July 2010′s B-side should be called the American Betrayal of Pakistan for it includes two honest articles by two Americans no-less of how America has betrayed Pakistan. For that alone July 2010′s B-side is a must-read, as well as this the B-side is a must-read for its focus on the burning fire that is Balochistan. July 2010′s B-side contents include:
- I Cried for Jalib by MALIK SIRAJ AKBAR
- US Must Grow Up on Pakistan by MICHAEL SCHEUER
- Partisan Gridlock’s Long Reach by DAVID IGNATIUS
The first article covers an issue that is very close to my heart, Balochistan. The killing of Habib Jalib is a national tragedy and Malik Siraj Akbar’s article on that great man is a must read for all Pakistanis especially those who are both arrogant and ignorant of the fire that is burning in Balochistan.
I Cried for Jalib by Malik Siraj Akbar
Finally, I have no option but to delete 03003823908 from my cell phone. This was the phone number I often used to dial or get calls from. “late” Habib Jalib, secretary general of the Balochistan National Party who was killed here on Wednesday by unidentified assailants, used this number and humbly received phone calls after the second ring.
In the last couple of years, I have deleted several phone numbers from my cell phone after the contacts were target killed from time to time. I deleted the phone number of Ghulam Mohammad Baloch, the chairman of Baloch National Movement (BNM), even though he had promised to meet me “soon” in Quetta.
Every time 03003823908 rang, I would hear from the other side:
Han Siraj Kooo jaaa hey tho [Hey Siraj, where are you?]
I loved Jalib’s accent.
“Waja [sir],” I’d say jokingly, “You even speak Balochi in a Russian accent.”
He laughed. Straightened his long hair. Resumed talking.
Tho Harjoka hey, maan wathi gari hey sara kaheen. Tho bas sadak e sara bosth.
[Wherever you are. Stand on the road. I will come in my car (to pick you up).
Jalib had a wonderful sense of humor.
"You know what," he told me one day as we drove from Zarghoon Road to Prince Road, "Pakistanis do not value us. We have so much gas that if Dera Bugti was located in a Gulf country, all these Bugtis would have to add "Shiek" with their names," he said.
I agreed.
I was feeling inconvenient in my conversation due to the loud noise his kids, who were also in the car, made.
" waja thi gwando baaz kokar kanaan," I brazenly complained. [Sir, your kids make a lot of noise].
He laughed again, indicating that he would still not silence them.
” Let’s give them some democratic space. Let them say what please them,” he replied.
Jalib was man who staunchly believed in freedom of expression and democratic space.
Now that Jalib is no more, A Pakistani journalist based in Germany, who had met Jalib in Quetta while preparing a report on Balochistan, Facebooked me:
“OMG! He mentioned his small kid so many times when I went to see him last sept(ember).”
It took me several months to convince Jalib to write his memoirs. Finally, he agreed but insisted that I should write it for him as he did not find sufficient time to do the job. I reminded him that he was an extraordinary figure in the Baloch nationalist movement.
” Becha waja, Raziq Hancho shoth….hech he na liktha. Tho chosh makan. Thi yaad dashth baz alimi inth pa Baloch raja.”
[Sir, see Raziq (Bugti) died even without penning his memories. You should not do so. Your memoir is very important for the Baloch nation].
Jalib never got time to write his biography and I remained guilty of not visiting him more frequently.
Nargis Baloch, editor Daily Intekhab, is right: ” Balochs barely get time to do anything else except burying their dead bodies, mourning the disappearance of their beloved ones or nursing their wounds from a military operation.” Amid such circumstances, how would one get the peace of mind to sit and jot down one’s autobiography. Jalib’s autobiography would have been a wonderful addition to literature on Baloch nationalism. Perhaps both of us underestimated the enemy and overestimated the perpetuity of life.
Jalib never liked it when journalists added the word “Mengal” with BNP. He said calling his party BNP-Mengal was unfair because it was the real BNP. The rival faction, in his words, had the right to call itself “awami” or whatever but the BNP was simply BNP (not Mengal).
The best time for me to see Jalib very closely was a trip to Islamabad in which we spent several days together. I found him a very very humble, punctual and principled man. Jalib was an avid reader and one of the very few people who truly knew what Baloch nationalism was all about. As long as he was on the stage as a speaker, I remained convinced with my eyes closed that Balochitan’s case was being cogently pleaded. I envied his command over Baloch history, theory of nationalism, statistics on economic affairs and the maneuvering and penetration of the military in coastal areas of Balochistan. He was a marathon orator. He could speak for several hours without being repetitive at all.
