Customer Reviews

Pakistan: Deep Inside the World's Most Frightening State

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I really looked forward to the book that I finished in one setting. I was hoping based on the first chapter that she really was going to deliver the goods based on her knowledge and intimacy with the culture and its people. But alas it was not to be. Even though from western journalist standards it was much better effort. I think she could learn a lot more by reading Ayaz Amir and Irfan Hussain (dawn.com) about Pakistan instead of wasting hours talking to Benazir and others. I really wanted to get a grip on Musharraf and Benazir but she wastes her time on platitudes and makes Benazir and others looks more then they are ...A very hands off approach on Musharraf, Benazir and Zia alike. I guess she was trying her best not to offend anyone in case she ever wants to talk to them again. I could expect this from a novice journalist but not Ms. Weaver.
The rest of the book was bunch of newspaper stories stapled together and it had horrible flow--- you didn't know if these chapters are of the same book and no attempt was made to connect them. For example her chapter about Baluchistan and Arabs hunting had nothing to do whatsoever with current environment and she left everything about that in the Baluchistan 's wasteland 20 years back.
I really expected more then she gave. She also gave a short shrift to the US and Pakistan relationship and she doesn't give us any clues other then Gen. Zinny 's bit supporting his friend the general "w/o him Pakistan would turn in chaos" and other typical platitudes that western journalist have been known for when they are too lazy to get the real scoop. She also wastes her interviews w various leading Jehadi mullas and provides no insight then what you can get by driving around the compound or typically provided by a journalist sitting in a posh five star hotel from Islamabad... so alas a wasted effort from a very capable journalist. First Chapter is good but other chapters are just stapled together.
Please pass this on to that author I hope she reads it.

While I only rated this with 3 stars, it is not because this book lacks merit. Unfortunately, I was looking for something that was a graduate-level text vice a 101 text. This is a very easy read, and provides the reader with a good introduction to the sections of Pakistan and their associated issues. In addition, the author does a good job of introducing the major characters of Pakistani history during the last 40 years - Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, General Zia, Nawaz Sharif, Benazir Bhutto, and Gen Musharraf. This book should be read by those attempting to gain greater context to current events in Pakistan and Afghanistan. This book is similarly written and as valuable as Sarah Chayes's Punishment of Virture.

If you are looking for one book that will explain the whole deal, this is not it. The author assumes that the reader has basic knowledge of at least last 10 years of Pakistan's history. She often takes you back to 20-25 years ago, referring to events which the reader is again expected to know. She does not attempt to paint the big picture, but gives wonderful insight on a few significant events (The night Musharraf's coup took place).

For the most part the book gives you the impression that it was written by someone who came across some prominent figures in her casual travels through Pakistan. As much as the accounts of these travels are very vivid and interesting, it may be irrelevant to readers who would like to grasp what is happening in Pakistan that makes the country so pivotal in international politics today.

On the other hand, her interviews with late Benazir Bhutto, her mother, and his husband Zardari, among others, are insightful. But then, the information she provides about them can also be found in Bhutto's autobiography.

Those who have read a few books about Pakistan before will hardly find anything new in this one. However, they may find the stories she tells interesting. I personally liked the Arab royals who flock into Balochistan and spend incredible sums to hunt a certain breed of bird. Stories like this, that sometimes show the ground realities of Pakistan, are what set this book apart. However, they are also the reason why some people may find the book irrelevant.

Furthermore, considering the fast pace events unfold in Pakistan and the region, a lot has happened since the book was published.

Christian Science Monitor, Jan. 23, 2003
By Ilene Prusher

For those who think that that other war - the one in Afghanistan - is over and done, think again. The characters and currents responsible for triggering the war on terror are as dedicated as they were a year ago, but the more likely battleground for years to come will be next door - in Pakistan, where much of the problem began.

That is one of the most important theses colorfully presented by Mary Anne Weaver in "Pakistan: In the Shadow of Jihad and Afghanistan." Drawing on 20 years of reporting excursions in Pakistan and Afghanistan for The New Yorker and other publications, Weaver leads us on an illuminating journey that spans lawless tribal territory and presidential palaces alike. What we see when we look through her lens is a Pakistan more deeply troubled, more closely tied to the Taliban, and more rife with anti-American sentiment than anyone would like to admit.

But lest we let ourselves believe that this is all Pakistan's fault, Weaver fleshes out a historical footnote to Al Qaeda that Washington would just as soon forget. Osama bin Laden and friends attracted Islamic militants from around the world and gave them training in Afghanistan with America's help during the cold war. One of "the most startling ironies of today's militant Islamist movement, not just in Pakistan but across the Muslim world," she points out, "is that the great majority of its leaders were funded, armed, and trained - with the same enthusiasm with which they [are] now being pursued - by the United States."

