When Protectors Become Accusers By Aisha Sarwari: New Age Islam's Selection, 08 January 2018
New Age Islam Edit Bureau
08 January 2018
• When Protectors Become Accusers
By Aisha Sarwari
• Higher Education in Balochistan
By Dr Mukhtar Ahmed
• Dichotomous US-Pak Interest
By Dr Raza Khan
• Trump’s Vendetta Against Pakistan
By Anjum Niaz
• The United Reichs Of America
Muhammad Ali Baig
• Debacle as Debate
By Syed Talat Hussain
Compiled By New Age Islam Edit Bureau
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When Protectors Become Accusers
By Aisha Sarwari
January 7, 2018
I was invited on behalf of an organisation called Bytes for All to speak at the National Commission of Human Rights (NCHR) on gender rights and the internet in Pakistan. I didn’t expect to find many takers of the importance of giving women’s agency back to them on the internet, but I didn’t expect the very institution tasked to protect women online, shame and blame women who turn to them for help. It was both alarming and disastrous.
In my presentation I talked about the various forms of violence women face online — when women have an opinion they are driven off the internet by abuse hurled at them and their character. Their pictures are often morphed and shared on the web. Their personal information is put up on the web with blatant calls to end their lives. They are told on their families for being on the web and that is dangerous because families that are patriarchal can punish these women severely, and these women are tracked down and sometimes abused and killed by stalkers. Many women who take up activism in the real world and online face death threats online, as is the case of renowned activist Marvi Sirmad who spoke at this event. By no measure are these issues to be trivialised.
This is why the chairman of the NCHR, Justice (R) Chohan, brought multiple stakeholders together that day so solutions could be discussed. I illustrated the gender landscape online by recent examples of the murder of Qandeel Baloch and the horrific hate content spilled online at Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy when she was offended at a doctor sending her sister a friend request after examining her. I spoke of the importance of women forging networks, of being mobile, of gaining financial independence and above all for harnessing their reproductive rights and commanding their sexuality. In the end I acknowledged two young female counterparts from the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) — the government institution tasked to deal with cybercrime. The FIA is to work under the Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act.
But is it really? I certainly doubt it now after I got to learn the views of women working there. The two people representing the FIA were asked to respond to the concerns from the civil society and their take was that it’s the women’s fault. That the women who are harassed themselves make the mistake of being online, being in intimate relationships online and upload or share provocative pictures. The women from the FIA also went on to say that as Muslims this is depraved of women to do and also being in intimate relationships online is outside morality’s ambit.
I did a double take. What I was essentially hearing was sexism, bigotry and exclusivity and letting personal religious doctrine interfere in law enforcement. To this, I pointed out that women should not be punished for the crime, and let’s be clear it is a crime to manipulate or publicly expose what was shared for a private audience.
There is no understanding at FIA that their role is not to moralise but to protect the women who are harassed online — and admittedly by FIA, the majority of complaints from women are from intimate partner relationships that have turned against them. There is no gender sensitivity training. There is no inclusivity training, it seems. This may come as news to FIA colleagues but not all of Pakistan is Muslim and neither do the men in this country need more help to bolster their toxic masculinity. There is already plenty of that. Also another thing: sometimes patriarchy’s biggest defendants are women themselves. Therefore just instilling women at positions that prevent cybercrimes against women is not enough. Those women cannot be propellers of the status quo.
Status quo is seemingly the going diet at FIA. They are having their fill to eat. Meanwhile, according to a report by Digital Rights Foundation, 40 per cent of women online face rampant harassment in Pakistan. Look at our South Asian counterparts and Pakistan’s women lag behind dismally in terms of internet penetration. Internet is where the power is at. It’s where women can transform their status from being a product of men to more independence and financial empowerment.
About time we took a closer look at the watchdogs — bring more accountability and transparency. Also these institutions suffer from huge funding crunches — for months employees haven’t been paid.
It is time to understand that power rests with data and the internet not so much with stopping sin, instead of stopping crime.
Source: tribune.com.pk/story/1602480/6-protectors-become-accusers/
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Higher Education in Balochistan
By Dr Mukhtar Ahmed
January 8, 2018
Balochistan makes up for 44 percent of Pakistan’s land, making it the largest province of Pakistan. It is one of those parts of the country that is a rugged terrain yet one of the most beautiful area, that is still to be tapped for natural and human resources.