Jalib was not a sardar, nor a Nawab’s son. He was a powerful man. A self-made man: Self-made from head to toe. Empowered by education. Like every middle class shining star, he was unacceptable to Balochistan’s tribal elite and the country’s military establishment. Tall trees cannot survive long in Balochistan. People with a tall stature get their heads chopped off. Educated people are a rare species in Balochistan. They come once in centuries. Jalib was one of them. They killed him because he was too brave to be ousted from Balochistan. He did not surrender in spite of being put into jail by Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, Zia-ul-Haq and Pervez Musharraf.
I cried. (Honestly, I had not cried for Nawab Bugti or Balach Marri).
I cried once.
I cried twice.
I cried again and again.
Jalib was among us: The middle class. The poors. The pedestrians. The dreamers.
This friend of mine whined that The Baloch Hal went overboard in covering Jalib’s assassination.
“Jalib wasn’t such a big guy to fill the whole of Baloch Hal with his news,” he grumbled.
I agreed with him. Jalib was not a big guy. He was not a landlord. He was not a feudal. He was not an intelligence tout. How could he then be a big guy?
The Pakistani media did not cover him the way he deserved to be reported. Except Samma TV and Duniay TV, rest of the TV channels put the news on number six to seven of their headlines’ list.
Was it that Jalib was not a big guy because Nawab Raisani or Nawab Magsi could not spare time to attend his funeral? No. Jalib was the big guy of the voiceless, educated middle class Baloch. Jalib was the hero of our times. He inspired our generation. He left a generation to adore his struggle. He captured the full page of the Baloch Hal and the front pages of several newspapers simply because he was Habib Jalib not the grandson of a great tribal chief who inherited large agricultural lands for collaborating with colonial masters to enslave the people of this land.
Those of us who knew comrade Jalib would surely testify Jalib’s love for Atta Shad’s couplet that I cite here to pay panagryic to him at the end of this rambling write-up. He never forgot to cite these lines in any speech he made.
Tao Pa Sarani Goddaga Zende Hayalaan Koshe
Pa Sendaga Daasht Kane Pulla`n Che Bo Taalanya
[Can you, by serving the heads
From the bodies,
Kill the living thoughts
And ideas?
Can you, by wrenching
The flowers from branches,
Stop their fragrance
From spreading]
Published in Baloch Hal
WASIM VIEW-Akbar’s article is more of a personal and heartfelt tribute to the work of Habib Jalib Baloch than a serious article. That said, I wish to echo the words of praise and want to pay tribute to Habib Jalib Baloch for his service to Pakistan as a senator and as a leading lawyer
Much of the content in the article makes for difficult reading for me as it is loaded with negative concepts of the ‘Baloch nation’ and the like. That said, Balochistan is a burning fire today and has been burning for decades owing to Pakistan’s step-motherly treatment.
Habib Jalib Baloch was a man who stood for Baloch rights yet he wished to work within the Pakistani system and became a senator and continued to believe in the federation of Pakistan.
It is this fact, that makes his death, a national tragedy for Pakistan, Habib Jalib Baloch was loyal to the Balochi and Pakistani cause as evidenced by the recent full court reference in the Balochistan High Court in his honour. The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan said of the man that ‘Habib Jalib was a voice of reason, both inside and outside the parliament, for disempowered people, not only in Balochistan but across the country.”
Habib Jalib Baloch’s death will weaken the federation and give succour to the voices of darkness. However those voices must fail if Pakistan is to succeed and it is in this context that Akbar’s article should be read as a wake-up call for Pakistan to continue a mission the Quaid began in 1947. The mission is a prosperous and autonomous Balochistan within the federation of Pakistan, when that is achieved, Habib Jalib Baloch can rest in peace.
The second article is written by Michael Scheuer and it is quite possibly the most honest article you will ever read on US-Pakistan relations.
US Must Grow Up on Pakistan by Michael Scheuer
Secretary of State Clinton’s visit to Islamabad last week demonstrated how far the US government has slipped into senility and how desperately it’s seeking an easy—some might say miraculous—way out of the Afghan war by getting others to do its fighting.
Clinton carried a Santa’s bag of $500 million in US taxpayer funds for Pakistan’s leaders and pledged that Washington will be a long-term ally in Pakistan’s economic and democratic development.Her hosts were gracious and naturally accepted the funds, but they know the money is a bribe and the only thing Clinton, the Obama administration and US generals want is for Pakistan’s army to keep shedding blood against America’s Islamist foes.
