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Gandalf Grey
Guest
Blowback from an Unholy Alliance: The U.S. and Pakistan After 9/11
By Gary Leupp
Created Dec 30 2007 - 9:10am
Immediately after 9-11 the U.S. government began barking orders to the
world, especially to the Muslim world. Perhaps echoing unconsciously the
Christian scripture passages Matthew 12:30 and Luke 11:23, it proclaimed,
"Either you are with us, or with the terrorists." Remember those terrifying
days, of omnipresent institutionalized ritualistic grief, anger and mandated
unity, when any questioning was met with official indignation, threats, or
punishment? When everything was supposed to be so clear? When above all, the
national need to attack somebody---some Muslims---was supposed to be
obvious, and the attack on Afghanistan in particular framed as common sense?
In Afghanistan, the Taliban was told that Washington would not distinguish
between terrorists and the regimes that harbor them. The Taliban was of
course one of the fundamentalist Islamist groups emerging from the long U.S.
effort (1979-93) to topple the Soviet-supported secular regime. The Taliban
in power from 1996 had netted some aid from a Washington deeply interested
in Afghan oil pipeline construction, and also received aid and diplomatic
support from Pakistan. Pakistan's CIA (the Inter-Service Intelligence or
ISI) had helped create the Taliban in order (as Benazir Bhutto later
explained) to secure the trade route into Central Asia.
The Taliban, then with U.S. aid suppressing opium poppy production with
extraordinary success, and manifesting no special hostility towards
Washington, was ordered to hand over 9-11 mastermind Osama bin Ladin. But
Pashtun culture (far more than most cultures) mandates that guests receive
hospitality and protection, and bin Ladin, a periodic visitor from 1984 and
permanent resident since 1996, was no ordinary guest. He had raised or
supplied from his personal funds millions of dollars for the anti-Soviet
Mujahadeen (which one must always emphasize was supported by him as well as
the U.S.), and fought against the secular "socialist" Afghan regime in the
name of Islam. Taliban leader Mullah Omar could not simply turn him over to
the Americans and maintain any credibility with his own social base. On the
other hand, the Taliban did not wish to provoke an invasion. So the Afghans
asked for evidence of bin Ladin's complicity in the attacks. Washington
treated the request as absurd. The Afghans offered to turn bin Ladin over to
an international court of Islamic jurists. The U.S. reiterated its demand
that bin Ladin be transferred to American authorities immediately, knowing
this was not going to happen and that it would thus have a popularly
accepted casus belli.
Meanwhile Pakistan's dictator-president Gen. Pervez Musharraf was told by
the U.S. State Department that Pakistan must cut ties to the Taliban. "Be
prepared to be bombed. Be prepared to go back to the Stone Age," he was told
by U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell, through his deputy Richard
Armitage, if he was unwilling to cooperate in the destruction of
Afghanistan's Taliban regime. Musharraf was also ordered to host U.S. troops
and prevent anti-U.S. demonstrations in his country. Briefly Pakistan
protested that it might be better to preserve diplomatic ties with the
Taliban government, in order to influence it to cooperate with the U.S.
which (one must repeat) had not hitherto had an unfriendly relationship with
the U.S. But caving into the U.S. diktat, angering ISI officers deeply
invested in Taliban support, risking a coup or assassination, Musharraf
complied with U.S. demands. He was rewarded with the removal of U.S.
sanctions imposed after Pakistan's nuclear tests in 1998, and promises of
massive aid as the U.S. prepared to bomb Afghanistan, topple the Talibs and
impose following their downfall a government of Afghans willing to work with
Washington. This of course turned out to be a government dominated by the
Northern Alliance, a collection of non-Pashtuns including Uzbek and Tajik
warlords hostile to Pakistan and supported by India and Iran.
The U.S. bombed; the Taliban fell, for the most part retreating to ancestral
villages and lying low, monitoring the situation, seeking opportunities for
resurgence. Few Americans at the time questioned the Bush administration's
ready conflation of the Taliban and al-Qaeda, but the two were and are
appreciably different. Al-Qaeda is a mostly Arab but multinational global
network of Islamists hostile to the U.S. and its policies towards the Muslim
world, growing in strength due to the continuation of those policies; the
Taliban is a primarily Pashtun organization reflecting traditional Afghan
Muslim fundamentalist values and fiercely opposed to foreign domination. The
former is sophisticated, headed by well-educated men; the latter is largely
illiterate, headed by clerics learned only in Islamic literature. The former
wants to attack multiple targets to foment a generalized confrontation
between the West and Islam; the latter wants to mind its own house and
maintain Afghan traditions with all their xenophobic, medieval, patriarchal,
misogynistic, anti-intellectual appeal.
