Passage to Nowhere
Labelling Enemies as Terrorist
At face value the brutal murder of Abdur Rahman, Afghanistan Interim Government (AIG) Minister for Aviation and Tourism, looked like a spontaneous mob reaction by Hajj-bound Afghans irate at not being provided aircraft for their pilgrimage. Actually it was a carefully planned execution deliberately carried out publicly with multiple intentions, viz (1) to eliminate a person within the regime viewed as a turncoat (2) to put the fear of God into the other leaders in the AIG for not complying with the dictates of the Punjsheeri Tajiks and (3) escape retribution by camouflaging the assassination as mob violence because of an emotional issue. Abdur Rahman belonged to Jamaat-e-Islami before a disagreement with late Ahmed Shah Masood forced him to flee to New Delhi. He later joined the Monarchists loyal to King Zahir Shah. To the Punjsheeri Tajiks Abdur Rahman was a traitor twice-over, a dead-man walking, waiting to be symbolically eliminated, a very public warning to someone who had the temerity to question the Punjsheeri Tajik-cult hero, late Ahmed Shah Masood.
Back to the Friendship
Daniel Pearl’s kidnapping hitting the media headlines notwithstanding, there is surprisingly a lot of warmth in the US about Pakistan. This is a post-Sept 11 development. The quite unnecessary pronouncement by Richard Haas about Pakistan being on the way of being “a failed State” pre-Sept 11 was shocking, maybe it was meant to satisfy an Indian audience but coming from the Head of Policy Planning of the US State Department it was probably meant to shock. For the record there is as much association of Pakistan with terrorism as most other countries in the world, there being a fine line between freedom fighters and terrorists. Not the fallacy India has been desperately trying to project but one must accept that we have made our share of mistakes over the years, in this day and age it is no surprise they are coming home to roost. Wherever one went, people knew General Pervez Musharraf by name, he was spoken of with admiration. Everyone seemed to know that he was engaging in sweeping reforms at great personal risk. They held him out as an example of commitment to do the right thing. What they were surprised to hear was that the process of change had been initiated earlier, only the speed had increased manifold. More of a pleasant surprise was that Pakistanis of all ilk were united in the premise that Musharraf not only represented Pakistan’s best hope, he in fact was their last hope. Used to the edifying sight of a divided Pakistani community abroad, the contra elements were drowned out of contention and became a fringe element. The President’s visit came at a good time for Pakistan, for a change there was a receptive audience in USA for a Pakistani leader. Since the rest of the world does more or less at this time what the US wants, one expects a very positive fallout from his presence in the world’s capital.
Davos in New York
Almost 150 days to the day that the Sept 11 horror struck New York, the 31st Annual World Economic Forum (WEF) opened in the Waldorf Astoria, the first time the annual gathering had travelled outside the ski-resort of Davos. As a vote of solidarity and sympathy, Klaus Schwab rang up (then) Mayor Rudy Guiliani to initiate the logistics feat of shifting the world’s “movers and shakers” to be able to discuss tangible issues under tight security. Seattle New York is not, New York Police Department (NYPD) outnumber Seattle’s 6,000 cops by many multiple times. Well trained, the city’s finest handled protesters without resorting to violence. Over 3,000 important figures from the world of business and industry, at least 30 Heads of State and Government (including a handful of monarchs), government functionaries, academics, media persons, NGO representatives, etc ran the gauntlet of protesters on Park Avenue and stringent security checks to discuss the theme of the Meeting, “Leadership in Fragile Times”.
With Enemies like Advani
Believe it or not, it is increasingly becoming a fact that India’s Home Minister L K Advani is Pakistan’s biggest asset in the struggle to counter India’s motivated propaganda to declare Pakistan “a terrorist State”. His place on this pedestal would be a dead heat with George Fernandes but Fernandes is a Christian and despite his best efforts to sound like a Hindu revivalist, he lacks the venom that Advani generates inherently due to the basic character quirk in the conservative Hindu psyche bedevilling Hindu-Muslim relationship in the South Asian sub-continent. It is no coincidence that Sindhi Advani feels that his ancestors let the side down by allowing Muhammad Bin Qasim establish a foothold for Islam in the sub-continent in the first place. He has made eradication of Muslim rule anywhere in the regional hemisphere his personal war to wage, there being no comparable word in the Hindu religion for “Jehad” or “crusade”.
Lessons from History
The lessons of realpolitik emerging from Afghanistan are extremely scary for countries hard put to defend themselves, both physically against aggression as well as targeted media campaigns that may be less than liberal with the truth. Before the two World Wars, the major powers would decide the fate of nations at their will, which country could or could not exist, and if they should exist, in what form? A de facto government-in-place in Kabul allowed the Punjsheeris to virtually compose the Interim Government heavily weighted in their favour, ostensibly at the expense of the Pakhtuns, in fact at everyone’s expense, fellow Tajiks included, among them their nominal leader former President Burhanuddin Rabbani as well as warlords Dostum and Ismail Khan. That the US, whom some of us look upto as the symbol of fairplay and justice, compromised their high moral standards at the altar of convenience, was disappointing. A hint of silver lining is that Hamid Karzai got his way in moving Punjsheeri troops out of Kabul, Fahim and Qanooni reluctantly signing off on that arrangement with the International Peacekeeping Force.