And Pakistan’s leaders know two other things: (a) their ability to do more of Washington’s dirty work is marginal because the destabilizing civil war caused by being a US ally is entering the Punjab region; and (b) the Islamists can only be beaten if the US military does its own killing and bleeding.
The Pakistanis also must have had quite a laugh when Clinton said she is aware that ‘some Pakistani official’ knows the location of Osama bin Laden and hoped that data would be given to Washington. Even if true, the Pakistanis must have wondered why they would give bin Laden to the Americans now, after Obama and NATO have said they’re leaving, and earn hatred from tens of millions of Muslims when they’re already faced with cleaning up the mess Western military failure will leave in Afghanistan.
How did Pakistan get into this state? Well the disaster is based on a mistaken judgment: former Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf believed the US government was serious about destroying the Islamists who attacked it on 9/11. As a career military officer, Musharraf surely thought US political leaders and generals would react as he and his peers would have reacted; that is, by destroying the attackers. Based on this expectation and under intense US pressure, Musharraf provided more aid for the US war effort than any other US ally, NATO or otherwise.
After 9/11, Musharraf allowed US military and intelligence services to expand their presence in Pakistan, and provided much needed military airspace. His security services worked with US counterparts to seize multiple, senior al-Qaeda leaders in Pakistan’s cities. He helped destroy the Taliban regime, even though Islamabad couldn’t have had an Afghan regime more compatible with Pakistan’s national interests. He also allowed part of Karachi harbor to become a naval and resupply base for US and NATO forces.
Most damagingly, though, Musharraf sent Pakistan’s conventional army into the Pashtun tribal lands along the border with Afghanistan for the first time since Pakistan was formed. Until Musharraf’s action, the tribes had tolerated the Islamabad regime only because the latter didn’t interfere in their affairs and provided various economic subsidies.
To date, the Army’s offensives in the tribal area have killed more than 3000 soldiers; killed and wounded several times that number of tribal fighters; displaced more than 500,000 people; and destroyed myriad villages and buildings. Even more disastrously, the Army’s operations have sparked a civil war between Islamabad and the tribesman. For several years this struggle was confined to the tribal lands, but since 2008 it has spread into Pakistan proper, bringing repeated bombings, ambushes, assassinations and commando-style raids to military and intelligence facilities, as well as to major cities like Lahore, Islamabad and Karachi.
The results of Musharraf’s understandable, if potentially fatal decision are wrecking Pakistan. And yet Chief of Army Staff Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani—whose term was just extended three years—and President Zidari heard Clinton ask (order?) them to do more US dirty work, apparently not realizing (or caring?) that Pakistan’s aid caused the civil war now threatening the country’s viability. Kayani and Zidari, as noted, accepted US aid and vowed to help. But both men—especially Kayani—know Pakistan’s string is played out.
With President Obama’s pledge to withdraw US forces from Afghanistan (the target date of 2011 is less important than his publicly pledged intent) Pakistan’s leaders know the United States isn’t serious about Afghanistan, that the Taliban-led insurgency will ultimately triumph and that they must look out for Pakistan’s interests, which can’t include the continued existence of the Karzai regime in Kabul.
As Afghan president, Hamid Karzai’s actions have created what can only be seen by Pakistan’s general officers as an existential threat to their country. With NATO’s acquiescence, Karzai has built strong ties to Iran and Russia—long Pakistan’s foes—and, more troubling, has been encouraged by Washington to permit an enormous expansion of India’s physical presence in Afghanistan.
The latter negates what Pakistan’s generals have always prized as their ‘strategic depth’ in case of war with India by putting an Indian presence on Pakistan’s western border that in essence puts the country in a vise that can be squeezed at New Delhi’s pleasure. (Nothing better shows the intellectual bankruptcy of US diplomacy than demanding Pakistan help against the Taliban while pushing the expansion of India’s presence in Afghanistan. Islamabad believes that Afghanistan-based Indians already are funding Baloch insurgents.)
While Kayani and his military and intelligence subordinates will keep providing data to facilitate U.S. drone strikes—which hurt but can’t beat the Taliban and al-Qaeda—they will act aggressively to begin re-stabilizing Pakistan. Among their actions will be:
—Major efforts to slow the growth of Islamist radicalism and violence in the country’s economic, agricultural and industrial heartland in the Sindh and Punjab. This will require a modus Vivendi with the tribes on the western border that encourages them—with subventions of (probably US) money, weaponry and other support—to stop attacking in Pakistan proper and begin aiding their Afghan brethren against Karzai.
