Overpopulation is Pakistan's worst enemy

By: Shaukat Malik

Every child born through nature’s miracle whether planned or unplanned has certain inherent and inalienable rights. It is not the child’s fault that his parent’s cannot provide for him. Invariably he will end up in a Madrasah and become a target for those who make their living from the evil of terrorism or exploitation of the vulnerable.

Pakistan cannot regain its economic footing without controlling population growth. On average a Pakistani women has four children. This is much higher than Iran at 1.8 and Bangladesh at 2.4 children per woman. If this is not stopped, Pakistan’s population will expand from today’s 180 Million, not counting Afghan refugees to 335 million by 2050—that is more people than the United States squeezed into a country not much larger than Texas.

Pakistan has more children under the age of 14 than the United States. This presents a serious infrastructure challenge to a poor country.

Girls get married at the average age of 14 and illiterate mothers-in-law demand a baby boy. A woman producing girls only is threatened with divorce and will keep trying for a boy. Illiterate women cannot access family planning programs, and birth control is equated to committing a sin and refusing God’s gift of life. Women who wish to have fewer children do not have access to birth control devices and are forced into unwanted pregnancies.

Educated girls will have fewer children but girl education is restricted by social and cultural factors like transportation, male teachers, and objections of male members of the family.

Fear of rabid religious extremists prevents political leadership from addressing the issue of family planning/birth control. Like pigeons close their eyes hoping that the predator will go away, Pakistan’s leadership is afraid to confront the family planning issue for fear of upsetting the pious population that votes for them.

Pakistan’s leadership has been advised to stay away from anything to do with family planning/birth control. Illiterate clerics whose counsel is sought by a large number of Pakistanis in the rural areas consider birth control a sin. According to these clerics, practicing birth control is tantamount to denying God’s gift of life and a terrible sin. They firmly believe that God will provide for every child that is born.

Yes. God provides but, God has given us a brain for thinking and planning the size of our family. In nature we have a predator vs. prey order to take care of the excess population; in Pakistan the Madrasah steps in and creates Monsters out of these unplanned children abandoned by their poor parents.

The environmental and social footprint of high birth rates is scary. Pakistan’s population is multiplying at an alarming rate. A poor man would rather spend five rupees on loaf bread than on birth control.

The Muslim world has introduced God’s will into the size of a family. Although there is no prohibition in the Quran on birth control, its practice is considered a sin. The clerics in an effort to support polygamy and the large number of children resulting from multiple marriages have used out of context verses in the holy Quran to campaign against family planning.

Nature is cruel and we must learn from its messages. A mother of six children awakened by a sudden flood –the recent floods in Pakistan are a case in point-- might be able to save two of her children but may have a tough time saving the rest.

Animals do not practice family planning or birth control but then we eat animals. As God’s supreme creation we are blessed with the ability to think, plan and invent. Family planning techniques were developed in the last century and are essential for the survival and future prosperity of every community.

Overpopulation in any setting presents a constant challenge to natural resources. Whether educated or not a human being needs shelter, food and clothing. As the world population grows it is becoming increasingly difficult to take care of increasing numbers.

A child in fulltime education does not become productive until he is at least 24-years old. An allocation must be made for each child in the family budget.

Aid agencies all rightly point to raising the level of education for women. An educated woman will have a career and by contributing to the family purse will be encouraged by her husband to have fewer children.

Overpopulation is overwhelming Pakistan’s underdeveloped education system. Everyday it is estimated that there are at least 10,000 more children waiting to enter school compared with the day before. Surplus children who cannot get admission end up in Madrasahs’ that may offer food & shelter but can offer little in the way of education necessary for learning a trade.

What can be done to fight overpopulation?

• Pakistan’s media has become a watchdog of government policy. It can play a vital role by donating air time and using popular television personalities to highlight the problem. Producers can make short films with a touch of humor to bring home the idea of a manageable small family.

