Are you pleased with how Musharraf has handled the issue of Dr. AQ Khan?
If your answer is “NO”, please discuss how you would have handled it in his position and why. Or you can discuss how it should have been handled.
For all the discussion on how Musharraf handled the issue, see the other thread.
http://www.gupistan.com/forums/showthread.php?threadid=137474
This thread is a poll as well as discussion about how YOU think it should have been handled.
Yes I'm quite content with how the Pakistani government handled the issue...
How , who handled what. AQ situation. I thought It was
abt selling Rusty old material to countries.
What has that got to do with national hero(AQ).
Rephrase, your question.or poll or what ever you call it.
I cannot think of AQK as a hero anymore. Just a greedy man who took advantage of the situation and fooled the people for years. 2 billion dollars? 400K USD for a tent? villas?
He should return every cent of that illgotten money. Otherwise confiscate.
I feel shame and disgust. We humiliated the very same person, to whom we owe our very own existence.
I cant imagine how people are taking this event so lightly. I think this is the biggest set back after 1971.
I don’t blame musharaf. I blame people of Pakistan for this. I blame myself.
Sorry Sir, we don’t deserve to call you our hero. We never asked the people who sold Pakistan, for an apology. We never asked people who broke Pakistan to beg pardon.
But we asked you.
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by TogaTogaToga: *
I cannot think of AQK as a hero anymore. Just a greedy man who took advantage of the situation and fooled the people for years. 2 billion dollars? 400K USD for a tent? villas?
He should return every cent of that illgotten money. Otherwise confiscate.
[/QUOTE]
Grow up. Try to see things in broader view.
He is not an ordinary person who could go anywhere and do any thing and no one will notice.The Agencies have detailed information of each and every move of every person related to these Sensetive Facilities.
So if he has done any thing then it is not posible without the consent of Army.
good thread 5Abi and the right questions asked.
Well, at first i was annoyed at Dr A. Qadeer for having done what he says he does, and rumours kpet flying in about how much money he has made and how much worth of assetts he owns within and outside Pakistan and so I was disgusted at him. In a few days i began hearing viewpoints from a diff angle; my dad kept saying whatevr has happened, and if there was any transfer at all, it could NOT have been done without the knowldege and consent of the governments. This was accompanied by first hand accounts narrated by my dad about the way the Nuclear people are handled, the kind of security they have and the way they live. We used to live in Islamabad and my dad's professional activities regularly brought him in close contact with many high profile ppl including Dr Khan. Now dr khan, when he travelled by road back then and may be even now, he was accompanied by a motorcade and protocol perhaps greater than that of a 4 star general; that is to say that he is always under heavy secirity and CLOSE WATCH. so keeping that in view, my opinion changed and i firmly believed that no transfer could have occured without the govts involvement. Now the opinion was that as we all know the way Dubya and his all for love and peace America is making things hard for us since 2001, it was perhaps due to pressure from the powers to take action of some kind and so the govt of Pakistan decided to ask Dr Khan to be the scapegoat and take it all on him; for Pakistan! If that's true then no doubt he is one of Pakistan's greatest heroes! And so, comes the anger about defaming a hero who dedicated his life to pakistan and due to who the country is stable due to being nucleur. Then comes hisown confession on TV and Gen Musharrafs statements saying that Dr Khan is his personal hero too and so on...
So with all this serious stuff one can never know ehat the situations are and GEN Mush was absolutely right in yesterdays press conference talking to a reporter when he said in a rather harsh tone; "aap logon ko kia pata ke kia kia ho raha hai, kia masley hain..." we keep saying stuff and calling Gen Mush and the leaders this and that but what do we know....!!??
So in the end like many times before, I'm still convinced, though i was confused for a while, that Gen Musharraf has done what was best, in the best possible way and it couldnt have been done in a better way. A lesser man would have created a blunder out of the situation. every now and then Gen Mush finds his slef in such extreme situations and in the long run he emerges victorius, those who can reason understand and those who cant can never.
I only end up saluting Gen Musharraf and his aides for their competency. Let's just place benazir, Sharif, or anyone else in Gen Mush's place and imagine the consequences...101st airborne would have been patrolling the treets in pakistan by now!
God keep helping us and long live Musharraf.
YES
If we look at this crisis with a broad brush, then it must be said everything that happened i.e. the proliferation, happened way back in the late 1980’s/ early 1990’s under previous governments and military chiefs, and only Qadeer and some scientists being the constant figure in all this. President Musharraf has once again had to clean up the mess created by his civilian and military predecessors, and once again he has pulled it off with such skill and mastery, thats has even suprised me.
