A Friend In Deed?

According to published reports Pakistani nuclear scientists have been shopping around advanced nuclear technology to the highest bidders. Advanced blueprints have been found on computers that belonged to these scientists that were part of a nuclear smuggling network headed by Abdul Qadeer Khan. Our government has a knack of creating these madmen through a deliberate policy of benign neglect and a policy of supporting tyranny for the sake of political expediency. This is another example of how our unwillingness to gauge the world realistically and our inability to access friends and foes has created a possible nightmare scenario in the near future.

The plans appear to closely resemble a nuclear weapon that was built by Pakistan and first tested exactly a decade ago. But when confronted with the design by officials of the International Atomic Energy Agency last year, Pakistani officials insisted that Dr. Khan, who has been lobbying in recent months to be released from the loose house arrest that he has been under since 2004, did not have access to Pakistan’s weapons designs.[1]

So instead of confronting our so-called friends who are proliferating nuclear technology, we are allowing political and philosophical agendas to dictate our foreign policy. Can anyone say Saudi Arabia? So, lets see what our billions of dollars of public foreign aid has bought us. Pakistan has more instability than ever, they have been an indifferent ally in tracking Islamic extremists in their tribal regions, and we have known for a long time their involvement in the proliferation of nuclear technology. What bothers me the most is how many times this same scenario has been played out over the course of our nations history. It’s like for the last 30 years we have been executing the same whack foreign policy in country after country with the same disastrous results. Cuba, Panama, Iran, Argentina, Philippines, Haiti, and so on and so on.

Since 9/11, the United States has given over $10 billion in aid to Pakistan. The bulk of that amount—more than $6 billion—has come in the form of “Coalition Support Funds,” which are intended to reimburse U.S. allies for their assistance in the “war on terrorism.” Fifteen percent of the total aid has gone toward security assistance, which Pakistan has used primarily to purchase major weapons systems, while another 15 percent has gone toward budget support, which represents direct cash transfers to the Pakistani government.[2]

The time has come for us as a nation to destroy whatever document has been used to craft our foreign policy, because it has not worked. We are no safer as a nation, the countries have no more stability, and the world is no safer of a place. These Presidential doctrines have instead of fostering peace, democracy and world development have had the complete opposite effect. The only beneficiaries from these policies have been the arms manufacturers, war profiteers, and political cronies.

I wonder after reading these reports what the wing-nuts who were up in arms about Senator Obama’s statement about going into Pakistan after terrorists now have to say? We don’t treat our friends this way they exclaimed, well we now see how our friends treat us. The Pakistanis are understandably apprehensive about going after Khan who is considered a national hero by the people of Pakistan and the father of their nuclear development. The government of Pakistan has never really exerted a lot of pressure on Khan to disclose the degree of proliferation of his network. As these reports demonstrate while the Pakistanis may consider the episode closed the rest of the world will be dealing with the fall-out for years to come.

However, in recent days top American intelligence officials, who declined to speak about the discovery on the record because the information is classified, said that they had been unable to determine whether Iran or other countries had obtained the weapons design. Pakistan has refused to allow American investigators to directly interview Dr. Khan, who is considered a hero there as the father of its nuclear program. In recent weeks the only communications about him between the United States and Pakistan’s new government have been warnings from Washington not to allow him to be released.[3]


[1] http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/15/world/asia/15nuke.html?hp
[2] http://www.fpa.org/topics_info2414/topics_info_show.htm?doc_id=592512
[3] http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/15/world/asia/15nuke.html?hp

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Democracy – Pakistani Style

It has always amazed me how the media, politicians, and pundits will elevate someone in death to a place they wouldn’t give them in life. I am often reminded of the eulogy given by Ted Kennedy (probably his greatest moment in public life) for his brother Robert where he said, “My brother need not be idealized or enlarged in death beyond what he was in life.” The recent tragic death of Benazir Bhutto and its subsequent media frenzy reminds me of those words. Many of those who are idealizing her today were aware of the lit fuse that followed her arrival in Pakistan and refused to respond to it. They were aware of the constant threat of death that all of the opposition candidates in Pakistan were under and yet this government continued to fund Mr. Musharraf and play the terrorist card while he created the atmosphere for political assassination and crushed the seeds of democracy.