• Pakistan’s political leadership must engage local religious leadership in their respective constituencies and persuade them to see the bigger picture of future economic prosperity through controlled population growth---if Iran and Bangladesh can do it why not Pakistan

• The aid agencies in addition to helping centers already in existence must help establish family planning centers in Pakistan’s remote areas including mobile family planning units that can provide birth control supplies and education to illiterate and poor citizens.

• Girls’ only schools should be built in remote conservative areas where established culture is against female education to encourage families to send their daughters to school. Educated women contributing to the family purse will be encouraged to have fewer children

• Family planning clinics must be revived to focus on providing family planning and birth control to Pakistan’s poor women. These centers can also provide basic healthcare education to the largely illiterate women population.

• Pakistan’s political leadership must publicly address this issue to highlight the urgent need for the implementation of a national family planning policy.

• Pakistan’s armed forces, whose soldier’s come from many remote areas should be educated in the importance of family planning and smaller families. Trained soldiers can be used to bring home the message of family planning to their respective villages.

Afghan refugee camps in Islamabad are a stark reminder of terrible slum-like conditions that await an over populated Pakistan. Effective family planning will have beneficial long term effects on Pakistan’s economy and environment. Pakistan government must act now to safeguard the future of today’s newborns. No amount of development aid can meet the needs of unplanned births that will invariably end up in extreme poverty and hardship.

Discrediting Kashmir movement or defaming ISI

Dr Raja Muhammad Khan

For the past many years, Dr Ghulam Nabi Fai, an ambassador of peace, has been promoting the Kashmir cause, considering this as the birthright of Kashmiris, guaranteed by Article 1 of UN Charter. Since the start of renewed Kashmiri struggle, the only message Dr Fai used to have for Kashmiris was; to fight for their right using peaceful ways and means. This icon though originally hailed from the Indian Occupied Kashmir, but is a US citizen since last many decades. His arrest by US Justice Department is highly regretful. The humiliating charges levelled by US on this peace promoter are that, he was getting money from ISI to influence US lawmakers for the promotion of Kashmir cause in US against the Indian occupation. Seeing the record of accomplishment, this indeed is the most unjust arrest; the US Justice Department has ever made.

The arrest indeed has many subtext attached to it, timings of the being the most significant. Dr Fai has been arrested at a time once US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, was on her four days tour to India, where she was to please her host by demonstrating as if US is serious to promote bilateral relations with India at any cost, may that be the negation of its previous commitment. Indeed, through out during the cold war the US has been the most significant promoter of the Kashmir cause and has supported all UN resolutions on Kashmir, promising them their right of self-determination. Since Dr Fai was only promoting the just cause of Kashmiris, as per UN resolutions therefore, by arresting him, the US has indirectly negated its own commitment for the promotion of relationship with an oppressor.

It is worth mentioning a number of Indian lobbies are active in the US, UK and many other European countries to create misperception on Kashmir and about Pakistan, why US Justice Department is not arresting them.

Another significant aspect related to this arrest is the ongoing row of tension between CIA and ISI. Through this deliberate act, the US intelligence set up; CIA and FBI, desired to humiliate the ISI, by maligning it everywhere and anywhere to cause an embarrassment. This indeed, is part of US retaliation against ISI, after it opposed the release of a CIA operative, Raymond Davis, who was arrested on multiple charges of murder and spying. The US raid in Abbottabad and subsequent defaming campaign of CIA and the US media are part of this malicious campaign and to destabilise Pakistan internally.

This campaign indeed designed to attain three objectives. First being to pressurise Pakistan to an extent, where it stops opposing the future Indian role in Afghanistan, to the satisfaction of US and India. This would exclude Pakistan from any possible facilitating role in any future set-up of Afghanistan. Second objective could be to deactivate Pakistan to a level, where it stops supporting the Kashmir cause at the international level. Thirdly, US desire that Pakistan should combat only those militants who are anti-Americans and follow US lines, rather protecting its own security. How Pakistan could pull on with this unrealistic and one-sided affair.