No other ruler, especially a civilian one could have pulled this off, as I am sure not only would they have been handing over our scientists over to the west or jailing them, but would have signed the CTBT and God knows what other agreements to compromise our nuclear capability.
President Musharraf has told the world quite bluntly that Pakistan’s nuclear facilities are off limits - hardly what a stooge would say? But at the same time he has said we will give any information we have about the proliferation of nuclear technology to other countries i.e. Iran, Libya etc. It’s time these backstabbers got a taste of their own medicine. :k:
Allah keep helping us and long live Musharraf !
Exact same views Haris Zuberi’s…:k:
Musharraf keeps pulling us out of the fire and he's right in saying that AQK will still be regarded as a hero. Pakistan has been duped by this Ummah business too long, the worst we could be accused of is stupidity.
The only problem is that our nukes will still be seen as an 'Islamic bomb' which means that America and co will continue to try to get us toi roll back the programme. My solution to this would be to recognise Israel which will not only calm the Jewish lobby in the US but also show the world that it has nothing to fear from a nuclear Pakistan. It's in the world's interest, it's in our interest and the A-rabs can go whistle in the wind.
Just one point though. if AQK did all this for private gain as is claimed then he owes the Pakistan treasury coffers some money.
No.
How Mushraff handled the situation is a good short time solution with no insight into future. It seems as if he won the international community by performing an investigation and with the confession of AQ Khan and by calling him “a hero” (still) & by pardoning him, he hushed down the domestic uneasiness. But in fact both these fronts can backfire at anytime.
International community, especially the hawks of the western world, who favor India and despise the nuclear capability of Pakistan, will bring up this scandal whenever they feel the need to pressure Pakistan. They will point out that the whole investigation has little transparency with no assurance that no further mishandlings can be stopped.
On the domestic front, the whole investigation is perceived as a drama where AQ Khan is somehow pressured into confessing something that he didn’t commit, under directions from US/UN. It has only further damaged the credibility of Mushraff.
What should have been done?
Public Trail: A public and open trial of all the people accused should have been brought forward with formal charges or proliferation and acting in self interest and against national interest. So, the evidence is shared in the court of law and is documented as public knowledge, rather than in classified files sealed for life with the stamp of ‘national security’. The people of Pakistan should know that there are no escape-goats, no pressured confessions and no pardons for status holders, be it ‘national heroes’ or ‘army personals’.
Review of procedures for Nuclear Secrets Safety: A review of the safety procedures surrounding the people who hold national secrets. How the scientists involved got away with it? What measures can & will be taken in future to make sure that the classified information is not leaked.
Internal Investigation of ISI: Why did ISI didn’t catch the scientists leaking information; what went wrong; who is responsible; if it was known then why no body blew a whistle; what can be done to make sure it will not happen again.
^ An excellent post Ahmed. I couldn't agree more with you.
Whatever should be done to internally investigate the missteps, should be one privately, confidentially and securely as something of this magnitude demands. This is not child's play. This is a matter of national security. Not something for the media circus, and should not be allowed to turn into fodder for the international media.
A public trial, however noble the idea may seem, would just prolong the bad publicity and will severely tarnish the rahi sahi reputation of Pakistan. Yes, when we are willing to give up our nuclear weapons or want to agree to a regime of inspections and security, then yes, go ahead with public trial on how we got the weapon and who were are financers in this endeavor and how we made money out of it. Till that time, don't forget our nuclear program was started by a theft and carried on through black market. The end justifies the means, in this case, but don't kid ourselves that we are suddenly a pure and law-abiding nuclear power. If we were so law-abiding, we wouldn't be a nuclear power.
To be one means we are gusty and intelligent and resourceful and willing to give sacrifices. The whole nation sacrificed for this program. This is not one person's program. This is not one person's responsibility either.
The only bad part is that the proliferation came out in the open and will be used by the western press to build a case to rein in Pakistan. We can't do anything about it, cz we are not the one who leaked our program. It was the Libyans and Iranians (even Koreans kept their trap shut).
Good thing is that this proliferation came out at this time, when US needs Pakistan and Musharaf in the ongoing war against terror, so US will do everything in its power to hush the thing down. But make no mistake, this thing will remain on the radars of internation press and decision-makers and they will use it at the first opportunate moment to drag Pakistan down. This is one more card our enemies have against us now.
