On November 26, 2009 I saw a documentary on HBO narrated by Fareed Zakaria, a Mumbai born American journalist. ‘Terror in Mumbai.’ an extremely informative documentary compresses three days of mayhem – three days when ten Pakistani young men who had mobile phones and machine guns killed 170 people and wounded 300 more, sending shockwaves of fear around the world. I was horrified watching this 360-degree view of the terrorist act, recounted in harrowing detail – especially because these young men came from a country, I call my own.

And, I wrote an article Pakistan’s Star Role on HBO Documentary which was commented over 300 times. Mostly, accusing me of being an Indian agent, of course  I am reposting my thoughts of the documentary because I saw it again last night with a note to all those who had suggested that my article had assigned direct responsibility for Mumbai to the Government of Pakistan.  One can apologize for acts done in the name of one’s nation, or in this case one’s religion, by their governments, or by their citizens, without assuming direct and absolute responsibility; just as many anti-war Americans have gone to Iraq and Afghanistan and apologized to the people for the war waged upon them by the U.S.  government.  I think here of the group September 11th Families for a Peaceful Tommorrow who have actively protested the war in Afghanistan and have even travelled  there to apologize directly to the people of Afghanistan.  It takes a big heart and courage to take such a position.  Pakistanis should muster up the courage and do the same.

“Terror in Mumbai” shows phone calls intercepted and recorded between these men sent on ‘jihad’ and their commander in Pakistan.  This conversation was hear wrenching and, so was statement of Kasab, the only gunman who survived. As this documentary depicted, these young Pakistan men received instructions over the telephone, leaving a trail of evidence that led Indian investigators to the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), a group fighting Indian rule in the disputed region of Kashmir. Pakistan’s military and ISI were also accused of backing the militants, a charge Islamabad has denied. New Delhi named 38 people in an 11,000-page charge sheet filed in a Mumbai court in February 2009.

At some level I feel sorry for these lost souls- poverty stricken, uneducated young men who were fooled by conniving leaders of LeT and other fundamentalist organizations,  However, I have no sympathies for their leaders- whomsoever they maybe. These characters have eroded the Pakistani society and have pushed us in a state of profound crisis.

I can’t forgive them because these morally corrupt LeT leaders have pushed us in a crisis that is complex, and multi-dimensional with facets that touch every aspect of our lives: our health and livelihood, the quality of our environment and our social relationships, our ideology, economy, and politics. It is a crisis of intellectual, moral, and spiritual dimensions; a crisis of a scale and urgency unprecedented in Pakistan’s 63 year history..

As a Pakistani-American, I stand today with my head down – embarrassed that my country has been hijacked by illiterate and irrational people – from self styled clergy to the army. These men will do anything they can to pursue their fantasy. Even if that means hoodwinking simple, young Pakistani men and murdering of innocent civilians on both sides of Indo-Pak border.

Undoubtedly, we must protect Pakistan’s sovereignty, independence and dignity but these wayward leaders who exploit religion and patriotism have managed to drown the voices of reason and rationality. With Petro dollars supported tribal and Wahabi influence Pakistan’s social structures and behavior patterns have become so rigid that this country can no longer adapt to changing situations, it is unable to carry on the creative process of cultural evolution.

Read response to my earlier blogs and you will find an eerie uniformity of opinion. Even those who are tolerant, progressive, democratic are willing to condone terrorists in the name of Islam and nation. This uniformity and lack of self-reflection  are clear signs that our society is in the process of disintegration.

As I watched this documentary I was reminded of acts of terrorism Pakistanis witness everyday- every Pakistani is a victim. Unless Pakistan’s progressive and democratic forces are willing to take on the retrogressive elements we will concede our right to opinion, education and way of life.  Fundamentalists will prohibit freedom of expression and use all coercive apparatus to crush opposition. Education will be discouraged and whatever little is allowed, will be subverted by distortion of curricula. You can argue what is new- it has always been the case? It is the intensity that will change. We are not talking about FATA or NWFP or the tribal areas. This monster is already in cosmopolitan cities like Karachi and Lahore.

I was horrified to hear the Punjabi accent of those controlling these 10 terrorists. I was horrified when these young men were ordered to shoot hostages- I can’t express my anger and fear.

We, the Pakistani people should seek forgiveness from the families of those who lost loved ones in Mumbai. We should let the people of Mumbai know that we are just as much a victim. We should let them know that we don’t condone these acts of violence.

We, the Pakistani people should let our rulers know that they can’t indulge in adventurism like LeT anymore. We should let ISI and MI know that we will not pay their salary if they do not immediately cease all relations with all terrorist outfits.