It is to the visualization of the civilized people of United States to stop their ruling class and spying network from these discriminatory acts against Kashmiris. Rather assisting them in getting their right of self-determination, the US is involving itself in criminal detention and arrest of Kashmiris on the footprints of India, which has killed over 93,000 Kashmiris since 1990.

Dr Fai was only promoting peaceful resolution of Kashmir for a mutual co-existence of all in South Asia, currently marred by instability and conflicts, mainly owing to unresolved nature of Kashmir.

Realistically, it is about time to give peace a chance, as there has been a lot of bloodshed of Kashmiris at the hands of Indian security forces. If peace-loving people like Dr Fai are humiliated and arrested like this, then Kashmiris would have a realization that, the US has joined hands with India for the oppression of Kashmiris. This would promote violence among them, thus pushing Kashmiris to the walls. This would compel Kashmiris to rethink their peaceful political movement and restart their armed struggle for their rightful cause, as given to them by UN Charter and UN resolutions.

The writer is an analyst of international relations.

India is the revesionist power

By Ejaz Haider

The writer was a Ford Scholar at the Programme in Arms Control, Disarmament and International Security at UIUC (1997) and a visiting fellow at the Brookings Institution’s Foreign Policy Studies Programme.

In his famous essay, What is a Nation, the French philosopher, Ernest Renan, argued that selective amnesia — “forgetting”, as he puts it — is an important part of modern nation-building. This is achieved in many ways, but most importantly by controlling the narrative. The narrative determines the core aspects of the identity of a state. It is successful when that identity is internalized by the peoples to a point where those core aspects are not disputed, and where any external challenges to them are simply not entertained.

Using this central benchmark — I make no attempt here to problematise this process — we have to concede that Pakistan lags far behind India in defining the core aspects of its nationhood. Not because India is not internally troubled, which it is, but because India has developed a center that holds it together. The center drives India and perpetuates the narrative, deflecting the world’s attention away from India’s musty underbelly: Abject poverty, very high levels of corruption, the near-absence of the state’s writ in the Red Corridor, terrible human rights violations in Occupied Kashmir, crimes against women and, yes, Taliban-style panchayats.

And while the media highlights internal troubles, it is largely pliant to the state when it comes to presenting the state to the outside world and is the most effective vehicle for the state narrative.

It is a common practice for states to sell the narrative internally. But it is a greater exercise in soft compellence to sell it to other collections also. An even greater success would be to make one’s narrative acceptable to sections of another collection with whom one is locked in conflict.

India has done this with Pakistan and, as a realist, I salute them for this success. Of course, India’s success in this regard is directly proportional to Pakistan’s failure to sell itself to its people. This, as I have noted on a number of occasions, is the biggest threat to Pakistan.

One consequence of this is a large number of us swallowing, hook, line and sinker, India’s narrative on its conflict with Pakistan. Here are some examples:

India is a status quo power while Pakistan is a revisionist state; India just wants to live in peace; there’s nothing about Pakistan that interests India; India, the Little Red Riding Hood, has to keep the world’s fourth largest military because Pakistan attacked it four times — ’47, ’65, ’71 and ’99. Let’s just take these up.

(NB: It’s quite another fact that every time Pakistan has tried to engage India on force rationalization — nuclear and conventional — including as part of the 2004 dialogue framework, India shifts the goalpost by referring to China).

The term ‘status quo power’ is used cleverly in modern interstate relations. It ignores the direct and indirect influence — soft and hard power, and diplomacy — exerted by stronger states on the weaker ones in the former’s areas of concern by focusing instead on whether a state wants to capture another’s territory. Let there be no doubt, however, that rising powers are always revisionist states. They challenge an existing power configuration by spreading their influence and power. China is one; India is lagging far, far behind but following the same paradigm.

Pakistan is accused of being a revisionist state, primarily vis-a-vis Occupied Kashmir. And a part of our self-loathing intelligentsia has accepted this bunkum. Pakistan has no designs on India but Kashmir is not a part of India. It is a disputed area and that fact is also accepted by India. Because this will be deliberately twisted by the ‘what-abouters’, let me clarify that I am not advocating a war with India, merely stating a fact.