A mix of Taliban militants and al-Qaeda forces resisted the U.S. invasion;
hundreds at least escaped into Pakistan's Federally-Administered Tribal
Areas and North-West Frontier Province. Having driven bin Ladin and his
followers out of Afghanistan, the U.S. declared a great victory and without
skipping a beat moved on to invade and occupy Iraq, which had nothing to do
with 9-11. The latter crime inevitably produced outrage globally, but
particularly in Muslim countries like Pakistan, where the prestige of bin
Ladin, already high in 2001, has soared ever since. (A recent poll showed
his approval rating at 46%, compared to Musharraf's 38% and Bush's 9%.)
Preoccupied with establishing an empire, U.S. leaders lost interest in
al-Qaeda. Indeed in March 2002 President Bush referring to bin Ladin
declared, "I truly am not that concerned about him." As for the al-Qaeda
forces in Pakistan (whose very existence close U.S. ally Musharraf denied),
they were Pakistan's problem. The U.S. had unleashed a huge problem on the
Pakistani state by invading its neighbor, toppling the Afghan government,
and forcing al-Qaeda to relocate into Pakistan where sympathetic tribesmen
(who have always resisted firm incorporation into the state) offered them
safe haven. Pashtuns straddle the boundary of the two countries; Pakistani
Pashtuns are largely sympathetic to the Taliban, and now a Pakistani Taliban
is growing in strength in the Taliban and elsewhere.
Thus the "good war" in Afghanistan preceding the generally discredited
war-based-on-lies in Iraq was in fact a very bad war so far as Pakistan was
concerned. It brought Afghanistan a new warlord government, in which opium
is again the chief commercial crop, prettified by a "democratic" election
and the appointment of a longtime CIA contact, Hamid Karzai as president and
de facto mayor or Kabul. It is increasingly challenged by the recrudescent
Taliban and new recruits who have regained control of much of the south.
Karzai from his weak position keeps offering them peace talks, which they
reject, demanding the invaders leave before any negotiations.
For the U.S. the "good war" has meant 474 soldiers dead (116 so far this
year); "coalition" dead have increased every year since 2003 and almost as
many European troops have died during the last two years as Americans.
Support for the Afghan mission has declined in Europe as its relevance to
"counter-terrorism" becomes increasingly unclear and its character as an
unwinnable counterinsurgency effort becomes more apparent.
The war in Afghanistan saddled Musharraf with a mounting Islamist rebellion
in the Swat Valley and elsewhere; grave dissatisfaction within the military
at the unprecedented deployment in the frontier provinces (where troops have
performed poorly and unenthusiastically against Islamists); and personal
unpopularity related both to his ties to the U.S. and to his abuses of
power. Adding to his woes, the U.S. military struck targets within his
country (without his consent, he claims), and threatened to take further
action against Taliban or al-Qaeda forces in Pakistan. Then the Pakistani
Chief Justice opposed his bid to run for president again, and needed to be
arrested, causing a nasty political crisis. In an embarrassment to Musharraf
the Supreme Court ordered the justice's release. In the meantime supporters
of former prime ministers Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif clamored for their
return.
The natural thing for a beleaguered strongman to do in such circumstances
would be to declare a state of emergency and assume emergency powers. But
the U.S. State Department told him no, don't do that, let Bhutto come back,
work out some accommodation with her. Let the two of you share power and
erect an anti-terrorist united front. So Musharraf hesitated until November,
when he did indeed declare a state of emergency, meeting with Washington's
public disapproval. The U.S. threatened to cut off some non-military aid if
he didn't quickly lift martial law and hold elections in which Bhutto might
compete. Musharraf negotiated with Bhutto, trading cancellation of
corruption charges against her for his agreement to respect the
constitutional provision that disallowed him to be both president and
military officer at the same time.
Quite possibly Musharraf was thinking, "These people, who have already done
so much to destabilize Pakistan, now want to destabilize it further by
forcing me into this." But he did, and Bhutto got killed, maybe by his
people (cui bono?), maybe by al-Qaeda, maybe by homegrown Islamists angered
by Bhutto's Washington ties, which are even more intimate than Musharraf's.
Maybe Musharraf will now cancel the election. Maybe he will hold it,
arranging to win big. Either way, Washington analysts agree his position is
weakened by the assassination. Pakistan, more or less stable as of 2001, has
in the interval been knocked off balance by U.S. action in the region. Told
it must be for or against the U.S., it was obliged to obey, with grim
results.
Unprecedented militant Islamism. Unprecedented support for bin Ladin and
al-Qaeda. Unprecedented support for the Taliban. Unprecedented Taliban-like
attacks on Buddhist monuments, parts of Pakistan's cultural heritage. The
assassination of a popular pro-Western political figure on whom the U.S.
