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Topic: Pakistan pressure cooker about to blow? (Read 772 times) |
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Blunderov
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Pakistan pressure cooker about to blow?
« on: 2007-09-17 14:01:02 » |
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[Blunderov] A crisis appears to be building. One possible consequence of an American attack on Iran might be the worlds first nuclear armed Islamic fundamentalist state - Pakistan. Another mission accomplished by King-Midas-in-Reverse?
http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_muhammad_070917_pakistan_heading_tow.htm
Pakistan Heading Towards Total Anarchy
by Muhammad Khurshid Page 1 of 1 page(s)
http://www.opednews.com
Again, Pakistan has reportedly been trying to sign a deal with Taliban and terrorists in Waziristan tribal region. According to reports, the local Taliban and the political administration in South Waziristan finalized an agreement for the release of more than 250 soldiers held hostage since last month.
According to the agreement, the Taliban will release the abducted soldiers in phases, a private TV channel reported. Efforts for the safe release of the abducted soldiers have been underway for the last two weeks.
In return, the army will leave the area and the Frontier Constabulary (FC) will take responsibility for security. The administration will also release the local Taliban who were arrested. Sources present during the talks with the local Taliban said that the abducted soldiers were kept in different locations, so they will be released phase wise starting on Monday. Inter Services Public Relations (ISPR) Director General Major General Waheed Arshad told the TV channel that he has no information about the truce made between the political administration and the local Taliban.
In another development the retired generals have warned full-scale civil war in the country if the present campaign against the terrorists has not been stopped immediately.
According to a newspaper comment, SOME retired army generals have warned the government that continuing the current policies will push Pakistan into a state of civil war, creating no less serious situation than in Afghanistan and Iraq. The observation coming on the heels of the recent suicide strike on an army mess in Terblea-Ghazi is not without a rationale.
The generals have rightly held the present regime responsible for the deteriorating law and order situation as well as the resurgence of terrorism now spilling over from the restive tribal region into settled areas, even including the federal capital. This situation is alarming as much for our allies in the war on terror as for the nation itself.
The attacks are undoubtedly a reaction to the military operations going on in the tribal areas including Bajaur, Waziristan and other areas, creating a sense of insecurity among the local population. The killing of former Governor Balochistan and JWP Chief Nawab Akbar Bugti last year and the security forces’ operation on Lal Masjid in Islamabad that killed and wounded hundreds of innocent people further deepened hatred among the people against the government. It is time the authorities stopped this repressive policy of bombing and massacring its own citizens.
It is a pity that the government does not appreciate the dangers inherent in following foreign sponsored policies whose ultimate target might as well be its nuclear power and spoiling of relations with its trusted allies like China.
There is urgent need for the powers that be to review the situation coolly and take the people’s feelings seriously. All sections of society have to be united in the aim of making Pakistan a stable country. And that can best be made possible if every institution were to play its assigned role. It should stipulate that the army goes back to the barracks, free and fair elections are held and the majority party runs the country’s governance in accordance with the people’s mandate.
The End
www.voiceforpeace.8m.com
My name is Muhammad Khurshid, a bonafide resident of Bajaur Agency, situated on Pak-Afghan border. Basically I am a journalist, but nowadays I have been working for peace in Bajaur Agency Tribal Areas. During my three years struggle I have conveyed a message to the people that they should abandon terrorism and work for peace. Now the tribal people have decided to extend a helping hand to the civilised world in war against terrorism, but in return they demand of the world to provide them opportunity of education. Education is the only mean of defeating terrorism.
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Hermit
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Re:Pakistan pressure cooker about to blow?
« Reply #1 on: 2007-09-17 16:56:59 » |
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[Muhammad Khurshid quoted by Blunderov] The attacks are undoubtedly a reaction to the military operations going on in the tribal areas including Bajaur, Waziristan and other areas, creating a sense of insecurity among the local population. The killing of former Governor Balochistan and JWP Chief Nawab Akbar Bugti last year and the security forces’ operation on Lal Masjid in Islamabad that killed and wounded hundreds of innocent people further deepened hatred among the people against the government. It is time the authorities stopped this repressive policy of bombing and massacring its own citizens.
[Hermit] I'm not convinced that the US continuing its criminal rogue nation activities with additional illegal aggression targeting Iran will do anything but accelerate a near inevitable process.
[Hermit] Something that the press seems to take for granted - or perhaps regards as being as unimportant as the ongoing assaults on the US constitution by both parties - but which few people seem aware of, is that the Pakistan government and military are constitutionally prohibited from interfering in the explicitly named autonomous tribal zones of Pakistan, most of which just happen to belong to the most numerous single tribe in the world, the Pushtun (also historically known in the West as the Pathans) and their closely related cousin tribes. Of course, the Pushtun, currently converted into a disenfranchised majority in Afghanistan by American machinations, and deliberately radicalized by the US in the late 70s and 1980s, to "balance the Soviet Union" (who succeeded in normalizing Afghanistan by appointing a communist government (much more representative, with far greater effective governing capacity and far less blatantly a travesty than the current US aligned puppet show in Kabul) before the successful regional destabilization by the USA), were previously divided into two groups by a western drawn border between Afghanistan and Pakistan which ignored tribal demographics. It is maybe worth emphasizing that tribal ties are much, much stronger than national boundaries which explains why the borders have traditionally been ignored in these regions.
