24-12-2019

KEY OPINION
TODAY'S PAPER | DECEMBER 24, 2019

Junaid Hafeez
Editorial Updated December 24, 2019
FOR six long years, a gifted academic named Junaid
Hafeez languished in solitary confinement inside the
Multan Central Jail. The Fulbright scholar had returned to
the Bahauddin Zakariya University to teach students how
to think about the big questions in 2011.
He was passionate about poetry, prose and playwriting and wished
to inculcate the same in his students. However, he was arrested
under Section 295-C of the Pakistan Penal Code after some allegedly
blasphemous comments were attributed to him in 2013. One year
later, the sole attorney brave enough to take up his case was gunned
down in cold blood inside his office.
In a climate of extreme fear, Hafeez could never receive a fair trial.
His parents implored the previous chief justice to look into their
son’s case, as his mental and physical health was deteriorating inside
the tiny prison cell. According to the Centre for Social Justice, over
1,500 citizens have been charged with blasphemy between 1987 and
2017.
While no one has been executed by the state, enraged lynch mobs
have killed scores on the basis of mere accusation. Hafeez was not
even safe inside his prison, as other prisoners had repeatedly
attempted to take his life.
This week, a district and sessions court handed Hafeez the death
sentence. A story that had begun differently morphed into a tragedy.
But the story is not over yet. His defence attorney has said they will
file for an appeal.
In the past, the higher courts have overturned the judgements of the
lower courts — most prominently in the case of Aasia Bibi, who was
sentenced to death by a Sheikhupura court. Years later, she was
acquitted by the Supreme Court in a landmark judgement.
It is to be hoped that the superior judiciary will intervene this time
as well. It is also time for Pakistan’s government to ensure the
blasphemy law is not misused any longer to settle personal vendettas
and professional jealousies, or target the most vulnerable
communities.
Published in Dawn, December 24th, 2019
 ‘Crime’ and ‘punishment’
Arifa Noor Updated December 24, 2019

The writer is a journalist.

IN 1773, in France, a young servant girl who had killed her
employer was sentenced to death. But the judgement did
not simply end there.
It was ordered that she be taken to the place of execution in a cart
used to collect rubbish. At the spot, she was to sit on the same chair
on which her mistress had been sitting at the time of the murder. Her
right hand was to be cut off and burnt, after which she was to be dealt
four blows with the murder weapon — two on her head, one on the
left forearm and the fourth on the chest. This was to be followed by
her being hung and strangled. Two hours after this, her head was to
be removed and hung on a pole.
This incident is narrated in a famous but hard-to-read for the faint-
hearted book, Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison by
Michel Foucault.
The book traces Western society’s changing views of the idea of
punishment over time. Earlier, the writer argues, the punishment
was a public spectacle. Torture was part of the investigation as well
as the sentence, and the punishment was linked inextricably to the
body of the accused.
Society will need to accept that correction rather than punishment
should be the aim.
No wonder then, according to the book, capital punishment came in
a variety of forms, gory by modern standards — hanging, or having
hands or tongues cut off before being hanged, burnt alive, or killed
and burnt; flogged and killed, hung up and left to die of hunger. The
list goes on.
In fact, he provides an eyewitness account of a man punished for
attempted regicide which goes on for three pages — he is burnt,
quartered by horses and then the limbs burnt at the stake.
Foucault argues that with time, the focus on the body of the accused
changed. In his words, the body was touched as little as possible.
“One intervenes upon it to imprison it, or to make it work … physical
pain, the pain of the body itself, is no longer the constituent element
of the penalty. From being an art of unbearable sensations,
punishment has become an economy of suspended rights.”
Foucault comes to mind when a story or an incident in Pakistan lays
bare the workings of the local judicial system.
In recent times, there was the call for a child rapist to be publicly
hanged. And back in 2000, the courts sentenced a self-confessed
killer of children. Javed Iqbal, who had confessed to murdering 100
children, was ordered to be chopped into pieces and dissolved in acid
in front of the victims’ parents.
According to the Guardian, “‘Javed Iqbal has been found guilty of
100 murders. The sentence is that he should be strangled 100 times,’
Judge Allah Baksh told the court in Lahore. ‘His body should be cut
into 100 pieces and put in acid, as he did with his victims’.” The judge
had further ordered that the punishment be carried out in a park in
Lahore.
And then last week, there was the debate over the sentencing of
Pervez Musharraf for high treason and the, by now infamous,
paragraph 66: “We direct the law enforcement agencies to strive
their level best to apprehend the fugitive/convict [Pervez Musharraf]
and to ensure that the punishment is inflicted as per law and if found
dead, his corpse be dragged to the D-Chowk [in front of Parliament
House], Islamabad, Pakistan, and be hanged for three days.”
While there has been and will be considerable debate over the
judgment, para 66 has been universally condemned.
Read more: 'State of emergency': A timeline of the long-drawn high
treason trial of General Pervez Musharraf
But truthfully, it’s not unusual, if seen in light of the public debate
over ‘crime’ — and its many manifestations — in Pakistan. Here, in a
society, where modernity and tradition don’t just share space but rub
up against each other, frequently and uncomfortably, many of us
tend to view punishment as an act which, if ugly and public enough,
will not just be ‘punishment’ enough but may also deter others in
future.
For why else would judges, however occasionally, pronounce such
verdicts? Why would political leaders threaten to drag each other in
the streets or argue that public hangings in high numbers will be
deterrence in the future? Or the public too demand such acts at times
for rapists or child molesters or the corrupt?
Because a judicial system based on modern notions of crime and
punishment goes only so far, if our approach to crime and its causes
remains stuck in notions that are perhaps more ‘traditional’ than
‘modern’.
Hence, judges find the space to write judgements that remind us of
a time we’d like to believe we have left behind; and those in positions
which do not allow them to pronounce verdicts argue in favour of
public spectacles as a deterrent, while the police’s use of torture is
justified for an accused who is seen/believed to be guilty. So, when
there were reports that the lawyers picked up for attacking a hospital
were beaten up by police, it was seen as due ‘reward’ for what they
had done. Human rights violations during the operations in Karachi
in the 1990s were justified similarly too.
If this is to change, we may first have to change our approach
towards the judicial system and what it’s supposed to achieve.
Society will need to accept that correction rather than punishment
needs to be the aim, that the aim of any punishment is to help the
culprit fix his behaviour rather than simply punish him and deter the
rest. (That societies do not manage to achieve ‘correction’ even if
their judicial systems aim for it, is a separate and equally important
debate.)
Without a change in our thinking, there will be more judgements like
para 66.
Only if we change our approach will we recognise the importance of
ensuring the rights of all, including the accused, instead of obsessing
with punishing the culprit. Only then will we understand why bail is
a right and not a luxury. And more importantly, perhaps then it
might be possible to ensure justice for those accused of blasphemy.
For if we don’t even believe in the idea of correction, how can anyone
accused of blasphemy be awarded anything but death?
The writer is a journalist.
Published in Dawn, December 24th, 2019
 Nigeria’s Taliban
Mohammad Ali Babakhel December 24, 2019