Of all the rogues who benefited from Washington's patronage, Weaver says that the one who fared best was Gulbadin Hekmatyar, today considered perhaps the greatest threat to the transitional Afghan government led by Hamid Karzai. During the jihad years, Hekmatyar "received roughly 50 percent of the CIA's arms," Weaver writes, be- cause he was the darling of the ISI - Pakistan's intelligence agency - and the man who ruled Pakistan from the day he seized power in a military coup in 1977 until his mysterious death in a 1988 plane crash: Zia ul-Haq.

For readers to whom Zia is a familiar name and for those to whom it is not, Weaver provides a revealing profile of the man who changed the face of Pakistan, and tells us why we should care. It was Zia who claimed to be resurrecting the unrealized dreams of founding father Mohammed Ali Jinnah by "Islamicizing" Pakistan and encouraging the growth of all-Islam, all-the-time education in the madrassahs. He wanted all of Pakistan's laws to conform to the Koran, even if many penalties would not be enforced. And he prioritized the development of Pakistan's then-nascent nuclear weapons program.

In this, Weaver also helps us understand why Pakistan's fate is so tied up, for better or worse, with Afghanistan's. Zia - as well as Zulfikar Ali Bhutto before him and every leader of Pakistan - lives in fear that ethnic Pashtuns throughout northwestern Afghanistan will take up arms and demand their own separate country, a so-called united Pashtunistan.

Some 30 years ago, when Pashtun leader Sardar Mohammed Daoud called on Pashtuns in Pakistan to join up with their brothers in Afghanistan, Bhutto invited about 5,000 fundamentalist Afghan Pashtuns to come to Pakistan. Bhutto armed and trained them, and sent them back to fight against Daoud in Afghanistan. "Six years before the Soviets invaded Afghanistan," Weaver writes, "the mujahideen had been born." There is also a strong argument to be made, Weaver later shows, that Zia, the CIA, and the ISI turned what would have been a nationalist struggle into a holy war. The same can be said of Kashmir today.

"Pakistan" is full of similarly surprising analysis that make even regular watchers of Central and South Asia want to consider things in a different light. Some of the information Weaver chooses in forming her narrative is perhaps common knowledge among people familiar with the region, but she fits the pieces together in a way that makes the greater puzzle far more thought-provoking and comprehensive.

Weaver also offers her readers exclusive glimpses into the enigmatic life of Benazir Bhutto, and interesting vignettes from the special relationship Pakistan has developed with Saudi Arabia. Weaver describes in droll detail how members of the royal family and elites from Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Dubai, and Bahrain arrive in Pakistan each winter to hunt the houbara bustard, an endangered desert bird, with falcons. The sheikhs pay "between $10 and $20 million for a typical royal hunt," she reports, and later eat the birds for their supposed aphrodisiac qualities.

Weaver's book does not end on a tidy note. She analyzes the state of Al Qaeda, which looks more amorphous than ever before, more inspired by bin Laden than under his direction. One Islamic source considers bin Laden as much a hero as Abraham Lincoln, while a State Department official tells Weaver that Al Qaeda is more like a clearinghouse of logistical support than a central organization sending out orders for mayhem.

Most of Al Qaeda's leaders are still at large, and President Pervez Musharraf rejects reports that they and wanted Taliban fugitives have settled in Pakistan. The general who seized power in 1999 stands torn between a public that is swinging towards pro-Taliban Islamic parties and a military that is not pleased with the amount of room he has given to American forces.

Looking through Weaver's window, the war is not nearly over. Its guerrillas are just regrouping. Afghanistan may be prelude to a more volatile mix next door.

* Ilene R. Prusher writes for the Monitor from Istanbul.

I read everything I can find on India and Pakistan-- novels and non-fiction. This particular non-fiction work collects information about several areas of Pakistan that are hard to find elsewhere. As a writer for the New Yorker, Ms. Weaver has entree into circles closed to most of us. She is able to conduct personal interviews with fascinating people ranging from General Musharraf to Benazir Ali Bhutto to the nawabs, sardars and other colorful and important figures from Balochistan, the Northwest Fronteir and elsewhere. What they tell her is incredible. Each chapter contains jaw-dropping revelations. The chapter on the elite of various Arab countries hunting an endangered bird in Pakistan (where Pakistanis themselves are prevented by law from hunting the same bird) deserves a prize. In fact, I wondered several times whether Ms. Weaver will lose some of her sources as a result of writing this book. The chapter about Prime Minister Sharif trying to prevent Musharaff's plane from landing (thereby giving legitimacy to military intervention and the coup) puts one over the edge with suspense. The chapter on Bhutto leaves one with a sadness over the profound loss of opportunity and questioning whether she ever had a chance. Nowhere have I seen any writing approximating the depth of her analysis of Balochistan and its players. Ms. Weaver puts the pieces together so that one can readily see the different forces at work, pulling the country apart. Read it yourself and see if it doesn't completely captivate you. I hope our State Department and Department of Defense people read this book until they know it cold if they don't already.

