Eleven questions about the Osama video

THE much trumpeted Osama bin Laden video was at last released on Dec 13 after a lot of psychological fanfare and a plethora of pre-meditated and engineered comments to lend credence to it.

But after carefully seeing and listening to the video on the CNN for an hour one remains as confused, uninformed and unenlightened as ever before. It is like a road from nowhere to nowhere. There are various questions that must be probed before it can even be considered as a ‘candidate for evidence’.

The first question relates to the quality of the video. It is amateurish, crude, hazy, and almost inaudible on critical points. Why was such a video made at all and for whose benefit? The suggestion that it was made for recruitment purposes is not even worth considering. The quality and content both belie this suggestion. Dialogues, facial expressions and lip-movements do not synchronize on a number of occasions which suggest some kind of tampering and doctoring. The tape has to be examined by experts to establish its worth and authenticity. On the face of it, this does not seem to be a genuine piece and serious doubts are being expressed about its authenticity.

The second question is about the timing of the videotape. Internal evidence and reference to Ramazan suggest that it was recorded in early Ramazan, with predictions of further events in the remaining part of Ramazan. The total absence of any drinks, snacks, qahwa, tea, dates etc, throughout the entire meeting excepting the very end is strange in view of the Arab customs. This also suggests that the recording took place in the month of Ramazan — no drinks throughout the meeting except at the end when iftar takes place.

If this is the case, then the fact that Ramazan began on November 16 while the video is reported to have been seen by President Bush (according to one report in the CNN programme on ‘Cross Fire’) in early November is fatal of its being recorded after September 11. The other report in ‘The Independent’ (December 14) suggests the video was recorded on November 9. That too is a week before Ramazan. In any case it could not but be an earlier video on which new conversation might have been super-imposed.

This would have to be examined scientifically and objectively, keeping in mind that modern technology has no problem with such doctoring.

Thirdly, the possibility of recording of such a damning confession on November 9 after over a month of bombing (that began on October 7) and no reference to that aggression on Afghanistan is impossible. Who would make that confession when the fall of Mazar-i-Sharif was imminent?

Fourthly, how could an interview/meeting taking place in Jalalabad on November 9 fail to capture the state of the war on that day? How could it be taped in that grim situation? How could it be found out before the fall of Jalalabad and reach the US in mid-November? Is this not a fatal blunder by those who concocted the story.

Fifthly, the question is if the video was available in November, then why was it released on December 13 after destroying Afghanistan and inducting American’s nominated government on that country? It has been reported that it was found in some abandoned Osama bin Laden house. But till November 8, the Taliban had held the ground everywhere and even Mazar-i-Sharif fell only on November 10. How such a revealing/confessional video could have been found before November 3 when the offensive was restricted to air bombing and no ground operation had even taken place?

Sixthly, who is the other “Sheikh’ in the conversation? He is not from the al-Qaeda in Afghanistan as is clear from the conversation. If he came from Saudi Arabia and returned after the event, where is he now? His evidence is crucial and would be vital to establish the authenticity of the video. Can he be located in Saudi Arabia? Can he be called to substantiate the discussion? What effort has been made in this direction? From his looks, age, dress, manner of sitting and talking, he does not look like a ‘Sheikh’ at all. He gives the impression of being a ‘student’ or an Osama fan’, not a Sheikh, who is supposed to be a tribal leader or a scholar. His statements are more obnoxious and intriguing — why can’t he be located and called for evidence?.

Seventhly, the transcript now published in ‘The Independent’ shows that the “Sheikh” is reported to have quoted a question from Sheikh Bahrani as follows: “How is Sheikh Bin Laden?” Now any one familiar with Arab custom would know that an Arab would never address the other person he knows intimately by his surname as is in practice in the West. Bin Laden is not Osama’s name — it is the family name. Every Arab would say “How is Sheikh Osama?” or even call him by his kunniyyah as father of so and so, but never as Bin Laden? This calls into question the authenticity of the whole conversation.