—Pakistan’s intelligence service (ISI) will try to mend fences with Pashtuns on both sides of the border, and influence them to attack Karzai’s regime, NATO forces, and Indian targets, all in an effort to hurry NATO’s defeat and help the Islamists to retake power in Kabul. This is the only long-term result that meets Pakistan’s national security needs.
—The Army will reduce the lethality of its tribal-area operations as its contribution to ending the civil war Musharraf ignited. No doubt Kayani will keep the Army active in the tribal lands, but only with Potemkin operations meant to keep US aid flowing while not further alienating the Pashtuns. This tack also will start to ease the deep discontent in the Army over being tasked to kill Muslims for US infidels.
—Zidari and Kayani will seek promises from Riyadh to financially assist Pakistan if Washington cuts aid to Pakistan. Since Islamabad’s goal of replacing Karzai with a Taliban-like regime is compatible with Saudi and Gulf state foreign-policy goals—indeed, much of the Taliban’s funding is from the Gulf—such a pledge from Riyadh is likely. As a sweetener, the Pakistanis will help insert young Gulf jihadis returning from Iraq or graduating from so-called reeducation camps into Afghanistan to fight US-NATO forces.
For Kayani and Zidari, the time clearly has come to stop being a US proxy and to focus on halting Pakistan’s drift toward becoming a failed state. Because Washington has no clue that the services rendered it by Musharraf and Zidari caused the civil war now raging in Pakistan, Kayani and Zidari can expect nothing from Obama’s administration except demands for actions that would ultimately destroy Pakistan’s stability, with unforeseeable consequences for its nuclear arsenal. To do less than this—at least for Kayani and the Army—would breech not only their oath of allegiance, but of their self-interest.
Such Pakistani action might also have a bracing, reality-inducing impact on the US government. It might start to see what was obvious on 9/11—that is, annihilating al-Qaeda is Washington’s responsibility. To have help from NATO, Pakistan and others is nice, but not a substitute for depending on US military forces to extirpate as much of al-Qaeda, the Taliban and their supporters as possible and then withdraw immediately. Since 9/11, this has been Washington’s only achievable Afghan task. By not accepting this reality, Bush and now Obama have fought a war that today leaves the United States farther from victory than in 2001 and which will require far more US money and blood to win than has been so far expended.
In one of the quirky opportunities history sometimes yields, there’s a chance the still- young Pakistani state, by looking to its own security, might breathe a fresh breath of adulthood into the now toothless, irresolute and increasingly adolescent 234-year-old US government and push it to the commonsense conclusion that—in the words of the Prophet Muhammad and Theodore Roosevelt—God helps only those who fear Him and take their own part.
Sadly, however, there’s little solid reason for anyone to bet on this godsend occurring.
Published in The Diplomat
WASIM VIEW-Scheuer’s article is a pure masterpiece and should be essential reading for every Pakistani and every American. For Pakistanis who are pro-US and wish to blindly ape America and worship its largesse, Scheuer’s article makes it clear that whatever Pakistan does can never be enough. And worse that by doing so Pakistan risks its very own survival as a functioning and sovereign state.
Scheuer’s article is just brulliant in bringing to the fore the folly of Musharraf in supporting Bush after 9/11, an evil act that has taken Pakistan to hell and back daily. The facts are simple, Uncle Sam has used, is using and wants to use Pakistan as its proxy mercenary force to kill its Al-Qaeda enemies. In acquiescing to this, both the political and military leadership of Pakistan have failed Pakistan from Musharraf to Zardari and not forgetting General Kayani.
The timdity shown by the Pakistani state to America and her games especially from our khaki kings a la drone attacks is a matter of national shame. Moreoover it is clear from Scheur’s article that such Pakistani weakness has provided India with the space to meddle in Pakistan’s affairs. Indeed Balochistan and FATA are lands suffering from Indian intrigue yet it is Pakistan who has to apologise for Mumbai profusely. In the meantime the Indians are free to create havoc by supporting the Pakistani Taliban and Balochi secessionists, and not even a word of condemnation is aired against India by America who knows exactly what RAW is doing in Afghanistan and Balochistan.
That said, the wind is blowing in another direction of late thanks to the American end-game which has allowed the Pakistani power corridors to make up for their failure to protect the national interests. Scheuer’s article points towards this at the end, indeed it is hoped that the Pakistani power elites wake up and smell the coffee and chai too, that America will never be satisfied with Pakistan, end of.
The final article is written by another American and looks at US support for Pakistan, vis a vis some promised American support for the so-called badlands of FATA.
