Response to Brigadier Ali Khan:Pakistan's dissenting officer

The BBC report of this morning, June 23, 2011, Brigadier Ali Khan: Pakistan's dissenting army officer, on first glance is very interesting. Finally a patriot military man in the Pakistani praetorian guard.

On second glance however, it isn't. Heart and mind are two different things. Both are needed. One without the other is either blind, or cruel. Here is why it isn't interesting on second glance.

The BBC report states, inter alia:

‘Brigadier Ali Khan, the Pakistani officer detained for his alleged links with the banned extremist group Hizb ut-Tahrir, had been highly critical of the Pakistani army's high command over its relationship with the US, reports BBC Urdu's Asif Farooqi. ...

[H]e had been exerting strong pressure on the top echelons of Pakistan's military to stop co-operating with American forces in the fight against Taliban and al-Qaeda insurgents, army officers who served with the brigadier during his 32-year career told the BBC.

“The army is a cult in itself, so it's intolerant towards any other cult within” -- Maj Gen Athar Abbas, Quoted by BBC News 23 June 2011

Pakistan's military spokesman Major General Athar Abbas said that there was compelling evidence against the brigadier owing to his contacts with the banned group. ...

Successive promotion boards rejected Brig Ali while his colleagues and subordinates continued to rise up the promotion ladder, overtaking him. Indeed, to date, Brig Khan is the oldest brigadier in the Pakistani army.

His colleagues thought he would be unable to withstand a career going nowhere and would seek early retirement. But they were soon proved wrong. The brigadier told his colleagues he had more to accomplish in his job.

It soon became clear what he meant by that.

Brig Khan started writing letters to army generals, some of whom were his former colleagues, with suggestions on how to become “self reliant” and “to purge the army of the American influence”.’

The aforementioned reminded me of “Re-Imagining Pakistan’s Defenses – Open Letter to a Pakistani General” November 30, 2007 (PDF http://tinyurl.com/Reimagining-pakistan )

But the following is where it stopped reminding me any further:

'Brig Ali even wrote to the President Asif Ali Zardari suggesting ways to make Pakistan economically self-reliant by freeing the country of American aid.'

Asking Zardari sahib? ( PDF http://tinyurl.com/happy-happy-zardari )

And the following completely tells me that the excitement of patriotism/nationalism, and finally breaking the yoke of imperialism, on the part of any Pakistani reading this BBC report may be pre-mature:

‘One officer present in the meeting said all had been going well until it was Brig Khan’s turn to speak. In his opinion, the culprits who had hidden Bin Laden and allowed the Americans to get away with breaching Pakistan’s sovereignty were to be found within the army.’

This Brig. Khan can’t tell one puppetshow from another.

While all this is admittedly only the BBC report, and like anything else appearing in any media, must be taken circumspectly, the article clearly re-asserts the existence of boogeyman Ali Baba.

Notice the play: even the most zealous and patriotic Pakistani Brigadier who even dissented with the upper echelon of the Pakistani military (at the risk of his own promotion to Major General) in its cooperation with the United States on the War on Terror, and wanted to limit its scope, also believed in the Osama Bin Laden, the Al Qaeeda, and other tales.

When a presumably patriotic Brigadier cannot see the difference between red-team/blue team operation, when a sitting Brigadier who by the account of this article should have been Maj. General by now (if not Lt. General), cannot see black-ops imperial projects to fabricate synthetic terror in order to create the hegelian dialectic of “evil doers” vs. the “good guys” in insurgency vs. counter-insurgency game of “imperial mobilization” ( http://tinyurl.com/insurgency-vs-counter ), it is not obvious to me what this fuss is all about.

Perhaps the Pakistani military command who are reading this blog (yeh!), might read ‘The Poor-Man’s Guide to Modernity’ (PDF http://tinyurl.com/guide-modernity-2011 ) and leave this poor but well-intentioned brigadier alone.

Brig. Ali Khan’s heart evidently is in the right place when he speaks of “self reliant” and “to purge the army of the American influence”, even if his analysis requires some rethinking.

And what exactly is the reality behind all this?

I won’t take the BBC’s word on it.

The only reason the BBC has published this article, in my view at least, is that the Mighty Wurlitzer is doing its job ( http://tinyurl.com/mightywurlitzer ).