[Hermit] The current disturbance of the delicate tribal balances in Pakistan and Afghanistan, including illegal direct military intervention in Pakistan's autonomous regions, ill advised military and political intervention in Afghanistan even if under a fraudulently obtained International blessing, together with insurmountable pressure on Pakistan's fragile dictatorship to intervene in the border regions, will most likely result in a serious Pushtan independence bid. As the Pushtan are arguably not only the worlds most aggressive tribe but also, even more arguably, its most competent mountain fighters, this will quite probably eventually result in their overrunning both Afghanistan and Pakistan.
[Hermit] Another issue not addressed by this autor, or perhaps taken for granted by him, that we should recognize is that the nuclear armed and industrialized South of Pakistan, in the hands of the Pushtan, would probably drive the equally bellicose, also nuclear armed, and also dominated by religious insanity, India, into adopting the illegal American idea of preemptive war; if Pakistan doesn't equally illegally, preempt the preemption; either way, with rather nasty consequences for the region and potentially for the world.
[Hermit] These consequences were predicted here in 2001 and regretfully, I see no reason to change my predictions.
Kind Regards
Hermit
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With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. - Steven Weinberg, 1999
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Blunderov
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Re:Pakistan pressure cooker about to blow?
« Reply #2 on: 2007-11-03 19:00:18 » |
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[Blunderov] Thar she blows.
A nuclear armed al Quaeda in Pakistan might provide an interesting new perspective on world affairs. Of course nobody could have predicted this. Oh, wait. We did.
http://bellaciao.org/en/article.php3?id_article=16012
November Saturday 3 2007 (18h06) :
Musharraf declares state of emergency
Musharraf declares state of emergency
Troops surround Bhutto’s home; U.S. calls developments ‘regrettable’ BREAKING NEWS
MSNBC News Services updated 12:45 p.m. ET Nov. 3, 2007
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - Gen. Pervez Musharraf declared a state of emergency in Pakistan on Saturday, ahead of a crucial Supreme Court ruling on his future as president, thrusting the country deeper into political turmoil as it struggles to contain spreading Islamic militancy.
Seven Supreme Court judges immediately rejected the emergency, which suspended the current constitution. The government blocked all television transmissions in major cities other than state-run Pakistan TV, and telephone services in the capital, Islamabad, were cut.
Opposition leader Benazir Bhutto flew from Dubai on Saturday and was sitting on a plane at Karachi airport, waiting to see if she would be arrested or deported, her spokesman Wajid Hasan said after speaking to the former prime minister by telephone from London.
Witnesses said 100 police and paramilitary troops were deployed at her home in Karachi, though it was not immediately clear if they were there as a protective cordon or to apprehend the opposition leader. A bomb disposal squad was also at the scene.
“The chief of army staff has proclaimed a state of emergency and issued a provisional constitutional order,” a newscaster on PTV said, adding that Musharraf would address the nation at 11 p.m. (7 p.m. ET).
A copy of the emergency order obtained by The Associated Press justified the declaration on the grounds that “some members of the judiciary are working at cross purposes with the executive” and “weakening the government’s resolve” to fight terrorism.
PTV reported that a new chief justice had been appointed to replace Iftikhar Mohammed Chaudhry, whom Musharraf tried and failed to oust this spring, sparking a popular movement against military rule. Judge Abdul Hameed Dogar was sworn in by Musharraf in his place.
The state of emergency follows weeks of speculation that the military leader, who took power in a 1999 coup and later made Pakistan a U.S. ally in its war on terror, could take the step. Military vehicles patrolled and troops blocked roads in the administrative heart of the capital.
‘Highly regrettable’
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has urged a swift return to democracy in Pakistan and says it is “highly regrettable” the president has declared a state of emergency.
The U.S. and other Western allies urged Musharraf this week not to declare martial law or an emergency that would jeopardize the country’s transition to democracy. Crucial parliamentary elections are due by January, which are meant to restore civilian rule.
The emergency was expected to be followed by arrests of lawyers and other perceived opponents of the government, including civil society activists and possibly even members of the judiciary itself, a ruling party lawmaker said on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.
Private Geo TV reported that the president of the Supreme Court Bar Association, Aitzaz Ahsan, had been arrested. He was a lawyer for Chaudhry in the case that led to his reinstatement in July.
As telephone lines were cut, it was not possible to contact government spokesmen for confirmation.
‘The whole nation will resist’
Chaudhry and other judges drove out of the court building in a convoy of black cars over two hours after the emergency was declared, under police escort. A police officer at the scene said they were being shifted to their official residences nearby.
During previous emergencies in Pakistan, a provisional constitutional order has led to the suspension of some basic rights of citizens and for judges to take a fresh oath of office.
“This is the most condemnable act,” Ahsan Iqbal, a spokesman for the opposition PML-N party of former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, said of the emergency. Musharraf barred Sharif from returning to Pakistan from exile in September to mount a campaign against military rule.
“The whole nation will resist this extraconstitutional measure,” he said.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21609019/
By : ISLAMABAD
November Saturday 3 2007
http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_muhammad_071103_pakistan_needs_full_.htm
November 3, 2007 at 11:23:24
Civil War Brewing in Pakistan
by Muhammad Khurshid Page 1 of 2 page(s)
http://www.opednews.com
Al-Qaeda is not the name of an individual, actually this is a way of thinking. Their sole aim is to destroy the world. The rulers may not accept this fact at the moment, but this is the reality Al-Qaeda in Pakistan.
It is ironic to note that the terrorists have been killing the innocent people in tribal areas bordering Afghanistan, but the rulers still insist there is no Al-Qaeda. Just to keep himself in power US President Bush has also been playing into the hands of terrorists. Many of his allies in this war on terrorism are those people, who have close connections with terrorists. It seems impossible that the US President may not be aware of Al-Qaeda activities in Pakistan, but he has been befooling his countrymen. Most of the tribesmen demand that now the truth must come to the fore.
