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Posts tagged with: Military

Romancing Glory – legacy of General Zia ul Huq

Zia-ul-HaqIn my childhood whenever we were asked what would you become when you grow up. The most common answers included joining the army or becoming a pilot (fighter). It may be because the 80s were spent under General Zia’s dictatorship. Later, it was the turn of being a Mujahid, fuelled by the Pakistani romance with Kashmir and hatred for India.

The formative years was spent listening to sermons glorifying Jihad and how killing infidels oppressing our fellow brethren in Bosnia, Chechnya, Palestine and more importantly Kashmir. The mullahs were tasked with glorifying and preparing the emotionally charged youth for fighting in the cause of Allah.

Those who have survived and they are very limited in number, recall how they were deceived and sent as proxy soldiers for the purest armed forces. The realization is aided greatly by the post 9/11 scenario in which the Military willingly brought the war on to us. God’s soldiers were now termed strayed fanatics and were driven into the mountains of Waziristan.

The war chimes rang aloud “sub se pehlay Pakistan” become the slogan of progress and enlightenment. We started celebrating the killings of our own countrymen. The price too was paid by us when we started laying to rest countless civilians killed in never before experienced “bomb blasts”.

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Jermey Scahill talks about Blackwater on Democracy Now

blackwaterJermy Scahill, the defense analyst who recently published an article in The Nation, is interviewed by Amy Goodman on Democracy Now. Jermey Scahill says that when he was about to go to press with the article, he got some frantic calls from US Joint Chief of Staff General Mullen. He goes on to discuss the Kestral Logistics a Pakistani firm and its owner Liaquat Ali Baig having close contacts with being the front end for Blackwater’s operations in Pakistan. The numerous covert drone attacks were also analyzed. The first 20 minutes are relevant to the Blackwater controversy


Blackwater’s Secret War in Pakistan being Verified

blackwater Xe servicesJeremy Scahill writes a must read detailed report on the operations of Blackwater in Pakistan. His extensive investigation naturally starts off from The White House which refused to comment or respond to his emails but a spokesperson from the US Department of Defense denied the presence of Blackwater in Pakistan to categorically say “We don’t have any contracts to do that work for us. We don’t contract that kind of work out, period”

I share some important points from the article, while I strongly suggest to read the full write at The Nation
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Abdullah Saad > Operation Rah-e-Nijat: An operational assessment

Abdullah Saad discusses the operational assessment of Pakistan Army’s offensive in South Waziristan Operation Rah-e-Nijat (Path to Salvation). A definite read to understand the dynamics of this offensive that Pakistan needs to take upon itself to possibly clean up the shit left by the Americans and their disastrous War on Terror


Peoples Resistance: Protest against Army Brutality

Location: Karachi Press Club
Date: Tuesday 7th October, 2009
Time: 5:00 PM

Peoples' ResistanceThe People’s Resistance strongly condemns the Army brutality captured on video recently as illegal and despicable behaviour on the basis of violation of the understanding of our human rights and our laws.

In no sense can this strong condemnation be understood as support of the Taliban. Lets not fail to remind ourselves what else the fight was about besides army action. The fight was against violent intolerance and deluded religious bigotry. It was also long overdue. We are glad it happened. This behaviour, and that not shown in the video, is intolerable and will undoubtedly help in making a Taliban comeback.
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Video on Human Rights Abuses by Pakistan Army leads to Censorship

Pakistan Army Human Rights AbusesFor the past few days a specific gut wrenching video has been making its way around the Pakistani web-sphere which shows a Pakistani Army Major conducting an interrogation of two people suspected of harboring Talibans. During the Question and Answer session the Major steps back and orders his crew to ruthlessly beat the person punching, kicking and whipping the suspects, who scream in pain and writhe on the ground. The 10-minute video is at best deliberately being shot (but is seemingly concealed away from the spectators) to record the entire interrogation, that goes to suggest that such treatment is a norm within the Army and should not be treated as a one off random affair. [BBC Link]

Sadly this inhumane treatment dealt out by this officer of the Pakistan Army makes me also want to fight back against these ruthless uniformed personnel. Such actions I consider as blatant human rights violation and the Army must be held accountable for such treatment, and not treat this as a one-off incident

Dawn.com reports that the Army spokesman Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas said ‘the army was investigating the alleged abuse’, but declined further comment Friday. Pakistan’s poorly trained and underfunded security forces have long been accused of human rights abuses.

Click through this link to verify if the Pkpolitics.com URL is blocked from Pakistan, if it is please submit a report on Herdictweb which helps aggregate information on why such website

The video follows after the jump
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The Brouhaha over Blackwater continues

Blackwater hereSunday’s Dawn has a report on the presence of Blackwater in Pakistan > there seems to be an apparent blanket of denial of their presence but tell tale signs continue to emerge that something is definitely afoot

Questions that must be asked of ourselves, (a) Can we trust our present leadership to tell us the whole truth, with honesty? (b) Can we trust America to NOT do such a thing and we believe the denial as per the US Ambassador, a representative of a country whose 233 year history is full of military operations, even if we were to, for a moment ignore this last decade of destruction and carnage?
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Blackwater Watch by Citizens of Pakistan

blackwaterWith all the wheeling and dealing by our country’s leaders compromising on all national issue only to ensure that their own stay in power is secured it does seem that our very own leaders elected / burecratic and military have unleashed yet another wrath unto the people of Pakistan by allowing the menacing extra-military force called Blackwater to establish a strong foothold in Pakistan.

Blackwater or recently known as Xe is a rogue military force comprised of ex-military personnel that has had a very bad reputation of being instrumental in a number of assassinations and armed bullying in Iraq and Afghanistan and it appears that they are now being welcomed into Pakistan.

This is OUR country, and there is no justification to import a team of non-Pakistani militia to come into Pakistan and establish themselves for any reason what so ever. The excuse that is being thrown around is that they are entrusted with the elite task of protecting the interests of the American Embassy in Islamabad, which I believe is hogwash.

As responsible and patriotic citizens of Pakistan I believe we as a team can out-fox our corrupt leaders in exposing this menace, this same organization played havoc with the lives of Iraqi nationals, let them not trample over us. We can wield power in numbers, literally found at every corner of the street in Pakistan, we as patriotic citizens of Pakistan can be an invisible force that chooses not be be trampled by an external force trying to run our lives
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Dictators and their Sons

Guest Post by Ahmad Nadeem Gehla

I have no experience of dealing with dictators or even their sons. Our generation however witnessed the brutality of former dictator Zia ul Haq against media, civil society, poets, writers and political workers. It has been two decades since former dictator burned in skies and things have changed drastically. Media and information technology has not only made information easily available but also developed a culture of civilized debate. The civil society has reorganized itself and has shown that it can stand firm against dictators during lawyer’s movement.

What has not changed is the mind set of dictator’s sons and their cronies. We are witnessing the retired generals and brigadiers coming to electronic media with revelations and defending their unconstitutional acts. Similarly, the ‘general’s sons’ turned politicians are not behind retired officers. They leave no opportunity to arrogantly defend their much hated fathers terming them martyrs and holy warriors. In a similar effort Ijaz ul Haq, a former parliamentarian and son of a former dictator Zia ul Haq tried to proved ZA Bhutto an executed leader and his own father a holy warrior and ‘Shaheed in an article published in ‘Daily News”.
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