The writer is the author of Pakistan: In Between Extremism and

Peace.
THE death of Muhammad Yusuf — the founder of Jama’atu
Ahlis Sunna Lidda’Awati Wal-Jihad, commonly referred to
as Boko Haram — reportedly in police custody in 2009
transformed what was apparently a preaching group into
one of the most lethal terrorist organisations in the world.
Boko Haram (meaning ‘Western education is forbidden’) was
established in 2002 as an offshoot of the Salafi movement in the
Yobe state of Nigeria. Between 2002 and 2008, the group largely
remained dormant but after the death of Yusuf, the outfit morphed
into a threatening force comprising between 4,000 and 6,000
militants.
Nigeria’s population is largely tribal and comprises about 350 ethnic
groups speaking roughly 520 languages. The country is
administratively divided into 36 states out of which 12 are
dominated by Muslims and are mostly situated in the northern part
of the country.
Just as Al Qaeda helped the Taliban become the brute force that they
were, the establishment of linkages with Al Qaeda in 2010 helped the
Boko Haram become proficient in making IEDs, training militants
and managing the supply of weapons and funds. In fact, the modus
operandi of the group bears quite a few striking similarities to the
way the Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan operated in tribal areas here.
The resemblance of their respective flags also reveals a deeper
ideological connection.
Nigeria is ranked as the third most terrorism-affected country.
Like the TTP, besides foreign funding, kidnapping for ransom and
extortion became the chief sources of operational expenses for the
Boko Haram. Similarly, power politics and monetary gains also
divided it into several factions over the years.
In 2011, a new group, the Yusufiya Islamic Movement, surfaced,
expressing concern over the deaths of civilians and calling for
reconciliation with the government.
Then in 2012 another group of dissidents, Jama’atu Ansaril
Muslimina fi Biladis Sudan (‘Vanguard for the Protection of Muslims
in Black Africa’), commonly called Ansaru, parted ways on the plea
that killing locals and the strict implementation of Islamic law would
reduce the regional appeal of the Boko Haram. Hence, the Ansaru
came to focus more on attacks against foreigners. It became an
independent organisation in 2012 and its first high-profile attack
involved a prison break in Abuja in 2012 followed by the kidnapping
of a French engineer. The group has largely been dormant since
2015.
At present, the Boko Haram is divided into two operational factions:
the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP) led by Abu Musab
al-Barnawi (said to be the son of Muhammad Yusuf) and the original
Jama’atu Ahlis Sunna Lidda’Awati Wal-Jihad commanded by
Yusuf’s deputy Abubakar Shekau.
With time, the Boko Haram’s tactics transitioned from hit-and-run
attacks to elaborate ones involving physical control of territory in
north-eastern Nigeria and certain parts of Chad, Niger and
Cameroon. After assuming control of Nigerian areas of Borno, Kano,
Bauchi, Yobe, Kaduna and Adamawa in 2014, the group announced
the establishment of a ‘caliphate’ in Mubi. Strengthened by its
allegiance to the militant Islamic State group that allowed it to gain
space in sub-Saharan Africa, it increased the frequency and intensity
of attacks in Nigeria and its environs.
Just as the support of the Mehsud, Afridi, Mohmand and Wazir
tribes remained significant for the TTP, the Boko Haram
strengthened its ranks with assistance from the Kanuri and Hausa-
Fulani tribes. Since the Kanuri tribe is not limited to Nigeria and its
members also live in Chad, Niger and Cameroon, the group attracted
youth from other countries too.
Between 2014 and 2015, Shekau established control on two-thirds of
Borno state and pledged allegiance to Abu Bakar al-Baghdadi. Sharia
was enforced in occupied areas and ‘emirs’ were appointed in weakly
governed areas of Bama, Gwoza, Damboa and Dikwa — somewhat
similar to the tribal areas in Pakistan before military operations. The
Boko Haram used the Sambisa forest in Borno state where
extremists took refuge and it kept the Chibok schoolgirls.
Again, like the TTP, it first established control in rural areas before
moving towards cities. In April 2014 the abduction of 276 schoolgirls
from Chibok put Boko Haram on the global map of notoriety.
Incidentally, in December the same year the TTP would also unleash
its savagery at Peshawar’s Army Public School.
The Global Terrorism Index ranks Nigeria as the third most affected
country by terrorism, while Pakistan stays at fifth position. The
Nigerian counterterrorism strategy seems to exclusively focus on the
threat posed by the Boko Haram, overlooking the multidimensional
aspects of counterterrorism. The country could learn from efforts in
Pakistan and Sri Lanka and review its counterterrorism and counter-
extremism strategies for a more holistic response.
The writer is the author of Pakistan: In Between Extremism and
Peace.
Twitter: @alibabakhel
Published in Dawn, December 24th, 2019
 Database of ruin
Anum Malkani December 24, 2019