Politicians, journalists and generals are in total confusion in Pakistan as the terrorists have been gaining strength. According to a newspaper comment: In another devastating suicide attack on security forces on Thursday, seven officers of the Pakistan Air force were killed and many more were injured, including civilians, when a suicide bomber rammed his motorcycle into a PAF bus.
In the fortnight since October 18, when more than 130 people were killed in a bomb attack on the mammoth rally for the returning Benazir Bhutto, there have been a number of major attacks on security personnel including those in Tarbela Ghazi and Rawalpindi. In between, there have been almost daily reports of killings and kidnapping particularly from the FATA and NWFP areas.
Security personnel as much as political forces are being equally targeted and clearly there is no regard for ‘collateral damage’ in the form of scores of innocent victims. Amidst all this, there is also a lack of clarity on whether this is even our war.
Consider that on Thursday again, while government sources claimed killing around 70 militants in Swat, there were reports citing a spokesman for the militants in Swat that 44 men from the Frontier Corps Dir scouts had surrendered. Only about two months ago, on August 30, approximately 300 personnel from the Pakistan Army and Frontier Constabulary (FC) surrendered to the pro-Taliban militia of Baitullah Mehsud in South Waziristan.
Then as now the question arises as to why soldiers in relatively large numbers would surrender without a fight. Motivation and morale would seem to be an issue here. There is a widespread perception that Pakistan is fighting America’s war in its tribal areas. What is happening across the border and the presence NATO forces in Afghanistan help strengthen this view. Many of those fighting the militants in the tribal areas may well share the perception.
We could have made better choices; if not in terms of our external alliances, then certainly in the nature of the relationship. And, of course, many of our policies in the tribal areas over the years should have been of a different order. Facilitating the formation of an MMA government in the NWFP and a government alliance with politico-religious parties were not the best of policy options to have been taken up in this critical period.
But whatever the route by which we have arrived at this point, the fact of the matter is that it is now a war with far greater implications for us than for anyone else, including the United States. The extremism that is now beginning to make an impact even in our more developed urban centres, unleashing a regime of terror within, threatens not only democracy but also the very fabric of society and the integrity of the state. There are no easy answers anymore.
We do know that an exclusively military response will not get us very far. We have to look no further than Iraq and Afghanistan to recognise the truth of that contention.
That brings us to the ongoing debate in Pakistan regarding the future political dispensation, crucial to our success or failure in facing up to the current challenge and, perhaps, to our survival.
Recent developments had suggested an anti-extremist alliance made up of disparate elements presided over by President Pervez Musharraf and the PPP leader Benazir Bhutto. This was an arrangement endorsed by the West and underwritten by the United States. For nearly everyone concerned, it was a matter of choosing from among a number of fairly dismal options in a situation that does not offer very many.
The National Reconciliation Ordinance has been challenged in court and the ‘deal’ is seen in many quarters as rank opportunism and bereft of moral content. However, a large number of ordinary voters do not hold the deal against Bhutto as demonstrated by the over a quarter million crowd that turned out to greet her in Karachi on October 18.
But that may also have tilted the balance in the establishment against her. As long as Musharraf was the guarantor of her place in the new dispensation, the level of discomfort in these quarters was probably not that high. But the show of peoples’ power in Karachi carried with it troubling intimations of autonomy. In the follow-up, the deal’s many detractors within the PMLQ, not least the Chaudhrys in the crucial province of Punjab, seem to have persuaded Musharraf to reconsider and go the Emergency/Martial Law route instead.
Meanwhile, Bhutto has left the country, ostensibly to visit family, at a time when the Supreme Court verdict on the eligibility of Musharraf to contest presidential polls is due any moment. If the court does not find in his favour, there is greater likelihood of the emergency option being taken. With the growing success of the militants in not only confronting the military and para-military forces of the state in the tribal areas but also terrorising the country at large, those arguing for a non-democratic route would have acquired a stronger voice in any case.
One can only hope that Musharraf is not tempted by the false logic of the argument that the situation warrants the military running the show. It was the military government of Zia-ul Haq that got us started on this perilous path of extremism that today challenges not just the writ of the state but its very integrity. And with another military dominated government over the last eight years we have only seen the problem grow to such formidable proportions.
http://www.opednews.com
There is no doubt that addressing the issue involves a military component but force in such situations needs to be carefully calibrated lest it turn into an enemy force multiplier. As important is the need to meet the challenge politically and to let the mainstream parties play their role in endorsing and operationalising a vision of society and religion that is democratic and pluralist and in harmony with the temper of the Indus Valley Civilisation, reflected in the rich legacy of our widely revered Sufis.
Bhutto and Sharif must be allowed to return and contest the elections. It goes without saying, thought, that not only the military but political parties will have to greatly improve on their past record of governance and delivery.
Tailpiece: According to a news item the NWFP government has formed a committee to submit a report on the enforcement of the Sharia law in one of the Provincially Administered Tribal Areas, Malakand. Presumably this is in response to the militants demands. So is this a forerunner of government strategy for dealing with extremism?
The End
www.voiceforpeace.8m.com
My name is Muhammad Khurshid, a bonafide resident of Bajaur Agency, situated on Pak-Afghan border. Basically I am a journalist, but nowadays I have been working for peace in Bajaur Agency Tribal Areas. During my three years struggle I have conveyed a message to the people that they should abandon terrorism and work for peace. Now the tribal people have decided to extend a helping hand to the civilised world in war against terrorism, but in return they demand of the world to provide them opportunity of education. Education is the only mean of defeating terrorism.