That job is mass behavior control. Among other propaganda techniques to affect behavior, to spin narratives which on the surface are appealing to some, but still manage to echo empire's core axioms. This is the bread and butter of dissent in the West. When mainstream news tasked with engineering consent by their owners, occasionally echo that technique to demonstrate their “objectivity”, there is essentially still no difference. In either case, the primary objective of the press is behavior control, especially for matters of immediate pertinence to current affairs and on-going “imperial mobilization” projects. It is not awareness creation of the diabolical techniques of “imperial mobilization” ( http://tinyurl.com/master-social-science ).

Ex post facto narratives are a different beast – many will truthfully narrate that which is already a fait accompli. It is called history!

This BBC report, whatever its veracity, prima facie still underscores the undeniable fact of the mater. And that is, that even when the intention of rebellion might be genuine, even when the thirst for independence from empire's mayhem might set an indigenous military patriot's throat on fire in Pakistan, our modernity is a twisted devil. It comes wrapped in multifaceted Hegelian Dialectic.

Without acutely comprehending this modernity, there simply cannot be any freedom for any nation and any people, no matter how fervently riled up they might get. That riling up is simply harvested on one or the other side of the Hegelian Dialectic. You are either a “militant” aiding and abetting “insurgency” if you don't like hegemony or have been “tickled” into it, or, are part of empire's Allies douching it with “counter-insurgency” if you don't like the insurgents or just love to play house negro to the white man. Once caught in such a Hegelian Dialectic where both sides are orchestrated by the same powers, there is no escape from that matrix.

Brigadier Ali Khan appears to be caught in that matrix!

Zahir Ebrahim

Project Humanbeingsfirst.org

An earlier version submitted as comment here: http://fkpolitics.wordpress.com/2011/06/23/no-honest-decent-army-officer-to-be-tolerated-kiyani/#comment-1305

Followup

'I won’t take BBC’s word on anything…but leaving the reason for the article aside, I see more facts here than the complete fabrications coming from GHQ/ISPR (he was arrested NOT because he has links with HT and it has NOTHING to do with Mehran Base attack, as the army is trying to portray). No?'

Yes. I also think this is one of the key elements here:

‘“Brig. Ali Khan’s heart evidently is in the right place”
And that is the only point…’

But there is a second key element. And that is spelled out in the article which I constructed out of this comment yesterday. The second key element, at least in my view, is this:

‘This BBC report, whatever its veracity, prima facie still underscores the undeniable fact of the mater. ... Once caught in such a Hegelian Dialectic where both sides are orchestrated by the same powers, there is no escape from that matrix.'

It is towards finding a path to that very escape that both you and I, and the handful of many others (nonsequitor “handful” and “many”?) have been working on these past several years.

And speaking for myself, since the very day of 9/11, on September 11, 2001. I started with ascertaining for myself that 9/11 was ‘operation canned goods’ by reading both, cover to cover, “The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich” by William Shirer and “Mein Kampf” by Hitler. Once, having figured that out, the rest followed, beginning with informing my family, neighbors, friends, and not being satisfied with just talking, to moving on to protest marches and attending teach-ins by others in similar position. In the aftermath of the FBI knocking on my door in 2003, that activism moved to my first piece of public writing, and interview to mainstream media (already noted in “They Dared to Knock on My Door” and “My Little Jihad” essays). It escalated rapidly from there into more intense work which included all sorts of activism, all sorts of valuable wasted time. While I have only aged ten years chronically, physically I have aged a lot more than my friends who have remained happy-happy pursuing their ‘American Dream’.