The writer is a development and technology policy consultant.

IN The Anarchy, William Dalrymple describes how one of
the world’s greatest empires fell prey to a cruel and greedy
corporation. The idea that ‘the British’ conquered India
obscures the fact that it was a private for-profit company,
dangerously unregulated and highly militarised, that
seized the subcontinent. Dalrymple believes “no
contemporary corporation could get away with duplicating
the violence and sheer military might of the East India
Company”.
Dalrymple’s point that “neither Facebook nor Shell possesses
regiments of infantry” is undeniable, but technology corporations
now possess a different kind of power: the ability to control
narratives, manipulate information, influence and alter people’s
thoughts and behaviours. Fuelled by the rise of digital technologies,
corporations have become more powerful and dangerous than ever
before. These platforms enable ever more efficient and scalable
physical and psychological violence. This is the new military-digital
complex.
Some typical examples: a corporation uses millions of its users’
photos without their consent to develop facial recognition
technology to sell to police departments and state agencies; the
world’s largest search engine agrees to censor its search results to
appease an authoritarian regime; a political consultancy uses a large
technology platform to illegally mine data and manipulate elections;
a social media company sends cryptic warnings to journalists and
activists for posting content that may offend an ‘authorised entity’.
Big Tech’s monopoly allows for more censorship and surveillance.
The internet has a geography; the origin, location and ownership of
infrastructure, data, servers and information matter. Who owns and
controls infrastructure and computing power; who controls
information and sets the agenda for what may or may not be
discussed; who is allowed to access and participate in digital spaces
— these questions are essential to any democracy.
Equitable access to free and safe online spaces is a basic requirement
for a functioning democracy but is under attack the world over. The
concentration of digital space in the hands of a few large
corporations allows for more effective censorship, surveillance and
psychological operations.
In Pakistan, increased digital literacy and access to smartphones and
the internet has coincided with increasing surveillance of online
spaces. Social media platforms are heavily monitored, the Pakistan
Telecommunications Authority arbitrarily blocks access to websites
and contents, and laws such as the infamous Prevention of
Electronic Crimes Act, 2016, allow for unprecedented surveillance
and censorship.
It is only getting worse. Coda revealed that Pakistan has acquired the
services of a Canadian company to build a nationwide “web
monitoring system ... to monitor communications, measure and
record traffic, and call data”. More recently, Freedom House
revealed Pakistan’s abysmal ranking in internet freedom has only
worsened, and Facebook revealed Pakistan to be a global leader in
censorship requests.
In a previous op-ed, I wrote on the systematic militarisation of social
media in Pakistan through bot and human-run accounts, which are
employed to run coordinated surveillance, disinformation and
trolling campaigns. Women are often the worst targeted, with
blackmail, verbal abuse, rape threats and leaking of personal photos
and videos being the preferred weapons.
Anyone who interacts with digital technology generates large
amounts of data. This includes not just what one purposefully
uploads or posts, but also data such as browsing history, location and
anything a digital virtual assistant might pick up on. There is
currently no foolproof way for a user to access all of their personal
data or even to know what data exists on them — although some
countries’ data protection laws theoretically allow for it — because
there is no way of comprehensively knowing which companies or
authorities have mined, saved and/or sold your data.
This is what Paul Ohm at Georgetown University calls the “database
of ruin” — technology companies have collected massive data on
their users (with or without their consent), paving the way for a
future “littered with lives ruined by the exploitation of data
assembled for profit”. Every tweet, every comment, every private
message, every photo or video ever shared on any online platform
can potentially be accessed and used against you.
Surveillance and the threat of retaliation greatly reduce the quality
of online debate and public engagement. Corporations rarely, if ever,
prioritise user rights over profits. As Dalrymple states, Facebook
indeed does not possess regiments of infantry. But the monopoly
power of a few technology platforms — the Big Tech — and their