Eighthly, some of the quotations from the Quran and Hadith have been mixed up. These quotations are incomplete and even garbled. This is not expected of Osama or any Sheikh. Such amateurism is totally unexpected from those knowledgeable about the Islamic sources.

Ninthly, there is a reference to Egyptian TV showing women’s jubilation on the WTC tragedy. There is no evidence that such a thing was even shown on Egyptian TV or any Arab TV channel. There was a clipping shown on CNN with reference to Palestinians in Gaza but none on any Egyptian or Arab channel. Even the one about Palestinians has been challenged (John Snow, presenter, BBC Channel 4 News) and is alleged to be a repeat of what happened on the occasion of the Gulf War. But the reference to Egyptian TV showing such jubilation exposes the miscarriage of the doctoring!

The tenth question is that the dialogue is spiced by reference to ‘dreams’ and ‘visions’ spread over a period of one year and coming from several persons, including a woman. This may be common to the ‘Sufi way’ or the Hollywood episodes, but is totally out of tune with the Salafi tradition to which Osama belongs. It is totally at odds with the intellectual culture of the persons involved. Whatever material is available about Osama bin Laden and his people, this is incongruous with their mode of thought and expression. Prima facie this seems to be something transplanted to give it mystical religious credence.

And finally, the expression of appreciation or otherwise after an event — however reprehensible or disgusting — is no proof of involvement in or engineering of the activity. The leaders of American Evangelical Right, like Pat Buchanan and others are on record putting a particular gloss over the September 11 events. Such reactions, even if so expressed, do not constitute a conclusive proof of planning and participation.

These and other concerns make the alleged evidence from this video highly improbable. And it is a maxim of law that the benefit of the doubt, wherever it exists, goes to the accused and not the accuser.

As far as the mainstream of the Muslims is concerned, they have no reservation that if Osama bin Laden and his group are responsible for the events of September 11, they should be punished. But their guilt must be properly established first and this must be done with due course of law. You cannot be accuser, prosecutor, judge and executioner — all in one. Instead of adopting the just course of bringing Osama or whoever is responsible for this crime, to the judicial process, preferably under an international arrangement, as is being done for the war criminal Yugoslavian president Milosevic, the US has opted for an equally criminal path of revenge and its own terrorism — and that too not merely against the alleged suspects but against a whole country, its government and people, which has led to the destruction of the country and massacre of thousands of innocent people.

All human beings are equal and the lives of poor brown Afghans are as precious as the lives of rich white Americans. Even a just cause does not entitle an Osama bin Laden or a George Bush to spill innocents’ blood. And that is the crime which is being committed with impunity. That is our real concern, for as the Quran says: killing of even one innocent person is like killing the entire human race.

The writer is chairman, Institute of Policy Studies, Islamabad, and a former Senator.

Ashcroft’s bad answers

ATTORNEY General John Ashcroft’s defiant answers to senators concerned about the Bush administration’s plan to convene secret military courts came down to this: Trust us. Polls show that, for the moment, most Americans are content to do just that. Congress is not so inclined.

The Bush plan to try terrorists nabbed abroad, and maybe foreigners arrested in the US, in closed-door trials and with a lower burden of proof is an extraordinary departure from established constitutional principles.

Ashcroft has refused for two months to consult with or even report to Congress on the sweeping changes he has imposed. He stonewalled questions from the Senate Judiciary Committee and baited his critics: “ To those who scare peace-loving people with phantoms of lost liberty, my message is this: Your tactics only aid terrorists for they erode our unity and diminish our resolve.”

—Los Angeles Times

In the jaws of nutcracker?

ARE we back in the time machine where we were in the early eighties? That was the time when someone created the dreadful and obnoxious phrase: Pakistan in the jaws of nutcracker. For a while it was a fairly apt description, with the Soviet might applying maximum military and political pressure on our western borders, and a traditionally hostile India quite willing to play its role according to its own strategic and hegemonic designs.