Ms. Bhutto will be chalked up as another casualty of extremists or al Qaeda, another casualty of the war on terror. The truth of course is anything but, Ms. Bhutto was a casualty of democracy in Pakistan. You see democracy in Pakistan has its own rules and procedures for campaigning. There are no candidate debates, instead there is candidate assassinations and attempted assassinations. There are no Party platforms to discuss, there is intimidation and suicide bombings. To those who are advocating the war on terror, democracy is part of the collateral damage. They create these copious photo-ops espousing the need for democracy, while continuing to funnel money to the tyrants and dictators. Ms Bhutto was no more a casualty of the war on terror as she was a casualty to business as usual, the US does not want democracy, they want stability.

The truth of the matter was that Ms. Bhutto was sacrificed by the US, her return to Pakistan was orchestrated by the US. Despite the MSM, she was brought to Pakistan not to win, but to lose. Her presence was to give legitimacy to a corrupt system that we didn’t want fixed, we just wanted it legitimized. The goal of the State Department was to parade her and the other opposition candidates around before the elections to give the appearance of free and fair elections, when in truth they were never going to be allowed to assume power. The problem was that Mr. Musharraf became nervous, he knew his stock in the US was falling and he was not willing to take the US at its word. Maybe he remembered Saddam or the Shah who knows, but one thing is certain he wanted to ensure that there would be no Election Day coup. There was not going to be any Orange Revolution in Pakistan.

"The U.S. came to understand that Bhutto was not a threat to stability, but was instead the only possible way that we could guarantee stability and keep the presidency of Musharraf intact," said Mark Siegel, who lobbied for Bhutto in Washington and witnessed much of the behind-the-scenes diplomacy.

But the diplomacy that ended abruptly with Bhutto's assassination yesterday was always an enormous gamble, according to current and former U.S. policymakers, intelligence officials and outside analysts. By entering into the legendary "Great Game" of South Asia, the United States also made its goals and allies more vulnerable -- in a country in which more than 70 percent of the population already looked unfavorably upon Washington.[1]

For those who need convincing consider this, if al Qaeda killed Bhutto why is the only one with something to gain from it is Musharraf? If Musharraf is so hated by al Qaeda and the Taliban why would they do something to benefit him just two weeks before an election? Also, consider how the Bush administration is not calling for postponement of the election, they are calling for it to continue. The country is in a state turmoil with violence breaking out in every major city. Both opposition party leaders were targeted for assassination and their Parties are in disarray. I wonder who is going to prevail in this election. The real trick will be how fast the Neo-cons spin this into a mandate to continue the heavy-handed policies of Musharraf. This thing was a powder keg and all of our years of support for this man, the military, and his tactics came to fruition in the death of Ms. Bhutto.

Do I believe the US was complicit in the death of Ms. Bhutto? No, but do I believe they set the ball in motion that created an atmosphere for her to be murdered? Yes, I do. I believe they underestimated Musharraf and his desire to cling to power by any means necessary. I believe they thought they could play both sides against each other and the plan backfired horribly. The problem is when you are dealing with dictators and megalomaniacs it is kind of hard to know what they are capable of. Once again the arrogance of the Neo-con intelligence prevented them from seeing the very real possibility of this assassination taking place. There was a deep hatred between the two and to not foresee this is inexcusable. Especially after the “state of emergency” recently enacted and only through international pressure finally removed by Musharraf.

The turning point to get Musharraf on board was a September trip by Deputy Secretary of State John D. Negroponte to Islamabad. "He basically delivered a message to Musharraf that we would stand by him, but he needed a democratic facade on the government, and we thought Benazir was the right choice for that face," said Bruce Riedel, a former CIA officer and National Security Council staff member now at the Brookings Institution's Saban Center for Middle East Policy.