complicity in the seizing and weaponising of online spaces, may be
more dangerous than anything that came before.
The writer is a development and technology policy consultant.
anummalkani@gmail.com
Published in Dawn, December 24th, 2019
 Cavalier approach to
parliament
Editorial Updated December 24, 2019
THE PPP has warned the government against what it
describes as an attempt to paralyse the Senate since the
upper house has not been called into session for a
significant period of time. PPP parliamentary leader
Sherry Rehman told journalists that the Senate had not
met for 108 days in any formal, full session and this was an
unprecedented gap in the history of the upper house. She
pointed out that as per Article 61 of the Constitution, the
Senate was required to meet for no less that 110 days in a
parliamentary year.
Ms Rehman has a valid point. The government’s reluctance to call
the Senate in session is reflective of its overall attitude towards
parliament. This attitude crystallised in the early days of this
government when the opposition started giving a tough time to
Prime Minister Imran Khan and the treasury benches on the floor of
the house.
In response, the government too adopted a hard-line stance, as a
result of which parliamentary proceedings saw little else except
shouting matches and mutually amplified acrimony. It wasn’t that a
working relationship between the government and the opposition
broke down in parliament; it was never built in the first place.
The PTI, new to power at the centre, found it impossible to transition
from the mindset and approach it had acquired during its opposition
years, and opted, therefore, to be combative rather than
accommodative — which governments are supposed to be
traditionally.
Hence, the business of legislation fell victim to confrontation and
conflict that marred the proceedings of both houses. The
government then decided to legislate through presidential
ordinances, in a move to bypass the opposition. Since it does not
have a majority in the upper house, it has been shying away from
summoning the Senate.
Democracy is not supposed to work like this. Parliaments all over the
world experience turbulence and verbal duels but they continue to
legislate on the basis of a working relationship between the
government and the opposition.
In our case, the ruling PTI has refused to internalise this basic lesson
in running a parliament. Such a negative attitude will now be put to
severe test when parliament comes around to legislating on the issue
of the extension of the army chief as ordered by the Supreme Court.
This legislation requires deep and serious consultation, constant
engagement and an exchange of ideas as well as appreciation of the
nuances involved in drafting such a bill. This is a tall order for a
parliament that has struggled to hold a meaningful and civil debate
since it came into being last year.
The government should, therefore, take the initiative to cool down
the temperatures on the floor of both houses, reach out to the other
side and start to take the National Assembly and Senate seriously.
Published in Dawn, December 24th, 2019
 Tuesday, 24 Dec 2019 Today's Paper

Tourism revolution in K-P

By Hasaan Khawar Published: December 24, 2019

The writer is a public policy expert and an honorary Fellow of

Consortium for Development Policy Research. He tweets
@hasaankhawar
Pakistan recently topped the Condé Nast Traveller’s list of best
holiday destinations for 2020. The country’s sudden appearance on
the international tourism radar may have surprised many but the
journey to this prominence has been gradual, and Khyber-
Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) in particular, has been instrumental in steering
this newfound tourist attraction towards the country.
The visit of Prince Williams and Kate Middleton to the Chitral
Valley created a stir in the international media. But the royal couple
has not been the only celebrities to be charmed by K-P. In recent
times, the province has witnessed visits by many international
travel bloggers, including the popular Polish travel vlogger, Eva Zu
Beck, and food blogger Mark Weins. Zu terming Pakistan as the
world’s greatest tourism destination and Weins roaming in the
Qissa Khawani Bazaar of Peshawar undoubtedly created a lasting
impression on the minds of aspiring international tourists.

The K-P government did have a role to play in these developments.

Opening up of the K-P Governor’s House and other government rest
houses to the public, launching a tourism smartphone application
and participation in international tourism expos indeed helped in
uplifting K-P’s tourism brand. But what has been a game changer
for K-P is its strategy to target specific tourism segments like
Buddhist, sports, medical and eco-tourism.

