<Gen. Tommy Franks couldn't mention the country by name without provoking a collective case of gastric distress in the Bush administration.
Pakistan, not Iraq, was in the general's crosshairs.>
Michael, I thought twice before responding to this article, which is absolutely no sense from a strategic or a diplomatic angle.
A great sensational article calling Pakistan the new Afghanistan and a good headline to the catch the eye, good story to evoke an emotional response and a great article typically written by a person who does not have a true vision of the ground realities.
The reason Pakistan is not Afghanistan is because history does not back the assumption. Afghanistan was a lawless area, a frontier outpost for the last two centuries. Afghanistan historically has seen hordes of tribes descending upon the Indian sub-continent as invaders and invasion, guns, mutual disagreements is part of the Afghani culture. The chivalorous attitude, the lack of working institutions, lack of a federal security forces has all contributed to the dysfunctional systems that Afghanistan must work on. Warlordism is not a new phenomenon and the invasion by the USSR was the last straw on the camels back.
Tajik, Hazaras who speak Dari and some of them harbour for Shi'ite Iran as opposed to the Pukthuns whose puritan strain of Islam is akin to Wahabism. Not only does Afghanistan suffers from the ethnic divide it suffers from an ideological and linguistic divides as well. But these divisions without any academic institutions an elite that may try to bridge these factions into some kind of functional harmony. That's a fundamental difference with Pakistan for Pakistan has got functional institutions which are not only defenders of federalism, which have no doubt curbed the growth of democracy in Pakistan, but have helped an artificial state like Pakistan to forment and grow to a functional, working state.
It is academic bankruptcy states, based on what appears on the newspaper and the face of the nation which the newspapers portray. Pakistan as a convenient target that the media love to scorn and love to condemn. It has the all the ingedrient that lend itself antithetical to Western civilisation. It calls itself a bastion of Islam, though Arabs loves Indian rather than Pakistan, there are 5 million Indians however only 1 million Pakistan. Indians being Hindu are preferred for remaining cool and less prone to militarism.
Pakistan is not the nicest of nation to belong too and in the last 50 years the media has had a certain agenda against the nation when it comes to reporting events. Indian academics and in most of the threads, you read written by Indians and Israeli, consider that Pakistan is a failed state that should be given a thrashing greater if not equal to the one that Iraq is due to get. They should be castrated and turned into eunuchs.
What I told Shekar Gupta and Arunduthi Roy that one of the reasons India fails to connect with Pakistan or other people who see Pakistan from the current news is that they don't understand how that country really works. Underestimating your enemy so that just you want to make yourself feel good and forgetting their strengths is the biggest failure for any strategist. That is what the foes of Pakistan and global media does it at its peril.
It is not by accident that Pakistan happens to take the right decisions when it matters to cooperate with the global community and when it is really challenged. Post 11th gun on the head is one such example. USSR had similar gun on their head in 1979 but they refused? USSR was closer and far bigger nation in terms of size of nukes, its adversity and conventional arsenal. Why do they listened to the US ultimatum but not to USSR. Fatalism does play a part of this martial race; they could take on India or USSR without worrying of consequences but they are well connected economically and strategically to USA and Saxon alliance. This is the history of the institutions of the nation from Foreign Office to Military and this is what is prevalent?
I will give the devil some credit here! Here is India with 700,000 men on the border, one of the strongest economy in the world with reserves of 60 billion dollars, a functional democracy for nearly 6 decades, a great nation with an eyeball to eyeball confrontation with Pakistan for the past 9 months.
I know what occupation is and I know the arrogance of occupation. I was at Jahra road in 2.00am, a road that connects Iraq and Kuwait, and that night I was returning from a party and there was no sign of military movement by the Iraqis. At 8.30am after reaching downtown the Iraqi soldiers just marched into Kuwait without any hesitation because of the military supremacy. Now if Pakistan is as bad as its made out to be and if its strategically so weak than nothing stops India from marching into Pakistan. I think the extremist attacks on the cradle of Indian democracy in December, last year, was enough of a justification to provoke hot pursuits. The inability of strategic pundits to go on with the hot pursuits to punish the extremists in Pakistan is only an indication of how well managed the country is. Badly managed countries cave in and they give into intimidation.