Partisan Gridlock’s Long Reach by David Ignatius
I am embarrassed when I think back to a conversation last October in Wana, South Waziristan — deep in the tribal areas — with Maj. Gen. Khalid Rabbani, the commander of Pakistani forces there. He was about to launch an offensive against Taliban fighters, but he worried that the “clear and hold” phase of the campaign would fail if Pakistan couldn’t also “build” through economic development.
Be patient, I told him. Congress is drafting a bill that will take a first step toward bringing more jobs to the region Now it’s nine months later, and Congress is still caught in a partisan gridlock over the plan to create Reconstruction Opportunity Zones in Pakistan’s Federally Administered Tribal Areas, or FATA.
The House passed the bill in June 2009, but the Senate hasn’t voted on its version because Republicans oppose the labor-protection standards that were included the House measure. The GOP objects that the bill would set a precedent for similar pro-labor rules in future trade legislation.
It’s incredible — sickening is a better word, actually — that a parochial business-labor dispute is blocking a measure that is so obviously in America’s national security interest. Members seem to have forgotten that this plan would undercut al-Qaeda in its safe haven, at a time when U.S. soldiers are dying across the border in Afghanistan, and when Americans everywhere are threatened by terrorists based in the FATA.
The Obama administration has argued for the bill, but not very effectively. More than a year ago, Richard Holbrooke, the special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, wrote to Congress: “We need ROZs now — economic opportunities must be expanded to quickly follow up military operations.”
Yet the administration hasn’t been able to broker a compromise — even though Democrats have strong majorities in both houses. That’s a sorry performance — and another illustration of how the Obama administration’s agenda has been hijacked by partisan feuding.
“This is a national security imperative, and we should be focused on it like a laser beam,” argues Rep. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., chief sponsor of the House measure. The bill would allow duty-free exports to the United States of some textiles and other products produced in or near the FATA. It isn’t a “miracle cure” for the tribal areas, but it’s a small step in the right direction.
A Senate bill (without the House’s strong labor protections) is sponsored by Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash. Every time a compromise seems near, she says, business or labor groups object because they don’t want to concede on the labor issue. The stalemate might be broken by White House intervention, but the administration so far hasn’t been willing to spend enough of its scarce political capital.
“It’s frustrating,” says Cantwell. “Somehow, the issue doesn’t rise to the level of importance it deserves.”
Powerful senators, prodded by the lobbyists, haven’t been willing to budge. Sen. Charles Grassley, the ranking Republican on the Finance Committee, opposes Senate action unless the House promises to drop its labor provisions from any final bill; he argues that the House language is more restrictive than past trade agreements and could set a new precedent. On the pro-labor side, Sen. Tom Harkin, an Iowa Democrat, has opposed any deal that doesn’t include the strong House standards.
Van Hollen argues that the Senate should pass the milder Cantwell bill, and then take the issue to conference where the two chambers can negotiate a compromise. He says the House side is “willing to make adjustments.” But Grassley doesn’t want to throw the issue to a House-Senate conference, so the impasse continues.
While the U.S. Congress dithers, al-Qaeda and its allies continue to plan deadly attacks from their haven in the FATA. The most savage bombings in recent months have been against Pakistani targets. The Pakistani public, which has been hearing promises from Washington for three years about the FATA opportunity zones, is doubtless wondering why the great superpower can’t get its act together. Pakistan’s leading business groups, which would be most affected by the labor standards, have already blessed the deal.
Recall the Pakistani general in Waziristan: He warned me that his military campaign would falter if, in a year, there wasn’t more economic opportunity in the FATA. There are still a few months left to reach a compromise on a measure that would provide a modest boost for the good guys. But for now, this legislative debacle offers one more sign of our dysfunctional political system.
Published at Realclearpolitics.com
WASIM VIEW- Ignatius’ article is the perfect proof if any was needed of how American words of financial support for Pakistan are not materialised into actions. I recall vividly that the Reconstruction Opportunity Zones were the brainchild of President Bush who announced it on arriving in Pakistan in 2006. Four years on, including one year of President walking-on-water Obama, it does not surprise me that the legislation has not been passed.
Four years on from the lofty promise of helping FATA and its people , Uncle Sam has done little except for its daily FATA drone attack adding only more murder and mayhem to its FATA death tally. For Pakistan, it is interesting to note how on one hand the Americans expect turbo-fast and prompt action from Pakistan daily in taking on the Taliban yet the power corridors from the President downwards in Washington enjoy the thrill of a slow pace when dealing with how to help Pakistan.
It is in this context that the Ignatius and Scheuer articles should be read together, both pointing towards a deliberate and deadly American betrayal of Pakistan in my opinion.