Husain Haqqani, in an e-mail, said: “To me Pakistan and Pakistan’s democracy are far more important than any artificially created crisis over an insignificant memo written by a self-centred businessman.”

Well, if Husain Haqqani’s resignation was all that was needed to secure a ceasefire with Taliban’s I would be content. Losing a job for peace is no big deal. But Haqqani’s resignation is a metaphor – it symbolizes dressing down of democracy- I am afraid on both side of the equation. Obama administration allowed Adm. Mike Mullen, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to manage relations with Pakistan and Mullen’s single threaded contact in Pakistan was army chief Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani. Why wasn’t Secretary of State Hillary Clinton working with her counterpart? Mostly, I am told, because Pakistan’s Foreign Minister ‘lacks diplomatic depth’ and is widely viewed as incompetent.

I feel Obama administration is making a major mistake – you can’t make peace with Taliban. It will comeback to bite us all.

I can’t confirm this that’s why I am going to leave it at this – I have called my friends at Samaa, Geo and Express and no one has been able to connect with Husain Haqqani. Rumor- and I am going stress- Rumor has it that he is under “protective custody.” I really hope I am wrong. But I am concerned!

The army decides that the terrorist hijackers of the Indian plane enjoy sanctuary in Pakistan whereas Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif spend years in exile. The people have to know that it is the army which makes all the decisions.

Attacking Data Darbar, the Pakistan Army, through its hirelings, has sent the following messages to the people of Pakistan:

We, the military, are powerful enough to confront, challenge and offend the entire population of Pakistan.

You, the people, are not safe anywhere.

We, the military, can kill you people anywhere.

SURRENDER!

The minds of the people register the attacks on the other targets as localized incidents. A Shiite procession is attacked. An Ahmedi mosque is attacked. A shopping mall is attacked. Video and music shops are attacked. Girls schools are attacked. Political rallies are attacked. Hotels are attacked. All such attacks involve targets situated across one social chasm or, the other.

The shrines, on the other hand, are a symbol of the social and cultural unity of the people of Pakistan. Not just members of all the Muslim sects visit the shrines, but the people of other faiths– Hindus, Christians, Sikhs and others–go there. Strangely, even the atheists visit the shrines.

The shrines stay above the religious, sectarian, political and social divides; they are the symbols of the ultimate social and cultural consensus, representative of the absolute majority.

An attack on a shrine is an attack on the absolute majority intended to instill paralyzing fear in the people to make them surrender to the army through the terrorists.

The people of Pakistan would have to know that the Taliban and other terrorist groups are the hirelings of the Pakistani military operating strictly under its command since 1980.

As the U.S. military chased the Afghan Taliban out of Afghanistan in 2001, the Pakistani military took them in and gave them complete control over Swat and other northern areas. In a span of over eight years, Pakistani Taliban outfits, too, were created and groomed and the area attracted terrorists from all over the world.

The local population of these military-sponsored-terrorist-controlled areas groaned under tyranny as the army gleefully used this situation to extort the confused Americans of billions of dollars.

The people of the northern areas suffered more as the Pakistan Army staged it’s mock war with long-range howitzers and aircraft. The trained terrorists ducked and moved on whereas millions of inhabitants had to flee their homes to escape the Pakistan Army bombardment.

The terrorists destroyed girls schools and hand-picked people to be killed with assault rifles, hand guns or, knives.

The Pakistan Army destroyed the very homes of the people of the northern areas with its blanket bombardment, killing men, women and children indiscriminately and rendering the survivors homeless refugees.

As the refugees return to the ruins of their homes, the army-sponsored terrorists, too, are coming back to overlord them once again.

The army’s mock war against it’s own hirelings taught the people of the northern areas and the tribal areas a simple lesson; the tyranny of the terrorists is not as deadly and destructive as the bombardment of the army, at least, in the short run.

Now, it is Punjab’s turn.

Through the attack on Data Darbar, Lahore, the people of Punjab have been told to submit to the ruthless rule of the mindless terrorists. The people of Punjab are told not to ever ask the Pakistan Army to intervene and liberate them from tyranny. The army will gladly respond with artillery and aerial bombardment of the towns of Punjab just like it did in the northern and the tribal areas.

So far, the army appears to have achieved the following objectives:

Terrorizing the population to the point of total submission. Rising poverty, rampant unemployment, malnutrition, lack of clean drinking water, power outages and complete lawlessness have already rendered the masses utterly confused, unable to think clearly; they are ripe to be enslaved to an unprecedented degree.

The other objective the army has achieved is that of keeping the politicians on the leash. The politicians obey the army blindly. They allocate funds for the military budget as directed. They let the military decide the defense policy. Also, the politicians never bring the military-sponsored terrorists to justice.