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Blunderov
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Re:Pakistan pressure cooker about to blow?
« Reply #3 on: 2007-11-04 17:43:38 » |
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[Blunderov] The wheels are really beginning to come off now. Two new fronts have opened up; Kurdistan and now Pakistan. The USA is more or less helpless in the face of either let alone both.
The USA's chief ally in the WOT (me worry?) Pakistan is making deals with the Islamic fundamentalists, including, supposedly, Osama himself in order not to be over thrown.
http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_david_gl_071104_the_story_inside_the.htm
November 4, 2007 at 14:23:19
The Story Inside the Story
by David Glenn Cox Page 1 of 2 page(s)
http://www.opednews.com
George Bush calls Pakistan our most important ally in the war on terror and he should know after all he started the war on terror. George Bush calls their leader "President" but President Musharraf was first elected only by a vote of the military Generals.
The US government has given Pakistan billions of dollars in cash and high tech fighter aircraft but wants to give their sworn adversaries nuclear fuel. This is called bump and nudge diplomacy, I’ll give you things if you help us but I’ll give your adversaries more if you don’t help enough. India to her credit has grown wise to the game and has backed away from the free ride nuclear fuel deal. She realizes she is being sucked in to what at best could help her nuclear program but at worst could end up in a world war.
The "President" of Pakistan just won his second election because his opposition boycotted the vote due to a technicality. That technicality being that the President isn’t eligible to run. Maybe that’s what Bush and Musharraf have in common they rule by court decree. Well they did until yesterday when the "President" of Pakistan declared a state of emergency, but not martial law. Like Bushes torture, torture is only torture if you call it torture and it’s only martial law if you call it martial law.
But with troops around the Supreme Court building armed with machine guns and barbed wire the "President" is prepared for the emergency. He has shut down all independent media and made it a crime to criticize the government or the military.
The "President" said the emergency announced on Saturday would be as short as possible and that 400-500 people are being held under "preventive detentions".
Those included among the detained are Imran Khan, a famous cricket player turned politician, Asma Jehagir, chairman of the independent Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, and Javed Hashmi, the acting president of the Pakistan Muslim League (PML) party of Nawaz Sharif, the former prime minister.
The "President" explained, "Extremists, had challenged the writ of the government. The country’s unity is in danger without emergency rule, terrorism and extremism had reached their limit and his country's sovereignty was at stake. "Pakistan has reached a dangerous point, and is undergoing an internal crisis. Whatever is happening is because of internal disturbances," he said in a pre-recorded televised address, "I fear that if timely action is not taken, then God forbid there is a threat to Pakistan's sovereignty." He said some media channels had added to uncertainty in the country, but did not specify which."
But the American media shuns this story; our greatest ally in the war on terror is coming apart at the seams but wow! A writers strike might force Letterman into reruns and the last of the California wildfire victims go home.
Maybe it’s because there are so many stories here? It’s like an orange, peel off the skin and there are multiple stories. Start with every leader who aligns himself with George Bush faces removal by the home folks. Or the corruption of the Pakistani government and it’s pretension to being democracy. How about Pakistani military intelligence aiding and funding the Taliban that would make for a good read. How about the peace deal signed between the Pakistani government and the Islamic fundamentalist in the tribal regions. Under that deal all militants that promised to stay on the straight and narrow from now on were granted full amnesty from prosecution Osama included.
Maybe none of the stories in Pakistan jibe with the "Democracy on the march in the Middle East" rhetoric of the Bush administration. But that is precisely what makes this story important, the network censorship of the news, its censorship by omission. Were this story to have happen in Iran or Venezuela coverage would be non stop around the clock, But because it is a friendly oppressive military dictatorship with a "President" it is far less important than receding Tobasco flood waters.
The story in Pakistan is important but the story inside the story is even more important. The story of a military dictator losing power because of his close relationship with George Bush is eclipsed by a complicit compliant self serving self censoring media not unlike the Voelkischer Beobachter of National Socialist Germany. To ignore not only the decent into civil war of Pakistan but American foreign policies hand in it.
It will most certainly be blamed on Muslim extremists ignoring that its is a Muslim country with a military dictator acting against their wishes. But the American media will reduce it to stereotypes like a Flash Gordon serial with Musharraf as Flash fighting the Islamic Ming the Merciless.
U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told CNN television on Saturday Pakistan's declaration of emergency rule was "highly regrettable" and she hoped its intention was to have free and fair elections. It has reached the point where the administration becomes a caricature of it’s self. Like the Fuehrer from the bunker issuing orders to imaginary armies does anyone in their right mind think Musharraf issued a state of emergency so he could hold free elections? But that’s what’s on the news channels!
Let’s see what did they miss?
ISLAMABAD, Nov 3, 2007 (AFP): President Pervez Musharraf appointed Justice Abdul Hameed Dogar as the new chief justice of Pakistan on Saturday after the imposition of a state of emergency,
ISLAMABAD, Nov 3 (Reuters): Exiled former President Nawaz Sharif said on Saturday Pakistan was heading towards anarchy and described President Pervez Musharraf's decision to invoke emergency powers as a form of martial law. "We are heading towards a chaotic situation, heading towards anarchy,"
ISLAMABAD, Nov 3 (Reuters): A leading Pakistani lawyer and opposition figure, Aitzaz Ahsan, said he had been detained after President Pervez Musharraf invoked emergency powers on Saturday. "They have served me a detention order for 30 days," Ahsan, president of the Supreme Court Bar Association, told reporters outside his home in the capital. "One man has taken entire nation hostage... Time has come for General Musharraf to go." Fellow lawyers shouted "Go Musharraf Go" as Ahsan was taken away by police, waving a victory sign to his supporters.