“Know thy self in order to know the world, is more than just a cliché of the Sufis. It is a necessity for genuine learning in a modernity which subjects the public to immense forces of social engineering. ”

And now, in 2011, I have to concede that I admit defeat. There is simply, psychologically speaking, no escape from the matrix for those who are caught in it. If you didn’t know it from day one, then lamentably so, it appears to me that one is either type-1, or type-2. That is Hitler’s nomenclature from Mein Kampf and is explained in my report on “Master Social Science”. In a nut-shell, these are people who, for one reason or another, are unable to reason about the times they live in, logically, rationally, un-emotionally, and therefore are susceptible to propaganda and indoctrination. Type-1 are those who constitute the mainstream public. Type-2, evidently, are those who “suddenly woke up” for one reason or another and are now the dissentstream. That is the macro, most overarching, most comprehensive natural Hegelian Dialectic. It is as old as hegemony, as old as mankind (to borrow my favorite expression of Zbigniew Brzezinski). Take your pick, type-1 or type-2, you are still in the matrix! This is why, even when you dissent, unless you are type-3, those who can reason about the times they live in logically, rationally, un-emotionally, you behave like this unfortunate Brigadier Ali Khan. Clearly a type-2.

And that is a real problem. Indeed, the real heart of the matter. So, even while I will restate the first key point for the emphasis it deserves:

‘“Brig. Ali Khan’s heart evidently is in the right place”

And that is the only point…’

the second key point is on par: the mind also has to be in the right place. Otherwise, one remains caught in the matrix. There is no escape. No Exit!

This is so f*cking shocking a realization, and it appears to be both empirical and psychologically sound, that I am surprised that I even tried! A very good friend of mine who was teaching at LUMS in Lahore at the time, when I visited him in 2003 and gave him a copy of my maiden book Prisoners of the Cave on a CD, told me there and then, what it has taken for me to finally come to also believe so many years later.

No one may inform another, no one can teach another. No one can make another type-3. At best, you move people from type-1 to type-2. At best, you give them data. While many can construct “information” out of it (the Information Age), a lot fewer can go a step further to extract “knowledge” out of it (thus staying the proverbial “likkha-parrha jahils”). And still fewer are able to extract wisdom. The limiting factor to dispelling ignorance appears to be exactly this typification alluded to by Hitler in Mein Kampf.

And this insight. which evidently is also as old as wisdom itself, as old as wise men, and as old as religion, is the foundation of what’s stated in my pamphlet “How to Return to Palestine” from last year's Nakba anniversary, May 15, 2010. Here is a snippet. If only Brigadier Ali Khan would be able to read it in his prison cell:

‘This article, From Genocide to ReGenesis in ZERO Compromise, penetrates deeper into the psychology, and the limitations, to The Way Forward. It is not that the aforementioned approach is a very profound discovery, or is classified top secret and I just accidentally stumbled upon it. It has been as open as any butcher’s knife in front of sheep. Yet, the sheep have never been able to revolt against the habit of the butcher to provide mutton to its paying-patrons. It obviously is incapable of thought. But we are human beings. What prevents us? What ab initio creates sheeples among mankind so democratically, that perfectly reasonable people, quite capable of thought, equally fall prey to the limitations of their respective world-views, follow pied-pipers, instead of doing their own independent thinking?
…
Commensurately, in order to benefit from this paper and The Way Forward, or even to challenge it with any value added, the reader too must do the same. Understand that one is naturally beholden to one’s world-view, no matter how profound or virtuous, which, one will naturally defend no matter what exposition with what evidence is set before one. Unless one consciously endeavors to overcome these “psychological cataracts” which tend to induce severe myopia, self-righteousness, and pathetic ignorance in the garb of lofty education, prestige, wealth, degrees, and applause, nothing new which is contrary to one’s world-view, can ever seep in. Incestuous self-reinforcement is a state of normalcy not just at the White House in its Zionist decision making! This is entirely self-evident, but most tend to apply it to only others, not to oneself. It is always that other fellow! Know thy self in order to know the world, is more than just a cliché of the Sufis. It is a necessity for genuine learning in a modernity which subjects the public to immense forces of social engineering. Not an easy task to accomplish, for it’s an on-going process to unlearn what has been spent a lifetime being taught and which has calcified in one’s world-view.

Nevertheless, it is an essential process for genuine seekers of truth, for the moral harbingers of real change, including the Palestinian rebels themselves, in order for one to not go through life as a gullible patsy of power, as a virtuous moron rehearsing mainly the incantations of power while calling it dissent, as a programmed robot celebrating the scholarship of others, or as a likkha-parrha jahil (pretentious ignoramus with advanced academic degrees from IVY Leagues) leading other morons. Having suffered is not an automatic qualification for knowing what to do next. It requires careful thought, like any engineering project. And the test of thought is daily, constant, like morality, and one can’t claim that Oh, I had thought in the 1960s, or “I was born with that thought”, and coast on that mileage! Saying that out loud sounds so bizarre, but it unfortunately captures the mindset of many a rebel today who prides himself on dissent – and follows the pied-pipers without analysis. The most thoughtful among this lot, in fact, have come up with a great excuse to not think: too much analysis leads to paralysis – “Just Do It”!’

