If rage were the criterion, Pakistain would be adjudged 'rogue'. Infested with the hobgoblins of terror, it snarls at foreign victims who plan their destruction. Terror's serum, violence, runs in its veins: political discourse is flecked with destructive long marches; women are being burned with acid, maidservants tortured to the third degree; infants are thrown live into canals, children maimed and killed at school and madrassa; peaceful 'oppressed nations movement' (PONAM) could be killing innocent people in Balochistan
...the Pak province bordering Kandahar and Uruzgun provinces in Afghanistan and Sistan Baluchistan in Iran. Its native Baloch propulation is being displaced by Pashtuns and Punjabis and they aren't happy about it...
and Sindh. The Overlord of Terror Al Qaeda surveys the scene and is satisfied that his final dominion has come into being, with politicians, judges and the generals lined up in obedient columns.
Surgeon Shakeel Afridi has been found guilty of treason under the tribal justice system of Khyber Agency
and sentenced to 33 years in jail and fined Rs 320,000 ($3,500) along with confiscation of his property. He was fired as a government doctor in February 2012. The treason charge brought against him after US Defence Secretary Leon Panetta...current SecDef, previously Director of the Central Intelligence Agency. Panetta served as President Bill Clinton's White House Chief of Staff from 1994 to 1997 and was a member of the United States House of Representatives from 1977 to 1993....
, in January, disclosed Afridi had worked for US intelligence collecting DNA to verify bin Laden's presence in Abbottabad
... A pleasant city located only 30 convenient miles from Islamabad. The city is noted for its nice weather and good schools. It is the site of Pakistain's military academy, which was within comfortable walking distance of the residence of the late Osama bin Laden....
Afridi was not present in the court and not given a chance to defend himself because under the tribal system he would not have had access to a lawyer. He was thereafter moved to prison in Beautiful Downtown Peshawar and put under heavy guard probably in anticipation of another Abbottabad-like operation by the US. In October the Abbottabad Commission inquiring into the death of Osama bin Laden had recommended that he be tried for treason.
As if to further provoke an already outraged military established Panetta had said he believed someone in authority in Pakistain knew where bin Laden was hiding. The wrath that resulted from this remark likely led to the 'prejudgement' on Afridi. Pakistain already prostrated by the violation of its illusory sovereignty by Al Qaeda and its foreign affiliates got out of hand. Now the US was the enemy and Al Qaeda was an enemy susceptible to Pak appeasement. Al
Zawahiri... Formerly second in command of al-Qaeda, now the head cheese, occasionally described as
the real brains of the outfit.Formerly the Mister Big of Egyptian Islamic Jihad. Bumped off Abdullah Azzam with a car boom in the course of one of their little disputes. Is thought to have composed bin Laden's fatwa entitled World Islamic Front Against Jews and Crusaders. Currently residing in the North Wazoo area. That is not a horn growing from the middle of his forehead, but a prayer bump, attesting to how devout he is...
could not be such an imbecile as to ignore that commonality of enemy makes you friends.
Afridi was sentenced under Penal Code clauses related to offences against the state, conspiracy or attempt to wage war against Pakistain, concealing with intent designs to wage war against the state and on charges of working against the country's illusory sovereignty. The doctor had been recruited by the CIA for an elaborate scheme to vaccinate residents for hepatitis B, a ploy to get a DNA sample from those living in the house to see if they were bin Laden family members.
The American position was terse and it came from Pentagon: 'Without commenting on specific individuals, anyone who helped the United States find bin Laden was working against Al Qaeda and not against Pakistain'. US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton
... sometimes described as
The Heroine of Tuzlaand at other times as Mrs. Bill, never as
Another Edward Livingstone...
said, 'We think his treatment is unjust and unwarranted. The conviction and jail sentence has no basis and the doctor's fate is among the many issues important to the United States and the international community that the US is discussing with Pakistain's leaders'.