K-P has more than 6,000 Buddhist sites and in recent months, the
government has turned its attention towards this hidden treasure.
Last year, the largest Buddha statue in Peshawar Museum was
transported all the way to the Rietberg Museum in Switzerland to
be displayed for three months. The K-P government has also
recently set up a Buddhist trail from Khanpur to Swat, attracting
Buddhist monks and tourists from across the world. Last month, a
45-member delegation from South Korea visited the religious
Buddhist sites in Takhtbai, listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Similarly, a renewed emphasis has been placed on sports tourism,

with Peshawar hosting the 33rd National Games and improved
publicity around the famous Shandur polo festival, attracting 80
foreign tourists including a team of Dutch backpackers and British
polo players this year.

For medical tourism, the government has started offering special

incentives to Afghan citizens at public and private hospitals, besides
setting up a Pak-Afghan Healthcare Referral Facility at the Pak-
Afghan border in Torkham. Plans are also underway to establish a
healthcare city in the border district of Khyber.

Setting up of colourful camping pods and tenting villages by the

government at various locations was also a major hit and took social
media by storm, with a significant increase in tourist traffic.

In the backdrop of all these activities, the government also came up

with a new legislation, announcing the establishment of a new K-P
Tourism Authority and laying ground for creating dedicated
tourism zones. These steps do mark the efforts in the right direction.
But the key is not to lose momentum.

Pakistan’s improved ranking is expected to fetch huge inflows of

tourists and it would be important to offer them a pleasant
experience to further capitalise on this improved branding. It is also
important to use the new law to create integrated tourism parks,
where potential investors can be offered viable investment
opportunities. The government may also need to create special
purpose vehicles to manage high-traffic tourism sites to take them
out of the traditional local government system and provide state-of-
the-art civic facilities. But most importantly, the government needs
to make the new tourism authority fully functional to create the
requisite capacity to undertake and manage all these new planned
ventures.
We must remember that it’s just the start and there is a long way to
go. But if managed right, we can very well witness a tourism boom
in the years ahead.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 24th, 2019.

 Tuesday, 24 Dec 2019 Today's Paper

K-P pharma industries

By Editorial Published: December 24, 2019

The federal government has decided to introduce a special

investment policy for Balochistan and the newly-merged districts of
K-P. The government plans to establish pharmaceutical industries
in areas of K-P where poppy is cultivated as an alternative to provide
employment to people. Two committees, headed by top officials of
the ministry of commerce, have been formed in this regard.
According to a report in this newspaper, the committees will
prepare their reports with recommendations and present them to
the prime minister’s anti-smuggling steering committee. The K-P
chief secretary also will be a member of the committee concerned
with the province. It will formulate a long-term policy aimed at
setting up pharmaceutical industries in the province. The policy will
aim at reducing cultivation of poppy in the province, and the federal
government will cooperate with the provincial government in this
regard. The committees will prepare recommendations for a long-
term special investment policy for Balochistan and K-P. The
proposals would include subsidies, concessions and exemptions on
duties and taxes. The government has decided to offer incentives to
those investing in these areas. At the same time measures aimed at
promoting ease of doing business will also be taken.

The plan to establish pharmaceutical industries in the newly-

merged districts of K-P is aimed at luring people away from poppy
cultivation. If the plan succeeds, it would go a long away in cutting
cultivation of poppy, the base material for the production of heroin
and other harmful drugs. Poppy is also used in some modern
medicines, so pharma industries in these regions will have easy
access to raw materials. In K-P, other herbs used in medicines are
also grown. This factor will give incentives to local growers of such
herbs. Since the aim of the plan is to discourage poppy cultivation,
we hope international investors would also invest in the local
pharma industry. But if only the plan translates into a reality.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 24th, 2019.

 Tuesday, 24 Dec 2019 Today's Paper

Is Fifth Generation Warfare

approaching?
By Aneela Shahzad Published: December 20, 2019

War is as old as human civilization. What we build over decades

with love and perseverance, we destroy in days with assault,
plunder, injury and fire. In fact, the first Earth-born killed the
second Earth-born, as goes the story of Adam’s two sons, attesting
that killing is second nature to humankind.

The underlying philosophy behind every war is to achieve the same

ends of “control and dominance”, and to achieve these ends the
strategy has always been “war by all means”. Yet we wish to
categorise war under different categories following our instinct to
simplify all complex phenomenon. This instinct led William Lind to
introduce the concept of the Four Generations of Warfare in 1989.
This categorisation is based on the advancement of technology and
its use in the enhancement of weapons of war. The “generations”
show that as the intentions behind war remained the same, the
appearance of war made phenomenal strides in technical and
tactical terms.

