Bigger battlefield

For the first time, US drones have moved beyond the tribal areas that border Afghanistan and struck inside the Bannu district. Four persons are reported to have been killed as two missiles rained down on a residential compound. Accounts vary as to the identity of the dead. Some reports suggest three foreign nationals, including an Al Qaeda commander, were among the victims. The local MPA has angrily denied this and stated all those who died were innocent local people. Once more, there is rage and anger over the drone strike.

As always, the truth is impossible to uncover. But for Pakistan's government, the indication that the US may be ready to expand its range of operations is ominous. The prime minister and the president have tried repeatedly to parry angry attacks made on them by the opposition for failing to prevent the drone attacks by launching fierce condemnations of the action. These words cannot change the fact that there have been at least 16 drone raids since August this year – far more than the number that took place during seven previous months of the year. The missile attack in a settled area will bring still more pressure on Islamabad to act in defence of its sovereignty.

So far, President Zardari seems to have pinned his hopes on a change in US strategy by the incoming Obama administration. He and other members of the government have stated on several occasions that they are optimistic policy will be reviewed and altered. The question is what, if anything, Pakistan is doing to make this more likely and to bring about a change in the views of president-elect Barack Obama regarding tactics in Pakistan, given that consistently through his electoral campaign he had adopted a hard-line stance. Somehow, Islamabad needs to find a way to persuade Washington that it would more effectively be able to fight terrorism if it was allowed to do so on its own and that such a war would win greater support from people. This would give the effort against terrorism far greater strength. But in order to convince Washington, Islamabad needs to be certain of its own full commitment and conviction. It must explain why the militants that the US has apparently been able to eliminate during some of its strikes had not been pin-pointed and dealt with by Pakistan. If this is due to intelligence failure then loopholes in the system urgently need to be plugged. Only if we can demonstrate a readiness and ability to deal with terrorists on our own, will the US be willing to hear what our leaders have to say. This calls for the drawing up of detailed blueprints and plans. So far, it is quite obvious that even though the stepped-up operation against militants has been appreciated, Washington is not confident that terrorists can be dealt with by Pakistan on its own. It has also failed to see that the controversial drone attacks are adding to the complications involved in dealing with terrorism and thus, in reality, playing into the hands of the dangerous band of militants who seem to have set up base across our northern areas.

In the name of revenge

It appears that General (r) Ameer Faisal Alvi, a former head of the military Special Services Group (SSG), who was shot dead in a daring attack in Islamabad, may have been killed in revenge for his past involvement in operations against militants in the tribal areas. No other motive has been suggested for the assassination, carried out by killers, riding motorbikes and a jeep, who opened fire on the general's car and then fled. The ex-military man had been receiving threats from the Taliban for several months. His murder was obviously planned well in advance. It is thought he was made a target because he commanded the SSG group in a covert operation against militants, 'Operation Mountain Lion' carried out in Waziristan in 206, with US and British involvement. At least 12 militants had been killed by Alvi's unit, others arrested. Among them were a number of foreigners.

The Taliban, it seems, were eager to deliver a clear-cut message. The retired general was seen as a 'soft target'. His death, alongside that of his driver, is a reminder of the extremist hatred for the forces acting against them and of their ruthlessness. The game of revenge is obviously a dangerous one. It is not known if other targets are in sight. The killing could also set a pattern that 'copy cat' assassins emulate, to gun down, in a similar fashion, those involved in actions against militants at various times. The thought is a terrifying one. We already have, in our society, far too many strands of violence. An addition to them is obviously not a development to look forward to. Solutions to the situation are not easy to find. But the government must, with the military and other security outfits, consider a way to make the country a safer place; heads must be put together to find a way. Unless we can achieve this, the walk down the dangerous path that leads only to darkness will not be halted and this cannot augur well for any of us anywhere in the country

Home again, home again

The eight children abandoned at the Edhi Foundation in Karachi have been retrieved by their parents. Promises of financial assistance for the families, who apparently felt compelled to give away their children due to poverty, have been made. The families, whose meagre houses have been thronged by media contingents, say they are sceptical that the money will be delivered, but it seeams likely some at least will trickle through. For a short time, the families will be better off than they were before, until the money runs out – as it inevitably will.

But the question is, what lessons, if any, have we learnt. The chief minister of Sindh and others who have offered support were surely not unaware of the fact that people, such as the families now in the limelight, lived in perpetual crisis. They must also know there are others like them. The fact is that while cash hand-outs to a few families may solve their immediate problems, such relief has no wider benefit. It is simply the most convenient way for the government to demonstrate sympathy to suffering. In the past too, similar 'donations' have been made to the family of a young mother who killed herself and two small children earlier this year in Lahore and indeed to others. What we need is policies that address the key issues of people. While the stories of desperate parents who kill, abandon or try to sell their children draw headlines, the fact is many other tales of misery are not heard. We must look beyond handouts, to strategies that can uplift the huge segment of people who live in poverty or hover just above the poverty line, living in a kind of twilight zone into which a light is shone only occasionally, when incidents such as the dramatic events seen at the Edhi centre take place.


The Predator strike on a Bannu village marks a first: the first missile strike outside FATA (the acronym to describe the seven tribal agencies--now the scene of the mayhem the United States and its blundering ways are visiting upon Pakistan). Predator drones we foolishly supposed would not venture outside the tribal belt. Our American friends have surprised us once again, drawing another circle of riotous laughter around the streaming banner of our constantly-embattled sovereignty.

We will of course protest and say this is unacceptable. The prime minister--poor, helpless, likeable Yousuf Raza Gilani--will go into another paroxysm of high-flying indignation. But nothing will change and our American friends will not be deterred because they know what feigned Pakistani indignation is worth.

