Haroon Riaz
Source: Dawn
Faisal Vawda, the PTI Minister of Water Resources, and known for his signature outrageous antics, made a new history along with provocative ARY News anchor Kashif Abbasi. In a talk show, which also featured opposition leaders Senator Javed Abbasi of the PML-N and Qamar Zaman Kaira of the PPP on the panel.
In the middle of the talk show, Faisal Vawda took out a military boot, symbolic of the Pakistani military, and put it on the panel desk. Both the opposition leaders walked out in protest. This was meant to insult the reversal of PML-N on their anti-military stance as well as the corruption of their leaders, who have supposedly made another deal with the military establishment to flee the country. All this while, the PTI ministers have been criticizing the PML-N leader Nawaz Sharif for fleeing the country under the false pretense of medical reasons.
Pls take note politicians: this is what will happen to you when you do give “ boot ko izzat” that is why @Asma_Jahangir used to say never cede your space or compromise on civilian supremacy.Otherwise you empower your own tormentor. https://t.co/Hqxl4gcOC5
— Munizae Jahangir (@MunizaeJahangir) January 14, 2020
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As insulting, idiotic, and completely reckless Vawda’s “boot ko izzat do” action is, being our last Pakistani Idiot of the Year, his comments in the show remind the opposition of a harsh reality. The PML-N leadership has forsaken its anti-establishment workers and left them hanging while conveniently abandoning their criticism of the military leadership in exchange for Nawaz Sharif’s departure to London for medical treatment. It was on social media, that their anti-establishment supporters had started the criticism of “boot ko izzat do” (Give respect to the boot (military establishment)) as a spinoff of “vote ko izzat do” (Give respect to the vote) which was the slogan of PML-N in the 2018 elections. It is not as if the phrase was coined by Vawda.
Kashif Abbasi, the ARY News anchor, the look on whose face was worth watching, probably did the right thing to let Vawda make his point from a broadcaster’s viewpoint. It certainly created broadcast history no matter how terrible it was for political discourse in the country. However, PEMRA had slapped Abbasi with a 60-day ban, which will be reviewed. On the other side, Imran Khan, the Prime Minister, has expressed his displeasure over Vawda’s behavior in the talk show and imposed a ban on him on appearing on talk shows.
Kashif Abbasi’s show #OffTheRecord gets banned from ARY News for 60 days for allowing Faisal Wauda to insult a state institution.
Many journalists R defending Abbasi saying it was Wauda’s fault, yes it was, but Abbasi knew and he let Wauda continue with his act regardless.#PEMRA pic.twitter.com/eUgpJmtS7C— Ayesha Siddiqua (@AyeshaAgenda) January 15, 2020
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The Vawda boot episode only goes to show the dismal state of democracy and civilian supremacy in Pakistan in which the deep state and its representatives have dropped all pretense about their interference in politics. It is symptomatic of this disregard of the constitutional roles of institutions which has enabled a loudmouth such as Vawda to indulge in this shameless behavior. However, you could argue that there was a lot of truth in Vawda’s rant.
Which makes you wonder if Vawda is the only political leader brave enough to even mention the involvement of the “boot” in politics on mainstream media so openly.
Perhaps he is a free-speech hero and not an idiot after all.
Filed under: Commentary, Videos | Tagged: ARY News, boot, boot ko izzat do, civilian supremacy, Faisal Vawda, free speech, Javed Abbasi, Kashif Abbasi, military, military establishment, PML-N, politics, PPP, PTI, Qamar Zaman Kair, talk show | Leave a comment »
The Truth Journal 
The World Abandons the Afghans Again
Let’s move beyond the idea of Afghanistan being a mysterious mountainous country in Central Asia. Let’s move beyond the idea that is an unconquerable, unscalable terrain where superpowers go to die. Let’s even move beyond the idea that it was where Osama Bin Laden was taking refuge during the Mullah Omar Taliban regime.
Let’s think about the Afghans for a minute. What they have gone through for the last five decades.
Think about the women and children stranded outside Kabul To many Airport as the city was falling to the Taliban. Think about the others throwing their babies over the fence to US soldiers. Think about the men clinging on to the landing gear of the escaping B-57s and falling into the abyss of death. Nobody with a will to live or any hope for a future would do any of that.
Perhaps all the considerations for Afghan human rights were overlooked when President Biden decided to evacuate the military in the most bizarre fashion. To many, it seemed that it has undone all the hard work that the United States and its allies had put in to return Afghanistan to civilization. President Bush called the withdrawal a mistake, and while you can blame all the ills of the world on him, he deserves credit for dismantling the Mullah Umer Taliban regime in Kabul, which is back under occupation now.
First of all, even the idea of negotiating with the medieval-minded Taliban was an abomination, I guess nobody is surprised that the Taliban while the Americans conveniently made a deal with them for their exit. The role Pakistan has played in this transition has been disgusting to say the least. Pakistan has been using the Afghan people for its supposed strategic depth to fend off foreign threats from Afghanistan. Its policy of funding and supporting Islamic fundamentalism in Afghanistan has only made its Western border more insecure instead of secure, while also destroying Afghan society in the process. With their mixed signalling of both urging the US not to leave and facilitating the Taliban to the gates of Kabul, with Pakistani ISI chief praying alongside them, is a new low even for a morall bankrupt regime like Pakistan.
It is perhaps not enough cost to pay that the Taliban are searching house to house looking for the allies who served the US forces and international organizations. It is perhaps not enough cost to pay that the Taliban are beheading sportswomen and murdering comedians. It is perhaps not enough cost that the Afghan society has been condemned into dark ages for the foreseeable future again. But of course, you had to stop forever wars.
There is no wonder that the United States could not fund Afghanistan forever. There is no wonder that the Afghan government and its bureaucracy were rife with corruption. There is no wonder that the allied forces had to exit at some stage. But like this? It has been the greatest disgrace for the United States since the Capitol riots, if not since Vietnam or ever.
The worst nightmare of the people of the Taliban has come true. Perhaps the moment Donald Trump and Joe Biden were elected.
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Filed under: Commentary | Tagged: Afghan women, Afghanistan, democracy, dipomacy, human rights, International Relations, Islamic fundamentalism, military, Pakistan, politics, Taliban, withdrawl | Leave a comment »