PPP:: Cat on a hot tin roof

Society Pakistan & World Affairs
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Re: PPP:: Cat on a hot tin roof

Leave him yar...think he has some vision problem or something as he does not see the incompetence of this governemnt but keeps beating his own drums..
PIA
WAPDA
Steel Mills
Railways
NICL
NATO Containers
PM's corrupt family

he cant see!!

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Re: PPP:: Cat on a hot tin roof

STA Bhai

This reminds me Ghalib:

Dekhiye Ushaaq paatay hain buton se kiya faiz
Ik Brahamin ne kaha hai ke ye saal acha hai

Hum ko maloom hai jannat ki haqeeqat lekin
Dil ko behlane ko Ghalib ye khayal acha hai

PPP is still in better position (inspite of all corruption and bad governance) in Sindh not because people love them, but ppl there believe that no other party will stand for them.

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Re: PPP:: Cat on a hot tin roof

Go to interior sindh now and see the changing mood. I went to Sakkur not too long ago (after the floods) and poor people curse PPP left right and center there because PPP left them in a lurch and it was left to NGOs to care for them. Public mayn nikul ker dekh leyn ppp walay sindh mayn k how much are they loved nowadays.

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Re: PPP:: Cat on a hot tin roof

I agree with you.. you can not take people for granted for an indefinite period.

Also people do not realize the power of media.. when 25 channels highlight the non performance of the government 24/7… you can not imagine the impact on people..

It’s a changed environment.. even army does not consider takeover as an option due to this media pressure. If electorate lists are cleansed, we are in for big surprises every where in Pakistan.. you can not imagine people voting for same corrupt people who have taken away electricity, gas, employment, education, food, clothing, medical treatment from them..

I don’t think this “Saazish” slogan is going to work any longer.. if Zardari rants this Saazish slogan again on 27th, I am afraid it’s going to back fire big time for him.. people will definitely ask about the score card of his government for past 4 years.. specially in Sindh..!!!

Zardari’s counter-insurgency

Wajahat S Khan
Saturday, December 24, 2011

It was late afternoon Thursday last, and the civilians were angry. The prime minister, who’s parliamentary English can usually be confused with a Pakistani Santa’s ho-ho-hoing, was not benevolent. Yousuf Raza Gilani had on a grey suit with a maroon tie, but he seemed to be seeing simply red. Within an hour, he had made two public appearances and slammed the khakis…without slamming the khakis. If it’s of any consequence, historians might call this ‘The day the mouse roared’. Or even ‘The day the Multani woke Up’. And like most historians, they would be slightly off target.

Gilani’s was the sort of political theatre Pakistan has been denied for a while. ‘State within the state’, he had said about the brass. ‘Taxpayers pay for them, and elect a parliament that they should be subservient to’, he had explained about their monetary pecking order. ‘Who allowed OBL his visa all these years’, he had taunted. The word was out. The jiyalas would push back, and even deploy Osama bin Laden’s ghost for their cause.

The stage for the main act on Thursday was being set throughout the week. First, the president had returned, but was keeping a low profile, **plotting from the bowels of his Karachi bunker known as Bilawal House, which, by the way, if you have ever visited, is the architectural hybrid of paranoid, security-centric brutalism mating incongruously with nouveau-riche eclecticism and Sindhi-charm. It’s not pretty, but the perfect, functional headquarters for the operation he was about to launch. So a short guided tour is compulsory.

Bilalwal House is maybe the only communication-secure place in Pakistan for Asif Ali Zardari, where those he fears are listening would have limited access. Though ‘sigint’, also known as signals-intelligence, and widely understood as electronic-eavesdropping, is a field that is blooming in Pakistan, Zardari’s actual metal-plated bunker (that was constructed in the fall and through the winter of 2009), is rather deep, lies on the southeast-end of Bilawal House if the sea is your north, and seems to have displaced at least a wall or two that lie adjacent and once belonged to Clifton Block-III’s upper-middle class residents before many of them were simply asked by ‘property developers’ to take a cheque and move. It is thus about as safe as his security consultants can make life for him.**

Thus, his plan went into effect. First, he would launch his legal Oliver Cromwell, the anti-aristocratic Dr Babar Awan, to make the right noises in the right talk shows and the bar-councils. Then, he would expose his weakest arm, Husain Haqqani, and allow the former envoy’s goose to be overcooked, this time as Haqqani faced the Abbottabad Commission and fought off the semi-believable charges of fast-tracking and then issuing hundreds of visas to American ‘agents’.

