred targets. Now this objective has been joined by a small group of Pakistanis that shares linkages to the foreign agenda in Pakistan.

Source: Pak Nationalists

[Areff]

The Haqqani Memo: A New Height For Treason In Pakistan



A new pro-US team of ex-military and civilian Pakistanis was ready to take over. Who are they?

Between the denials of Husain Haqqani, threats to a key witness to stay away from testimony, and American efforts to save the incompetent government of President Asif Ali Zardari, the fact remains that ‘The Memo’ is a new height for treason in Pakistan.

There can be no higher treason for a serving elected government than to secretly invite a foreign country to decapitate the country’s military leadership, compromise the nation’s strategic weapons arsenal, and voluntarily surrender policy on vital strategic interests.

The Memo did all three. And there is little doubt that Mr. Haqqani, a confidante to President of Pakistan, was involved in this conspiracy.

There is also little doubt he was not alone. Apart from his American partners, a list of Pakistani partners exists. This potentially includes individuals, serving and retired, inside and outside government, who helped in writing The Memo, whose copy was first revealed by a blog on the American Foreign Policy magazine’s website.

Pakistani citizens, conscientious politicians (if any), and the country’s national security managers, cannot take lightly this action against Pakistan by a group of powerful Pakistanis whose only interest was to serve a powerful foreign government, the United States, and its military and intelligence.

One day maybe The Memo would be taught in schools for how high treason looks like in action.

But for now, the following paragraph-by-paragraph analysis of The Memo serves as a reminder to Pakistanis why cases of treason should never be brushed under the carpet.

TREASON

1. The writer(s) of The Memo sought to create national division in Pakistan by dividing the government between ‘civilians’ and ‘military’. This deliberate division was meant to incite warfare among Pakistanis, and mislead foreign governments. The rift sought to weaken Pakistan when a war rages on our borders. [Paragraph One of The Memo]

2. The writer(s) of The Memo attempted to create a false impression of a military coup where none existed. [Paragraph One + Two]

3. The writer(s) of The Memo conspired against Pakistan Armed Forces using a misleading phrase, i.e. ‘correcting civil-military relations’. Any such relations are an internal Pakistani matter. It can never justify inviting foreign intervention as the Haqqani Memo does.

4. The writer(s) of The Memo accuse ISI of outing the name of CIA station chief in Islamabad, clearly adopting the position of US government.

5. The writer(s) of The Memo accuse Pakistan of being home to al-Qaeda. [Paragraph Two.]

6. The writer(s) of The Memo blackmail Pakistan using the term ‘1971 moment’. They propose to US government to threaten Pakistan of breakup [like 1971 after an unprovoked Indian invasion] if the Zardari government is held accountable for allowing illegal CIA penetration into the country. [Paragraph Three.]

7. Bluntly ‘requests direct intervention’ by another country in Pakistan. [Para Three]

8. Promises to replace Pakistan’s military leadership with “trusted advisers that include ex-military and civilian leaders favorably viewed by Washington.” [Para Three.]

9. Promises that the new pro-US Pakistani national security team-in-waiting consists of Pakistanis “each of whom have long and historical ties” to US military and intelligence. [Para Three.]

10. Promises that the name of the new pro-US team to run Pakistan’s military and intelligence are provided verbally through the person delivering The Memo. [Para Three.]

11. Promises six tangible actions in Islamabad in favor of US interests:

11.1 To put Pakistan on trial for “harboring” Al-Qaeda terror chief OBL, and constitute a Pakistani panel for the investigation where US government can screen and nominate members. [Bullet One]

11.2 Bullet Two in The Memo affirms official Pakistani government, military and intelligence complicity in harboring OBL.

11.3 Bullet Three confirms -- without evidence -- that Al-Qaeda terror group leaders are harbored by Pakistan and will be handed over to US once the new pro-US military and civilian Pakistani national security team is in charge. Also, an offer is extended to allow US military and intelligence to conduct operations on Pakistani soil.

11.4 Bullet Three confirms that these offers have been discussed and approved at the highest levels of the Zardari-Gilani government.

11.5 Promises Washington to implement “an acceptable framework … for Pakistan’s nuclear program.” Any interpretation of this sentence would mean some form of American supervision of Pakistan’s nuclear program. The writer(s) of The Memo suggest that currently Pakistani nuclear weapons are not secure. [Bullet Four]

11.6 Promises to eliminate Section S of ISI that the writer(s) of The Memo claim maintains links to Afghan Taliban. This directly infringes on Pakistan’s legitimate right to deal with players in the region as suited to Pakistani interests. The Haqqani Memo assumes here that Pakistan should follow policy guidelines coming from Washington. [Bullet Five]

11.7 Promises to force Pakistan to submit to the demands of Indian government, suggests Pakistani guilt in 2008 Mumbai attacks, and promises to hand over anyone to India if New Delhi demands. [Bullet Six]

Paragraph Eleven: Promises US government that Zardari government’s interests are the same as Washington’s in aligning Pakistan with India “AND” Afghanistan [capital letters used by the writer(s) of The Memo].

The last line in The Memo reveals the extent of the conspiracy from the Pakistani side. It shows that an entire pro-US team of ex-military and civilian Pakistanis participated in writing this memo. The names of these Pakistanis were verbally conveyed to Admiral Mike Mullen, then US Chairman Joint Chiefs.