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2 THE ROVING EYE 'Our' dictator gets away with
it By Pepe Escobar
invention of
the Taliban by General Nasirullah Babar, and then
formally recognized the regime alongside other
bastions of democracy such as Saudi Arabia and the
United Arab Emirates (the Bill Clinton
administration, of course, was staunchly
pro-Taliban all through the latter half of the
1990s).
Any doubts about Bhutto should be
cleared with her niece, the lovely Fatima Bhutto,
a Karachi-based poet and writer. Fatima is
the
daughter of Mir Murtaza Bhutto, killed in front of
the family house in 1996 in Karachi when Benazir
was premier. Not only Fatima remains loyal to her
father's memory, she accuses her aunt outright of
posing as savior of democracy in Pakistan,
charging that her collaboration with Musharraf is
so blatant "that people now brand her party – the
PPP - the "Pervez People's Party".
Musharraf is not referred to in Pakistan
as "Busharraf" for nothing. Blowback for Bush
hailing Musharraf as a dependable "war on terror"
attack dog already is and will continue to be as
inevitable as gun-running in the tribal areas.
Every well-informed Pakistani knows of the
Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI)-Taliban
dangerous liaisons on both sides of the border (as
much as any tribal would say there is no border to
speak of; it's all part of Pashtunistan).
And they know what really matters for
Washington is the "war on terror" - and Musharraf
and/or the next military dictatorship will keep
being financed to the tune of US$1 billion a year
no matter what.
And people know the
Pakistani army, martial law or Bush administration
largesse notwithstanding, always plays by its and
not the US-issued rules of the "war on terror".
Flying emirates Amid the
current vacuum the Pakistani blogosphere remains
awash in doomsday scenarios - from Washington
betting on the neo-Taliban to close in on
Islamabad so they can take over Pakistan's nuclear
arsenal to Musharraf offering Bush a helping
"military base" hand in an attack on Iran; from an
American strike to take out the ISI to the
American-sponsored emergence of an independent
Balochistan and an independent Pashtunistan.
For the moment, it's enlightening to keep
track of what's happening on the ground while
Musharraf was proceeding with his "let's jail all
the lawyers" scheme.
The Taliban already
control large parts of Afghanistan and Kabul
itself could fall in the next spring offensive.
Pashtunistan is back with a vengeance.
The
neo-Taliban have established a de facto Islamic
emirate in North Waziristan, with Mirali as its
capital; this is the home base of fabled Afghan
jihad commander Jalaluddin Haqqani and his son
Sirajuddin. The emir is none other than Mullah
Omar (remember him - the uber-Taliban who escaped
American bombing in 2001 on the back of a
motorcycle?). Both Haqqanis run the day-to-day
operations. The emirate's tentacles are up and
running in all seven tribal agencies. This is in
practice an embryo Pashtunistan - with Pashtuns
from both Pakistan and Afghanistan plus fighters
from Uzbekistan and a lot of "Chechens" (that's
how the tribals call anyone from the former Soviet
republics).
From its Waziristan base the
emirate has comfortably launched an offensive in
the formerly quiet Swat Valley - not to mention a
strong presence in the very center of Peshawar.
Taliban FM stations rapping on jihad are all the
rage in the tribal areas. The Taliban have taken
over police stations, erected their own white
flags, and their leader Maulana Fazlullah has
literally taken over the Swat Valley, appointing
his own "governors" and setting up Islamic courts.
This boiling cauldron is a direct
consequence of Bush's self-proclaimed "freedom
agenda" presupposing dictator Musharraf as an ally
in the "war on terror". The Pakistani army and
police have refused to fight the "enemy within" as
established by a US-controlled dictator.
When Bush ordered Musharraf to do the "war
on terror" shuffle "our" dictator arrested the
usual Arab and Uzbek suspects but left the Taliban
unmolested. When Pentagon ire reached fever pitch,
Musharraf blamed the Pashtuns as a whole for
supporting the Taliban. Then he cut a deal – ie
bribed - tribal leaders in South Waziristan to
turn the heat on the Taliban. They pocketed the
bribe and did nothing.
Virtually all
Taliban are Pashtuns but not every Pashtun is a
Taliban. Many a Pashtun can't stand forced
Talibanization. Musharraf sending the army to
smash Pashtun tribals has not and will not
accomplish anything. Only true democracy will. But
the Pakistani army – Musharraf, Kiani, whoever -
is not interested in democracy, only in
perpetuating their power and privilege.
Your nation is no
more Musharraf's bungled approach has in
fact accelerated what may be the partition of
Pakistan - a cataclysmic event that would not be
exactly regretted in Washington. Admiral William
Fallon, US Central Command chief, has made a
typical Bush administration "creative destruction"
proposition to Musharraf: let us fight the Taliban
in the tribal areas and in the Swat Valley.
Musharraf might have been in trouble, but he's
certainly not suicidal; that would lead directly
to the partition of Pakistan.
Khaled Ahmed
of the Friday Times newspaper has been one among
many to alert what may happen: Pakistan reduced to
basically the Punjab. The NWFP would gladly
recover a lot of hydroelectric power. Balochistan
would gladly recover a lot of gas - and become a
Turkmenistan-style gas republic. And Sindh would
gladly profit from its industry and ports.
The partition of Pakistan as we know it is
not such a far-fetched scenario because, according
to a wealth of Pakistani civil society's opinions,
there seems to be no national consensus whatsoever
regarding the current mega-crisis. This is above
all a crisis of the Pakistani state - which simply
cannot be in place any more just based on an idea
of Islam.
Washington think-tanks will come
up with piles of studies certifying how to profit
from the partition of Pakistan. For the moment,
there are just the pedestrian imperatives of the
Pentagon frantically seeking alternative routes to
its transport axis (75% of supplies, 40% of oil)
to Afghanistan via Pakistan. It's a safe bet to
say absolutely none of the neighbors -
Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Iran -
are remotely interested.
In his 2005
inaugural address, Bush solemnly declared to all
freedom-loving peoples in the world the US would
"not ignore your oppression, or excuse your
oppressors". As the Bush-Musharraf embrace is
still on, Pakistanis have the right to attribute
their sorrow to the fact their nation has been
mercilessly squeezed in between.
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