As for revisionism, Pakistan, within the region, is a status quo power because it checks India’s desire to project power in South, the West, and southern Asia. A neoliberal paradigm is possible if India is prepared to address the issue of Kashmir meaningfully. The last three years have clearly shown that the problem lies inside Occupied Kashmir. They have also shown that India remains singularly and callously unconcerned about the Kashmiris.

And what about the wars Pakistan is supposed to have thrust on India?

The 1947 war began as an indigenous uprising in different parts of the then State of Jammu and Kashmir (J&K). It is a matter of historical record that Pakistan had no clear state policy on how to use force against India’s illegal invasion of J&K. The ragtag Poonchis and other Kashmiri groups, with help from tribesmen and some elements of the Pakistani military, managed to capture the territory which now forms Azad Kashmir. If they hadn’t, Pakistan would have today needed just the present size of its army to defend the northern salient.

The 1965 war was a mistake. Much has been written about it inside Pakistan. But there is absolutely no reason to be apologetic about making an armed attempt to get back territory in occupation of an adversary. Pakistan never violated the Indian territory: It crossed what was then the CFL (ceasefire line). The fact is that it was India that aggressed against Pakistan directly when it attacked across, and violated, the international border.

As for India’s generosity, as mentioned by many Indian analysts, in returning to Pakistan the Haji Pir Pass, I have to give them full marks for dissembling! The Tashkent Agreement required the two sides to go back to status quo ante. India decided to keep Kargil because that secured its road to Leh, and return Haji Pir Pass to get back Chhamb and Jorrian because in that area we were dangerously close to the chicken neck. You cut off the chicken neck and you cut off India from Occupied Kashmir. But the problem is not Indian dissembling; it is our acceptance of this deceptive narrative.

And Pakistan attacked India in 1971!? This actually takes the cake. Ignore India’s full-fledged assault on then East Pakistan and trot out Pakistan’s attack in the west, an attack that came too late. That episode also opens the chapter in this region of covert war. Yes, it was introduced by India when it trained the Mukti Bahini; India repeated this exercise with Sri Lanka when it trained the LTTE. I don’t grudge India any of its actions. States do these things in their interests, perceived or real. But to present India as the babe in the wood? Nah; not happening.

Of course there is Kargil in 1999. More of us have blasted Kargil here, including this writer, than perhaps writers in India. It was a terrible operation at all levels. Worse, it came at a time when Pakistan and India were moving towards normalization. That process should have been allowed to move forward and bear fruit. But let us not forget India’s occupation of the Saltoro Range, its violation of Pakistani posts along the LoC. In a conflictual model these things happen. Yet I will be the first to deduct marks from the Pakistani military on the Kargil operation. Still, the man who did it also became India’s best partner in peace.

Finally, implying that India can’t have peace until Pakistan accepts India’s diagnosis will not beget India a viable policy. Pakistan wants peace. But it doesn’t want to become a west Bangladesh, to use Stephen Cohen’s phrase. So, let’s get rid of the I-am-the-good-guy-here baloney and level with each other.

Comment: Who's hoodwinking whom? by Imtiaz Gul

Comment: Who's hoodwinking whom? by Imtiaz Gul

AQ Khan: CIA Feeds On Pakistani Mishandling And Appeasement

By Ahmed Qureshi

Infighting, like the one between Dr. Khan and the government, opens doors to foreign meddling. It is time to end Dr. Khan’s sense of betrayal.

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan—The CIA has been playing Pakistan like a football since 2004. It has turned Pakistan’s nuclear program into a Mexican soap, planting stories in episodes meant to embarrass Pakistan and undermine its global nuclear standing.

While covert CIA operators allowed into the country by Zardari government take positions in houses around the residence of Dr. Khan, American journalists in the Pakistani capital have clear orders to keep an eye on the Pakistani scientist. The latest example of this is the New York Times story of July 7 on a North Korean document allegedly procured from Dr. Khan. [See our analysis on this document].