SWAT, Pakistan, Nov 3 (AP) - Militants said Saturday they captured two police stations in Swat valley of North West Frontier Province. A flag was hoisted over one of the buildings, abandoned by officers in Swat valley, a region that has been plagued by intense fighting between paramilitary security forces and militant supporters of cleric Maulana Fazlullah,
An the New England Patriots will take on the Indianapolis Colts in an important NFL match up of undefeated football teams.
I was born and raised in Chicago in a liberal Democratic home my Grandfather was a labor union organizer my Father a Democratic district committeeman my Mother was an election judge. My earliest memories were of passing out Kennedy yard signs from the back of the car, late in 1962 we moved to Dallas and if it hadn't been raining that morning in November I would have been in Dealey plaza while my Father was sitting in the Trade mart. In 1965 we moved to Montgomery Al. and I witnessed the march from Selma to Montgomery in 1967 we moved back to Chicago and my sister was selected as a page for the Illinois delegation of the Democratic National Convention as you can Imagine she never made it inside the building. In 1972 my mother passed away and the family disintegrated, by age seventeen I was homeless.
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Blunderov
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Re:Pakistan pressure cooker about to blow?
« Reply #4 on: 2007-11-06 23:33:23 » |
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[Blunderov] Much depends on whether the Pakistan military remains, in essence, loyal to GW Bush. I wouldn't count on it. And Mushareff is wildly lashing about himself in a manner which is not likely to assist in this objective.
Meanwhile, evidently not a lot has changed in the Crusader world view since William Blake penned these words which later became a hymn.
A hymn that is very frequently sung at international sporting events. Hmm.
http://www.icons.org.uk/theicons/collection/jerusalem/biography/blake-s-words
"You may be one of those people who already know all the words to 'Jerusalem'. But in case you're not, here they are. All together now...
'And did those feet in ancient time
Walk upon England’s mountains green:
And was the holy Lamb of God
On England’s pleasant pastures seen!
And did the countenance divine
Shine forth upon our clouded hills?
And was Jerusalem builded here,
Among these dark satanic mills?
Bring me my Bow of burning gold:
Bring me my Arrows of desire:
Bring me my Spear: O clouds unfold!
Bring me my Chariot of fire!
I will not cease from Mental Fight,
Nor shall my Sword sleep in my hand:
Till we have built Jerusalem,
In England’s green & pleasant Land."
(William Blake)
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20071119/engelhardt
Who Lost Pakistan?
Tom Engelhardt
This article orignally appeared on TomDispatch.
You know there's trouble ahead when Iraq, in its present state, is the good news story for Bush Administration policy. While various civilian and military officials from the President on down have been talking up "success" in Iraq and beating the rhetorical war drums vis-a-vis Iran, much of the remainder of foreign policy in what the neocons used to call "the arc of instability" began to thoroughly unravel.
In the Horn of Africa, US-backed Ethiopian troops are bogged down in a disastrous occupation of the Somali capital, harried by a growing Islamist insurgency. Despite endless shuttle diplomacy by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, the administration's Middle East peace conference, to be held at Annapolis, is already being dismissed as a failure before the first official invitations are issued. Meanwhile, the Turks are driving the administration to distraction by threatening to invade and destabilize the only moderately successful part of the new Iraq, its Kurdish region (while the Iraqi government in Baghdad calls on Iran for help in the crisis).
Russian President Vladimir Putin recently landed in Tehran and brazenly indicated that any US attack on Iran would be considered an attack on Russia. He then convened a local "mini-summit" and formed a regional Caspian Sea-based alliance with Iran and three energy-rich former SSRs of the departed Soviet Union implicitly directed against the United States and its local allies. On the day Secretary of State Rice announced new, tough sanctions against the Iranians, Putin commented pointedly: "Why worsen the situation by threatening sanctions and bring it to a dead end? It's not the best way to resolve the situation by running around like a madman with a razor blade in his hand."
Meanwhile, one country to the east, the resurgent Taliban has, against all predictions, just captured a third district in Western Afghanistan near the Iranian border--and, as the most recent devastating suicide bomb indicates, attacks are spreading north. And then, of course, there's the President's greatest ally in the Muslim world, Pakistan's ruler Pervez Musharraf.
Remember Bush's nightmare scenario, the one that guaranteed a surefire "preventive" attack from his administration: an autocratic and oppressive ruler with weapons of mass destruction, especially nuclear ones, presiding over a country that functionally offers a safe haven for terrorists? Well, that's now Pakistan, whose security forces are busily jailing hundreds of lawyers, while the Taliban, al-Qaeda, and extremist Islamists, well armed and backed by their own radio stations broadcasting calls for jihad, are moving out of safe havens in the tribal areas along the Afghan border and into Pakistan proper to fight. And there's essentially nothing the administration can do, except mouth platitudes and look the other way. As Paul Woodward of the War in Context website has pointed out: When it comes to nuclear Iran and nuclear Pakistan, we have been living in "a Through-the-Looking-Glass world where nuclear weapons that do exist are less dangerous than those that can be imagined." Now, not much imagination is needed at all.