"Musharraf still detested her, and he came around reluctantly as he began to recognize this fall that his position was untenable," Riedel said. The Pakistani leader had two choices: Bhutto or former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, whom Musharraf had overthrown in a 1999 military coup. "Musharraf took what he thought was the lesser of two evils," Riedel said.[2]

[1] http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/12/27/AR2007122701481.html?hpid=topnews
[2] http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/12/27/AR2007122701481.html?hpid=topnews

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War On Terror; Fought By Foreign Mercenaries

I find it interesting that with General/President Musharraf’s government in trouble we are now getting reports that our billions of dollars in military aid to Pakistan is being misappropriated. It seems that for five years we have been contributing about a billion dollars a year to a program known as Coalition Support Funds. This of course is just a fancy name being used for a program that pays the Pakistanis to continue fighting a war they don’t want to fight and the results prove that out. The Coalition Support Funds are designed to reimburse the Pakistani military for conducting missions against the Taliban and al Qaeda in the mountainous border regions of Pakistan. My question is this, if the Taliban, al Qaeda, and the other terrorists are a threat to Pakistan as well as the US as the Bush administration and President Musharraf have stated why do we have to pay them to fight?

Early last week, six years after President Bush first began pouring billions of dollars into Pakistan’s military after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the Pentagon completed a review that produced a classified plan to help the Pakistani military build an effective counterinsurgency force.[1]

Once again it seems like the only way we can get people to fight alongside of us in this “War on Terror” is to pay them. While this is not surprising it does raise some other interesting issues, such as why is it that now when Mr. Musharraf’s political position seems precarious these allegations are beginning to surface? Are we to believe that for all these years no one noticed that Pakistan was not using the money to buy the military hardware they were supposed to, but instead purchasing advanced systems to compete with India? Where were they purchasing this advanced hardware from with our tax payer dollars?

The Bush administration has kept a blind eye to the human rights abuses, the loss of democracy, and the misappropriation of funds that has been occurring in Pakistan. Why would they be concerned about those small details when they have done likewise here in America? Tyranny knows tyranny. Rather than complete the mission in Afghanistan and actually make the world safer as they claim, they instead choose to expand their war into Iraq. Now as they exit the world stage; we have a war on at least two fronts and we are not “winning” either and we are no safer. But Forgiven, there have been no more attacks in the US while Bush has been in office; we are fighting them there so we won’t have to fight them here. Understand one thing, the 9/11 attack was a one-time deal. It was not part of some global plot by al Qaeda to take over the United States or the world, it was designed to scare the hell out of us and it did that. The question now becomes where do we go from here?

Do we continue to pour boatloads of money into a black pit not only in America, but to every little tin-horn dictator who promises results? Unfortunately for Mr. Bush and his Neo-Con clowns, the world is more complex than their rhetoric allows. Just as our system is based on the intra-workings of many parties and agendas, so it is in any country. Every leader has to answer to someone and regardless of what they promise they still have to sell at home. In too many cases this requires cold hard cash to grease the wheels of government, so we expect results but only based on our schema. Other countries of course have their own procedures and they often times to do not emulate ours.

For their part, Pakistani officials angrily accused the United States of refusing to sell Pakistan the advanced helicopters, reconnaissance aircraft, radios and night-vision equipment it needs.

“There have been many aspects of equipment that we’ve been keen on getting,” said Maj. Gen. Waheed Arshad, the Pakistani military’s chief spokesman. “There have been many delays which have hampered this war against extremists.”

But by mid-2007, the $1 billion-a-year figure became public, largely because of the objections of some military officials and defense experts who said that during an ill-fated peace treaty between the military and militants in the tribal areas in 2005 and 2006, the money kept flowing. Pakistan continued to submit receipts for reimbursement, even though Pakistani troops had stopped fighting.[2]

Anytime our “allies” want more money they complain about how we are hampering their efforts to prosecute a war that we in fact started. Money often times used to enrich the dictators and their cronies, while the ones designed to benefit from the aid continue to go without. Do we really believe that the troops in Pakistan see Osama bin Laden as an enemy to their lives in the sense that we do? And it’s not just the “war on terror”, it is also used in the war on drugs. We expect other country’s troops to wage war on our behalf against their countrymen and crops that have been growing for centuries, all in an attempt to keep the drugs from our streets and the world’s biggest market.