It is an effective working formula for the military. Absolute lawlessness in the country further discredits the already discredited venal politicians and makes the thieving, scheming, manipulative military look better than the politicians. For the military, it is a win-win situation, except in the long run.

The illiterate terrorists ruling the population suits the military better than the government of the semi-educated politicians. With the schools and the hospitals closed in future, the education and the health allocations can be diverted to the military budget.

Another achievement of the army is that of keeping the Americans happy to a level where the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee of the United States, Admiral Michael Mullen, recently had nice things to say about the Pakistani military. To quote from Government Security News: “When asked if he felt the military leaders of Pakistan were doing a good job of safeguarding that nation’s stockpile of nuclear weapons, Admiral Mullen was surprisingly upbeat. “I’m as comfortable as I can be that the weapons are safe,” he said.”

If Admiral Mullen was trying to appease the Pakistani top brass, he was certainly in league with Chamberlain.

With the above achievements, the military feels secure and confident with no one to match it’s might.

In a country already suffering from half-a-century-long acute brain drain, doctors, professors, scholars, scientists, teachers, thinkers, writers, social workers and intellectuals are being murdered at a rate reminiscent of the Pakistan Army’s campaign against the Bengali intelligentsia during the last days of East Pakistan.

The fear of suicide-bombers eliminates political rallies and all chances of a mass uprising. The people are afraid to go to their traditional religious processions, to the shrines of their saints, to the house of their god.

Now, the only power to look up to and to fear and to bow before, is the mighty military and it’s terrorist hirelings.

Syed F. Hussaini is a veteran journalist and social commentator. He blogs at www.chowk.com

“Faisalabad—An elderly man died of a heart attack in Faisalabad as police officials and an employee of a sensitive department tried to arrest him. According to sources, Dr. Faqeer arrived at Fayyaz Colony on Tuesday night where two police officials and an employee of a sensitive department tried to arrest him. Meanwhile, he fell on the ground due to a heart attack. Hearing the commotion, the neighborhood people arrived at the spot after which the police officials fled the scene and the people apprehended the employee of the sensitive department and his companion. The local police arrived at the scene and moved the body to the Civil Hospital for autopsy whereas the two persons were arrested. Dr. Faqeer was a P.H.D. and had founded an institution for chemical research work.”

The above is an almost exact translation of a news story as its appears in the on-line version of the Urdu language Pakistani newspaper, “Jang.” The newspaper uses the term ‘sensitive department’ to mean the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI). The story is dated Wednesday, June 30, 2010: Updated 0530 PST.

The sketchy and poorly written news item prompts the following questions:

What charges the officials had against Dr. Faqeer, Ph. D.?

Were the officials carrying any warrants against Dr. Faqeer? If so, who had issued the warrants?

Were the officials operating under the orders of the Federal Government or, the Punjab Government or, the ISI?

Was Dr. Faqeer visiting that neighborhood or, did he live there?

Without a doctor’s opinion, without the autopsy results, how did the newspaper determine that Dr. Faqeer died of a heart attack?

Was Dr. Faqeer beaten to death? Was he injected with some untraceable deadly chemical agent?

The police officials fled the scene; would they be charged with gross neglect of duty for abandoning their post and for failing to help a citizen in mortal distress? What are their names and positions?

What are the charges against the arrested ISI official and his companion? What are their names and positions?

Has an inquiry been ordered by any authorities to investigate the circumstances and the cause of Dr. Faqeer’s death?

What was Dr. Faqeer’s full name?

How old was he?

What is the name of the chemical research work institution he founded?

What kind of research was done at his institution?
Was the government objected to his institution or, his research?

Where did he get his doctorate from?

Was he ever associated with any Pakistani academic institution?

Did he ever work for the Government of Pakistan?

Was he ever approached to work for the Government of Pakistan?

Was he under surveillance or, investigation, by the Government of Pakistan or, the ISI? If so, for what?

Was he ever involved with any Pakistani weapons development program?

What are the names and ages of the family members he left behind? Where are they? How are they? What do they want to say?

The above questions can be answered by any or, all of the following:

The so-called independent Pakistani press, the international press, the Chief Minister of Punjab, the Prime Minister of Pakistan, the President of Pakistan, the Chief Justice of Pakistan, the chief of the ISI, the chief of the Pakistan Army, the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, Amnesty International, the United Nations.

In case, Dr. Faqeer had dual nationality, it would be the responsibility of the other country, as well, to investigate and determine the circumstances and the cause of his death.

Syed F. Hussaini is a veteran journalist and social commentator. He blogs at www.chowk.com