The Judiciary has finally broken free of its shackles which had made it prone to attacks by the unscrupulous elements in the executive. One still remembers the briefcase full of crores of Rup-ees being flown on a Punjab Governors plane to Baluch-istan to split the Judges of the Supreme Court- a move that eventually led to the isolation, and removal of Justice Sajjad Ali Shah an eminent and incorruptible Jurist. The bearer of the crores was rewarded by being elevated to the Presidency of Pakistan. In this instance the NRO was drafted as a law to give sanction to corruption committed by the PPP hierarchy. Any corrupt act was bundled together as political victimization. How the Chairman of Steel Mill could claim political victimization as Crores of Rupees were recovered from the lockers of his family. How the Chairman of a Textile Quota Management Authority could garner a sum of 200 million Rupees, and abscond to enjoy his loot traveling around Europe. How the Chief of Naval Staff picked up Millions of Dollars as kickbacks for buying the right submarines? The list goes on and on. Everyone of the claimants under the NRO have used the plea of political victimization. How any of the above could be called political victims is indeed a mystery which has been denied them by our Supreme Court. The difficult part will be the recovery of the looted billions. Our President has been written up on the internet as the seventh richest leader in the world without a country or a business to his credit, or a source of income. The shameful role has been that of the US and the UK Governments in the drafting and brokering of the NRO in ramming this unpleasant and illegal law onto the Justice Department of Pakistan. Mr Lyall Grants father must be turning in his grave. It is just as well that the name of Lyallpur has been changed. Yet the FO officials visited Pakistan regularly to drum up support for the NRO, and must have been shattered by the Judgment of the Supreme Court. Justice Raza has in his notes included the need to punish the authors of this nefarious document. A story doing the rounds includes the likelihood of these same officials of HMG and Negroponte, and Boucher being charged in their respective countries for abetment in the criminal attempted robbery of state funds of Pakistan. They could also be charged for violation of anti-corruption laws in the US and the UK who have both signed the Anti corruption and Corrupt Practices Act. There can be serious charges against all the officers named above, with serious prison sentences, for abetment. Perhaps the Pakistani court can also charge the above for abetment in Pakistan. It would be ironic if an international law could be used to prosecute foreigners here in Pakistan, and that too by Transparency International, an institution that has for too long lectured us on how low we rated on their list Ad nau-seam comes to mind. Yet it was the State Department and of course the Ministry of Foreign Affairs that actually drafted the NRO, and sold it to General Musharraf. The US has been wrong in thinking that a corrupt leadership could support the American agenda, not realizing that the average man in Pakistan is a good human being, not given to terror. He is poor and compassionate. He is the second largest charity donor per capita in the world, a fact that is not well known. It does show that we are a God fearing gentle people, but there are persons who have been sent here to spread their twisted views, and to create havoc in our country. Their Puppetmeisters live in bunkers inaccessible to a regular army. To eliminate them will take a long time, and will need close cooperation between the two Countries. This will also require honesty of purpose and of deed. For Pakistan this is a life or death struggle, which we cannot afford to lose. The stakes are very high in this struggle and the Indian support is very important, with the Mumbai attack a prime example. The Indians must realize that today the threat from the fundamentalist is worldwide. This monster must be defeated, by joint cooperation. The writer is a political analyst.