Followup II

While not the case of Brigadier Ali Khan per se – he is evidently still acting in moral principle, but unfortunately with poor knowledge – there is a much greater problem of not acting at all. While the above discussion is about acquiring accurate knowledge in order to act propitiously, an even greater observable truism is that accurate knowledge by itself does not equate to human action for the vast majority of mankind! Evidently, what limits people to act courageously in moral causes is not their lack of knowledge about a matter. As empiricism amply suggests, a surfeit of knowledge by itself rarely tickles the public's conscience to act.

We see this sufficiently in our own times to know that it is a universal truth. Bringing knowledge to the masses in the hope of their reacting to it with wisdom and sagacity, therefore, is at best an interesting theory. At worst, a specious thesis upon which the edifice of the fourth pillar of democracy is Machiavellian constructed. An illusion of a workable system of governance has been created for the public in their name, but which, in reality, only replaced overt oligarchic rule in the name of gods of yesteryear, with a covert one in the name of democracy. This was elaborated in my Letter to Robert Jensen, September 15, 2009 – Re-titling can perhaps make the problem-space more apparent: Can journalism schools be relevant in a New World Order of one-world government? ( PDF http://tinyurl.com/journalism-self-limiting ) The motivational linkage between knowledge and act was also examined in my recent article: Islam and Knowledge vs. Socialization ( http://tinyurl.com/modern-idiots ).

Consequently, I imagine it is also fair to observe that Brigadier Ali Khan has overcome a much harder problem. That of apathy, indifference, and most pertinent, servitude as a house negro. By the evidence of this BBC report, the Brigadier is already taking a courageous stand for his nation which he had presumably sworn to defend against all enemies when he first joined the army. To move to the next phase therefore, of actually taking a wise and correct stand with sufficiently accurate knowledge of the matter, is the next biggest challenge. Perhaps someone might send Brigadier Ali Khan my short book identifying the enemy. It's written for motivated people inclined to do something about a matter rather than merely talk about it: The Poor-Man's Guide to Modernity. As Sun Tzu stated 2500 years ago on The Art of War:

'If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.'

The fabricated charge of “terrorism” can fall upon anyone at any time. That was made obvious from day one, when, on Thursday, September 20, 2001, in his address to both Houses of U.S. Congress, amidst more than twenty standing ovations, President George W. Bush read off the scripted Hegelian ultimatum to all nations of the world: “Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists.” (Applause.) As the BBC report indicates, clearly Brigadier Ali Khan was not afraid of such labels. A venerable man of heart. But he got the substance wrong.

I would like at least one sitting military officer in Pakistan, and in the United States – the two countries I call home – to get the substance right. To recognize the real enemy and to act courageously in their uniform while they still command their posts. Writing memoirs upon retirement hardly cleanses the blood. Take a leaf out of Bush's own speech – the words of the emperor are also one's best defense against any trumped up terrorism charge: “Freedom and fear, justice and cruelty, have always been at war, and we know that God is not neutral between them.” If I can prove who is the greater terrorist, the pirate or the emperor, so can anyone with half a brain! But this proof is obviously irrelevant in the emperor's court. Proving it before the emperor is not its purpose. St. Augustine demonstrated 1600 years ago in The City of God, that it was already a universal truism:

“When the King asked him what he meant by infesting the sea, the pirate defiantly replied: 'the same as you do when you infest the whole world; but because I do it with a little ship I am called a robber, and because you do it with a great fleet, you are an emperor.'”

But when the pirate works for the emperor and is furthering the emperor's own agendas, that requires more than half a brain to see it. It is no longer a matter of simple truism like St. Augustine's. It can even be counter-intuitive. People with Ph.D. can succumb to its deception. Therefore, proving to oneself is the purpose. That takes a fully functioning rational mind.