In a punitive measure, the Senate Appropriations Committee has requested $1 billion in aid for Pakistain for fiscal year 2013, down from about $1.5 billion. Its leader said: 'Afridi's sentencing will be hard for people in the US to understand or bear. Americans will have great difficulty knowing that one year after the United States found and killed the most notorious terrorist in modern history hiding on Pak soil, the most visible action being taken to find out how he came to be in Pakistain is the conviction in a Pak court of the physician who helped the United States identify Osama bin Laden'.
At the risk of being called 'CIA agent' the Human Rights Commission of Pakistain said: 'One is concerned about the security of the country, but that cannot be made the basis of denying rule of law to anyone. HRCP notes with concern that the trial of Dr Afridi falls well short of the due process standards on many counts, not least because the core principle of natural justice has been ignored and Afridi denied due legal assistance. The question of trying Dr Afridi on charges of treason also remains controversial. His actions may well have been prompted by the declared policy of the State to fight all forms of terrorism in sincerity'.
Another observer in the US opined: 'Four years after the terror assault on Mumbai that killed 165 people, which was launched from Pak soil by the Lashkar-e-Taiba
...the Army of the Pure, an Ahl-e-Hadith terror organization founded by Hafiz Saeed. LeT masquerades behind the Jamaat-ud-Dawa facade within Pakistain and periodically blows things up and kills people in India. Despite the fact that it is
banned, always an interesting concept in Pakistain, the organization remains an blatant tool and perhaps an arm of the ISI...
, and despite ample evidence handed over by the Indian government, not a single person has been convicted for the terror attack. Hafiz Muhammad Saeed
...who would be wearing a canvas jacket with very long sleeves anyplace but Pakistain...
, the emir of the Lashkar-e-Taiba who has been implicated in the Mumbai attack and other terror assaults, not only walks free, but is a celebrity in Pakistain. He is feted by politicians, generals, and the media, despite a $10 million reward offered by the US government for information leading to his arrest and conviction'.
In a recent article Pakistain's reputable nuclear physicist Pervez Hoodbhoy pointed out the topsy-turvy sense of justice in Pakistain sent out of kilter by terror by stating that Supreme Court was demanding that the government move quickly to rebuild Islamabad's Jamia Hafsa, the madrassa adjoining Lal Masjid that was illegally built on government land and torn down in 2007, ignoring the acts of terror carried out by elements inside Lal Majid known as a watering-hole of Al Qaeda and its Pak minions. Al Zawahiri had announced reprisals and announced the setting up of Tehrik Taliban after the Lal Masjid operation.
Pakistain became unhinged in 2011 when it caught hold of CIA contractor Raymond Davis after he had killed two dacoits in Lahore and allowed the nation to become a blood-thirsty animal calling for his death. Later Davis was allowed to go scot-free under an Islamic provision which no one gave credit to. The same kind of imbecilic reaction was displayed in reaction to the Salala attack in November 2011. The nation wants war with the US but the parliament wants the NATO
...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. A collection of multinational and multilingual and multicultural armed forces, all of differing capabilities, working toward a common goal by pulling in different directions...
supply route resumed. Even this back-step was not rational. It wanted emotional satisfaction through an apology instead of a realistic compensation that would have helped the country's sinking economy.
Is Pakistain reacting out of guilt rather than moral outrage which is what the people of Pakistain are being made to feel by the TV channels? Reported in Mashriq (15 Feb 2012) ex-ISI chief and possibly ex-army chief Ziauddin Butt stated that Musharraf and ISI officer Brigadier Ijaz Shah had kept Osama bin Laden in Abbottabad. Musharraf gave the permission and ex-ISI and then ex-IB chief Punjab Brigadier (Retd) Ijaz Shah built the facility where Osama was living before the Americans killed him. Ijaz Shah later fled to Australia. And when Musharraf tried to send him to Australia as ambassador the Australian government refused to accept him. (Ziauddin Butt denied that he had made the statement).
People may be emotional by nature and when they are a mob they may be likened to an animal but the state must at all times act coolly in the ultimate interest of its economy. The punishment meted out to Afridi is an act of anger which will not appease Al Qaeda which increasingly thinks that Pak Army is not capable of fighting it. It does not think that Pak Army can be a sincere friend in bringing about the change Al Qaeda has prepared the ground for with 'nation-building' through fear.