In Lind’s categorisation, the first three generations of warfare jump

from 15th century “smoothbore muskets”, to firearms, to machine-
operated artillery and to evolving techniques like the Blitzkrieg
(manoeuvre-warfare). The Fourth Generation Warfare is generally
associated with insurgencies, proxy wars fought by fueling those
insurgencies, and terrorism. And later the 5GW was added to the
concept as a technologically-superior warfare involving precision
weapons and networking across the battlespace.

The use of nuclear bombs at the end of WWII in Hiroshima and

Nagasaki can be considered as an arrester of conventional warfare.
With so many opposing powers becoming nuclear-capable, state-to-
state wars became less probable, and the Cold War opponents
resorted more and more to proxy wars. For instance, the Second
Congo War of 1998, also known as the African World War, was a
proxy war involving several African states and outside powers like
the US, Russia, China and Israel. None of the outside powers had
boots on-ground in DR Congo but they supplied small arms and
light weapons (SALW) to different contenders, fueling a war that
took 5.4 million lives and displaced another two million in five
years. The Kivu and Ituri conflicts, generated from the war, have
made the areas constant war zones to this day.
The underlying reason for the war was the control of mineral
resources of the country. The proxies’ control of mineral rich areas
and their allowing “outside parties” their extraction, makes DRC a
free-market haven with no taxes and the cheapest bids. So, for those
who supplied the SALWs, a continued conflict was the perfect status
quo, and the ability of the proxies to terrorise the population and
defeat state authority was the key to a luxurious free meal from
DRC. Therefore, proxies and terror worked together, and still do.

Another analogy is that the 4GW obliterated the sovereignty of the

nation-state by letting outside parties intervene. It also jeopardised
the state authority by inciting large-scale dissent as government
forces were forced to fight their own people. Sovereignty is also
breached by control and infiltration of the media of the target state.
Moreover, to fill in the gaps that crude insurgent fighters cannot fill,
highly-trained and improvised special operation forces are slipped
in to the situation to assassinate or destroy the target. So, if all this
was 4GW, then what is 5GW?

With huge technological advancements in our era, 4GW is

inevitably evolving into 5GW. Satellites, precision munitions,
robotics and drones are changing the battlespace to a completely
no-contact space for those with superior technologies. Australian
Air Force Officer Peter Layton writes of the 5G Air-Warfare to be a
network-centric one with different network grids collecting and
distributing information; a combat cloud that helps create a “big
picture” of real-time information; multi-domains that breaks the
battlespace up into land, sea, air domains; and fusion warfare that
uses analytics to fuse data from numerous disparate sensors into a
single common picture for decision-makers at the theatre level.

Proponents of 5GW, in the US, base the 5GW scenario on the vision
that in the near future a technologically-advanced country like the
US will have an absolute hegemony on information via precision
satellites, data mining, and command networking and will rule the
future battlefield with a supra force of swarms of air and sea
unmanned maritime vehicles (UMVs), fifth generation aircraft and
teams of highly-improvised special forces aka assassins. Fifth
Generation Warfare will not forsake information warfare, instead it
will rely more on data mining to manipulate target societies and to
create coercive conditions for politicians.

This 5GW coercion will be all-encompassing — on one hand,

institutionalised cyber-hackers will gain the ability to jam or corrupt
enemy computer networks; on the other, enemy satellites will be
targeted to literally blind the opponent’s remote sensing and
navigation abilities, possibly disrupting its economy’s contact with
the global economy and cutting off the government apparatus from
the international grid. Likewise, on one hand swarms of UMVs will
destroy whatever little fighting capabilities enemies in the
developing world have, while on the other, special forces will
exterminate targets of influential nature. Fifth Generation Warfare
will thereby, in Thomas Hammes’ words, “convince the enemy’s
political decision-makers that their strategic goals are either
unachievable or too costly for the perceived benefit” — rendering
the whole state numb and dumb and unable to react.

Such a state of combined precision, agility and firepower, being

pursued by the US, China, Russia and others, is costly and time-
taking. It may take years even for the big powers to enter this sci-fi
realm of absolute power that enables them to enslave humanity en
masse from their remote privileged abodes. So, in the meantime, as
the 5G “nets-and-jets” capabilities evolve, 4GW will prevail,
inculcating 5G technologies within the 4G hybrid phenomenon as
they come, keeping “war by all means” a constantly changing reality.

Already the “hybrid” is mixing conventional, proxy and cyber

warfare. It is using fake news, social media, diplomacy, sanctions,
foreign intervention in elections and what not. So, as the 5GW
approaches us more swiftly than we are expecting it to, to rule us
from the skies, 4G will continue eating us up from under our feet.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 20th, 2019.