Several challenges blended with conspiracy theories have often marred development in Balochistan, but in recent years the resolve to bring it at par with other provinces has toughened. Lately, the sector that has been in focus in the province is higher education. Making all-out efforts, the Higher Education Commission (HEC) has invested around Rs32 billion in development and recurrent budget since 2002 to date. This has contributed a decent increase in student enrolment as in 2002 it was a mere 3,700 but is 29,600 at present.
This change did not appear out of the blue rather is a result of the hard work that was put in by HEC, local academia, and above all, the political leadership that has always pushed Balochistan’s case in and outside parliament in an encouraging manner. The prioritisation of the province can be gauged from the fact that from 1947 to 2002 there were only two universities. After the establishment of the HEC in 2002, six new universities and eight sub-campuses were set up, while construction of others is underway. Other initiatives are no less than a breath of fresh air for the province that has seen years of conflict, strife and disregard that has discredited this land of passionate and committed people.
The story of HEC-Balochistan is oft ignored by the media that is already mired in other issues. But the province’s higher education has started rising to a level where its residents will soon start reaping dividends, making them a part of the province and country’s development. As per Balochistan’s development portfolio, Rs13 billion are being spent on infrastructure and expansion in all varsities and sub-campuses of the province, with Rs2.45 billion being spent on human resource development.
Sardar Bahadur Khan University’s campuses in Noskhi, Pishin and Khuzdar are already operational, while Lasbela University’s campus in Wadh was inaugurated recently and another for Dera Murad Jamali is in the pipeline. University of Balochistan’s campuses in Kharan, Mastung and Pishin too are providing education at the doorstep for inhabitants of the areas. Turbat University’s sub-campus in Gwadar is the first of its kind in the area.
Under a special initiative 3,750 scholarships have been marked exclusively for Balochistan, out of which 1,937 have already been awarded. This package includes scholarships for overseas PhDs, indigenous PhDs and graduates and undergraduates. Currently there is one private-sector university and seven public-sector universities in the province. The public-sector institutions include University of Balochistan in Quetta, Balochistan University of Engineering and Technology in Khuzdar, Balochistan University of Information Technology, Engineering and Management Sciences in Quetta, Lasbela University of Agriculture, Water and Marine Sciences in Uthal, Sardar Bahadur Khan Women’s University in Quetta, University of Turbat and University of Loralai.
Similarly, to support students financially and equip them with the latest technologies essential for education, the government has started fee reimbursement and laptop distribution schemes. The step was taken to remove any financial hindrances being faced by students of the less developed areas of the province; so far, Rs922 million have been reimbursed to 23,000 students of Masters, MS and PhD programmes.
To bring Balochistan’s varsities at par with IT and innovation as in other parts of the country, under the Pakistan Education & Research Network – a project of the HEC – facilities of video conferencing, digital library, free Microsoft software access and WiFi availability have been ensured in seven varsities. The facilities will soon be extended to the sub-campuses of these universities. Furthermore, the HEC is funding and supporting two study centres and one centre for excellence in the University of Balochistan.
But all these steps and achievements of the HEC get dwarfed by the real challenge: primary education in the province. The numbers released by several government and private-sector organisations about literacy rate, out-of-school children and the state of facilities in existing schools show that efforts to address challenges in primary and secondary education should be prioritised with a more focused approach.
Among several challenges that the higher education sector encounters in Balochistan specifically, is that a good number of approved scholarships or other preferential offers are not completely availed by its youth and those who do, struggle to reach even the minimum level. This has been traced to weak primary schooling that merits an education emergency. An emphatic, resourceful and committed effort will help grapple with the growing challenge at a time when regional and global challenges are hovering over us with abrupt vicissitudes of fortune.
There still remains much to be done, but I personally find politicians, bureaucrats and youth of Balochistan committed to bringing about a change in their area. I foresee that in the coming years the province will be a hub of development. Only educated, qualified and professional residents of the province will make most of the opportunity that will open its gateway through the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor and other plans that are afoot. A strong and empowered Balochistan translates into a prosperous and stable Pakistan – and that is our aim.