The situation was quite uncomfortable, the only relief valve being the fact that Pakistan was playing the critical, in fact decisive role of a frontline state as the geographic base of ‘jihad’ against the expansionist designs of an ‘Evil Empire’. The US protective umbrella and liberal economic and military assistance that started pouring in after a gap of over ten years gave Pakistan’s leadership sufficient confidence not to be deterred by the nasty spectre of the nutcracker.

Twenty years later, there are similarities and dissimilarities. During the intervening years, the Kashmir dispute has changed its complexion completely. The indigenous discontent with Indian occupation and disenchantment with Indian policies completely devoid of Kashmiris sensitivities, not to speak of promises made on international forums, reached a breaking point. The new generation of Kashmiris, fired by the resurgence of Islam everywhere (possibly a great optical illusion of the last quarter of the 20th century), a powerful revolution in Iran before its vitality started petering out, and successful Afghan example next door, inspired the new generation of the people of J&K to add military instruments to their forty-year-old pacifist politico-constitutional struggle to gain their inalienable right to self-determination.

Indian leadership never rose to this challenge with wisdom or foresight. Instead of reading, evaluating and gauging the authentic element in the armed struggle in Kashmir, it locked its attention on the superficial and symptomatic. Possibly moved by its successful suppression of the Sikh insurgency in the Punjab by unrestricted use of all oppressive and coercive instruments of the state, it decided to transplant the same model and methodology to Kashmir.

Blaming Pakistan and the ISI was an easy and convenient excuse, and it was deployed with Gobblean tenacity, until many in the international community started believing the Indian version. Throughout nineties, Pakistan was only a hair’s breadth away from being officially declared as ‘a state sponsoring terrorism’, to bring it in the same inglorious league as Libya, Iraq, North Korea and others. This was a tough period. But it was neither the first nor the last one of its class. Pakistan had to suffer a plethora of sanctions and rebuffs, but its inherent tenacity, rather than the wisdom of its rulers, saved it from being ‘a state which would disappear from the political map of the globe by year 2000’.

To add credence to the Indian misinterpretation of a basically indigenous Kashmir struggle, a ‘jihad’ industry mushroomed in Pakistan on an unprecedented scale. The industry was fired by an odd chemical mix of a highly lucrative adventure, a genuine sense of participation in a magnificent endeavour to right half a century old wrong inflicted upon Kashmiri brothers, an exhilarating experience of creating states within the state of Pakistan, with their own militias, adherents, domestic and foreign policies. They were answerable and accountable to none. Their pan-Islamic ambitions and perspective gave them a breathtaking vista and unlimited horizon of opportunities to work beyond the confines of time and space as understood by ordinary mortals who are charged with the business of running a state.

But, as the time passed, their gain became Pakistan’s loss. Nelson Mandela was the last well-sung hero of a freedom struggle — a struggle that was not rejected by the international community as terrorism. After that the boundary between the right to armed freedom struggle and sheer acts of terrorism has ceased to exist — despite its enshrinement in UN resolutions. Armed freedom struggle fell in the odorous class of organized crime, drug trade, and kidnapping for ransom. In this massive shift of spectrum, the ‘jihad’, after a brief period of splendid glow over the magnificent mountains and treacherous valleys of Afghanistan in the eighties, lost its glitter in the nineties.

With the collapse of the Soviet system, for which rather naively many of our pseudo-scholars, pseudo-strategist and mujahids claim the sole responsibility, missed the global picture — emergence of the US as the sole superpower. Absorbing this reality, appreciating its consequences and then being enough nimble-footed to place our national interests in a secure niche of the New World Order was a mega challenge.

It called for a reappraisal of the priorities to be pursued through all instruments at the disposal of a state. More so it demanded induction of a fresh ingredients in our cultural content. We made no serious effort in that direction. Intoxicated by heady wine of ‘having made mince meat of one superpower’, we forgot the basic teachings about the national power potential. Upgrading ourselves as the seventh nuclear power on the globe, and 1st Nuclear Power in the Islamic world, we started behaving in a manner which was devoid of both reality and humility.