The Washington Post was not far wrong. It touched a raw nerve when it suggested that a 'tacit' understanding had been reached between Washington and Islamabad whereby America could launch what missile strikes it wanted in the tribal borderlands while Pakistan was free to rail and beat its chest, which is what Pakistan is doing. Indeed, in defence of American interests we are proving to be amongst the world's most accomplished liars, every day our government issuing denials which no one believes.

Our responses can also be comical. Because from President Asif Zardari to Prime Minister Gilani the pious hope is embraced that these missile strikes, violations of our precious sovereignty, will hopefully cease when Barack Obama enters office. Such investment in unmerited hope can have few parallels.

The Americans can pat themselves on the back for the change they have helped engineer in Pakistan: replacing a yes-man---Pervez Musharraf---who had outlived his utility and had become a liability with a fresh yes-man---President Zardari---who is all too keen to do America's bidding and prove his usefulness to his American benefactors, who helped his rise to power.

Musharraf had no popular backing and his creation, the Q League, was an artificial construct, a king's party shored up by government help and patronage. Zardari heads a popular party and indeed, on present reckoning, the country's biggest party, the PPP. The rank-and-file of the PPP certainly don't want to toe any American line. If they were to be true to their culture they would shout that any friend of America's is a traitor. But the PPP leadership in the person of Mr Zardari is sold on proving its usefulness to America. Which is a strange role for the party of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto: playing Uncle Tom to America's master. But with an NRO-whitewashed leadership what could we have expected?

I am sure Musharraf's biggest regrets are (1) trying to get rid of Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry and (2) granting a blanket pardon to Zardari. The move against Chaudhry triggered the lawyers' movement which fatally weakened Musharraf. Zardari is wrong to downplay the significance of that movement. Without it Musharraf would have been under little compulsion to reach out to Benazir Bhutto and bring Zardari in from the cold. Without the NRO whitewash--the biggest dry-cleaning operation in Pakistan's history--Zardari would not be where he is today: lord of the presidency and, by virtue of commanding a popular party, more powerful than Musharraf in his tinselly uniform.

But Zardari's gain has been Pakistan's tragedy. Musharraf put the army, which was all that he had at his disposal, at the service of American interests. He did not rule the hearts and minds of anyone save those dejected remnants of the Q League who still pine for his restoration. Zardari has more going for him: a popular party and the stamp of public approval. He is after all an elected president, the army's 'crack' 111 Brigade--that great instrument of constitutional arbitration, its interpretation of the Constitution sounder than the Supreme Court's--having had nothing to do with his elevation. All these gifts Zardari has put at the service of the United States.

Musharraf can cry his heart out. He was never this effective. He was good enough for 2001; without his uniform not good enough for 2008. In any event, he was Bush's boy. Bush has passed from history. The USA of Obama requires a new Uncle Tom, with democratic plating, the role into which President Zardari is growing. As the Iraq war is downgraded and the focus shifts to Afghanistan, as Obama has promised to do, more will be required from Pakistan. Zardari, on prevailing evidence, is not likely to disappoint.

What a host of ironies the February elections threw up. The people of Pakistan, chumps as ever, thought they were knocking at the gates of a new redemption. Little could they have realised that they were merely tinkering with the old and giving it a new facelift. The people of Pakistan haven't been betrayed. That would be to put too apocalyptic a meaning on current events. They have merely been used to lend the semblance of popular backing to an unpopular cause. Pakistan's democracy is now hitched to America's war chariot which is not quite what the people of Pakistan were expecting when they marched to the polling booths on Feb 18.

The army, lest we forget, is a willing accomplice of these developments. It is not averse to the task of performing sentry duty for America and fighting its war. Indeed, under its new command, it has brought to this task a new zest. Musharraf never carried out such sustained operations as in Bajaur. He did not use F-16s in FATA. He carried out American orders but only up to a point. That is why our American friends had begun to nurse grievances against him. That is also why there was no end to the refrain "do more". Now we hear less of this refrain because the army under Gen Ashfaq Pervaiz Kayani, Allah be praised, is doing more and the Americans don't know how to hide their satisfaction.

Up to a point Musharraf knew how to play the Americans. The new combo we have, Zardari and Kayani, is not playing the Americans. They are playing the Pakistani people by leading a loud chorus about sovereignty when in fact Pakistani sovereignty, or what remains of it, lies fatally compromised because of Pakistan's servitude to American interests. There is no winning this war. The Americans eventually will get out. Invaders throughout history have not stayed in Afghanistan for long. We will be left holding the dishes as we did in 1988 when the Americans lost interest in Afghanistan after the Geneva Accords. Why are we so adamant about not learning from history?

Kayani has rehabilitated the army's image to a certain extent but not to change direction in FATA, only to fight America's war better. Of what use such rehabilitation?

But the sorry thing is that where there should be an anti-war movement there is none. Ordinary Pakistanis feel dismayed but there is no one to give voice to their discontent. Parliament is not the tribune it should be. From the MQM to the ANP to the Q League, every party is marching to the tune being played by the presidency and General Headquarters and composed by the US. The PML-N is betwixt and between, not happy with the way things are turning out but not shedding its reservations and not adopting a clear-cut or loud enough stand.

A counter-voice is thus missing. Those trying to speak out against the threat that this war represents are too small or weak to have an impact. So, this is turning out to be a land of the speechless, a land in pain but because of some conspiracy of the stars or of history (I can think of no other explanation) unable to give voice to its misgivings. The resulting void is being filled by the cult of the suicide bomber. Has Pakistan nothing better to offer?



Email: winlust@yahoo.com

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Regards,
P.R.