Source: thenews.com.pk/print/265707-higher-education-in-balochistan
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Dichotomous US-Pak Interest
By Dr Raza Khan
January 7, 2018
After President Donald Trump’s scathing attack on Pakistan and calling in question Islamabad’s commitment to the US war on terror in Afghanistan, the relations between Washington and Islamabad have further deteriorated. The US-Pakistan ties have been on a slippery slope since President Trump came into the saddle. In the latest development Washington has suspended security assistance to Pakistan. Trump in a significant statement made on the first day of the new year through a tweet said the US had “foolishly” given Pakistan more than $33 billion in aid in the last 15 years and had gotten nothing in return but “lies & deceit.” He was referring to the America’s perceived lack of cooperation from Pakistan in fighting the insurgent Taliban and Haqqani Network, who have been attacking US forces personnel in Afghanistan.
Washington thinks that the support and sanctuaries that Pakistan has been providing to the Taliban and the Haqqani Network have been fuelling their insurgency against the Afghan government. On its part Islamabad has dismissed all these allegations as blame game from Washington aimed at scapegoating Pakistan for the US’s inability to mop up the Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan. The US allegations against Pakistan are indeed serious and when they come from arguably the strongest man on earth they need to be analysed.
The US charges against Pakistan not only raise many eyebrows but a lot of disturbing questions. For instance, if Washington really believes that Afghan militant groups have safe havens in Pakistan why has there been no decisive physical action against these outfits? Washington has been carrying out drone missile attacks continually for years on the Pakistani Taliban and al Qaeda hideouts inside Pakistan. Even al Qaeda founder Osama bin Laden was killed by the airborne US special operations forces in 2012 in Abbottabad without taking Pakistan into confidence. Thus it is hard to believe that the US has not taken action against Afghan insurgent groups hiding inside Pakistan for fear of estranging an ally. Therefore, the question has remained unanswered that why the US despite of having all what it takes to target militant and terrorist groups, which it believes have been operating out of Pakistan, has not done so. Over the years, Washington has also struck members of Afghan militant and terrorist groups in North and South Waziristan with missiles through drones. So despite all the military might why Washington has been asking Pakistan to take action, while believing the latter won’t, has been an odd strategy.
Arguably, Washington has desisted from large-scale or extensive attacks on Afghan militant and terrorist groups on Pakistani territory because these groups have not been in Pakistan. Still, charges have been levelled to pressure Pakistan to fall in line with the US strategy and objectives in the South Asian region. Here it is important to explain what the US wants from Pakistan in South Asia. Firstly, it wants Pakistan to support the US war efforts in Afghanistan and to make up for America’s failure in trouncing the Taliban insurgency. Secondly, Washington would like Pakistan to accept India’s dominance in the region. Not necessarily because it prefers India to Pakistan but due to the fact that in Washington’s strategic calculations India is a counterpoise to China in the region. Even if the US has been giving priority to Delhi over Islamabad in the last few decades it is because that after the demise of Soviet Union, Washington thinks the state monopoly capitalist China is a key economic if not ideological threat. As Pakistan is a main actor and factor in Afghanistan stability and equally important wall to India’s hegemony in South Asia while the most trusted ally of China, Islamabad does not fit at all into Washington’s contemporaneous policy in South Asia. The result is that Washington is trying to intimidate Pakistan to follow what it wants. This attitude is intrinsic to great powers and the US is not an exception. For Pakistan, it is important to understand that the US would like to have its way. Pakistan must not compromise on its fundamental national interest but should be ready to compromise on what is not necessary as it is a matter of national security.
Source: tribune.com.pk/story/1602470/6-dichotomous-us-pak-interest/
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Trump’s Vendetta against Pakistan
By Anjum Niaz
January 7, 2018
Remember Trump’s promise to punish countries which voted against the US for accepting Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. The 71-year-old American president may be “crazy” or “mentally unbalanced” as say 27 leading psychiatrists, but his capacity for hate and vendetta is razor sharp. Since Pakistan was one of the co-sponsors of the UN resolution against the US on Israel, Trump has lost no time in cutting off aid to us. “The United States has foolishly given Pakistan more than $33 billion in aid over the last 15 years, and they have given us nothing but lies & deceit,” Trump tweeted. “They give safe haven to the terrorists we hunt in Afghanistan, with little help. No more!” He has also suspended security assistance to the Pakistan’s military and has placed Pakistan on a ‘special watch list’.