Strangely, from Ethiopia to Pakistan, despite all the signs, all the predictions, the Bush Administration, as far as we can tell, expected none of the above. How often can it be caught off guard by the consequences of its own decisions and actions? Eternally, it seems. The possible collapse of the President's foreign policy across the entire arc of instability was first written about by the always prescient Juan Cole at Salon.com. He commented that, "like a drunken millionaire gambling away a fortune at a Las Vegas casino, the Bush administration squandered all the assets it began with by invading Iraq and unleashing chaos in the Gulf." And he ventured a prediction: "The thunder of the bomb [that blew up as former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto returned home] in Karachi and the Turkish shells in Iraqi Kurdistan may well be the sound of Bush losing his 'war on terror.'" Over at TPM Cafe, Todd Gitlin was the first to offer a wry, if grim, suggestion, as he considered Bush's "failure to crush the Taliban & Co." from Tora Bora 2001 on. "Talk about dominos," he wrote. "How about this for a Democratic slogan: Who Lost Pakistan?"
With the price of crude oil threatening to hit $100 a barrel and prices at the pump surging over $3 a gallon domestically--while, on the nightly news, experts mutter about oil at $150 a barrel and gas at $4 a gallon by next summer--a meltdown might be in the works. Invaded and occupied Iraq, like some festering sore, remains at the heart of this spreading disaster, the end of which is nowhere in sight. The US military, the sole instrument with which Bush's top officials and his neocon followers imagined they could launch their "expeditionary" sorties around the globe, as if they were so many nineteenth-century British imperialists, has proved incapable of responding to such an essentially political situation. The President might as well be using a hammer to ward off gnats. No wonder, as retired Air Force Lieutenant Colonel and historian of early twentieth century Germany William Astore made clear recently, the military and right-wing politicians are already preparing their own exit strategies in the form of stab-in-the-back explanations of what happened that will shift all responsibility from them to the American people. As he puts it: "Is it possible that our own version of this [myth], associated with Vietnam, enabled an even greater disaster in Iraq? And, if so, what could the next version of the stab-in-the-back bring in its wake? Only time will tell. But consider yourself warned. If we lose Iraq, you're to blame."
stratfor.com
GEOPOLITICAL INTELLIGENCE REPORT11.06.2007
Pakistan and its Army
By George Friedman
Pakistani President Gen. Pervez Musharraf declared a state of emergency over the weekend, precipitating a wave of arrests, the suspension of certain media operations and the intermittent disruption of communications in and out of Pakistan. As expected, protests erupted throughout Pakistan by Nov. 5, with clashes between protesting lawyers and police reported in Lahore, Karachi, Islamabad and several other cities. Thus far, however, the army appears to be responding to Musharraf's commands.
The primary issue, as Musharraf framed it, was the Pakistani Supreme Court's decision to release about 60 people the state had charged with terrorism. Musharraf's argument was that the court's action makes the fight against Islamist extremism impossible and that the judiciary overstepped its bounds by urging that the civil rights of the accused be protected.
Musharraf's critics, including the opposition's top leader, former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, argued that Musharraf was using the Supreme Court issue to protect his own position in the government, avoid leaving the army as promised and put off elections. In short, he is being accused of staging a personal coup under the guise of a state of emergency.
Whether Musharraf himself survives is not a historically significant issue. What is significant is whether Pakistan will fall into internal chaos or civil war, or fragment into smaller states. We must consider what that would mean, but first we must examine Pakistan's underlying dilemma -- a set of contradictions rooted in Pakistani history.
When the British conquered the Indian subcontinent, they essentially occupied the lowlands and pushed their frontier into the mountains surrounding the subcontinent -- the point from which a relatively small British force, augmented by local recruits, could hold against any external threat. The eastern line ran through the hills that separated Bengal from Burma. The northern line ran through the Himalayas that separate China from the subcontinent. The western line ran along the mountains that separated British India from Afghanistan and Iran.
This lineation -- which represented not a political settlement but rather a defensive position selected for military reasons -- remained vague, driven by shifting tactical decisions designed to secure a physical entity, the subcontinent. The Britons were fairly indifferent to the political realities inside the line. The British Raj, then, was a wild jumble of states, languages, religions and ethnic groups, which the Britons were quite content to play against one another as part of their grand strategy in India. As long as the British could impose an artificial, internal order, the general concept of India worked. But as the British Empire collapsed after World War II, the region had to find its own balance.
Mahatma Gandhi envisioned post-British India as being a multinational, multireligious country within the borders that then existed -- meaning that India's Muslims would live inside a predominantly Hindu country. When they objected, the result was both a partition of the country and a transfer of populations. The Muslim part of India, including the eastern Muslim region, became modern Pakistan. The eastern region gained independence as Bangladesh following a 1971 war between India and Pakistan.
Pakistan, however, was not a historic name for the region. Rather, reflective of the deeply divided Muslims themselves, the name is an acronym that derives, in part, from the five ethnic groups that made up western, Muslim India: Punjabis, Afghans, Kashmiris, Sindhis and Balochis.
The Punjabis are the major ethnic group, making up just under half of the population, though none of these groups is entirely in Pakistan. Balochis also are in Iran, Pashtuns also in Afghanistan and Punjabis also in India. In fact, as a result of the war in Afghanistan more than a quarter century ago, massive numbers of Pashtuns have crossed into Pakistan from Afghanistan -- though many consider themselves to be moving within Pashtun territory rather than crossing a foreign border.
Geographically, it is important to think of Pakistan in two parts. There is the Indus River Valley, where the bulk of the population lives, and then there are the mountainous regions, whose ethnic groups are deeply divided, difficult for the central government to control and generally conservative, preferring tradition to modernization. The relative isolation and the difficult existence in mountainous regions seem to create this kind of culture around the world.
