The great hack: how elections were rigged in the US and elsewhere

  I saw a Netflix documentary ("The great hack") and was astonished to find that Trump won the 2016 election by what can only be described as rigging. Cambridge Analytica, a British company "persuaded" thousands of US voters to vote for the Republican party, and Trump was the winner despite Hilary Clinton getting more votes. It seems that only 70,000 voters in three US states (called the "swing" states) decided who the next president would be.

This happened not only in the US, but in many other countries as well. The referendum in the UK that led to that country breaking away from the UK was influenced by the company, using Facebook to find out which voters were "persuadable". In Trinidad and Tobago, an Indian origin woman became the country's prime minister, and Facebook data was used to influence the result of the election. I have noticed a significant decline in the use of Facebook, perhaps due to this reason. But everything I write on Whattsapp is also being observed, since Facebook owns it.

As someone in the documentary said, it's impossible to hold free and fair elections anywhere in the world. 

Imran Khan exposed again!

 Practically everyone in the country knows that Imran Khan is mentally unstable. Everyone, that is, except those who think he's some kind of saint. Even after he married a woman who was obviously not normal, they continued to like him. We knew, all the time, that he was unable to take any decisions himself, which is why his four years in power were disastrous for the country. We also knew that his so-called "spiritual" advisor (his wife) was looting the country, but when the then ISI chief told him about it, he was so offended that he got that ISI chief transferred. That ISI chief (Asim Munir) is now a national hero and the supreme commander of the country's armed forces.

It's only now that a foreign journalist (Owen Bennet Jones) has investigated and reported that Imran Khan is really incompetent. All the shenanigans of his wife (like feeding djinns and advising him on when and where to travel) were common knowledge in Pakistan, but the Economist has printed an article about it, which has left Imran Khan infuriated. When asked whether he would take legal action against the newspaper, he said that he would first consult his wife! This is exactly what the Economist has said, that he never did anything without asking his wife. I was once dreadfully afraid that she would tell him to drop an atom bomb on Karachi or any place she didn't like and he would do it!

Why the 27th amendment was needed

It's been an open secret for a long time that the judiciary in Pakistan is not really independent (that's the case in most countries of the world), but no one ever said so in public. The twenty seventh amendment has merely legalized something illegal, which is why it's not being resisted so fiercely by lawyers (who came out twenty years ago to protest massively against the removal of then Chief Justice Iftikhar Choudhry by the late General Parvez Musharraf). In fact, the only retired army general so far tried and convicted by a civilian court was Musharraf himself, which made him stay out of the country for a long time (he'd been sentenced to death, but the sentence was later overturned). Until that time, it was unthinkable for any judge to do such a thing. That's the reason why the 27th amendment grants lifetime immunity to the present and future army chiefs (as well as   naval and air force chiefs).

As for granting immunity to the president of the country, that was already part of the constitution, but perhaps Zardari thought it was necessary to reinforce that clause.

There is of course the Imran Khan factor. His cases will no longer be heard by judges who like him, or judges whose mothers-in-law want him to be freed (this actually happened in the past).

FBR accountability

FBR accountability

THIS is with reference to the editorial ‘Untaxed glamour’ (Nov 5), which rightly pointed out that “no one … should be allowed to stay outside the reach of the law”. While the move made by the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) against tax dodgers who flaunt their wealth on social media is commendable, what about those who do not use social media and do not pay appropriate taxes, like the shopkeepers in Peshawar’s Karkhano Bazaar and other such markets in the big cities? I have heard some of them say that if any tax collector comes near them, he would be lucky to escape unhurt.

Then there are those who claim to derive their incomes from agriculture and, therefore, proudly say that they are exempted from payment of income tax, hiding behind the façade of a pittance that they pay as provincial agricultural tax.

Such pious men, like retailers and owners of huge and multiple properties, for example, regularly go to the holy land for pilgrimage, but do not register themselves with the tax authorities. They argue that tax rupees mostly enrich the tax collectors and those who rule the country. And, while we are still at it, why not investigate the lifestyle of FBR employees to catch those indulging in corruption?

Shakir Lakhani
Karachi

https://www.dawn.com/news/1954047/fbr-accountability

Dawn, November 09, 2025

 

Why have so many from Azad Kashmir settled in the UK?

Among the many misconceptions Pakistanis have is the belief that the British constructed the Mangla dam and gave citizenship to those who were displaced when their land was taken over for the dam's construction. Apparently such people do not know that the dam was constructed twenty years after the British left the subcontinent.

The Indus Waters Treaty (IWT) was signed in Karachi in 1960 under the aegis of the World Bank. This agreement gave three rivers to Pakistan and the other three to India. I remember waving to Nehru and Ayub Khan as they were going to the President's House in an open car. Nehru waved back to me, while Ayub was staring at a pretty girl standing a couple of feet away on my right. Karachi was the capital of the country at the time, another fact that most Pakistanis have forgotten. 

It's been 65 years since the treaty was signed, and it has survived despite so many wars between the two countries. But the Hindutva activist prime minister (Modi) of India has revoked it recently, which will mean a death blow for Pakistan if it is not restored. 

So the British could not have given citizenship to so many people from Azad Kashmir, as the UK had nothing to do with Mangla dam. What happened is that every family in the area was compensated heavily for their lands by the Pakistani government, as a result of which almost all of them migrated and settled in the UK, which was the favored destination at the time.

 

Mamdani creates history

Most people had lost faith in democracy after seeing people like Trump and Modi getting elected. But there is some hope after all. With Zohran Mamdani getting elected as New York's first Muslim mayor (besides being the youngest so far), the people of that city have proved that they cannot be fooled by the Zionists and billionaires who did their utmost to defeat Mamdani.