Along with that when the people of Kashmir rose up from their pacifist slumber, the system of values, the prosecutors, the judges and the executioners had all changed. The epochal event of September 11 has totally changed the rules of the game. The UN Security Council lost no time in unanimously sanctifying the new rules of the game. Resolution No. 1377 “reaffirms its unequivocal condemnation of all acts, methods and practices of terrorism as criminal and unjustifiable, regardless of their motivation, in all their forms, whenever and by whoever committed’.

Resolution 1373 passed on September 28, 2001 is far more comprehensive and calls upon all states to ‘cooperate, particularly through bilateral and multilateral arrangements and agreements, to prevent and suppress terrorist attacks and take action against the perpetrators of such attacks’. One did not have to be a great prophet to foresee that India would bend and extend to its elastic limits the general international approval of the US example to deal with ‘terrorists’ anywhere.

If an excuse or an ignition spark was needed, the attack on the Indian Parliament building on December 13, 2001 provided that. President Musharraf was one of the first to condemn this highly irresponsible act. The world community was unanimous in expression of outrage. A bad and condemnable incident was masterfully converted by India into a great opportunity.

The interpretation propounded ad nauseum by many of our analysts that the attack on the parliament was a diabolic manoeuvre by Indian RAW failed to get sold in any world market; it did not draw a single respectable ear anywhere. A freshman of the LUMS would tell you not to manufacture a commodity that would not be accepted by the market. Yet, impelled by blind patriotism, we continue to promote an unsellable thesis.

India lost not a moment to escalate the latent tension into their greatest demonstration of resolve, backed by vituperative rhetoric, massive military deployment to forward operational positions, recalling of their high commissioner from Islamabad, and virtual de-recognition of the position of Pakistan’s fearsomely articulate high commissioner Ashraf Kazi. India is ready to go to any extent to bring Pakistan down on its knees. The latest statement of Secretary Powell has added a worrisome and ominous dimension to the terrorist phenomenon. When read carefully, his statement makes suppression of ‘terrorist organizations’ operating in or through Pakistan as joint responsibility of Pakistan, India and the US.

Much has been written about the developments in Afghanistan, especially on the composition of the interim arrangement. We are putting a brave face, but the fact is we have been outflanked in Kabul. I am not one of those who ever preached the gospel of treating Afghanistan as an extension of our foreign policy, whatever be the quality of our ethnic or historical connections.

But, it is a legitimate expectation that the political set-up in Afghanistan should be friendly towards Pakistan. There is nothing wrong in claiming that minimum. To what extent the emerging circumstances give us that minimum will demand a lot from our diplomatic skill and our own ability to remodulate and where necessary trim down our ambitions.

During pre-Bonn preparatory period, the US and Tony Blair did pay considerable lip service to the principle of ‘representative, multi-ethnic, etc, etc’ character of the Interim Arrangement. When the rabbit came out of Brahimi’s bag, it was a total surprise on these essential points. Is the set-up technocratic? Yes. Is it gender sensitive? Yes. Is it English speaking? Yes. Is it the US and Russia friendly? Yes. Is it demonstrably India leaning? Yes. Are the portfolios evenly distributed? No. Is the largest ethnic group properly represented? No.

Have we seen any visible sign that the major players in the new set-up are prepared to believe that our deep connections and institutional empathy for Taliban or a Taliban-like systems are severed forever, the answer is No. The mere fact that there is no rush of refugees to return to their homeland shows that there is a huge void of uncertainty in Afghanistan.

This is the general scenario. The Arabs are mired in ignominy over recent developments in Palestine. Yasser Arafat has been confined to his house in Ramalla. There is a relentless attack by the western media and think tanks on the House of Saud, so much so that its capacity to play a lead role in issues beyond its borders has been crippled. The inability of Egypt as an agent of damage control in the Middle East crises has been exposed. It is reeling on account of its incapability and irrelevance imposed by its trusted and traditional friends in the West.