HOW WE (ALMOST) LOST

DR. KHAN

Whatever the CIA and its mainly American media conduits frequently circulate about Pakistan’s nuclear program and Dr. Khan, the mess is a direct result of Pakistani mishandling of the matter.

Despite having built world-class military and nuclear establishments, our infighting and internal squabbles provide foreigners openings for meddling and blackmail.

In 2004, the CIA laid its hand on some information about limited Pakistani cooperation with North Korea, thanks in part to information shared by the Libyans and Iranians.

Armed with this, CIA tried to blackmail Pakistan and demand access to Dr. Khan. As a result, then political government and military both acted apologetically, accepting CIA charges at face value and asking Dr. Khan to take the blame for cooperation with North Korea.

Dr. Khan apparently agreed, but he says subsequent mistreatment at the hands of the government and character-assassination in the media poisoned his own mind and made him vengeful.

He was pushed so much against the wall that, at some point, he apparently shared documents containing sensitive national security secrets with his daughter. He did this because he suspected he would be eliminated or more likely as an act of vengeance against a government and military that has abandoned him.

To be fair to Dr. Khan, he continues to be a staunch defender of Pakistan’s status as a nuclear-armed nation. As recently as June 28, 2011, he defended Pakistan’s right to nuclear technology and weapons better than our government. In an email interviewwith the German Der Spiegel magazine, he rebuked American reports questioning Pakistani nuclear security by saying, “There never was, there is not and there never will be any threat to our nuclear assets.”

He also offered excellent information on international players involved in nuclear proliferation and how there is no such thing as ‘Khan Network’ or a Pakistani proliferation ring as alleged by US government and CIA:

“International suppliers were willing to sell to anyone able to pay and they didn’t need me for that. The suppliers to Libya and Iran were the same as the ones Khan Research Laboratories used. We had a contract with North Korea for the production of missiles. They already had their own plutonium production program and they used plutonium in their test procedures.”

WHY APOLOGIZE AND APPEASE?

The cardinal mistake of Pakistan’s decision makers is unnecessary weakness and appeasement.

Pakistan entered into very limited cooperation with North Korea sometime in the 1990s. It exchanged limited nuclear knowhow for North Korean missile technology. The cooperation did not violate any international agreements. Pakistan is not a signatory to NPT. Also, Pakistan was the target of unfair American practices aimed at obstructing Pakistan’s legitimate nuclear energy and weaponization programs and had to scour the international market for options like everyone else.

Contacts with North Korea violated no international law. They upset the United States though, but Pakistan’s bilateral relationships are not any third country’s business.

More importantly, there was nothing to be apologetic about maintaining limited contacts with North Koreans. China is a responsible international player and often mediates between North Korea and the United States.

Leadership weakness and US aid are the only possible reasons why Pakistan’s political, military and nuclear establishments were overly upset after CIA accusations in 2004.

Instead of forcing Dr. Khan to become a victim, Islamabad could have asked the United States to back off and stop blackmailing Pakistan over limited ties that occurred in the 1990s and were largely necessitated by hostile American energy and nuclear policies.

The act of scapegoating Dr. Khan was mean to say the least when he has been a target of American and British demonization for decades. Even the hint of a link between this Am-Brit hot pursuit and Dr. Khan’s humiliation is unacceptable. The fact that we helped his detractors partially get at him is something that does not sit well with most Pakistanis, who not only continue to see Dr. Khan as a hero but his statements on the security of Pakistani nuclear weapons carry more weight in public eyes than official statements.

THE WAY FORWARD

Government protection measures on Dr. Khan’s movements are inevitable. But the country’s nuclear and military establishments should and must move forward in a tangible way to remove Dr. Khan’s personal feelings of betrayal and abandonment. No one who has so loyally served Pakistan should be abandoned like this. Unfortunately, our civilian and military bureaucracies are bad in the art of retaining our best and brightest in the best of times. There are no programs to instill and maintain a sense of connection and pride in retired government officials to prevent them from switching loyalties for money or other reasons. And then there is the official Pakistani crass way of treating our own people to please foreigners.