 Tuesday, 24 Dec 2019 Today's Paper

Hoping on Kartarpur
By Kamal Siddiqi Published: December 23, 2019

Earlier this month, I had an opportunity to visit the Gurdwara

Darbar Sahab in Kartarpur which is located in Narowal district,
about four hours from Lahore by road. The Gurdwara is considered
the second holiest site in Sikhism as it is believed to be the place
where Guru Nanak, the founder of Sikhism, spent the last 18 years
of his life. The Gurdwara — which means a “gateway to the guru” —
thus holds tremendous religious and sentimental value to the Sikh
community.
To enter from the Pakistani side, one has to cross four barriers. The
first is the entry to the car parking area. Here visitors must show
their identification and get their vehicles checked before they can
enter. Those on foot also follow the same procedure. Once inside the
car park, the visitors then buy a ticket at the special counters for this
purpose. On the payment of Rs200, a coupon is issued and one lines
up for another round of checking before boarding a coaster that
takes you to the Gurdwara. At the Gurdwara itself, prior to entry,
visitors must register themselves and are given a plastic tag to wear.
The tag is given after a fingerprint scan so that the only person who
can return it is the one whose fingerprints match with the tag. It is
intelligent use of technology.

Once inside the complex, you are free to go and see what you want.
The complex itself is slowly emerging — a massive structure for
accommodation is still under construction as are other sections. By
and large the complex has become functional. There is a huge
courtyard here in the middle of which sits the actual Gurdwara
which is a modest building. Most Pakistanis who come here, come
out of curiosity. Many of them have never seen Indians, let alone
Sikhs. I’m sure the same is the case with the people coming from the
other side of the border. It is interesting to see the two sides talk —
reluctantly at first and then with ease and confidence with the
passage of time.

Unlike the Pakistanis, the Indians are mostly pilgrims who come
here for a specific purpose. For them this means going through a
series of rituals. Despite this, they are happy to talk and exchange
pleasantries.

A short distance away from the Gurdwara complex is the amenities

area. Here several shops offer souvenirs as well as food and drinks
as well as currency exchange. The prices are reasonable, and the
food is largely edible. Out of respect for the Gurdwara, meat in any
form is not served here. The dishes are all vegetarian.

While the Indians are keen buyers of items which they take back
with them on the same day, there is little for Pakistanis to buy here
as souvenirs. But for us the main attraction is the fact that so many
Indians come over on day trips and one can go and see how they are
enjoying Pakistani hospitality. Pakistanis do not get to see the
Kartarpur corridor itself which is a 2.5 mile stretch. The corridor
leads directly from the Indian border to the gurdwara with its sides
fenced off, confining travel to the shrine only.

The demand for visa-free travel to the shrine by the Sikh community
has existed since the Partition of the Sub-continent in 1947. In the
corridor’s absence, travelers had to cover an arduous,
approximately 78-mile journey instead and under strict visa
regulations. Former Indian prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee
proposed a visa-free corridor back in 1999 when he undertook a
historic bus journey from Delhi to Lahore to normalise relations
with Pakistan. In 2000, after being refurbished by the Pakistani
government, the Kartarpur shrine was opened to Indians but only
those holding a valid visa, who could visit in restricted numbers.
Soon after the Imran Khan government assumed office, it
announced that it would set up the corridor, catalysing the
construction process on Pakistan’s side. Today, hundreds of people
visit from both sides without visas.
The biggest surprise is that the corridor had become functional. The
Kartarpur Corridor holds the potential to foster religious tourism,
promote people-to-people contact to reduce the trust deficit on both
sides, and in turn perhaps aid dispute resolution by keeping avenues
of dialogue open. Let us hope both countries open more such places
in the coming days.
Published in The Express Tribune, December 23rd, 2019.
 Tuesday, 24 Dec 2019 Today's Paper

The Afghanistan Papers —

truth be damned
By Inam Ul Haque Published: December 17, 2019

Finally what was known for a long time has been publicly
acknowledged by the US. That the US political and military
leadership had been lying to the general public about the actual
situation of the Afghanistan War. That the leadership, both military
and civilian, had been fudging figures, painting rosy scenarios and
resorting to outright distortions about a war that cost the US
taxpayers one trillion dollars and a colossal loss in human life, limb
and dignity, besides ravaging the country and its hapless people
with abandon. The Washington Post courageously forced the
Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR)
to declassify and hand over seven reports for the Lessons Learned
project, a federal project containing the testimonies of US, UN,
NATO and Afghan officials about the longest war in the US
military’s history.
In a six-part story titled “The Afghanistan Papers” (styled after the
Vietnam Era “Pentagon Papers”), The Washington
Post investigative journalist, Craig Whitlock, published the main
points of the SIGAR reports on December 9, 2019. The original
papers consist of 2,000 or so pages of unpublished notes based
upon interviews of some 400 insiders with a direct role in the war,
“from generals and diplomats to aid workers and Afghan officials”,
in order to examine the root failures of the longest armed conflict in
US history. There are candid admissions and unrestrained criticism.
Gen Douglas Lute, a three star army general handling the Afghan
War under the Bush and Obama administrations, is quoted as
saying, “We were devoid of a fundamental understanding of
Afghanistan… We didn’t know what we were doing… We didn’t have
the foggiest notion of what we were undertaking.” The price, as
quoted, was steep with almost 157,000 deaths including 43,074
Afghan civilians and 64,124 Afghan security forces. US casualties
included over 2,300 dead and around 20,589 wounded in action
besides the terrible toll it has taken in the form of mental distress
and suicides, etc among the returnees. Details of this were
incidentally covered in my piece published on December 9, 2019 in
this space as “US Military in Crisis — Suicide, Sexual Assault and
Substance Abuse”. SIGAR estimates the cost of war incurred by the
Departments of Defense, State and USAID since 2001 is around
$978 billion, excluding the CIA and the Department of Veterans
Affair (Medicare) expenditure.
A quote by former US diplomat James Dobbins is instructive. “We
don’t invade poor countries to make them rich. We don’t invade
authoritarian countries to make them democratic. We invade
violent countries to make them peaceful and we clearly failed in
Afghanistan.”