A fully functioning rational mind and a fully functioning empathetic heart coming together in the same person, in a sitting general for instance, and we have a winning combination of one who will not fear the result of a hundred battles, each leading to victory. Again from Sun Tzu:

'Now the general who wins a battle makes many calculations in his temple [before] the battle is fought. The general who loses a battle makes but few calculations beforehand. Thus do many calculations lead to victory, and few calculations to defeat: how much more no calculation at all! It is by attention to this point that I can foresee who is likely to win or lose;

Thus it is that in war the victorious strategist only seeks battle after the victory has been won, whereas he who is destined to defeat first fights and afterwards looks for victory;'

Since no sitting general of such moral fiber with a fully functioning mind can ever exist in the emperor's or its allies' armies except in the service of the emperor, there is no practicable waging of real dissent against the emperor's “imperial mobilization”. The emperor will always win by definition – unless the entire mid-ranking cadre refuse to obey immoral orders! A caveat which presumably exists in all nations' military rule books governing soldier conduct since World War II. But in order to exercise that caveat still requires the twain characteristic of mind and heart to be simultaneously functioning in the modern soldiery. I doubt that this is more than just a theoretical possibility today.

If you have the heart, you are often dumb enough to join the military under the false flag of patriotism against fabricated enemies where, once enlisted, all compassion and empathy is driven out of you early on. You are taught to obey orders and not to think for yourself. Your higher ranking officers always know better. And the highest ranking officer of every military is always a house negro. If you have a mind, you don't join the military except to rule others. People with both functioning heart and functioning mind are not to be found in modern professional standing armies – they become poets. I hope I am wrong here. That Brigadier Ali turns out to be a poet soldier – like the illustrious one of antiquity he is presumably named after! That sublime path to valiance is obviously open to all regardless of name. But it does require the heart and mind to both be fully functional simultaneously!

Followup III

'BTW, I was surprised you did not mention the fact that this BBC story is another propaganda piece to indirectly remind everyone/confirm the lie that “Obama bagged Osama last month”:

“In his opinion, the culprits who had hidden Bin Laden and allowed the Americans to get away with breaching Pakistan’s sovereignty were to be found within the army.”'

Thank you for pointing it out – I should have put it in my Mighty Wurlitzer report ( http://tinyurl.com/mightywurlitzer ) when I last updated it after “Obama bagged Osama last month” – the quote seemed to have fallen through the cracks. The connection of that Mighty Wurlitzer's statement to Brigadier Ali Khan's fate is arguably non tenuous!

Your comments are, as usual, very perceptive. There is more thoughtful content in this one little anon website ( http://fkpolitics.wordpress.com ) than there is in many a newspaper combined. I hope Pakistan Military is reading it. All I can suggest is that “ilm” is no one’s exclusive purview. It can become anyone’s blanket on a cold night (in theory). It is the most egalitarian acquisition and accessible to anyone and everyone. This is even provable – at least for Muslims. Qur’an even teaches a prayer in this respect:

“and say: My Lord! Increase me in knowledge.” — (Holy Qur’an, Surah Ta-Ha, 20:114 , Arabic: )

Yet, we find ourselves living in the age of Jahiliya! Especially among the “likkha-parrha jahils” ( http://tinyurl.com/modern-idiots ).

Never mind “ilm”, even simple moral decency escapes us today! Just your two articles on ‘Slaughter of Chechens in Quetta’ is empirical proof enough of this despicable “vulture culture” zeitgeist.

“Pakistan military must come to understand Hegelian Dialectic, if they are to protect the nation. ”

So, never mind blaming the zionists and the imperialist storm troopers for enjoying their own killing fields among the “terrorists”. When we stop doing it to our peoples, only then will others be compelled to stop doing it to us! No one will respect one more than oneself. If one has no self-respect, one ain’t gonna get any from others! This is so damn pathetically obvious, a truism, that it is banal to even say it.

No – the Pakistan military must come to understand Hegelian Dialectic, if they are to protect the nation. Every military of every nation in the world must come to understand it. Without that understanding, all armies are participating in the heinously senseless but entirely manufactured War Racket (PDF http://tinyurl.com/warisracket ) in the service of the global oligarchy rather than in any rational self-defence against real enemies!