Despite any personal failings, Dr. Khan is a proud Pakistani who would never abandon his nation. His personal grievances need to be removed to stop an old, angry, and a very knowledgeable man from becoming a plaything for our enemies.

Beyond Kashmir is valley of peace

By Abdul Zahoor Khan Marwat

Pakistan-India relations have been held hostage by the Kashmir issue since independence. Three wars have been fought over it. Now the nuclear umbrella hangs over the dispute, which refuses to die away on account of Indian stubbornness. Why should the dispute be there in the 21st century when most countries seek to resolve bilateral disputes on the table and not on the battlefield? How many pretexts would India give to avoid constructive talks with Pakistan to mend the festering wound?

Five aspects of the dispute make it imperative for India to resolve the issue quickly and on a just basis.

First, India’s dream to become a regional power faces a strong obstacle i.e. the Kashmir problem. The world wonders how New Delhi can dream of becoming a regional power, what to speak of a so-called superpower, when it cannot sit and resolve bilateral issues with its neighbors. It seems the country is held hostage by a lack of strategy, foresightedness and a will to move ahead.

Second, New Delhi will be known by its relations with Pakistan and not China as long as the Kashmir dispute is there. India, with its grand ambitions, has always thought of her as a rival to China. However, the world compares it to Pakistan because of the above-mentioned dispute. Of course, most of the Indian armed forces are deployed against Pakistan and not China.

Third, the mantra of Mumbai attacks has lost steam. Tahawwur Rana has been absolved of terrorism charges by a US court, shattering Indian dreams to implicate the ISI into the terrorist attacks. So it is not feasible for India to continue harping the terrorism theme and hide behind the 26/11 incident with regard to whole gamut of relations with Pakistan, especially the Kashmir issue. Also, Indian officials’ claims of LeT’s involvement in each and every incident of terrorism in India has lost steam and become rather counter-productive. More and more people now realise this, especially in the wake of disclosures made by Swami Aseemanand, of Hindu activists’ involvement in a string of terrorist incidents in India, including the Samjhauta Express fire in which over 40 Pakistanis were burnt alive.

Fourth, India is a multi-ethnic, multi-lingual, and multi-religious country. Like Pakistan, it also faces the al-Qaeda threat besides hordes of other threats, including the Hindu saffron terror. As pointed out by US experts, one way to reduce the al-Qaeda threat is to come to table and find a just solution to the Kashmir issue so that Muslim extremists stop considering Kashmir one of their holy causes and attack India for suppressing the Kashmiri Muslims. The treatment with the Kashmiris in particular and Indian Muslims in general is also creating home-grown terrorism. SIMI is one example.

Fifth, the Indian dream to become a trade superpower lies in a shambles because of the dispute. Pakistan will not exploit the Bangalore silicon valley option or grant the Most Favoured Nation Status to India as long as the Kashmir issue is not resolved. Similarly, there is no chance that Pakistan will open its trade corridors to India for the Central Asian countries.

The Indians should remember that besides the Pakistanis, the world has not forgotten the Kashmir issue. This year, British Prime Minister David Cameron admitted that Britain was responsible for many historic conflicts in the world, including that of Kashmir. He stated this during a visit to Islamabad. The fact remains the valley of peace in South Asia will only be reached once the Kashmir issue is not on the table anymore. For this, India will have to sit with Pakistan and find a righteous solution of the dispute, also acceptable to the Kashmiris.

ISI-Bashing: A US Battle Transferred to Pakistan

By Ahmed Quraishi

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan—What is the right balance between a healthy skepticism of Pakistani military and ISI and between antagonism toward both?

Pakistani media and politicians have to define this balance to avoid unnecessary divisions in Pakistan. These divisions serve to weaken a vital line of defense for the Pakistani state. The United States is orchestrating a get-ISI campaign in the US media. This campaign must not be transferred inside Pakistan, where a US-backed lobby groomed during the past eight years is acting as America’s B-team, mounting a Pakistani version of the American campaign against Pakistani military.