One year ago, this same man as president-elect spoke on the phone with then prime minister Nawaz Sharif and used superlatives to praise him and Pakistan. He called Nawaz Sharif “terrific”. Pakistanis, “fantastic” and “one of the most intelligent people.” So impressed was Trump with the country and its prime minister, that he was “ready and willing to play any role that you [Nawaz Sharif] want me to play to address and find solutions to the outstanding problems.”
But wait… at home Trump is facing fallout that is reverberating all across America. The media is agog with Michael Wolff’s tell all on Donald Trump and his family. The book is called Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House. His cabinet members laugh behind his back and are quoted as privately calling the president, names. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson calls him a “moron”. His national security adviser, General McMaster, says Trump is a “hopeless idiot,” and his chief economic adviser, Gary Cohn, doesn’t refer to him any differently, either.
His own daughter Ivanka Trump makes fun of her father’s weird hairstyle telling friends how he covers an “absolutely clean pate — a contained island after scalp-reduction surgery — surrounded by a furry circle of hair around the sides and front, from which all ends are drawn up to meet in the centre and then swept back and secured by a stiffening spray.”
Worst of all are the bombshell statements attributed to the former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon. He thinks Trump has lost his mind and will either get impeached or resign due to his lack of mental fitness. Trump, writes Wolff, increasingly repeats stories and could not recognise old friends. “Everybody was painfully aware of the increasing pace of his repetitions. It used to be inside of 30 minutes he’d repeat, word-for-word and expression-for-expression, the same three stories — now it was within 10 minutes.”
How did Michael Wolff get the juice from people working in the White House? He says after the election of Donald Trump, Wolff approached Trump saying he wanted to write a book about his first year in the White House. He conducted conversations and interviews over a period of 18 months with the president and most members of his senior staff. He says he was able to take up “something like a semi-permanent seat on a couch in the West Wing” — an idea encouraged by the president himself. In more than 200 interviews, he found how the administration’s “lack of experience and disdain for political norms” made for a hodgepodge of governance. But the most salacious bits are about the idiosyncrasies of Donald Trump. He is said to go to bed at 6.30pm, eating cheeseburgers in bed and binging on three TV sets placed in his bedroom. He got the secret service all riled up when he insisted on locking his bedroom. Afraid of being poisoned, he forbids the staff to touch his toothbrush.
With such a man as the president of America, God help Pakistan! His wrath is lethal.
Source: tribune.com.pk/story/1602462/6-trumps-vendetta-pakistan/
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The United Reichs of America
Muhammad Ali Baig
January 7, 2018
IS Trump going to succumb to the “fake news” media? Are the U.S. Congressmen going to impeach him? And last, but not the least; is Trump likely to be assassinated just like JFK? These are among many questions arising in peoples’ minds around the globe and almost everyone talks about the doubts running through the minds of the public at large; but perhaps no one has pondered about the things in Trump’s mind. The assumptions and suppositions though sound a bit radical but they just cannot be ignored due to their relevance with the prevailing situation. History is a witness that whenever an ultra-nationalist and hyper-patriot attempts to turn the tide of internal as well as international politics, a group of like-minded people with common objectives often originating from the corporate sector, become a stumbling block.
In America, business tycoons which are inherently monopolistic and narrow-minded; never want the materialisation of U.S-Mexico Wall. Since the overwhelming majority of these people are involved in the drug trafficking, human smuggling and forced prostitution. Again, many of these people own strip clubs and brothels of Las Vegas whom they feed from the smuggled women of the Caribbean and Latin America through the US-Mexico border. This hidden hand is in fact the most powerful one as well, and is influencing the American electronic media to build pressure on President Trump. The NBC’s hallmark satire program Saturday Night Live (SNL) is not only making fun of Trump and his companions but actually it has been defaming them long before their rise to power.
This yellow journalism in American print and electronic media is utterly unprecedented. German magazine Der Spiegel; portrayed Trump on the title of its February 2017 issue holding the chopped-off head of the Columbia (Statue of Liberty). Similarly, The Atlantic’s March 2017 issue published story by the title of “How to build an Autocracy”? These are among the many attempts by the liberal media around the globe to hinder Trump’s nationalistic moves. The suspension of Ivanka Trump’s clothes and accessories at Nordstrom outlets is also another example of this particular group’s activities to hurt the Trump family and to discourage its determination in “Make America Great Again”.