I didn't know there was so much hatred against Muslims in the US until I saw a video posted on Facebook. In the video a young man is seen calling Mamdani a communist and die-hard Muslim, who would impose Sharia law in New York if he was elected. He also warned New Yorkers that their women would be forced to wear the all-enveloping burkha. 

But the most threatening tone was that of Trump himself. He warned that he would cut federal funding to the city if Mamdani was elected. Now that it has happened, he said that the US has lost its sovereignty and a communist has taken control of New York City. I don't know if it was Trump, but one US politician has claimed that Hamas has taken over NYC. The richest man in the world (Elon Musk) alleged  that the election process was a scam.

Mamdani's victory and those of other Democrats proves that Americans are not satisfied with Trump's performance. Trump and his Republican supporters should change their policies or they'll be routed in next year's mid-term elections. 

Racism in the US

We saw a lot of racism and prejudice against Muslims when we were kids in school. Even though our Catholic teachers were brown (like us), we could see that they thought Muslims were inferior. There was one male teacher who used to say that Muslims were backward and inferior to Christians and others. But we assumed, as the years went by, that most Americans and Europeans were now free of prejudice, despite occasional incidents of policemen killing blacks in the US, and Pakistanis being beaten up in the UK.

It seems that we were wrong. I've seen so much hatred of Muslims on social media that I'm shocked. A class fellow of mine (a brown Catholic and a US citizen) posted a video on Facebook in which a young boy is spewing hatred against Muslims in general and Mamdani in particular. He warns residents of New York that if Mamdani is elected mayor, they will soon see Sharia law in their city. 

But the most surprising thing is Trump's racism. He has allowed only white South Africans to immigrate to the US, and today he's asked the Pentagon to be ready to invade Nigeria to save the Christians in that country. I wonder why he didn't say anything when the Israelis were killing Christians in Gaza. In fact, all churches in Gaza have been demolished and the Christians there pray in the open. 

It's impossible to negotiate with the Taliban

 As expected, talks between Afghanistan and Pakistan have been stalled, despite Turkey's best efforts to get the Taliban to agree. By now it should be clear that the Taliban believe that they are right and every one else is wrong. Perhaps they think that because the Americans and the Soviets had to leave their country, they are invincible. They've forgotten or are ignoring the fact that it was Pakistan that helped them throw the invaders out. As for that phrase    "Afghanistan is the graveyard of empires", nothing could be further from the truth. Afghanistan has been ruled by many invaders before. The British, the Moghuls, even the Sikhs occupied the country for many decades. it's only because the country is mountainous that rebels are able to fight the invaders. But it's also a fact that they can be subdued with money.

The Taliban's intransigence is evident from the fact that even today they allowed infiltrators to enter Pakistan, despite talks being in progress. They are helped of course by the Muslim-hating Hindutva government of India, which wants to occupy not only Pakistan but parts of Afghanistan and Iran as well. Hindutva bigots should understand that if Pakistan falls to the Taliban, they will invade India as well (to turn that India into a Muslim-majority country). 

Banning political parties is not the answerr

Many political parties were banned in the past, but that has never worked. Bhutto banned the National Awami Party (NAP), but it resurfaced as Awami National Party (ANP). For some time, even the Peoples Party was banned, it once contested elections as PPPP (Pakistan Peoples Party Parliamentarians). After the recent failed march to Islamabad by the extremist TLP, the government is considering banning the party, but this will make the party even more popular.

In fact, the TLP (Tehreek-e-Labaik Pakistan) is already very popular among Pakistan's largely illiterate population of those who follow the Barelvi version of Islam. The Punjab government is planning to take against those who have financed the party in the past (there are about 4,000 of them). The party head (Saad Rizvi) has gone underground, but in a raid on his house, the cops found gold and currency (including Indian rupees) reportedly amounting to more than a hundred million. The TLP chief also has 95 bank accounts, and the party "owns" three hundred and thirty mosques as well as 223 madressas. 

All this proves that extremism in Pakistan is rampant and will be difficult to eliminate merely by banning politico-religious parties. One wonders why the government did not take any action when the party was building mosques and seminaries on government land. But perhaps it was because the TLP was encouraged in the past to destabilize Nawaz Sharif's government by those in the Establishment who wanted to remove him from power and install their puppet Imran Khan in his place.

 

Ungrateful Afghans: will they ever change?

Afghanistan has always opposed the existence of Pakistan, right from day one. It opposed the creation of Pakistan, claiming most of the territory of the new country (despite their former rulers having accepted the Durand Line as the border). India helped them claim that the two provinces of Pakistan (KP and Baluchistan) belonged to Afghanistan. Pakistan helped Afghans in expelling the Soviets from their country. They seem to have forgotten that India did not oppose the Soviet invasion and did not boycott the 1980 Olympic games in Moscow (most countries including Pakistan boycotted). 

The Taliban government currently in power has allied itself with India to destabilize Pakistan, their foreign minister even supporting India's illegal occupation of Kashmir. He was unable to justify his government's treatment of its women. He forgot that Pakistan gave refuge to three million Afghans (half of them are still in Pakistan).

After years of bomb blasts carried out by Indian-supported Afghans, Pakistan decided that it could no longer stay silent. After Pakistan's bombing of the terrorists' sanctuaries in Afghanistan, the Taliban begged for a cease fire.  The cease fire agreed in yesterday's talks in Doha and more talks in Istanbul to be held next week, perhaps the Taliban may agree to stop terrorist activities, but I doubt if they will ever change. They want Pakistan to hand over its two western provinces to them, where they want to impose their version of Islam. Pakistan should retaliate whenever a terrorist attack takes place in the country. That's the only way to defeat them.