Whatever bad you read about Pakistan – rigged elections, political assassinations, militants attacking foreign nations – can be traced back to the anarchic intelligence network in Pakistan. If the civil society is ever to move forward, we need to rid ourselves of this menace, various elements of which to differing degrees are aligned with militants who’re disrupting our very own civil life.
My main question is – how exactly can you get away with forming an intelligence agency in Pakistan? How are they economically viable, assuming a lot of these setups are non-government operations? And most of all, how on earth did we get to this place where have many competing “agencies”? It happens in no other nation, so why Pakistan?
Re: Who is responsible for the proliferation of the intelligence agencies in Pakistan
Broadly speaking there is only one agency that is the ISI, there have been brief periods where it's dominance has been challenged but its never lost its dominance. The key moment for the ISI was post 1979 invasion of Afghanistan..it was empowered in terms of money, training and equipment and given the strategic depth with an Islamic twist ideology. After that the rest as they say is history..I vaguely remember a figure (can't remember the exact quote) that there are approximately 2 ISI officers for every district in Pakistan.
The agencies did have a role before 1979, Ayub Khans election, the creation of the republican party, trying to manipulate the 1970 election and so on..but in those days the civil service was still immensely powerful so there role wasn't as pronoinced.
Broadly speaking there is only one agency that is the ISI, there have been brief periods where it's dominance has been challenged but its never lost its dominance. The key moment for the ISI was post 1979 invasion of Afghanistan..it was empowered in terms of money, training and equipment and given the strategic depth with an Islamic twist ideology. After that the rest as they say is history..I vaguely remember a figure (can't remember the exact quote) that there are approximately 2 ISI officers for every district in Pakistan.
The agencies did have a role before 1979, Ayub Khans election, the creation of the republican party, trying to manipulate the 1970 election and so on..but in those days the civil service was still immensely powerful so there role wasn't as pronoinced.
You sound biased or your information is incorrect. Rigging elections and politics by ISI was started by Bhutto by creating its political wing which is still in existence.
As far as the independence ISI gained during and after Afhgan war is concerned, Musharraf took care of that and brought it under army's control. This fact has been mentioned by some foreign analysts.
Now there is nothing different ISI does that an intelligence agency is not supposed to do. I would say they are much more ethical and professional than RAW and obviously much more than CIA.
You sound biased or your information is incorrect. Rigging elections and politics by ISI was started by Bhutto by creating its political wing which is still in existence.
As far as the independence ISI gained during and after Afhgan war is concerned, Musharraf took care of that and brought it under army's control. This fact has been mentioned by some foreign analysts.
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If you take the time to re-read the original topic ..the poster was asking who is responsibile for the proliferation of intelligence agencies and not the formation of the ISI political cell.
The establishment is the Army, the ISI's Ziaist leanings were not out of the control of the Army they were very much what the Army preferred till 9-11 and the repeated attacks against it from their former allies.
In Pakistan, Army has been very much part & parcel of political set up from very early on. In fact it enjoys the authority of being the final adjudicator in all things politics. For it to be able to keep tab on politicians, it needs to have ears & eyes around them and this is where intelligence agencies come into picture, most notably ISI and to certain extent MI.
Since intelligence agencies, by nature of their business, operate in the gray murky underworld where lines b/w right & wrong are undefined/blurred, its easy for them to go beyond their assigned mandate and they tend to develop their own convoluted sense of self-righteousness . While its not as harmful when dealing with external threats, it has wreaked havoc with the civilian political establishment in Pakistan because army has assumed itself as the sole guardian of Pakistan's ideological frontiers and our political establishment never got a chance to nurture and develop into a robust & mature system of governance.
Now its up to Army (and by extension) ISI to decide whether we should have Mujlise Shura style conservative set up or enlightened moderation kind liberal ideologies. It can make political parties to spring up over night, like Republican party, IJI, Qaaf League etc and it can baptize its favorite choice with engineered referendums, elections. Military establishment arrogantly feels that it is not accountable to a civilian set up while the political class acts like small poodles wagging their tails look up to their handlers in agencies, waiting for their next orders.
Broadly speaking there is only one agency that is the ISI, there have been brief periods where it's dominance has been challenged but its never lost its dominance. The key moment for the ISI was post 1979 invasion of Afghanistan..it was empowered in terms of money, training and equipment and given the strategic depth with an Islamic twist ideology. After that the rest as they say is history..I vaguely remember a figure (can't remember the exact quote) that there are approximately 2 ISI officers for every district in Pakistan.
The agencies did have a role before 1979, A*yub Khans election, the creation of the republican party, trying to manipulate the 1970 election and so on.*.but in those days the civil service was still immensely powerful so there role wasn't as pronoinced.
