Authority & Responsibility - 7

Irtiza Ali wrote:

YE ISI aur PAK ARMY hee hae jiski waja sey PAKISTAN bacha hua hae.....werna ye politicians kab ka beech chukay hotay.
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waheedahsan wrote:

Blame it on ISI? BY ERIC S. MARGOLIS (America Angle) 3 August 2008

The last ISI Director General I knew was the tough, highly capable Lt. Gen. Mahmood Ahmad. He was purged by the new military dictator, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, because Washington felt Mahmood was insufficiently responsive to US interests.

http://www.khaleejtimes.com/DisplayArticle.asp?xfile=data/opinion/2008/August/opinion_August14.xml§ion=opinion&col=

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Dear Sir,

There are many several flaw in the article above regarding Lt General Retd. Mahmood Ahmad's so-called efficiency, bravery and professionalism.

Facts are as under:

Some 3/4 years back Chaudary Nisar Ali Khan {Pakistan Muslim League Nawaz Sharif} in an interview with Dr. Shahid Masood [when he was not sold] for his program Views on News on ARY Digital, said that after illegally toppling the elected government of Mian Nawaz Sharif on 12 Oct 1999’s Military Mutiny, General Mehmood Ahmed {The Former ISI Chief} took Nawaz Sharif {the elected Prime Minister of 150 Million Pakistanis} to Army Barracks where he was forced to sign some papers which Nawaz didn’t and naturally Nawaz and his family sealed their fate. That happened with Nawaz Sharif once before when during 1993’s political crisis when Nawaz Sharif in his live speech had said without taking the name of the then President Ghulam Ishaq Khan {actually Army} that he {Nawaz} will not take dictation and later on the Invisible Hands succeeded in getting resignation from Nawaz Sharif. In a meeting where both Nawaz and Ghulam Ishaq Khan were present with several Army Generals, Nawaz tried to leave the room when a General stopped him by a very Fancy Army Baton and forced that Baton on Nawaz’s shoulder and made him sit down. {Agenciyon Ki Hukoomat by Late. Azher Suhail published by Jang Publishers Pakistan}.

Far worse thing happened with Late. Zoulfiqar Ali Bhutto’s dead body who was murdered by General Zia, Jamat-e-Islami, Judiciary and USA. On the orders of General Ziaul Haq an army officer checked the Private Parts of Bhutto’s Body [Jawabdeh Geo TV by Iftikhar 5 July 2008] to make sure that Bhutto was really a Muslim and they made it sure. Alas! Maulana Maudoodi and his rampant Jamat Islami were with General Zia like they are with General Musharraf in Baluchistan and NWFP in the shape of MMA.

After 9/11 all changed the Arrogance of the General and Top Army Officials which they have been showing to poor and hapless Pakistani civilians since last 56 years was nowhere to be seen when the bell toll for Pakistan and its so-called Strategic Depths. That term is itself an insult.

THE VANISHED ARROGANCE OF THE GENERALS AFTER 9/11.

In the afternoon, Mahmood was invited to CIA headquarters at Langley, Virginia, where he told George Tenet, the CIA director, that in his view Mullah Omar, the Taliban chief, was a religious man with humanitarian instincts and not a man of violence! This was a bit difficult for the CIA officials to digest and rightly so as the Taliban’s track record, especially in the realm of human rights, was no secret. General Mahmood was told politely but firmly that Mullah Omar and the Taliban would have to face US Military might if Osama Bin Laden along with other Al-Qaeda leaders were not handed over without delay. To send the message across clearly, Richard Armitage held a second meeting with Mahmood the same day, informing him that he would soon be handed specific American demands, to which Mahmood reiterated that Pakistan would cooperate. {Bush at War by Bob Woodward, published by Simon & Schuster, 2002, New York}, p 32. {Pakistan: Eye of the Storm by Owen Bennett Jones, published by New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2002}, p. 2.

General Mahmood on September 13, 2001, was handed a formal list of the US demands by Mr. Armitage and was asked to convey these to Musharraf and was also duly informed, for the sake of emphasis, that these were “not negotiable.” Colin Powell, Richard Armitage, and the assisstant secretary of state, Christina Rocca, had drafted the list in the shape of a “non-paper”. It categorically asked Pakistan:

1 - Stop Al-Qaeda operatives coming from Afghanistan to Pakistan, intercept arms shipments through Pakistan, and end ALL logistical support for Osama Bin Laden.

2 - Give blanket overflight and landing rights to US aircraft.

3 - Give the US access to Pakistani Naval and Air Bases and to the border areas betweeen Pakistan and Afghanistan.

4 - Turn over all the intelligence and immigration information.

5 - Condemn the September 11 attacks and curb all domestic expressions of support for terrorism.

6 - Cut off all shipments of fuel to the Talibans, and stop Pakistani volunteers from going into Afghanistan to join the Taliban. Note that, should the evidence strongly implicate Osama Bin Laden and the Al-Qaeda Network in Afghanistan, and should the Taliban continue to harbour him and his accomplices, Pakistan will break diplomatic relations with the Taliban regime, end support for the Taliban, and assist the US in the aforementioned ways to destroy Osama and his network.

