baithak: Baithak Desi Jun 06: Intellect Span, DT, MNA Mir, News & Views, Certificate for Shahdat, Cartoons...

...According to Ayaz Amir, a noted political analyst and a member of the National Assembly, the real question about Kargil is not whether Sharif knew or not. "It is something else. What accounts for the army's institutional capacity to dream up ventures lacking any geo-strategic or political context? The 1965 war which ended up by derailing Pakistan and paving the way for the eventual separation of East Pakistan was one such venture. The army crackdown on the Awami League in East Pakistan in 1971 was another. And the Kargil misadventure makes up the third of this holy trinity," Amir explained, adding, "Sharif was supposed to have a limited attention span. Kargil throws up an intriguing question. Whose intellect span was more limited, Sharif's or that of the army command?" PAKISTAN: Kargil

The worst part is that President Musharraf’s own erstwhile protégés are now speaking out against him. And the two recent ones who came on TV to bad-mouth him once formed a part of his policy to overload the civilian system with serving and retired army officers on attractive salaries and perks and plots. In this context it would be fair to say that General (Retd) Jamshed Gulzar Kayani, one such greatly favoured recipient, has touched the extreme in his own ham-handed and dishonest way by recommending that President Musharraf be tried and punished for the 1999 coup, for Kargil, for Lal Masjid etc. No one has bothered to ask him why he didn’t resign if he had disagreed with President Musharraf’s policies. Indeed, no one has bothered to list the favours he received as a key member of President Musharraf’s team when all these events took place. Another general, General (Retd) Abdul Qayyum, who got the lucrative post of chairman of Pakistan Steel Mills, has already recommended the registration of an FIR against him. General (Retd) Asad Durrani, who served as his loyal ambassador, and General (retd) Moinuddin Haider, who was his interior minister and also governor of Sindh province, are also in an unforgiving mood. President Musharraf did not listen to anyone when he was being advised not to bung the civilian bureaucracy with his buddies from the army. Now the same buddies are baying for his blood. Another gathering of retired generals has suggested an even more terrifying fate for him, notwithstanding the fact that many of them should have faced accountability for their own deeds when they enjoyed offices of power in the country. DT Editorial

The people of Pakistan are being treated like they have always been treated: a collection of idiots. Those who have devised the 'constitutional package' currently being earnestly discussed and debated in the media are to be applauded for their sense of humour for no grimmer joke has ever been played on the nation. MNA Ayaz Amir

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What about the earlier illegalities? by Fatehyab Ali Khan