The campaign pointed at the U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson being in contact with Russian Administration depicts one thing in particular, that the media is aware of his Russian connections but they did not bother to look at the criminal ignorance of Hillary Clinton when she ignored repeated requests to reinforce US Consulate in Ben-Ghazi that actually did cost the loss of 4 American lives including the death of US Ambassador Christopher Stevens. The movie “13 Hours” (2016) can be said as the proof of Hillary’s professional-criminal negligence.
If one tries to analyse the Travel Ban and the Construction of Wall on the US-Mexico Border under the paradigm of US Foreign Policy principles then it would be evident that these actions and decisions completely comply with moralism. Also, these actions were promised by the President Trump during his election campaign and people of America gave him the mandate. Some analysts opine and perhaps conspire that Trump’s rise to power was fuelled by the military establishment in the US and take the recent raise in the defence budget as a confirmation. But it is worth mentioning here that even he is a puppet playing in the hands of the military establishment but still his actions reflect certain level of support by the people.
It is sure that the German-blood Trump is not going to give-up on his hopes to “Make America Great Again”. He is not only the eldest man to be elected as US President but is also the most audacious and wise as well. Majority of the people will prove their selves wrong again about him like they were utterly not expecting him to be the president in the first place. President Donald will “Make America Great Again” but this greatness will be achieved at the expense of its allies especially in the Asia-Pacific. America will not suffer primarily due to its geographic location but the real losers will be Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan along with India.
Is it a coincidence or something else, that Hollywood movie “Machete” (2010) showed some significant resemblance between Donald Trump and Senator John McLaughlin (role played by Robert De Niro)? That movie also showed an assassination attempt made on McLaughlin by some South-American native over the construction of wall on the US-Mexico Border. It is a fact that The Border Wall and the Travel Ban are just the beginning and Trump would go to any length in the pursuit of seeking Greatness for America, even by turning the United States into a state-controlled Police Republic. After his coming to power Ku Klux Klan and the American Nazi Party along with many factions are active again. The opposition faced by Trump Administration is more or less same as it was faced by Hitler in the 1930s. One may disagree with these decisions-cum incidents but public opinion and will supports President Donald Trump.
Source: pakobserver.net/united-reichs-america/
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Debacle As Debate
By Syed Talat Hussain
January 8, 2018
The inevitable has happened: the Trump administration has moved exactly along the lines that almost everyone in Washington and some of us here had been pointing towards. That way there is no element of surprise in the steep fall of Pakistan’s security relations with the US. The obnoxious presidential tweet and suspension of military and security aid in its wake is a culmination point in a long crisis of trust, confidence and failure of bilateral diplomacy.
Perhaps the failure is a result of the Indo-US nexus. Perhaps it is one piece of the large conspiracy to put Pakistan’s nuclear weapons in the context of global terrorism and then proceed from that point to make a case for de-nuclearisation. Perhaps Pakistan is paying the price of being in the China camp and is now facing the ire of Washington – egged on by Delhi, endorsed by Japan and quietly but effectively being championed by the UK.
But no matter which way you look at it – conspiracy, failed diplomacy, anti-nuke gambit, blowback of big geo-political jostling in the Asia-Pacific region – the bottom line is that this has happened. Pakistan is facing a uniquely troubling scenario of a superpower (the US), a regional power (India) and its most significant neighbour (Afghanistan) all aligned like a drawn bow shooting in our direction.
This should really have engendered a serious, reflective and dispassionate debate within. It is not a happy scenario. No country wants to be encircled this way. This is not a joke. This is serious business. But look at how we are debating this challenge. The public and political (say decision-makers) discourse has been funny and frivolous, tragic and divisive or, at best, shallow and clichéd. We have not touched in any significant way on the core point brought out by the collapse in our relations with Washington: where do we go from here?
There are any number of what-ifs that this core point contains: what if Washington does carry out a lightning strike deep inside Pakistan? Local reporters from the border areas have been indicating extreme activity of drone flights over Upper and Lower Khurram, Orakzai, North Waziristan and the settled district of Hangu. In groups of twos and threes, drones buzz overhead three, sometimes four, times a day. A hundred plus flights have been reported privately in the last one month. There have been drone strikes in the border region where the Haqqanis are. Pakistani officials insist that these recent strikes have all been in Afghanistan. Locals believe otherwise.