In geo-strategy, wars have defined political aims, objectives and

clear military goals. The US — the largest military machine of our
time — failed this fundamental. From an initial objective “to
retaliate against al Qaeda and prevent a repeat of the Sept. 11, 2001
attacks”, it vacillated towards nation building, turning Afghanistan
into a democracy, transforming Afghan culture, elevating women’s
rights and reshaping the “regional balance of power among
Pakistan, India, Iran and Russia.” There was confusion if al Qaeda
was the enemy or the Taliban; if Pakistan was a friend or a foe. There
was and still is persistent ambiguity about Daesh and other foreign
jihadists, the Orbaki militias and warlords on the CIA’s payroll
outside the Afghan government’s purview.
During the “nation building” under president Bush, the US
allocated more than $133 billion — greater than the post-WWII
Marshall Plan for the reconstruction of Western Europe, as adjusted
in today’s dollar terms. Resultantly, Afghanistan was flooded with
far more aid than it could absorb, leading to rampant corruption.
Blamed on the US Congress, this mad rush to spend helped slide the
Afghan government under Karzai into kleptocracy by 2006. Mass
corruption involving “judges and police chiefs and bureaucrats
extorting bribes” soured common Afghans on democracy and
turned them towards the Taliban to enforce order.

Raising of the Afghan National Army and the police to this day
remains a pipe-dream with incompetent and unmotivated recruits,
higher rates of desertion and a predator officer cadre, pocketing
salaries of the “ghost soldiers”, besides cuts in the soldiers’ salaries.
One-third of the police recruits were drug addicts or Taliban
insiders, selling official property including gasoline.

The US spent about nine billion dollars to fight the opium problem
during the past 18 years. Ironically, Afghanistan produced 82% of
the global opium in 2018 alone. When the British paid the poppy
farmers to destroy their crops, there grew more poppy the next
season. And when the US destroyed poppy fields without
compensation, infuriated farmers flocked to the Taliban.

The westernised national leadership was terrified to “tip-toe out of

Afghanistan in the coming few years” leaving Nato to hold the
country for them when there was a surge in Taliban attacks in 2006.
Gen Petraeus, the ambitious commander of the US and Nato forces
in Afghanistan, was grilled in March 2011 by skeptical lawmakers
whether the US strategy was working. Gen Michael Flynn, a retired
three-star, told SIGAR during a 2015 interview in frustration, “From
the ambassadors down to the low level, [they all say] we are doing a
great job… Really? So if we are doing such a great job, why does it
feel like we are losing?” Insiders reported in 2014, that “truth was
rarely welcome” by the military in Kabul.

To conceptualise the major conclusions of the Afghanistan Papers,

most participants attributed the continuing Afghan fiasco to a lack
of continuing “strategic direction” from the political masters and a
“strategy” from the military command including an operational
strategy. The shifting aims and objectives of the war inhibited a
professional military from pursuing coherent goals and a clear plan.
The Papers identify a lack of understanding of the Afghan state and
society and the overall environment for various erroneous
decisions. The circular problem of poppy production kept the
Taliban war economy alive and kicking. The Papers criticise the
shortsightedness of not pursuing a negotiated settlement with the
Taliban earlier on… that ironically, Pakistan was emphasising on all
along. The endemic corruption ushered in by the aid dollars and the
vested interests of expat Afghan, US officials and Washington
Beltway contractors added to the impasse.

There is the typical finger-pointing at Pakistan for not “doing more”

and providing “safe haven” to the Taliban besides the escape
argument that the US military was restrained to conduct “hot
pursuit operations” inside Pakistan. Details next week.

What the Papers fail to acknowledge is the Taliban motivation,

inspiration and fighting ability that was pivotal in denying victory
to the strongest military machine on earth. The power of a just cause
and willingness to offer the supreme sacrifice for the defence of their
faith and country are likewise not cited. Militarily, the US never had
a clear “war termination strategy” to end the conflict. At the end of
the day, this trumpeted fact-finding exercise too is laced with the
innate hubris of the US, who is known to come to the right options
after trying all the wrong ones.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 17th, 2019.