Having gone through the list, Mahmood declared that he was quite clear on the subject and that “he knew how the President thought, and the President would accept these points.” {Bush at War by Bob Woodward, published by Simon & Schuster, 2002, New York}, p 58-59. Interview: Richard Armitage, “Campaign Against Terror,” PBS (Frontline), April 19, 2002; last accessed June 2, 2003, at

www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/campaign/interviews/armitage.htm.

Mahmood then faxed the document to Musharraf. While the latter was going through it and in the process of weighing the pros and cons of each demand, his aide de camp that Colin Powell was on the line. Musharraf liked and respected Powell, and the conversation was not going to be a problem. He told him that he understood and appreciated the US position, but he would respond to the US demands after having discussed these with his associates. Powell was far too polite to remind him that he in fact was the government, but did inform him that his General in Washington had already assured them that these demands would be acceptable to the government of Pakistan. {Pakistan’s Drift into Extremism : Allah, the Army, and America’s War on Terror by Hassan Abbas, published by An East Gate Book , M.E. Sharpe Armonk, New York. London, England.}.


Common "civilians" in Pakistan can be picked up from anywhere without any cogent reason and can be detained for months [without producing them in the Court of Law] if not years without a trace and incommunicado too. You can slap, oust, try, imprison, torture, insult and discredit them through media trial and even hang the elected representatives of the people but when the real test comes those who are entrusted with the responsibility of defending the country always show you clay feet, read and lament.

The first thing they do after retirement is to join the Deviant [Gumrah and Loaded with Fasid Aqaid] Tableeghi Jamat of Raiwind. Whom you are trying to hoodwink? You cannot hoodwink Allah.

'Wo eent se eent baja dein gay’, ISI DG told Musharraf Monday, September 25, 2006

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2006/09/25/story_25-9-2006_pg1_4

WASHINGTON : Richard Armitage, Daily Times can confirm, did not use the words attributed to him by President Pervez Musharraf in a CBS 60 Minutes interview, namely that unless Pakistan did American bidding, it will be bombed into the “stone age”. However, neither the President of Pakistan, nor Richard Armitage, who has denied using such language, nor President Bush who said he was “taken aback” when he learnt what had been said, is being untruthful. What actually happened was that after his meeting with Richard Armitage, Lt Gen Mahmood Ahmed – who now wears a long, white beard and has reportedly gone Tableeghi – called Gen Musharraf from the Pakistan embassy in Washington. The conversation took place in Urdu and when the president asked him what the bottom line of the American message was, Gen Mahmood replied in Urdu that the Americans were intent on the removal of the Taliban regime and would not let Pakistan stand in their way and if Pakistan did not fall in line and cooperate, “wo hamari eent se eent baja dey gain” or words to that effect. That being so, President Musharraf’s recollection of the conversation with Gen Mahmood, who was then the director general of the ISI, is accurate, only he translated into English what he had been told in Urdu. It is time for Gen Mahmood to go on record and reproduce exactly the words in which he conveyed the Armitage message to Gen Musharraf on that September day five years ago. khalid hasan

General Mehmood ‘vanishes’ By Ansar Abbasi

The News International

http://www.thenews.com.pk/top_story_detail.asp?Id=3286

Sunday, October 01, 2006, Ramzan 7, 1427 A.H.

ISLAMABAD: Former ISI chief General Mehmood has simply vanished from the media which is trying hard to get his comments on the Musharraf-Armitage controversy over the wording of the post-9/11 threat hurled at Islamabad by Washington to win its unconditional support for the so-called war on terror. Mehmood, who has already retired from the Army, is settled in Lahore but despite repeated attempts since Saturday last he is not available to offer his comments on the issue on which his statement really matters a lot. Every time the former ISI chief was approached at his Lahore residence telephone number, the home servant-cum-operator, who identified himself as Banaras Khan, gave the ready response, ‘General Saab is out of the city, he will Inshallah call you
upon his return.’

On Saturday afternoon when initially contacted, Banaras said Mehmood would be back by the evening. However, later attempts the same evening and again on Monday and Tuesday, showed that Mehmood is still out of the city. Banaras has no answer when asked where exactly has the general gone. He also claims to have no contact number of Mehmood, who Banaras insists, doesn’t carry a cell phone after it was lost recently. President Musharraf in a recent interview with CBS News magazine show “60 Minutes,” charged that after 9/11 the then deputy secretary of state Richard Armitage told the then DG ISI General Mehmood to “be prepared to be bombed. Be prepared to go back to the Stone Age”. According to a report, Mehmood, who had seen ups and downs with Musharraf in the post Oct 12, 1999 coup, has joined the Tableeghi Jamaat after he was relieved of his post-retirement assignment to head Fauji Fertilizer. Mehmood is amongst those few top generals (all retired now) including General Aziz, General Usmani and General Jamshed Gulzar, who had strongly opposed Musharraf’s siding with America in its attack on Afghanistan.