I'm not defending the belligerence of Pakistan and I'm not making a qualitative judgement on whether its right or wrong however a nation that can confront a nation 5 times it size is got to be given some credit. The opponents of Pakistan and strategic pundits across the border are not going to realise that there are certain geographical strengths in what we call Pakistan. They are always spinning these absurd tales and look at the provocation of the 11 May'1998 when India went for its nuclear test. If you were to examine the Idea of the Day thread at that time you will be to see that we made certain inferences about that event. I said that India has changed the balance of power and marginalized its huge conventional superiority and overnight converted its conventional superiority into nuclear parity was a 101 lesson for strategic foolishness. Only a foolish and hostile leadership to its own people would do such a thing and now within three years they are seeing the results for it. Now they can argue that Pakistan is a failed state and that Pakistan's nukes can be used by extremist and the army is belligerent and ISI are a nefarious organisation controlling the nation. However what is the ground reality no one wants to appreciate for this is the nation that took on the Soviet Empire and brought them to a halt. So a failed nation could not have brought the Soviet empire. A failed or rogue army with the agenda of implementing Islam would not have been to do that. Serious errors of judgement were made by the Western nations by propping Islamic extremism as a coutnerweight to communism against a short term trend. In my previous post I highlighted the fact that to bring people like Laden and Hikmityar as an alternative to Putin, who represented the evil empire and are now partners in peace & democracy, was not the right chance. Even as a KGB agents, with the associated death of millions in gulags and concentration camps, we are forced to make a distinction which of the evil. The problem with the Western academics and intellectuals is that one time they think that the Communism becomes an evil in Vietnam and Cuba and then Afghanistan where the bluff of the Russian Empire was called upon. The forces of evil keep on changing colour, size, shape and ideology and our empires of evils & axis of evil keep on changing. Look at the 5 decades of contemporary political history and one can see that the defining moments have been that the defining moments have been when people have taken on the forces of evil and grounded their march to a halt and that is the ultimate art of diplomacy. There are only two nations who have changed their alliance with USA in the course of the last 5 decades, Pakistan and Israel. No political or military has undermined its alliance with the United States of America. That is the cornerstone policy of military and political leadership fo America. Day before yesterday I was at the London house of the Pakistani ambassador to the US, Agha Hilaly and he passed last year, however his son was reading his diary and showing us excerpts of the pivotal moments in Pakistani history. This was in 1971 when he was ambassador to America and showing us pictures with Nixon in the Oval Office but what surprised me the most was a note by Pres Nixon to Hilaly, crook the former may have been, but the US should be proud that he was responsible for the reapproachment with China. In that handwritten note where Hilaly is sitting on the side of the Oval office and in that note Nixon wrote "I appreciate beyond the call of duty" now that is the time and that is the kind of things no one really wants to talk about. I keep harping the same kind of things and let me tell you failed nations don't evolve fluidity and flexibility with greater powers.
The reason I attack such articles is because they are so naive and if that is what is being fed to Americans I seriously wonder how they will ever be truly educated on geopolitics. Pakistan has a very strong diplomatic corp., has a very strong military and para military, and a relatively benign but available system of justice that is very Anglo Saxon in its nature. The region of what we call Pakistan sits at the confluence of 2.5 billion people on the earth.
As I look towards the globe, and my interest in history & geography is well known, how many other nations sit at the confluence the way Pakistan sits at the Crescent of Instability. We have borders with Iran, China, Russia (CIS) and India. Count the population of all these nations and you will see here a nation that is being condemned for all the evils of the earth at the heart of the confluence maintaining the balance very very well. On one hand facing a 700000 army ready to bring them down on the other border facing the vermins of the earth, the extremist.
Even today many Western nations cannot take that high level of alert that Pakistan is facing. I agree that its because of the Pakistani extremists fleeing to Indian. But no one wants to highlight the fact that Kashmir is on the backburner the UN resolutions which call for the right of self-determination & votes for the Kashmiris. The rights Indias can be enjoy should not be enjoyed by Kashmiris for they Muslim subclass. I agree to this because I am a friendly peaceful guy because I am not supposed to have an opinion that may help the voice of the underclass. With all my peaceful nature I even sometime worry how you are going to subdue a population that is not ready to live with and the indigenous nature of this struggle in Kashmir has to be seen separately from the struggle which has been hijacked by the so-called jehadis remnants from Russian invasion of Afghanistan.
Now these trigger happy people who were created by Berzenskzi and top national security advisors who helped neutralise the threat that communism posed to the world within a short span of ten years. The neutralisation of USSR empire in Afghanistan has helped NATO to expand and has taken away the fear of USSR invasion across the plains of Rhine. All that has been conveniently forgotten and everyone has forgotten what a catastrophe we were facing and how nations like Pakistan, with the overwhelming of USA, were able to hold off the threat of the Evil Empire. Now Evil Empire has been forgotten and we have also forgotten in 1990 and the peace dividend that was associated with the neutralisation of the USSR and the associated closeness and opening of the markets has all trivialised. The opening of China that has today made 120 million Chinese use telephones and the technology of Motorolla and the nation, which had a small role but a pivotal one nevertheless, that brought the Republicans in touch with Chou En lai is now cast as the new Satan. The U2 flights from Peshawar, the SEATO, the CENTO and the encirclement of the Communist powers where India was always neutral. The role of Vietnam and where the supply flights were going through Pakistan. And post September 11 where Mianwalli and Dalbendin and Jacobabad all the missions to Afghanistan by America was through these Pakistan facilities. The CIA capturing the Al Qaeeda right from the city of Lahore, like Abu Zubaidah and the insinuation that Pakistan is not the new Iraq or Afghanistan is because a friendly Pakistan is an insurance for the team of President Bush against instability at the confluence.