There have always been anti-military leftists and ex-communists in the Pakistani media, promoting extreme ideas such as disbanding the military. This lobby has been vocal but never too much. These days, this lobby has gained a new vigor thanks to the US propaganda against Pakistani military.

The brutal assassination of noted journalist and my friend Syed Saleem Shahzad has laid bare this decades-old feature of Pakistani politics.

The ISI is our principal tool for counterintelligence and information gathering. It is the eyes and ears of our strategic community as we navigate our way through a difficult neighborhood.

The antagonism toward ISI as seen in the past few weeks is not natural to the system but manufactured and sustained through a combination of lack of information, real mistakes, rumors, half-truths, and in some cases outright propaganda. Some of this antagonism is rooted in skepticism toward state power. That’s healthy for any vibrant society. But in Pakistan, the lines between skepticism and animosity have blurred over the years. Expressions of this animosity in some corners of our politics and media surpass anything seen in stable and mature democracies. After all, a democratic system needs a functioning state, including educated voters, independent media, judiciary, military and intelligence. A state could collapse without educated voters, or without a working military and intelligence. Choose your pick.

Shahzad’s brutal assassination brought the unhealthy anti-military antagonism within our system to the surface. It was stunning to watch some leading pundits in our media accuse ISI of killing Shahzad without evidence, and simultaneously ignore strong circumstantial evidence on the involvement of elements close to the terrorists of al-Qaeda and Pakistani Taliban. Shahzad maintained close contacts with sources in the two terror groups, as his scoops on numerous occasions indicate. You can’t blame the foreign media, especially media based in the United States, for giving a spin to any story where ISI is mentioned, since this Pakistani agency has become too independent for American taste. But at least at home we should question all angles and not simply ride the wave.

For example, western media saw in Shahzad’s article that purportedly led to his brutal death an embarrassment for Pakistani military and thus a motive for ISI to eliminate him. Many people in our media picked up this theory. That’s an angle worth probing, but so is the fact that the same article exposes al-Qaeda links to the attack on the naval base in Karachi. If it did it, Al-Qaeda didn’t claim responsibility. Late Shahzad did. Did he fell out with his terror informants? No one knows for sure. But it’s an angle worth probing.

The anti-military antagonism has probably blinded many of us to exploring other important angles. For example, ISI itself was badly burned when two of its ex-operatives were killed by Pakistani Taliban earlier this year while trying to create inroads within the terror group. Likewise, US journalist Daniel Pearl paid with his life for getting too close to unscrupulous elements.

A meeting between Shahzad and officers from the media management wing of ISI last year is cited as evidence that the spy agency was harassing him. The agency’s version is very straightforward: they met Shahzad at a registered government office about a story he did and asked him either to confirm his sources or retract the story because it damaged Pakistani interests. Shahzad declined both demands and that was it. One friend and acquaintance of Shahzad, Mr. Najm Sethi, said the meeting constituted a threat. Another friend of Shahzad, Mr. Ejaz Haider, wrote that his friend mentioned the meeting with ISI but didn’t characterize it as a threat.

It is fair to say that ISI, by virtue of the said meeting, should be included in Shahzad’s murder investigation. But that is quite different from saying ISI is the killer and ignore all evidence that points to other possibilities. That said, we do have a history in Pakistan of secret government agents kidnapping journalists, beating them up and then releasing them, alive. But most of us forget that this culture is not part of what our security agencies want to do. It was thrust on them by governments, often democratic ones. Security agents from various agencies of the government have at different times kidnapped and ‘sorted out’ journalists under orders from several democratic and non-democratic governments in Islamabad. In most of such cases journalists were harassed because powerful figures in government wanted to harass them and used state power for the purpose.

There is also the legacy of how state institutions were used to settle political differences. This burden of history should not be overblown and used to create a wedge between state institutions such as the ISI and ordinary Pakistanis.

A version of this column appeared in The News on 6 June 2011.