You do not have any Idea what you are talking about i guess your main source of information is that biased media who blame ISI for every mishap on the planet
Just for your info, ISI was created after 1972, there was no ISI prior to that...
You do not have any Idea what you are talking about i guess your main source of information is that biased media who blame ISI for every mishap on the planet
Just for your info, ISI was created after 1972, there was no ISI prior to that...
Whatever bad you read about Pakistan -- rigged elections, political assassinations, militants attacking foreign nations -- can be traced back to the anarchic intelligence network in Pakistan. If the civil society is ever to move forward, we need to rid ourselves of this menace, various elements of which to differing degrees are aligned with militants who're disrupting our very own civil life.
My main question is -- how exactly can you get away with forming an intelligence agency in Pakistan? How are they economically viable, assuming a lot of these setups are non-government operations? And most of all, how on earth did we get to this place where have many competing "agencies"? It happens in no other nation, so why Pakistan?
It is lesson from History, history back to the pre-historic times, agencies gets powerful when rulers are incompatible.. nothing new in Pakistan...
The ruler in Pakistan are corrupt upto the level where examples can be set... military and political leaders have used intelligence agencies to monitor the opposition.. same as they have used Police to curb their opposition... as a result we can see, an extremely corrupt and to some extend un-organized POLICE has gone out of control.. think about the organized agencies..
In order to keep everyone in their respective role, the character of rulers should be above average... which i don't see happening in near future...
Just tell, me Can NS, Zardari and other political leadership can be trusted???
I guess it was created in 1857 by Bahadur Shah Zafar
Check facts before getting into discussion, ISI was brain child of Bhutto (One of the good things he did) the reason of creating such agency which can compete RAW ( created post 1965)...
Just don’t forget, ISI in those early days was a department in IB a single department just like other departments…
not fully functional intelligence agency as it is now, in those days, MI & IB were most effective
Bhutto, after the FALL OF DHAKA, made ISI a separate entity with an additional mandate to watch out for the doubt-full characters in the political elite so that 1971 could’nt repeated… this is what you are calling political wing.. this additional task which should have been there from the very beginning, ISI became a nightmare to the political elite of Pakistan, the only reason for that was, the political elite is one of the most corrupt group in the country and they can go to any extent for their personal interest..
and whatever happened to the claim "Butto created ISI in '72"?
Army inherited a British system where this unit was part of a mother agency IB. In '48 it became an independent outfit.
Can't make it any more easier to understand.
I am not the one who stick to something just for egoistic reasons... ISI was a department and not organization... now i don't know if you are aware of the fact that how far a department can go...anyway.. nobody heard about ISI, untill it was made a separate entity...
In the entity where the best officers from other department were appointed and not to mention it was done in early 70s and yes it was Bhutto was the head of the state then...
Just to give you example, the group i work for, had a department which used to look after investments in Infrastructure sector of emerging markets.. later on they made a separate company ( let say A) far more greater scope and capital.. now would it be wise to call that the company was formed in 1970 ( the birth year of Parent company) or would be that the company A was formed in 2005...
Same is the case with ISI... who was nothing more than a department in IB.. just like STF a department in one of the intelligence agencies...
Re: Who is responsible for the proliferation of the intelligence agencies in Pakistan
^^ While your slandering on ISI, you didn't mention the character of the political elite can you en-light us with ur wisdom on the character of the rulers Pakistan had so far???
Re: Who is responsible for the proliferation of the intelligence agencies in Pakistan
^^the OP is as good as saying, how good an army would be for any country ( as Intelligence agencies are eyes/ears of Army... or are you among those who consider a blind army facing same consequences Egyptian army face in 1968 war.. when they just stood wondering what would be the next move of Israel and Israel cleaned all most all of their military/strategic locations (which they later found out) with Missiles...
Re: Who is responsible for the proliferation of the intelligence agencies in Pakistan
hanibal, I do not see anything stated against ISI / army in post # 5. Kindly read it again with a clear head.
And I agree with the corrupt characters which are brought to power by rigging elections. The question is, if ISI or any such intelligence agencies are really doing their jobs, how such practices (rigging of elections) to impose 'the most corrupted political elite' on Pakistani people are even possible???
It is obvious that the foreign anti Pakistan elements bribe the key responsible intelligence officials to use their resources to serve foreign agenda - That is to bring a corrupt leader every time there is a trend / willingness of the military to have a democratic system in Pakistan.
This seems to be a non-ending cycle. The anti Pakistan foreign mafia bribing the corrupt political leaders to turn / work against military or the few key but corrupt army / intelligence officials being bribed by the same mafia incase there is a 'hope' of democratic to prevail & strengthen in Pakistan.
Unless every single individual of Pakistan becomes non-corrupt, this practice would continue because it is, we, the same Pakistani people who become leaders or those key officials. The same people become 'the political elite'. Get it?