We may not understand the history but the military historians in US history understand that the historical reasons of this huge army. Why the area between the Jhelum and Peshawar was made the major recruiting grounds for the British land forces. These were the people for the Lancer 13 and were known to be the martial races. This is the region and the area between Jhelum and Peshawar who under Col Nicholoson in 1857 subdued the sepoy mutiny in India. Bahadur Shah Zuffar (Mughal Emperor) was restored by the soldier of Uhud, Jansi and Lucknow. The soldiers from this area under Col Nicholson has shown a historical discipline towards millitary ethics and at the speed of 27 miles a day reached Delhi, subdued Delhi and the rebellion. It was the Pathans and Punjabs (with a few sikhs intersperesed) who subdued the sepoy mutiny. Whose side they were fighting but for the British Empire.
The mutiny of Pakistani army and a bullet through Mush head is a convenient dialogue but look at it this is the army that traces its roots to discipline. The 13th Lancer I mention was a Pukthun division commanded by a British commander and fought the Ottoman Empire in the Holy Land, despite the fact that the Pathans had a religious alliance with the Ottomans. To defeat the ottomans in palestine by pathan of the 13 th lancer (can be verified by the internet) and this is the origins of the Pakistan army. The Guide cavalry, the Probyn Horse, Hobson horse and the Baluch and Punjab have ahd the honour and distinction to serve in the 1st and 2nd World War. Thousands of them lay buried in Sommes, Gallipoli, Suez and these guys were cannon fodder for the British Empire and they served with distinction. One of the reason that militarism became so deeply entrenched in Pakistan is that the British never trusted the south. They realised that Col Nicholson's men and the martial races were the recruiting grounds for the Indian Union army. This is why the Muslims had a disproportionately large representation in the British army. That is the historical reason of the fact that Pakistan army has an influence and of course Islam encourages strongman dictatorship and that is what is happening from Rabat to Dar-es-Salam.
Military dictatorship or democracy but Pakistan has more democracy than other Islamic nation. I write these articles, publish my photo and fight against the theocracy in Pakistan. The very freedom I have and the freedom in our press is that something I see every day. Military dictatorship fo Iraq or Syria is experienced by me and I see what freedom of press is. Most of the time in our press the condemnation of President Mussharaf is in the first pages. That is the strength of the dictator where you ahve a dictatroship without a muzzling of the press and that is a very unique arrangement.
In my opinion there is too much of democracy and opinions that is most of an issue. For the new elections fifteen thousand candidates and Jamaat Islami & religious right has made an alliance. May be 30 out of 350 at the best and allow this kind of election in Egypt and there will be 90% of votes for the rightist parties. Even in India and Israel the extremists’ parties are on the rise. BJP has an alliance with RSS and no one really needs RSS, this is the party whose member killed Mahatma Gandhi and this is the party whose intellectual works on nationalism gave impetus to Hitler on the rise of Nazism. This party is today a part of the Indian government. Basically there will be an array of parties as a result of the elections and yes Mussharaf is not a deeply popular man with the corrupt elite of Pakistan whose icons are Nawaz and Benazir. Nawaz owns 4 apartments whilst Benazir has $40mn dollars in Citicorp accounts in Dubai. The absconding of Sharif and Bhutto is the fact that they are refusing to sign a global affidavit of disowning assets. Suharto has signed such an affidavit and the Indonesian government is slowly taking over his companies. Pakistani government has given the option that whatever your assets beyond the means of your wealth, which extends to hundreds of millions of dollars, should be accounted for and they should sign the global affidavit.
There is chance for Bhutto to be whiter than Caesar's wife but greed has prevented it. Pakistan army has contributed to the cancer of the democratic institutions but as an academic I see that they have worked as a proxy government for other nations and has worked as a surrogate army in various parts of the world along with serving the interest it has got a certain levy. Due to geographical sensitivity of Pakistan they happen to in the midst of things. I have no doubt in my mind that China uses Pakistan as a proxy to neutralise Indian influence and Chinese have a great influence and India in its own arrogance fails to recognise the fact that despite declaring China no 1 they tend to entangled with Pakistan.
A great nation is known by its opponent and I can realise how frustrated it must be for a great nation like India to be entangled with a "failed2 state like Pakistan. These are matters that only times and for 700 years India was ruled ruthlessly and merciless by invaders from the north and India has been able to cordon these invaders into the north. In my opinion it had a soothing effect on the Subcontinent and i think a realistic evaluation of your opponents and realistic sizing of the opportunity. Since 11 September and all the rumours about Pakistan (Mussharaf has a shaken ground of support amongst the army, the generals are planning a countercoup, terrorism and Islamism is too endemic) and they are not many three star generals who will become four star generals at one given time.
The ease through which he was able with a single stroke of pen of hard core generals of Usmani, Mehmood and Aziz is a very telling story. Chief is the boss and Pakistan army is a chief's army. It could be beneficial if the chief is good with the right ideology on the other hand it can be bad if the chief is a fundamentalism but even a fundamentalist & a zealot like Zia was a closest American ally.
But when he and his entire army command was wiped in August of 1987 in a plane crash there was no coup in Pakistan army, the next senior most general took over. Since October I have been harping that forget about coups and nukes being taken over by terrorists since an army that can face for the last six months 700,000men in the border is indeed a well structured. |