We have replaced diplomacy and mutual benefit with bribery and intimidation. Is there any wonder our foreign policy is in shambles? The sad part is that the upcoming election only promises more of the same. It is time we reexamined our priorities as well as our allies and develop a foreign policy that matches the reality of the world and not the false history that we continue to try and hold on to. The world has changed, unfortunately we have not.

[1] http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/24/world/asia/24military.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&hp
[2] http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/24/world/asia/24military.html?pagewanted=2&_r=1&hp

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Destroy Democracy to Save Democracy

You cannot make this stuff up, it is too good. General and President of Pakistan, Pervez Musharraf held a news conference to discuss the reasons behind his having to call for emergency rule in such proximity to the upcoming elections. The General has obviously been a student at the George Bush School of Political Studies, because he has the lines down. According to the General in order to save democracy in Pakistan, he has to destroy it, temporarily of course. He stated that he has to suspend human and civil rights in order to protect those rights. If I didn’t know any better I would think George Bush had said that line.

He defended the decree issued 10 days ago that scrapped the Constitution, dismissed the Supreme Court and resulted in the arrests of 2,500 opposition party workers, lawyers and human rights advocates, and rejected an appeal by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to lift emergency rule.

General Musharraf said the decree was justified because the Supreme Court had meddled in politics, specifically the validity of his re-election, and because of the serious threat from terrorists.[1]

Ok, this is Pakistan, right? There has to be a new rule that anytime the head of a government is doing something unpopular, illegal, or they are threatened by the truth, they are now allowed to say the word terrorist and all proceedings are to be halted. This includes any legal proceedings, financial dealings, or policy debates that happen to be occurring. The threat of terrorism trumps all other activities, no matter how illegal they may appear to the untrained eye. The problem with Pakistanis and many Americans is that they are making decisions based on not having all the facts. There are an elite few who have been given access to all the facts and they would appreciate you unenlightened people being quiet and letting them handle this. In what smacks of the Bush Administration’s dismissal of dissent and the media headed by Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld, the General used similar rhetoric to deflect criticism of his suspending democracy.

Supreme Court; don’t need it. Opposition Party and dissidents; secret terrorists. Parliament; meddlers and complainers. General Musharraf is demonstrating all that is wrong and has been wrong with American foreign policy. You continue to make deals with the devil, eventually you’re going to get burned. For anyone to now say that we are trying to export democracy the rug has been pulled out, the curtain has been drawn and the world can see the man behind it. Please ignore the man behind the curtain. How can we export what we refuse to allow here in America? We don’t want democracy we want stability. We talk about democracy in public, but behind the scenes we continue to prop up these “strongmen” or dictators all over the world. Why do we do it? Because they provide stability. They keep the trains arriving on time, they keep the oil flowing and the labor cheap.

I don’t have a problem with this being the case, but let’s be honest enough with ourselves to admit it. We could care less about democracy in Pakistan, the Sudan, or North Korea. What we want is stability for our markets and for our products. We want commerce to keep flowing out from them and into our pockets and if that means putting some tough guy in to keep them natives in line then so be it. I mean after all they don’t even understand democracy, nor do they deserve it. Democracy was meant for the northern Europeans, no one else really can understand its intricacies and that’s why they want to destroy it and our cherished way of life.

In the interview General Musharraf was critical of the opposition leader, Benazir Bhutto, saying she was confrontational and would be difficult to work with.

Western governments and Western media, he said, misread Ms. Bhutto’s support because they placed too much emphasis on the significance of human rights advocates in Pakistan.

“You go and meet human rights activists,” he challenged his interviewers. “Ninety percent of them may have never cast their votes. They sleep on the day of elections.”

General Musharraf said nearly a dozen independent news television stations that had been closed under the emergency decree would be allowed to re-open if they agreed to a government code of conduct.[2]

Now the General, he understands democracy. Democracy is like alcohol, you don’t want to become drunk with it. He recognizes that the people really don’t want democracy; they won’t even get off their lazy butts and go vote. All they want to do is complain. And the Americans they are just a bunch of hypocrites they complain in public, but privately they support our policies and provide 10 billion dollars of aid.