Pakistan, therefore, is a compendium of divisions. The British withdrawal created a state called Pakistan, but no nation by that name. What bound its residents together was the Muslim faith -- albeit one that had many forms. As in India -- indeed, as in the Muslim world at the time of Pakistan's founding -- there existed a strong secularist movement that focused on economic development and cultural modernization more than on traditional Islamic values. This secularist tendency had two roots: one in the British education of many of the Pakistani elite and the second in Turkish founder Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, who pioneered secularism in the Islamic world.
Pakistan, therefore, began as a state in crisis. What remained of British rule was a parliamentary democracy that might have worked in a relatively unified nation -- not one that was split along ethnic lines and also along the great divide of the 20th century: secular versus religious. Hence, the parliamentary system broke down early on -- about four years after Pakistan's creation in 1947. British-trained civilian bureaucrats ran the country with the help of the army until 1958, when the army booted out the bureaucrats and took over.
Therefore, if Pakistan was a state trying to create a nation, then the primary instrument of the state was the army. This is not uniquely Pakistani by any means, nor is it unprincipled. The point that Ataturk made -- one that was championed in the Arab world by Egypt's Gamal Abdul Nasser and in Iran by Reza Pahlavi -- was that the creation of a modern state in a traditional and divided nation required a modern army as the facilitator. An army, in the modern sense, is by definition technocratic and disciplined. The army, rather than simply an instrument of the state, therefore, becomes the guarantor of the state. In this line of thinking, a military coup can preserve a constitution against anti-constitutional traditionalists. If the idea of a military coup as a guarantor of constitutional integrity seems difficult to fathom, then consider the complexities involved in creating a modern constitutional regime in a traditional society.
Although the British tradition of parliamentary government fell apart in Pakistan, one institution the Britons left behind grew stronger: the Pakistani army. The army -- along with India's army -- was forged by the British and modeled on their army. It was perhaps the most modern institution in both countries, and the best organized and effective instrument of the state. As long as the army remained united and loyal to the concept of Pakistan, the centrifugal forces could not tear the country apart.
Musharraf's behavior must be viewed in this context. Pakistan is a country that not only is deeply divided, but also has the real capacity to tear itself apart. It is losing control of the mountainous regions to the indigenous tribes. The army is the only institution that transcends all of these ethnic differences and has the potential to restore order in the mountain regions and maintain state control elsewhere.
Musharraf's coup in 1999, which followed a series of military intrusions, as well as attempts at secular democratic rule, was designed to preserve Pakistan as a united country. That is why Musharraf insisted on continuing to wear the uniform of an army general. To remove the uniform and rule simply as a civilian might make sense to an outsider, but inside of Pakistan that uniform represents the unity of the state and the army -- and in Musharraf's view, that unity is what holds the country together.
Of course the problem is that the army, in the long run, reflects the country. The army has significant pockets of radical Islamist beliefs, while Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), the military's intelligence branch, in particular is filled with Taliban sympathizers. (After all, the ISI was assigned to support the mujahideen fighting the Soviets in the 1980s, and the ISI and other parts of the army absorbed the ideology). Musharraf has had to walk a tightrope between U.S. demands that he crack down on his own army and his desire to preserve his regime -- and has never been able to satisfy either side fully.
It is not clear whether he has fallen off the tightrope. Whatever he does, as long as the army remains united and he controls the corps commanders, he will remain in power. Even if the corps commanders -- the real electors of Pakistan -- get tired of him and replace him with another military leader, Pakistan would remain in pretty much the same position it is in now.
In simple terms, the real question is this: Will the army split? Put more broadly, will some generals simply stop taking orders from Pakistan's General Headquarters and side with the Islamists? Will others side with Bhutto? Will ethnic disagreements run so deep that the Indus River Valley becomes the arena for a civil war? That is what instability in Pakistan would look like. It is not a question of civilian institutions, elections or any of the things we associate with civil society. The key question on Pakistan is whether the army stays united.
In our view, the senior commanders will remain united because they have far more to lose if they fracture. Their positions depend on a united army and a unified chain of command -- the one British legacy that continues to function in Pakistan.
There are two signs to look for: severe internal dissent among the senior generals or a series of mutinies by subordinate units. Either of these would raise serious questions as to the future of Pakistan. Whether Musharraf survives or falls and whether he is replaced by a civilian leader are actually secondary questions. In Pakistan, the fundamental issue is the unity of the army.
At some point, there will be a showdown among the various groups. That moment might be now, though we doubt it. As long as the generals are united and the troops remain under control, the existence of the regime is guaranteed -- and in some sense the army will remain the regime. Under these conditions, with or without Musharraf, with or without democracy, Pakistan will survive.
Distribution and Reprints
This report may be distributed or republished with attribution to Strategic Forecasting, Inc. at www.stratfor.com. For media requests, partnership opportunities, or commercial distribution or republication, please contact pr@stratfor.com.
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Blunderov
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Re:Pakistan pressure cooker about to blow?
« Reply #5 on: 2007-11-07 15:23:55 » |
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[Blunderov] Seems Dubya had such a hard-on for the secular oil of Iraq that he was prepared to let the (so called) Islamo-fascist threat go slide in spite of profuse protestations and PR campaigns to the contrary. This seems pretty damn clear now. It was pretty damn clear way back in the beginning too if one casts the mind back (those that retain this evidently vanishing ability that is). To the amazement of almost nobody , Pakistan sudddenly morphed from pariah to long lost brother and was held in high esteem by America. And folks said that days of miracle and wonder were gone forever. I bet they're all repenting like mad right now. Them of little faith. Very sad.
