Zakaria interviews Mansoor Ijaz on Memogate
By Fareed Zakaria, CNN
canada goose store This past Sunday on GPS, I interviewed a very different kind of guest. He not a head of state, not an Canada Goose Coats On Sale ambassador, not a diplomat. In fact, canada goose coats on sale he has canada goose clearance sale no official position whatsoever, but he functions at the intersection of uk canada goose outlet power and politics between Pakistan and the United States. canada goose store
Mansoor Ijaz is a Pakistani American businessman who has contacts and friends in both governments. He come to prominence now because of a controversial op ed he published recently in the Financial Times.
In it he claimed he was the messenger for a memo from Pakistan civilian government to the Pentagon, asking Washington to clamp down on Pakistan military. says it ignored the memo. But since Ijaz outed the story, Memogate has led to a new low in relations between the two countries and to a Supreme Court investigation in Pakistan.
Canada Goose Outlet In my interview with canada goose uk black friday him, I tried to figure out why this Pakistani American businessman published this article and what he really does know. Canada Goose Outlet
Canada Goose Jackets Here a transcript buy canada goose jacket cheap of our conversation: Canada Goose Jackets
buy canada goose jacket cheap Fareed Zakaria: Let me Canada Goose sale begin by asking you, Mansoor, about the substance of the charges you laid out in the in the op ed in the Times. to label an element canada goose uk shop of canada goose black friday sale the Pakistani military, the Branch of the intelligence wing, a terrorist organization. What brought you to feel so strongly that? buy canada goose jacket cheap
canada goose deals Mansoor Ijaz: Well, Fareed, first of all, it good to be with you. canada goose deals
You know, the thing that was really behind this thinking process of mine is that, you know, I been involved in different operations in Pakistan now for a very long time. I helped Benazir come back together with the Clinton administration as a buy canada goose jacket part of the larger Pakistani American community. I, as you know, was deeply involved in trying to broker a ceasefire in Kashmir. And during these various interventions that I tried to effect in Pakistan, what we found out in almost every single case was that there was a political motivation and a political interference by the ISI.
Now there have been so many https://www.pick-canadagoose.com wrong things that have canada goose coats happened since the death of bin Laden in the early part of May, so many things that, you know, indicated that there was some hidden hand if Canada Goose Jackets you will in what was going. And it is my view and it is still my view today that section S of the ISI has been involved in some very, very nefarious activities, and so since nobody was able to get their arms around that, the United States had to take the lead on that. And the United States has done this in Iran.
Read: David Frum on whether Pakistan was tipped off Canada Goose Outlet to the raid that killed Osama bin Laden.
canada goose coats on sale They have done it in other countries where they canada goose factory sale have been very, very hard in, you know, labeling certain organizations in those countries as terrorists. policy as well as other country policies were formulated Canada Goose Online to handle problems in those countryside. canada goose coats on sale
Fareed Zakaria: Explain what the S Branch of the ISI is. The ISI is the intelligence canadian goose jacket wing of the Pakistani military. What is the S Branch?
canada goose clearance Mansoor Ijaz: Yes. So the ISI has two critical branches in it, one is called CT for counterterrorism, and the other is the S branch for strategic it sort of the arm of the ISI that does everything from political interventions in other countries, for example, Afghanistan, which is what they doing through the Haqqani Network and the Taliban right now. canada goose clearance
Canada Goose online They do a lot of political interventions in canada goose their own country. Canada Goose online
So it an organ of the state that nobody can control, and it is essentially Canada Goose Parka the organ of the state that the army and the intelligence wings are using to shall we say coordinate or obstruct what it is that the political side of the government, the civilian side of the governments do in Pakistan.
Canada Goose Parka canada goose outlet Fareed Zakaria: Now the whole thrust of op ed is that the ISI, the Pakistani military, operates in Canada Goose online very nefarious ways often. Has involved itself as you just said in the domestic affairs of Pakistan and really brooks tolerates no adversaries. Canada Goose Parka
canada goose coats So what I wondering is, why would you make public the fact that the Pakistani civilian government was concerned about the ISI and was trying to curtail it? It seems to undercut the very purpose of your own article to reveal that the civilian government was trying to clip the wings of the Pakistani military. canada goose coats
canada goose clearance sale Mansoor Ijaz: Yes. That a fair question. You got a great credibility to do these things just on your name alone. canada goose clearance sale
canada goose black friday sale In my case because cheap canada goose uk I a businessman who theoretically has nothing to do with these kinds of issues, what I wrote and how I wrote needed to have a certain authenticity to it canada goose black friday sale
Fareed Zakaria: But I still have to ask you, isn the net effect of what you done been to silence the democratically elected branch of government and empower the very people who you seem to be opposed to?
canada goose Mansoor Ijaz: I don think that what happened. If you ask me, we have strengthened Pakistan. Maybe we haven strengthened the civilian side of Pakistan government, but there may have been a rot there that needs to be cleaned up. And if that rot is cleaned canada goose uk outlet out, cheap Canada Goose you might find uk canada goose a very strong Pakistan emanating out of this in which the judiciary does what it supposed to. The military does what it supposed to. canada goose
Canada Goose sale There will never be a time in my view where the military is subservient to the civilians in our lifetime. It may take 30, 40 years for that transformation to come. But when it does come, at least what we did was make sure the civilian government has an equal shoulder to the military and the judiciary. Canada Goose sale
cheap Canada Goose And if I look at the broad picture, that a pretty good result in terms of making sure these facts got known. cheap Canada Goose
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“Kashmir is one of the most protracted and bloody occupations in the world and one of the most ignored,” she told a large canada goose store audience at the Asia Society during a discussion on “Kashmir a case for freedom”.
buy canada goose jacket Under the Indian military rule in Kashmir, Ms Roy said, freedom of speech was non existent and human rights abuses were routine. Elections were rigged and the press controlled. buy canada goose jacket
She said the lives of Kashmiris were made miserable by gun totting security personnel who harassed and terrorised people with impunity, adding that disappearances were almost a daily occurrence as also kidnapping, arrests, fake encounters and torture. Mass graves have been discovered and the conscience of the world remains unstirred.