In the subcontinent the march of events does not really depend on the US, the West, China or Iran’s urging for restraint. A few days ago, most impartial analysts would rule out some kind of war with India. That situation was well articulated by an Indian headline: ‘War is in the air, but not around the corner’. Now, few would bet that it is not around the corner. Only the type and timings are subject to guess. Are we ready, as a nation, to cope with this situation? optimists.

The writer is a retired Lt Gen of Pakistan Army.

Teetering on the brink

SEVERAL years ago, both Benazir Bhutto, then out of power, and Nawaz Sharif, then the Pakistan prime minister, told me separately at Lahore not to ever give up the effort to pursue people-to-people contact between Pakistan and India. Both more or less said the same thing: the rulers of the two countries would not be able to reach a settlement, people might find it one day.

New Delhi has scotched that hope by stopping the 25-year-old Samjhota Express and the bus which has ferried 30,000 passengers over 22 months. Understandably, after the attack on the parliament, New Delhi had no option except to recall its high commissioner in Islamabad. The public felt horrified and the MPs unanimously demanded action against Pakistan, the headquarters of the various terrorist groups, particularly Lashkar-i-Taiba and Jaishe-i-Mohammed, or whatever their new names are. The government‘s hands were forced.

Recalling the high commissioner is a serious step. But this is the minimum New Delhi could have done to mollify the angry opinion in India. In fact, it takes the wind out of the sails of those who have been demanding hot pursuit, crossing of the Line of Control or bombing of the training camps in Pakistan. The hawks will still not be satisfied because they want war, not realizing what it can mean when both sides have nuclear weapons. Since the general public wants peace, it will consider the recall of the high commissioner enough. In no case should the government go beyond that.

However, the other, unthinking act of New Delhi will nearly stop people-to-people contact. Both the Samjhauta Express and the bus gave an opportunity to the public on both sides to meet and talk. Many men, women and youth have visited the two countries at various levels. They have made friends. Even others, hearing their experiences of love and warmth, have picked up the thread.

Farewells after their trips have been tearful because people on both sides get emotional about their ties. Separated relatives, because of the government‘s steps, would be the worst sufferers. The Pakistan air service is very expensive and operates for only four days between Delhi and Lahore. Indian Airlines has also a tenuous link with Karachi. They are no substitute for wider contact. (And now India has decided to snap this link also)

Most people have travelled by train or bus. The crossing of the border on foot is not allowed. Then how do people meet? They are neighbours, whatever the state of relationship between the two governments.

People-to-people contact was, in fact, the only bright spot in the otherwise strained relations between India and Pakistan. New Delhi has committed a blunder. Whatever pressure has been building up for the two governments to come to the negotiating table — Vajpayee went to Lahore and Musharraf came to Agra — it was because of the occasional meetings between people’s delegations at different levels from both countries. A weak and tenuous link — but a link all the same — has been gaining strength in the past few years. Even that has now been snapped.

One shudders to imagine what will happen in the absence of sane voices coming from outside the governments. The bureaucracy on both sides is prejudiced and the two foreign offices have a difficult-to-change mindset. The military is trained to consider the other country an enemy. Will this improve the chances of peace or expose us to the dangers of war?

The two countries exchange no books, no newspapers. Each harasses friends of visitors of the other country, with intelligence men chasing them. Even a postcard from the other country puts the receiver in trouble. Ignorance about the other side is appalling. In such a situation how do the sentiments of the people count? They want to trade, tour and meet each other. How impossible does the whole task look now! True, there is no war, but there is no peace either.

Both India and Pakistan are relentlessly moving towards a situation where difficulties will increase, not lessen. It is unfortunate that America, which could have played a positive role, is playing politics. America’s tilt towards Pakistan, particularly when the Republicans are in power, has been clearly visible since the days of President Nixon, who sent the US fleet, Enterprise, to the Bay of Bengal during the Bangladesh war in December 1971. Even otherwise, Washington has always felt comfortable with the countries headed by military rulers or where democracy is only on paper. In fact, if one were to go back several decades, one would find how comfortable had America been at places where the people did not matter.