And you know what? I am 100% certain that it is news to them. From Westpoint to Sandhurst, and from Rand to whatever, they know, and teach, the art of war! Again Sun Tzu (PDF http://tinyurl.com/political-dialogs ):

“All warfare is based on deception;”

While the masters wage wars fully aware, as they themselves disclose in their military strategy documents (PDF http://tinyurl.com/pnac-americasdefenses ), that: “As long as wars and other military operations derive their logic from political purposes,” the useful idiots are led to gullibly fight in those wars, killing and dying, believing them to derive their logic from military objectives!

As evidence for the veracity of this statement, just look how Pakistan is being decapitated systematically pursuing the military objective of fighting the perpetual “terrorist”! What is the political objective? I don't believe any Pakistani General can give a rational answer. Neither can any American General. The United States military was sent off to fight “terrorists” in a perpetual “World War IV” (James Woolsey, Ex-CIA director: U.S. faces 'World War IV', CNN April 3, 2003 ) to far away Baghdad, Afghanistan, and now Pakistan, under blaring trumpets.

When Pakistan's sitting general, Maj. General Athar Abbas, is quoted in the BBC report suggesting: “The army is a cult in itself, so it's intolerant towards any other cult within”, I believe that to be a general statement of fact pertinent to the nature of all standing armies today. The military has to be cultish, and intolerant toward any outside thought, in order to function in their dysfunctional role as the imperial praetorian guard of the global oligarchy. And there is no more cultish military today in the world than the lone superpower's own military! They have to be so in order to bring us Jesus ( video http://tinyurl.com/Jesus-In-Afghanistan ). I have already demonstrated in my report on the “White Man's Burden” that all military look alike when they are the waterboys. It may be read in the 'Poor Man's Guide to Modernity'.

Complex political objectives, especially those which come wrapped in Hegelian Dialectic, are always foreign to military command who blindly perform their death dance, unfettered, upon civilian populations for their paymasters. Henry Kissinger is said to have referred pointedly, and rather accurately, to military men as '“dumb, stupid animals to be used” as pawns for foreign policy.' (The Final Days, Bob Woodward, Carl Bernstein, pg. 194)

Not a rocket science. But as noted in the Followup II above, it does require a functioning heart and functioning mind to see it when one is born into house negro.

Our biggest enemy for 200-300 years has been that systematic mental colonization. Here is Lord Macaulay in 1835 speaking before the English Parliament – was he perchance already thinking of the twenty-first century and beyond, to the global governance by the Anglo-Saxons:

“[34] In one point I fully agree with the gentlemen to whose general views I am opposed. I feel with them that it is impossible for us, with our limited means, to attempt to educate the body of the people. We must at present do our best to form a class who may be interpreters between us and the millions whom we govern, –a class of persons Indian in blood and colour, but English in tastes, in opinions, in morals and in intellect.”

Worth a full read for its full context for those unfamiliar with the pernicious process of mental colonization ( PDF http://tinyurl.com/Macaulay1835 ).

So long as we have such perversion among us, we will continue to nurture fifth columnists. So long as we have fifth columnists among us, we will continue to open the gates to the barbarians at the door instead of standing up to them as a dignified peoples.

We are seeing the exploits of the East India Company reincarnated today at a global scale to finally create their global governance. As the Council on Foreign Relations author wrote in 1974 ( http://tinyurl.com/hardroad-worldorder ):

‘In short, the ‘house of world order’ will have to be built from the bottom up, rather than from the top down. It will look like a great ‘booming, buzzing confusion’ to use William James’ famous description of reality, but an end run around national sovereignty, eroding it piece by piece will accomplish much more than the old-fashioned frontal assault.’

That is the exact modus operandi that was adopted by the East India Company to take over the indo sub-continent!

It is nothing more profound than that.

So what can be done?

Zahir Ebrahim is an ordinary researcher and writer on contemporary geopolitics, a minor justice activist, grew up in Pakistan, studied EECS at MIT, engineered for a while in high-tech Silicon Valley ( http://tinyurl.com/zahir-patents ), and retired early to pursue other responsible interests. His maiden 2003 book was rejected by six publishers and can be read on the web at http://PrisonersoftheCave.org. He may be reached at http://Humanbeingsfirst.org.

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