Hell, we don’t want democracy for Pakistan; we don’t even want it for ourselves. If we did we would have noticed those who are destroying it, so they can save it.

[1] http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/14/world/asia/14pakistan.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin
[2] http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/14/world/asia/14pakistan.html?hp

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Freedom And The War On Terror

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan -- A top U.S. envoy praised President Gen. Pervez Musharraf's government Wednesday and skirted the issue of his expulsion of a top political rival, taking some heat off the military leader as he struggles for election to a new term.

Soon after Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte's tribute to Pakistan's anti-terrorism efforts, the army reported killing up to 40 Islamic militants near the Afghan border.

Asked about Sharif's expulsion, Negroponte offered no criticism. He said it was as "an internal Pakistani political and legal matter and it's for the government and people of Pakistan to decide."

"We look forward to democratic elections being held in Pakistan quite shortly. We think it's important there be a smooth and democratic political transition," Negroponte said.[1]

This is the response of the US concerning the deteriorating situation in Pakistan. The political situation in Pakistan is about to reach critical mass and the Bush administration continues to placate General Musharraf and his assault on democracy. If anyone ever needed an example of why our position in the world is less than stellar, Pakistan would be a good place to start. On the one hand we talk of freedom and democracy and yet we continue to support leaders who eradicate those very things.

The administration of General Musharraf has continually scoffed at the courts, the opposition, and the people as they pave the way for his continued rein of undemocratic authority. The General has refused to relinquish his hold on the military as head of the army while serving as President. The Supreme Court in Pakistan has ruled this unconstitutional, but the General has chosen to ignore them so far.

Granted the political system in Pakistan has left a lot to be desired, with both opposition leaders being the target of corruption charges and scandals. However, we cannot enunciate democracy for some and not democracy for all. We must advocate a peaceful return to democracy for Pakistan. It appears that because General Musharraf is an ally in the war on terror, he is immune to the criticism we bestow so readily to others. We are presenting a hypocritical approach to our foreign policy and it is only fueling the impression that we only attack those who refuse to go along with our views. This administration has been the biggest recruiter for terrorist through its policy of benign neglect and its refusal to call our so-called allies on their crap. General Musharraf has continued to selectively prosecute the war on terror and yet we continue to heap praise on this man.

The following is a quote from General Musharraf in Great Britain on December 6, 2004, when asked if the war on terror had made the world less safe.

In an interview for the Newsnight programme, it was suggested to Gen Pervez Musharraf the world was less safe - in part because of the campaign.

"Absolutely," he said, adding that the social grievances that helped recruit terrorists were not being addressed.[2]

General Musharraf has always had to walk a fine line in the war on terror because of the fundamentalist in his own country. Because he has tried to fight the war against terrorism and indulge the religious extremists inside Pakistan, he has placed himself in a very tenuous position. Already he has been the target of four assassination attempts by the religious extremists he has tried to pacify.

He came to power some four years back after staging a coup against a weak and corrupt civilian government. The world reacted with disdain then and considered him a pariah. His fortunes snowballed dramatically after September 11 when he decided to back the United States in its war on terrorism. To the dismay of democratic Pakistanis, the United States quickly co-opted the general and bestowed legitimacy upon him. Past dictators in Pakistan and elsewhere in the Third World have been propped up by the United States, which has allowed them to either stifle or postpone democracy.[3]

We can no longer afford the luxury of supporting tyranny while at the same time talking democracy. The world is no longer accepting the do as I say not as I do argument. We must not let our zeal to prosecute the war on terror cloud our judgment of what are values are. If we do that, if we allow are support of democracy to be corrupted then the terrorists have in fact won without blowing up a building or firing a single shot. Freedom and dictatorship can never be package together, either we support democracy for all or we do not. Let’s be clear about where the US stands.

[1] http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/12/AR2007091200204.html
[2] http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/4071103.stm
[3] http://www.umich.edu/~iinet/iisite/media/01-07-04-DetroitNews-Nazir-Musharraf.htm

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