But, that aside, if Trump is looking for a trophy and wants to embarrass Pakistan with that trophy, he would go after the targets on his own without letting Pakistan know about it. That’s what the OBL operation under Obama was. Trump would want to do something similar in a more drastic and dramatic way. What would we do then? Zero debate on this.
There is even less debate on how we have landed in this situation in the first place, where we have to run from pillar to post to justify our position to every significant world capital besides tugging at our friends’ coattails seeking immediate intercession to prevent Washington from taking its bullying to the level of outright hostility.
We had numerous warning signs that this ordeal was coming our way. Why did we not end our pointless games of political engineering at home and instead disinfect the environment that was built to point us out as the bad guys? More to the point, we had a full year (in fact many years, if you start counting the countdown from the days of OBL operation) to prepare for the day when Washington would try to point a direct finger at us and threaten us so directly and openly as Trump has?
The whole reason we have such a large foreign, security and diplomatic structure is to produce a viable way forward in dire diplomatic situations. We hear great lectures on the art of diplomacy and have been going hoarse telling ourselves what a great job we do in steering Pakistan’s ship out of crises. Whatever happened to this wisdom? Where were the hoity-toity baboos of the Foreign Office and the security establishment feeding on state resources all the time and feigning as experts of ‘such matters’? Which policy paper was produced to debate the probability of Washington’s coercion going to new levels?
Nothing of the sort happened. The entire system remained locked in the political farce at home and pretended as if the rest of the world does not exist. Even now the farce continues in Balochistan. As for the Foreign Office, it remains frozen in time. It is led by senior cadre who want to end their impact-less careers with the glory of the next grade before they fade out to begin post-retirement lectures on how to govern Pakistan.
This lethargy, absence of priority and inability to foresee what was really written on the wall has now translated into a bout of useless discussion post-Trump’s tweet. We have suddenly discovered the need for ‘national unity, harmony and oneness’. There isn’t a corner in this country from where calls to national cohesion are not being issued – almost as if national unity is an emergency button that can be pressed to eject safely from a grim national crisis. And having wrecked national unity and internal harmony for years, we want to build it in days, nay hours, nay in one media event. As a result, instead of discussing how to react to Trump’s America we are busy figuring out, in the most pointless way possible, what to do with the torn fabric of national cohesion.
At the same time, we have deemed it appropriate to declare an open season of hate on Trump. Not that he does not deserve all or everything nasty that gets said about him, but this hardly qualifies as a sane reaction to the policies he is pursuing towards Pakistan.
He has been called an idiot before so Naeem ul Haq (of Imran Khan fame) calling him that will hardly inflict a deep wound upon him. Through prompted programmes on TV, he is ridiculed as a total weirdo. Through WhatsApp groups videos of his idiocy are shared with great delight among the educated class. There seems to be a belief permeating the high and low end of national debate that by rubbing Trump’s nose in the dust we are responding ‘aggressively’ to US moves. The belief is shaped partly by our own experience of the past few years where every delicate argument is settled favourably by heaping ridicule on the opponent and abusing him out of the debate.
It also grows out of the wrong but popular thesis that all this trouble is because of Trump and if we could somehow discredit him, his moves would also be discredited. An extension of the same thesis is that Washington’s coercive policy towards Pakistan is a temporary phenomenon and if we recount enough times what great pals we have been in the past and how wrongly we have been treated, there will be a window of opportunity open up for us in the US. We have conveniently forgotten that the Trump administration’s allegations have bipartisan backing. He is speaking the same language that most of Democrats did when Obama was in power.
Also lost on us is the futility of arguing over aid numbers. Even if the US is lying about how much money it paid to Pakistan in the last fifteen years (we are still preparing our own document while the US document is circulated every year), how does that materially change our diplomatic and security dilemmas? And if we don’t need US military, security and economic aid we can cut to the chase and tell the US firmly: “From January 2018, we won’t accept any more aid from you. You can pack up all your aid bags and leave. Nice knowing you!”
But we won’t do the obvious and the natural, and instead just jump around wasting time and breath. We will beat on Trump, call him stupid, and feel good. We will beat our chests, mourn how we are wronged and feel satisfied that we have done our national duty. We will beat around the core questions raised by US warnings about our domestic policies and pretend that we have answered all of them. That’s what we have done in the last few years – even when OBL was caught from and killed on our soil. That’s what we are doing even now. This is a national debacle. This is no national debate.
Source: thenews.com.pk/print/265705-debacle-as-debate
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