Although from a purely legal point of view, atleast in the case of this proliferation, Pakistan didn't break any laws, cz we are not a signatory of NPT or any other non-proliferation treaty. However, practical reality is that we should not be going around distributing our knowledge and our resources is such programs. Its just asking for trouble. And trouble we got.
I'm also not pleased. He should have first disbanded the ineffective, corrupt, and anti-state feudally dominated ISI. Put generals responsible on trial. Try to change the army structure so that it's generals are chosen on merit, rather then how many connections they have, or how much money they can make on special deals with the government.
But a lot of these things even musharraf cannto do, sicne he himself is aprt of the same enviorment which thinks that army is best for pakistan and they can do no wrong.
Yes, i am happy with how this is handled atthis point.
The other theories of how things could have been done are well and good, but drag it on for too long for no reason, and we dont know the exact circumstances.
since we do not have access to the information or conditions that Pak govt was aware of, whether it was china's presusure, US pressure, or a combined plan to getthis done and over with quickly, we cant say.
when this fiasco started I totally disapproved of his approach.. maybe fearing that Mushy will use this as an excuse to bend further backwards to international pressures and freeze our nuclear program.. I did not like his treatment of respected scientists and the father of our programme too..
However the events that transpired indicate that effectively what I had desired was what was done.. but that's only true IF this ends here and there are no repurcussions on our programme..
So in effect we give a slap on the wrist to our scientists.. tell them.. bad.. bad scientist.. .. tell the world we took care of it and they can shove it if they want more..
that makes me ok with this all..
I just have a question may be the gurus here be able to answer, what’s the imminent danger? War, Sanctions, Removal of Ruling Elite?
^^ well some 'sanctions' or 'resolution' at the most. Nothing else.
YES
I think musharaf did the best he could with watever he had to work with. I,m very impressed at this man’s courage and intelligence and the way he manages to somehow drag Pakistan out of one mess after the other.
He is a hero in my eyes and I salute him for whatever hes done and what he continues to do.
Ahmadjee, dont tell me your were being serious!
do you think an open public trial was the solution??
do you even realize the consequences of that?
If it was an open trial, it,d be an open trial not on AQK, but the whole of Pakistan. Let me assure you that there would be a LOT of things that are rightly being kep secret, which, if let out through an open public trial, wouldv led to total disaster. I think Faisal very rightly pointed some of them out.
I think musharaf also pointed that out in his press conference, when asked about why the whole matter wasnt dealt with complete secrecy and why the names of the individuals were given out… Imagine this, and compare it with your solution, the guy was asking why was even the names mentioned or maed public to the rest of the world, whereas ur saying strip them naked in front of the whole world… its not a trial of corruption about zardari making millions from different industries or departments, its a trial on pakistan’s atomic program and the founder, its very sensitive and classified information. and rightly musharaf pointed out that the culprits were named and are being dealt with, but there is no way the whole details are getting public, and he did say that to the people that you guys have no idea what went on and how serious things were!
Its all about “national security”.
"A public and open trial of all the people accused should have been brought forward with formal charges or proliferation and acting in self interest and against national interest. So, the evidence is shared in the court of law and is documented as public knowledge, rather than in classified files sealed for life with the stamp of ‘national security’. The people of Pakistan should know that there are no escape-goats, no pressured confessions and no pardons for status holders, be it ‘national heroes’ or ‘army personals’. "
^Believe me! you WANT those “classified files sealed for life with the stamp of ‘national security’.”
and as for your comments about a whole atmosphere within domestic circles that the general perception is that its all a big drama being staged so the government could save their arse and AQK has been made the scapegoat… Thats exactly what musharaf was talking about… and thats why he was so emotional and dissappointed about this whole media circus… what good is it doing? who needs enemies when our own media is doing such a great job! and why dont people and particularly the media (cos people dont have the capacity to think.. whatever a maja gaama reads in jung becomes his point of view) understand that its not his government musharaf is trying to save, hes trying to save you! Pakistan! and the Atomic Program we are all so proud of!
watch his press conference if you havent watched it. maybe u,ll see it differently after that.
IMDAD ALI: maybe we should bring back your Nawaz Sharif, or maybe benazir bhutto again.cos it was all so well and then musharaf came and turned pakistan upside down.. right? 
instead of being thankful for a God sent saviour, ur moaning and whining.
When were these elected rulers ever allowed to have the power to truly run the country? Even when they were in power, the army was calling the shots about everything anyway. The last elected leader that had any power was Bhutto and he was hanged for that. Have you not seen how much damage the army has done to Pakistan?
Today no one trusts what the Pakistani government says, inclduing Pakistanis. And the army and only army is responsible for these events.