Syeda Mazhar
Terrorism and international isolation, not dissent, are the real threats to Pakistan but unfortunately the authorities refuse to recognize that reality, said former Pakistan Ambassador to the United States, Hussain Haqqani, while opening the two-day deliberative conference titled ‘Pakistan After the Elections.’ The conference is the third organised by the South Asians Against Terrorism and for Human Rights (SAATH), a grouping of prodemocracy Pakistanis co-hosted by Haqqani and US-based columnist Dr Mohammad Taqi.
He said the heavy-handed suppression of diverse views in Pakistan would not end the country’s economic crisis nor would it help the government’s stated purpose of projecting a positive image for the country.
“The best way to have a positive image is to build a positive reality, one that is free of the taint of terrorism, external dependence, and lack of democracy,” he said.
Notoriously known for his anti-Pakistan rhetoric Hussain Haqqani has been active to malign Pakistan’s name again. His murky views and controversial links between the military and terrorists, both in Pakistan and neighboring Afghanistan, made him an object of suspicion amongst the seniors in Inter-Services Intelligence agency (ISI).
It is noteworthy that Husain Haqqani also leaves no stone unturned in distorting the image of Pakistan and its armed forces, while showing Pakistan a fundamentalist state in order to please his external masters. As regards Husain Haqqani, while serving as Pakistani ambassador, he was protecting American interests. He had issued visas to many CIA agents like Ramond Davis to weaken Pakistan.
Similarly another prominent member of SAATH, Mohammad Taqi, seems to have ample amount of time to regularly write columns with a pattern of regularly maligning Pakistan’s military establishment. Studying the pattern of distinct comments made against Pakistan’s military-intelligence agencies and discrediting the state’s attempts to counter foreign-sponsored Baloch separatism show considerable insight into the mind of Dr Mohammad Taqi.
A more detailed study of his mostly rhetorical tweets and interviews to foreign Pashto-language media networks makes the picture clearer; the (not good) doctor belongs to the same elitist ‘Loy Afghanistan’ group like Farhat Taj, Said Alam Mehsud, Afrasiab Khattak et al who are activists for an independent ‘Pashtunistan’ that merges KP and tribal areas into a ‘Greater Afghanistan’.
Inviting prominent personnel who are outspokenly anti-Pakistan like Brad Sherman and other it has become increasingly obvious that this venture is encouraged by the fundamentalist rulers, Hindu extremist outfits such as BJP, RSS VHP, Bajrang Dal and Shiv Sena including other similar parties have been promoting religious and ethnic chauvinism in India by propagating ideology of Hindutva (Hindu nationalism).
Pakistan was not doing enough to show the world the seriousness of its efforts to curb and eradicate terrorist setups breeding on its soil. Ever since Pakistan tested its nuclear weapon in 1998, it has become an epicentre of criticism and this debate has seldom gone off the radar in contemporary global affairs. Many international security experts have expressed unnecessary and unjustifiable anxiety on the country’s nuclear program.
Being the only nuclear country in the Islamic World, Pakistan is on the hit-list of the US, India and Israel, including some Western countries. Based in Afghanistan, American CIA, Indian RAW and Israeli Mossad, including British MI6 which have well-established their covert networks there and are well-penetrated in the militant outfits like the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), ISIS and their affiliated Taliban groups had been using their terrorists to destabilize Pakistan by arranging the subversive activities such as target killings, suicide attacks and ethnic violence in various regions of the country.
Although due to the efforts of Pakistan’s security forces, 80 percent of terrorism has been eliminated in the country, yet organized propaganda campaign by the foreign entities continues against Pakistan. It is regrettable that some internal elements of the country also support the external enemies of Pakistan.
This dichotomy doesn’t end here. Painting a dark picture of the country to please his foreign masters, Haqqani also describes the Pakistani psyche to explain as to how the country evolved into a dysfunctional nuclear state and criticizes all the actors such as the Pakistani state, the military and the politicians, including even the intelligentsia. Speaking in the tone of the top officials of the US and India, he has tried to defame the image of Pakistan in the comity of nations.
Pakistani media is totally free, more than any other country in the world that can be assessed by the fact that there is no bar on them to even criticize the military and even judiciary. Hence disinformation is being resorted to in such kind of forums with obvious malicious designs.
Nevertheless, SAATH forum has been able to get maximum attention in Indian press and electronic media which published many articles and blogs to malign Pakistan, its security forces—ISI and criticism of military operation Zarb-e-Azb. In fact, this “so called” forum meant for spreading disinformation about Pakistan, its government and the armed forces. The forum is being sponsored by the anti-state elements that are backed by external forces to defame Pakistan.
