“That debate is in any case now moot. But the consequences of that war are baleful, debilitating and still spreading.”
Fuller also observed that “The situation in Pakistan has gone from bad to worse as a direct consequence of the U.S. war raging on the Afghan border. U.S. policy has now carried the Afghan war over the border into Pakistan with its incursions, drone bombings and assassinations – the classic response to a failure to deal with insurgency in one country.”
Only the withdrawal of foreign military forces would lessen tensions in Pakistan, as U.S. policies have inflamed the country and created an unmanageable domestic crisis for the Pakistan government, he wrote.
“The Pakistani army is more than capable of maintaining state power against tribal militias and defend its own nukes…. But Washington can still succeed in destabilizing Pakistan if it perpetuates its present hard-line strategies,” Fuller argued.
In conclusion, he wrote, “If the past eight years had shown ongoing success, perhaps an alternative case for U.S. policies could be made. But the evidence on the ground demonstrates only continued deterioration and darkening of the prognosis. Will we have more of the same? Or will there be a U.S. recognition that the American presence has now become more the problem than the solution? We do not hear that debate.”
An article by S.M. Nassem in the Pakistan daily Dawn said on Wednesday, “As for the local population, although it may not have much love for the Taliban, they hardly see the security forces as their protectors. They are now in the midst of a crossfire and are desperate for peace even at the price of the lowest level of existence and dignity, which has been the sales pitch of the Taliban movement since its birth in 1994, with the Pakistani intelligence agencies acting as its foster mother.”
But the militant insurgency cannot be defeated by the military alone, Nassem said, adding, “Unfortunately, despite the barbaric atrocities perpetrated on them in the name of the Sharia, many at the bottom rung of the socioeconomic ladder are still unable to view the Taliban as worse than the rulers. The latter hardly ever paid attention to their needs until their own lifestyles began to face an ‘existentialist threat.’ [sic] Unless these ‘root causes’ receive the attention they deserve, it will be foolhardy to believe that people at large will rise against the Taliban.”
President Zardari said this week on NBC’s Meet the Press that both the U.S. and Pakistan intelligence agencies shared responsibility for the creation of the Taliban. “I think … it was part of your past and our past,” he said, “and the ISI and the CIA created them together.”
The current U.S. demanded Pakistan army war on Taliban is not really what it is portrayed in the Western media to be. Pakistani Taliban were never a threat to the U.S., nor were they a threat to Pakistan’s nuclear weapons.
The truth is that Pakistani Taliban provide help to thei fellow Pashtun tribal leaders in Afghanistan and that has frustrated U.S. efforts to control Afghanistan. The U.S. has realized that it cannot win the war in Afghanistan unless that help is cut off.
The U.S. has tried to stem the flow of aid from Pakisran with secret bombings inside Pakistan [similar to U.S. secret bombing in Laos and Cambodia during the Vietnam war], and Predator drones attacks, but it has not only failed, but also raised the hostility of the Pakistanis. How do you then cut off the
Pakistan Pashtun from helping the Afghan Pashtun against the U.S.? Money !
Upon taking over the presidency by default of his wife’s assassination, Zardari
realized that Pakistan was broke, and was living on U.S. handouts arranged by
Pervez Musharraf and George Bush. He tried to get IMF loans, but failed (surely the U.S. wanted to keep him begging); he visited China and asked for
loans, but he was turned down. Then, the U.S. turn on the propaganda that the Taliban were a threat to Pakistan’s nuclear weapons, and turned on the screw on Zardari to wipe them off if he wanted a plum aid package. And the Pakistani army which has been getting from the U.S. a monthly check of
$20 millions for counterinsurgency operations agree because that keeps the army afloat in a financially broke state. And, of course, if the army agreed to wipe out the Taliban, another $ 7.5 billion will be coming. If not, Pakistan may turn into another Somalia-like state, and with the Indian threat always looming [a psychotic Pakistani fear], declaring war on the Taliban became a Pakistani financial necessity.
Is really a war against the Taliban, or against the Pashtun tribes? Chicago Tribune corresponded Mark Magnier reported on May 11, 2009 from Pakistan
that: “Taliban means Everything and Nothing,” and most Pakistanis cannot really comprehend what is going on. A headline on Tiles Online on May 5, 2009 also read: “Mistrust of the West is stronger in Pakistan than fear of the Taliban.” And a Taliban spokesman told the PBS “Frontline” reporter on April 14, 2009: “We have never fought the army before, but we do now because the
Pakistani army and government have adopted U.S. policies.” And, finally, a Pakistan Dawn newspaper editorial on May 6, 2009 called Obama’s supposed Taliban threat to nuclear weapons “journalistic garbage,” said ” the $ 7.5 billion U.S. aid will line only a few pockets in Pakistan and the U.S. [ Pakistani lobbyists], but it won’t trickle down to the common people.” The paper suggested that the government “stop the U.S. meddling, reject the U.S. aid, and resolve the internal differences by itself.”
After the February 2008 Pakistani elections, U.S. Undersecretary of State John
Negreponte went to Pakistan and told the newly elected leaders: No negotiations with the Taliban -if you want U.S. aid to continue.” The global financial crisis hit Pakistan really hard, and the only option to stay afloat was more U.S. aid. But Obama offered it with a condition: “Wipe out the Pashtuns –
under the Taliban logo- to help us control Afghanistan. And Pakistan complied because the salaries of its politicians and the army generals were at stake. Now, many here celebrating the chopping up of Pashtuns as the last
hurdle that will lead us to victory in Afghanistan. But the catastrophic effects, and the cataclysm of refugees caused by the U.S. demanded civil war,
would be the U.S. undoing in Central Asia in the long term. The adage: “Be careful what you wish; you might get,” may come back to haunt us if history is the measuring stick of success. Nikos Retsos, retired professor