The Three Tajiketeers
While the Taliban Regime was decidedly Pashtun-heavy, the new interim government installed in Kabul on Dec 22 has swung to other extreme, weighted so blatantly in favour of the Punjsheeri Tajiks, it calls into question the credibility of UN as a fair adjudicator. This distorted parity does not auger well for the peace process, it is a sure recipe for continuance of chaos and confusion.
Back to the Future
Pakistan has lived for more than two decades under the threat of a religious Sword of Damocles, after the Talibs took over in Afghanistan in 1996 our “future” began to take name and shape, the Talibanisation of Pakistan. A very vocal, religious minority in Pakistan held a rather submissive and terrified liberal majority in virtual thrall, threatening to convert our present back to the past and to make our future bleak. While religious teaching is more than necessary it can never be a complete education by itself, given the technological advances, theology is hopelessly mired in the past. Instead of investing in more schools and colleges, we allowed Madrassahs to move into this vacuum, proportionately increasing ignorance among our school going children. An absence of basic world knowledge among our youth virtually asked to be exploited by the religiously motivated. The religious rioting in Pakistan in September/October this year had the streets brimming over with sympathy for the Taliban. The youth yelled their throats hoarse and lungs out in support of “their” heroes Osama bin Laden and Mullah Umar, a frenzied thousand or so crossing over into Afghanistan to join the ranks already fighting with the Taliban. Moulvi Sufi Mohammad of the Tehrik Shahriah Nifaz Muhammadi (TSNM) flamboyantly led them across the border on prime time TV, first in he was first out, abandoning them on the “every man for himself” basis and making it safely back across. Sales of Osama bin Laden T-shirts nose-dived when Osama took off on the age-old principle, discretion is the better part of valour. Heroes are supposed to fight and die fighting, not to slink from hole to hole in the night like common thieves.
Back to the Past
According to US Defence Secretary Rumsfeld, Mullah Umar, who is making a last stand in Kandahar, will probably go down fighting as he is “not the surrendering type”. Or so he is hoping so that Umar does not become a hot potato in their hands. In the meantime Osama bin Laden scurried away to find cover in some hole, probably the Tora Bora cave complex near Jalalabad, leaving in his wake dead and dying strewn across the Afghan countryside, the consequences of his many deeds, viz (1) distorting the Taliban interpretation of Islam and (2) leading them into collective suicide in militarily opposing the mightiest nation on earth. For the sake of his own hide, this man sacrificed not only his trusting hosts but those from foreign lands who believed his spiel, a latter day “Pied Piper” leading a naive and gullible people down the one-way road to death and destruction. Meantime about 1,500 US Marines near Kandahar are carrying out high-visibility exercises around their desert forward base, meant to keep the defenders of Kandahar on edge expecting imminent attack. The idea is to bomb and bluff the Taliban out of their stronghold and avoid casualties. Unfortunately some of the US casualties have been self-inflicted due to misdirected or stray bombs (“friendly fire”).
Untangling the Taliban
On the run for more than a fortnight since Oct 8, 2001, the Taliban faithful rallied somewhat to make a last stand in the five Provincial strongholds around their spiritual capital Kandahar. Once “foreign influence” on Mullah Umar in the form of Osama bin Laden took off for parts unknown, possibly deep into Pashtun heartland in the mountainous area astride the Pak-Afghan border between Khost and Jalalabad, rumours of imminent collapse in Kandahar because of disunity and internal dissension among the hard-core faithful, seemed to abate. The first US ground troops finally landed in Afghanistan, the Marines securing an airfield in the desert south-west of Kandahar as a firm base. Kandahar is indefensible and will certainly fall but widespread destruction and collateral damage to civilians all over Afghanistan could have been avoided by concentrating on simply isolating this city in the first place in keeping with the primary war aims. Airpower diplomacy of the late 20th century has not quite replaced gunboat diplomacy of the nineteenth. Starting with Iraq in 1991, the zero-sum casualties air-war strategy continued with Bosnia and Kosovo. In the end it is the infantry that must go in, the infantry which must hunt down the enemy. You may call them Special Forces, Rangers, Marines, whatever, high-tech cannot replace the foot-sloggers, they are the only ones who can hold ground. When the “lucky bomb” theory did not work, the only option left is the physical use of ground troops to root out the Taliban hierarchy.
The Talibs
Assuming the war with the Soviets would be a long drawn out one, CIA funded many of the Madrassahs through the ISI in the 80s as a future source of recruits. The Soviets packed up from Afghanistan far earlier than anticipated, Talib detachment with the various Mujahideen factions went home or back to the Madrassahs to continue their education. Pakistan did not really try convincing the Americans about their post-war responsibilities. Having seemingly defeated a Superpower by themselves, the then ISI bosses did not want the US to disturb their vision of a crescent of Pan-Islamic Countries. This naked individual ambition has contributed to the problems of this region today, the perpetrators still hiding behind “Islamic” garb and unbridled rhetoric as a convenient smoke screen. Only too happy to oblige, the Americans abdicated as paymasters in further financing the war or the peace to follow. Our then military rulers were not unduly worried, after all the Muslim world, led by the rich Arabs, would move in with massive funding, or so they thought! The net result, no post-war plan for Afghanistan, arrangements for economic aid and / or political rehabilitation, even in the pre-planning stage.