The reason I gave this book two stars is because I recently read Steve Coll's Ghost Wars. I found many of the same references when reading Weaver's book that Coll had so brilliantly researched in Ghost Wars. I almost felt like Weaver may have borrowed some lines and phrases from Coll's book. I would save my money and buy Coll's book for a better researched book on the topic of Pakistan. Weaver needs to go back to Journalism 101 and look at ethics.

Much has been written about Pakistan since September 11th. But as Ms. Weaver points out in her wonderful book about the only Islamic Republic in the world, much harm could have been avoided if only we were more aware of this country and its problems BEFORE the terrorist attacks. Weaver's experiences as a journalist in this country form the basis and the strength of this book. Having covered this country for two decades, she provides a depth of experience in tracing the recent social and political ills of this nation. Her basic thesis is simple and seems chillingly accurate given current events. She convincingly states the case that U.S. foreign policy set up the country for much of its woes by at first supporting Islamic violent jihad in Afghanistan in the 80's, then abandoning the country completely after the Soviets withdrew and the Cold War ended. While it would be unfair not to assign some responsibility for their current predicament on the Pakistanis themselves, especially their failure to achieve economic growth and political stability, Ms. Weaver's writings on how the situation in Afghanistan destabilized Pakistan to the point where it is now practically as ungovernable as its neighbor is well taken.

Of course, other nations in the region can share the blame for this as well. The chapters on rich Gulf Arab states and the conflict with India in Kashmir are particularly revealing to see how this country has been neglected by other muslim nations and neglected by the United Nations which has been horribly inept in dealing with Kashmir problem. (One can make a convincing argument that Kashmir is the U.N's greatest failure, but that's for another book). Also, the chapter on the Saudi Bird Hunting parties should be read by anyone with an interest in the Middle East.

I heartily recommend this book for anyone traveling to Pakistan, and wishes to learn a bit about this country prior to their visit. It's very well written and succinct. Overall an excellent read.

... This report considers its pivotal role in world politics, blending a history of the country through two decades of eyewitness reporting with portraits of its leaders. An excellent source for seeking an understanding of modern Pakistan.

This book is the boldest attempt by Mary Anne to warn the world of the perils of ignoring the present situation in Pakistan.
The pakistani economy is in shambles and Islamic extremism is on rise. MMA is in power in 2 states close to Afganistan and helping the residual Taliban agents. They are also trying to enforce Shariah which will push us back. We in Pakistan are being offended everyday by every country and its representatives who come here. This is fueling the extremism and I am afraid that within a few years Pakistan will become afganistan.

I was realy offended when I read about the way Anthony Zinni gave Gen. Karamat a 10 minutes notice of the in-coming missiles fired by US warships.

The story of Musharaff pushing Pakistan into Kargil war and subsequent defeat of Pakistan is something every Pakistani will be ashamed of. It is also frustrating to know that Mary anne found no positive points such as Pakistan's REMARKABLE ROLE as US ally in War on Terror. Without Pakistani help it would have been very difficult to fight it out.

Mary Anne Weaver is both a journalist and storyteller. The book is seven different stories that when combined paint a story of Pakistan over the last three decades. Through her interviews with Benazir Bhutto, the tribes in Baluchistan, the Arabic falconers who hunt houbara, the people involved in Kashmir and those involved in the Afghan jihand, Mrs. Weaver gives us both first hand and big picture accounts of this country. She jumps around chronologically in each chapter following the thread of a good story rather than giving a straight historical account.

In addition to telling a masterful story, she makes a solid case for how the US, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan created the nemesis of internal Islamic terror in their zeal to confront the Russians in Afghanistan. She shows how Zia Al-Huq and the ISI turned the mainly sectarian conflicts in Afghanistan and Kashmir into holy wars that eventually spread throughout the world.

This big picture is constantly interspersed with conversation with many of the key figures that were involved consciously or unwittingly in Pakistan's struggles. In great journalistic fashion she puts a human voice to Pakistan's frustrations and the actors who have created its monsters. This is a great book for understanding this turbulent country that is affecting their entire world.