To add to the one-step forward and one-step back move, the honourable Asma Jahangir, maternally proud and perhaps even rejuvenated after her daughter’s wedding, would take position and entrench herself outside the Supreme Court, repeatedly sniping at the Fortress of 7th Avenue, which the chai-sipping low-brows of the Press Club cutely call the Brothers of Aabpara.

As a good general should, Zardari would keep himself least exposed. This was a counter-insurgency, after all, and not some cavalry charge that he had to lead from the front. In effect, Babar Awan would sing, tweet and scream; Haqqani would play the good-servant and fall on his sword; and Jahangir would provide targeted, covering fire.

Maintaining minimum exposure, Zardari would thus refrain from responding to the courts, hoping his minions would hold positions, but they would get mowed-down in the counter-attack that was coming. The chief and the spy-master, Generals Kayani and Pasha, would close ranks and unleash their rejoinders. There was truth to the memo, they would pray to the courts in chorus, and stress that they marched only for Pakistan, not for the Arabs, Americans et all. While on their angry route, irritated by Jahangir’s sniping and Haqqani’s temerity, as well as the uncalled for participation of a new combatant, the media, they would even burn the village of The Independent, where a foreign journo had displayed half-baked subversion instead of fully-ripe diffidence, claiming that this army was nothing more than a clan, who reported to the tribal Bedouins of Arabia. Thus, they would snarl and growl, and try to drive their lances through the heart of Zardari’s formation: the memo lives, they would claim again.

That’s when Zardari would unleash Gilani. The hours-long peace meetings between the prime minister and the COAS had not helped. The army was merely doing what it has been trained to do: that an enemy can be talked to and attacked – all at the same time.

Thus, Zardari would resort to the core premise of the counter-insurgency doctrine. If the talking fails, and your own security counter-measures falter, and you run out purchasing strength, then expand the battle-space: Involve the people. The people will save you.

That’s why, like a good lieutenant, Gilani has now taken the fight to the streets of parliament. He’s inviting new combatants, like editors and think-tankers, democracy-activists and coffee-house strategists, treasury-benchers and opposition-villains, jiyalas and Imranophobes, all to listen to his ‘truth’ about the ‘Deep State’ and enlist in his ranks. It’s a brilliant plan. But it depends totally on his credibility, as well as that of his general, Zardari, whose act of staying in the shadows is fast running out of steam.

So, is Pakistan in the mood to get recruited by the dysfunctional forces of democracy, with their pallid promises of glory that they have faltered to deliver for almost four years, admittedly from atop the white horse of freedom? Or will the dark knights of perceived functionality, the praetorians of order and discipline, invoke a fear that keeps us all posted. Thus, the ‘Battle of the Memo’ heats up, which like all battles, is to be chronicled as just one engagement in the larger conflict: The Long War for Pakistan’s Soul.

The writer is a Harvard Shorenstein Fellow, an Asia Society Global Young Leader, and investigates for print/broadcast/social media. Email: [email protected]

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Re: PPP:: Cat on a hot tin roof

I wish people could denounce these corrupt PPP and Allah provide them a new option, a new political representation that can get free them from the support of corrupt PPP and lack of trust on other parties.

I know the dynamics of rural Sindh because its in my roots. People may have cursed PPP, but a small reminder by PPP for past neglect by other parties (including blockage of funds for development projects) and small deeds of goodness by PPP (I would say good for nothing) will make people think twice before opting a new option.

BTW, the game has already started. After announcement by Nawaz Sharif for giving refuge to Bengalis after his coming in govt, Chief Minister Qaim Ali Shah said no Bengalis and Beharis will be allowed in Sindh. So Nawaz Sharif, in his innocence, has already lost the chance. PPP only has to remind about this statement and no development agenda for Sindh during NS earlier governments.

As far as IK is concerned, lets see what he has to offer for Sindh in tomorrow's jalsa, but todate I never see a big support of IK in rural Sindh.

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Re: PPP:: Cat on a hot tin roof

Yes
Sadi war aan dio
Sab kujh wechia kujh nai bania
Chandah khada dil naeen rajia
Sadi wari aan dio
Khulla maal banan dio
ساڈی واری آن دیو
سب کجھ ویچیا، کجھ نیں بنیا
چندہ کھادا دل نیں رجیا
ساڈی واری آن دیو
کھلا مال بنان دیو

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Re: PPP:: Cat on a hot tin roof

This perfectly depicts the oxymoron of the argument people keep presenting :hehe:

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Re: PPP:: Cat on a hot tin roof

A poem by all ex-ministers (specially water and power ministers) of the current government. Bari bari looto.