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20071119/truthdig
Our Man in Pakistan
Robert Scheer
Robert Scheer is editor of TruthDig, where this essay originally was published.
So, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, treated ever so respectfully by George Bush throughout his Administration, in which he became the first Pakistani leader to visit Camp David, has turned out to be just another crummy dictator. But he was our dictator, kind of a modern, even westernized one who could stand up to all those bearded Islamic terrorists.
Well, not exactly. Not that anyone bothered to remember, but Musharraf seized power in Pakistan, ending democratic rule, two years before the 9/11 attacks and did nothing to end his nation's support of the Taliban rulers next door, who were harboring Osama bin Laden and his Al Qaeda. Before that he was part of a military elite that had, as the 9/11 Commission report would later conclude, been one of the main sponsors of the Taliban. Nor did Musharraf as dictator-president do anything to undermine the nut cases that he continued to diplomatically recognize as the legitimate rulers of the neighboring country. "On terrorism, Pakistan helped nurture the Taliban," the 9/11 Commission reported, adding: "Many in the government have sympathized with or provided support to the extremists. Musharraf agreed that Bin Laden was bad. But before 9/11, preserving good relations with the Taliban took precedence."
True, after 9/11 Musharraf did provide minimal support for the US invasion of Afghanistan in return for considerable aid and the lifting of the sanctions that had been imposed on his nation for developing nuclear weapons. Odd that a nation that had nuclear weapons and that had actively supported the terrorist haven in Afghanistan was welcomed back into America's good graces only three weeks after 9/11--at the very same time that the Bush Administration was drawing up plans to overthrow Saddam Hussein, who was bin Laden's sworn enemy.
Oh, yes, sorry, Saddam had weapons of mass destruction. I forgot, there was that guy "Curveball," the guy in Germany who told us that Saddam had those mobile biological weapons labs that Colin Powell relied on so heavily in his UN address. But, as CBS's 60 Minutes reported Sunday, the German government had told the Bush Administration very clearly that its great weapons expert was a just another immigrant trying to hustle a green card.
As for nukes (the real WMD), although Iraq didn't have them, Pakistan did--at least seventy ready to explode--as well as the airplanes and missiles that could deliver them. Worse, the "father of the Islamic bomb," Abdul Qadeer Khan, whom the 9/11 Commission called Pakistan's most revered nuclear weapons expert, "was leading the most dangerous nuclear smuggling ring ever disclosed." It was Khan who provided the key technology, uranium enrichment materials crucial to the nuke programs of Libya, Iran and North Korea. And it was Musharraf who pardoned him, made him to this day unavailable to US intelligence agents and, after a very loose form of house arrest, recently announced that he was now, as in the slogan of Southwest Airlines, free to move about the country.
No problem--why hold a little nuclear proliferation against our favored dictator when he's doing such a good job denying Al Qaeda and other religious fanatics a base of operations in Pakistan? Except that he did nothing of the sort. The all-important Pakistan border territory adjoining Afghanistan is more hospitable now to terrorists than ever before. As for bin Laden and the others Bush was going to get "dead or alive," US experts routinely concede that those terrorists have found a haven on Musharraf's side of the border.
So where did the $10 billion go, and that's not counting covert funds, that Bush gave Musharraf to beef up his military to better combat the terrorists? Well, clearly the Pakistani army is very strong--just look at the martial law it has been able to impose on judges and other folks who actually believe in the rule of law. But wait, Musharraf will back down; a deal was all but brokered, and Benazir Bhutto, whose adherence to democracy is as compelling as her family's rich history of corruption, is waiting in the wings.
Condi Rice is on the phone, so hopefully Musharraf can be bought off and the free world once again served by the nation Bush designated "a major non-NATO ally." But there is a bright side, for one adviser traveling with Rice was quoted in the Washington Post as saying, "Thank heavens for small favors," meaning that compared with Pakistan, "Iraq looks pretty good." Talk about lowered expectations.
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Blunderov
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Re:Pakistan pressure cooker about to blow?
« Reply #6 on: 2007-11-08 00:00:11 » |
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[Blunderov] Why do I get this sense of deja vu? The Indian Mutiny? The Long March? Upon reflection, nothing so grand. It's not history unfurling but only simple logic...
"It ain't no use to sit and wonder why, babe
It don't matter, anyhow
An' it ain't no use to sit and wonder why, babe
If you don't know by now
When your rooster crows at the break of dawn
Look out your window and I'll be gone
You're the reason I'm trav'lin' on
Don't think twice, it's all right"
http://www.bobdylan.com/songs/dontthink.html
http://voanews.com/english/2007-11-07-voa40.cfm
Islamic Militants Seize More Territory in Pakistan's Swat Valley
By VOA News
07 November 2007
Fighters loyal to a radical Islamic cleric have seized more territory in Pakistan's Swat Valley, taking over police stations and checkpoints in several towns.
Paramilitary troops and police have surrendered their weapons to militants in the key tourist towns of Kalam, Madian and Bahrain.
Militants earlier seized the town of Matta and Khawazkhela, hoisting flags over captured police and military posts.
Witnesses report militants are patrolling towns under their control. Residents are staying indoors and schools and colleges remain shuttered.
<edit>
The government sent 2,500 troops to the Swat Valley to counter the cleric, Mullah Fazlullah, who has opened an FM radio station calling for holy war against Islamabad.
Scenic Swat Valley is a top tourist destination -- known as Pakistan's "Switzerland."
The advance of militants into Swat marks a branching out from their traditional strongholds in tribal areas near the border with Afghanistan.
Some information for this report was provided by AFP.
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