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Placing Pakistan in a Vise
By Omer bin Abdullah
29/10/2001
In the U.K., as British armed forces minister Adam Ingram compared his own party's dissenters opposing military strikes on Afghanistan to Nazi appeasers before the beginning of World War II, and elsewhere, independent thought and action may soon be entering the endangered list.
Asked by Sky TV if he regarded Labor critics of the war as the moral equivalent of Nazi appeasers, Ingram said: "I think we are moving towards that. I think we are dealing with an evil that is stalking the world today which has very clear analogies towards Nazism and Fascism and those who give it succor and support have got to question their judgment."
Despite such dangers, several outspoken writers have stated that the war has been initiated without proving allegations made against the accused. Such thinking does not elude Pakistan, and despite President Pervez Musharraf's claims, many Pakistanis remain skeptical about the legality of the war against Afghanistan.
For its part, the Western media is finding any excuse to drum up the ghost of a "fundamentalist" takeover of Pakistan. The mere rhetoric of Jamaat-i-Islami (a Pakistani religious-based political party) chief Qazi Husain Ahmed commenting that Musharraf's downfall was imminent, was interpreted as the coming of an Islamic revolution in the country. Of course, such a scenario involved the control of Pakistan's nuclear trigger by the "evil", read Islamic, forces.
Consequently, any anti-war protests in Pakistan are assigned to "pro-Taliban", "pro-Bin Ladin", and "fundamentalist" forces, conveniently forgetting that while Pakistan never had an Islamic government, it has experienced three governments led by the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP), which includes socialism in its manifesto. Although the party degenerated into perpetuating Pakistan's feudal society, it genuinely does include leftist cadres. Western journalists fail to see that these leftist elements may also be riding the coattails of the Islamic parties, taking their own shots against Western forces. But presently, Western readers are being led to believe that a sinister and monolithic "Islamic" force is solely opposing the U.S. war in Afghanistan.
Understandably, the question of control over nuclear assets by a "friendly", read secular, force, rather than an "adversary", read Islamic, force was on Larry King's mind when he recently brought up issue with Musharraf, who maintained: "I am very, very sure that the command and control set-up that we have evolved for ourselves is very, very, secure, and nuclear weapons are extremely safe and there are no extremists within the armed forces who could try to seize control of them in the current crisis."
On October 23rd, Musharraf, who presided over a special session of the National Command Authority (NCA) - the highest controlling authority of Pakistan's nuclear assets - attended by the foreign minister, the interior minister, joint chiefs of staff committee, the three services chiefs, the vice chief of army staff, senior scientists and other senior military and civil officials, said: "I have reassured the world leaders that the strategic capability is fully safeguarded and there exists no possibility whatsoever of its falling into any wrong hands."
Interestingly, Musharraf's NCA address followed U.S. Under Secretary of State for Economic, Business, and Agricultural Affairs, Alan P. Larson, meeting with Pakistani economic journalists at Ambassador Wendy Chamberlin's residence on October 21st, where he stressed that U.S. concerns about nuclear proliferation, control over weapons of mass destruction and democracy, were not going to change, despite the much hyped recipe for economic cooperation with Pakistan.
Larson reiterated that, "The United States is a country that has global responsibilities. And we are going to be concerned about weapons of mass destruction, making sure that there are controls on them, because that contributes to global security, something that we are going to be always interested in."
It is significant that the State Department aide who came to discuss economic cooperation issues should pointedly hint at the nuclear program. The U.S., thus, delivered a message to Musharraf that economic aid has a price, and that its nuclear assets are among the bargaining chips.
L. K. Advani, Indian home minister, often described as India's prime minister-in-waiting and was part of the gang that destroyed the historic Babri Masjid, talking to Hari Jaisingh of the
Chandigarh Tribune on October 24th, described the U.S.'s current war against the Taliban as Phase I of a drive against global terrorism. Advani added: "In Phase II, they have promised support to India's fight against terrorism in Kashmir."
Advani, stressing that India will have to fight its own battles, pointed out that a Kashmiri liberation movement was declared a terrorist organization after he talked to British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who in turn lobbied U.S. President George W. Bush on India's behalf.
Advani's statement needs to be read in the context of Larson's statement that being a friend of the U.S., it was India's
right "to expect that we would be attentive to their concerns," including discussions on nuclear issues.
It is clear that not only Larry King, but also world leaders are asking Musharraf how he plans to keep Pakistan's nuclear assets in acceptable hands, while also addressing why Pakistan needs nuclear assets in the first place.
Advani is a key figure in the making of India's policies and postures, and every visiting dignitary makes it a point to meet and interact with him - from Tony Blair to U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell. U.S. ambassador Robert D. Blackwill is reported to be a regular visitor.
Karachi's daily News on October 26th, reported that Pakistan has been informally asked to provide the Mianwali airbase to the U.S. - a site located close to a Pakistani nuclear facility.
Musharraf is not only being asked to safeguard Pakistan's nuclear trigger, but also to pick up the pieces after the American assault, because U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has declared that a post-war Afghanistan is not the U.S.'s concern, and that their focus is to remove the forces that they see as their direct enemies - Osama bin Ladin, al-Qaeda and the Taliban.
But the need for the care of a post-Taliban Afghanistan may not be necessary, as U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney told
The Washington Post that the war on terrorism that began on October 7th "may never end. At least, not in our lifetimes." And General Richard Myers, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Cheney's assessment "may be correct."
"I think this is going to be a long, hard-fought conflict, and it will be global in scale," Myers said. "It won't be, as I mentioned earlier, it won't be just military.
"It's going to be all the instruments of our national power with our friends and allies. And the fact that it could last several years or many years or maybe our lifetimes would not surprise me," Myers told ABC's "This Week".
Such long-term goals can only lead to a scenario in which Musharraf will be reduced to a pathetic Yasser Arafat-like figure, allowed to reign, but not rule, charged with jailing, maiming and murdering his own people in order to maintain a status quo favored by the Western alliance.
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