President Musharraf has slided into the same thinking groove as that of President Bush who, in the beginning, could not even recall his name. Democratic India has been messy and unpredictable for the State Department. Even when it talked about closer and deeper relations with New Delhi, it never meant the relationship of equality. How amenable to influence, if not dictation, were the military regimes in Pakistan — this is at the back of America’s mind all the time.

It is understandable why Bush does not find fault with Musharraf. Washington believes that poor Islamabad is being destabilized by terrorist organizations like the Lashkar-i- Taiba and Jaish-i-Mohammed.

Therefore, the statement by Bush that the Lashkar is undermining Musharraf should not come as a surprise. Poor Musharraf was first harassed by the Taliban and now by the terrorist outfits. If this is an argument by the State Department to sustain its anti-India prejudice, it makes sense. Otherwise, the policy-makers in America are a bunch of nincompoops. In fact, the statement by Bush is ridiculous. He has called the Lashkar a Kashmir-based organization and at the same time has exonerated Musharraf.

Equally senseless is India‘s statement of welcoming the observations of Bush. How hard America could have slapped? And this happened when the BJP members came after a dinner with the US ambassador to India that Washington would make amends for the impression that it tilted towards Islamabad. One knows that Foreign Minister Jaswant Singh, like Colonel Blimp, is enamoured of the West. His whole-hearted support to America within one hour of the September 11 attack showed how solicitous he was of America’s interests. One can condone his obsequious attitude if India has got even a fraction in return. Not long ago, he had 40-odd rounds of talks with Talbott, the under-secretary in the Clinton regime. Was anything achieved? Jaswant Singh could not even announce the lifting of the economic sanctions imposed after India exploded the nuclear device.

America’s game is the same which the British played during their 150-year-old rule: Keep them divided. It may be given some nice-sounding names like “equilibrium” or “equidistance.” But if you tear off the mask, it is a policy to encourage distance between India and Pakistan to ensure that the two wallow in distrust which has been created by America and other powers. Both New Delhi and Islamabad have not seen through this game. Perhaps they would do so one day. They must do it today. Tomorrow may be too late.

India underestimates its own power. It is a huge market which America needs to dump its goods. Let it use its economic clout. But the problem with New Delhi is that it has neither the guts nor the inclination to annoy America. It means living within one‘s own means. It means austerity and hardship. It means that India has to cut its coat according to the cloth that is available. And it also means a big cut in the standard of living of the elite. Can we really do it? Time alone will answer the question.

An un-American secrecy

THE terrorist attacks against the United States, awful as they were, do not call for the Bush administration to dismiss constitutional protections for suspects in cases linked to Sept. 11.

At least 1,100 people remain in detention, apprehended in the FBI’s nationwide dragnet. The Justice Department has refused to disclose most of their names, where they are jailed or the nature of their possible involvement in the terrorist plot.

Federal agents have stonewalled even demands to explain why such extraordinary secrecy continues to be necessary — although they seem ready to conclude that none of the suspects in custody played a role in the suicide hijacking plot.

Attorney General John Ashcroft says that federal agents would monitor communications between those jailed and their lawyers.

President Bush signed a broadly worded order allowing special military tribunals to try foreigners charged with terrorism, whether apprehended in this country or abroad. The order permits the trials to be held in secret without juries, with looser rules of evidence and with a lower burden of proof.

Bush and Ashcroft justify each of these alarming steps — detentions, eavesdropping and military tribunals — by invoking concerns about future terrorist attacks and the nation’s state of armed conflict. It is hard not to sympathize with any tactic that promises to stop killers. But war alone does not justify secret military trials.

The true challenge for the United States is to proceed in a way that not only eliminates the threat but also demonstrates to the world that principles of fairness and due process still distinguish the nation.

—Los Angeles Times