State Department had placed its bets. Anti-Musharraf rioting in the wake of
the assassination. Dire consequences indeed of Musharraf's alliance.
_______
--
NOTICE: This post contains copyrighted material the use of which has not
always been authorized by the copyright owner. I am making such material
available to advance understanding of
political, human rights, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues. I
believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of such copyrighted material as
provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright
Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107
"A little patience and we shall see the reign of witches pass over, their
spells dissolve, and the people recovering their true sight, restore their
government to its true principles. It is true that in the meantime we are
suffering deeply in spirit,
and incurring the horrors of a war and long oppressions of enormous public
debt. But if the game runs sometimes against us at home we must have
patience till luck turns, and then we shall have an opportunity of winning
back the principles we have lost, for this is a game where principles are at
stake."
-Thomas Jefferson
By Gary Leupp
Created Dec 30 2007 - 9:10am
Immediately after 9-11 the U.S. government began barking orders to the
world, especially to the Muslim world. Perhaps echoing unconsciously the
Christian scripture passages Matthew 12:30 and Luke 11:23, it proclaimed,
"Either you are with us, or with the terrorists." Remember those terrifying
days, of omnipresent institutionalized ritualistic grief, anger and mandated
unity, when any questioning was met with official indignation, threats, or
punishment? When everything was supposed to be so clear? When above all, the
national need to attack somebody---some Muslims---was supposed to be
obvious, and the attack on Afghanistan in particular framed as common sense?
In Afghanistan, the Taliban was told that Washington would not distinguish
between terrorists and the regimes that harbor them. The Taliban was of
course one of the fundamentalist Islamist groups emerging from the long U.S.
effort (1979-93) to topple the Soviet-supported secular regime. The Taliban
in power from 1996 had netted some aid from a Washington deeply interested
in Afghan oil pipeline construction, and also received aid and diplomatic
support from Pakistan. Pakistan's CIA (the Inter-Service Intelligence or
ISI) had helped create the Taliban in order (as Benazir Bhutto later
explained) to secure the trade route into Central Asia.
The Taliban, then with U.S. aid suppressing opium poppy production with
extraordinary success, and manifesting no special hostility towards
Washington, was ordered to hand over 9-11 mastermind Osama bin Ladin. But
Pashtun culture (far more than most cultures) mandates that guests receive
hospitality and protection, and bin Ladin, a periodic visitor from 1984 and
permanent resident since 1996, was no ordinary guest. He had raised or
supplied from his personal funds millions of dollars for the anti-Soviet
Mujahadeen (which one must always emphasize was supported by him as well as
the U.S.), and fought against the secular "socialist" Afghan regime in the
name of Islam. Taliban leader Mullah Omar could not simply turn him over to
the Americans and maintain any credibility with his own social base. On the
other hand, the Taliban did not wish to provoke an invasion. So the Afghans
asked for evidence of bin Ladin's complicity in the attacks. Washington
treated the request as absurd. The Afghans offered to turn bin Ladin over to
an international court of Islamic jurists. The U.S. reiterated its demand
that bin Ladin be transferred to American authorities immediately, knowing
this was not going to happen and that it would thus have a popularly
accepted casus belli.
Meanwhile Pakistan's dictator-president Gen. Pervez Musharraf was told by
the U.S. State Department that Pakistan must cut ties to the Taliban. "Be
prepared to be bombed. Be prepared to go back to the Stone Age," he was told
by U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell, through his deputy Richard
Armitage, if he was unwilling to cooperate in the destruction of
Afghanistan's Taliban regime. Musharraf was also ordered to host U.S. troops
and prevent anti-U.S. demonstrations in his country. Briefly Pakistan
protested that it might be better to preserve diplomatic ties with the
Taliban government, in order to influence it to cooperate with the U.S.
which (one must repeat) had not hitherto had an unfriendly relationship with
the U.S. But caving into the U.S. diktat, angering ISI officers deeply
invested in Taliban support, risking a coup or assassination, Musharraf
complied with U.S. demands. He was rewarded with the removal of U.S.
sanctions imposed after Pakistan's nuclear tests in 1998, and promises of
massive aid as the U.S. prepared to bomb Afghanistan, topple the Talibs and
impose following their downfall a government of Afghans willing to work with
Washington. This of course turned out to be a government dominated by the
Northern Alliance, a collection of non-Pashtuns including Uzbek and Tajik
warlords hostile to Pakistan and supported by India and Iran.
The U.S. bombed; the Taliban fell, for the most part retreating to ancestral
villages and lying low, monitoring the situation, seeking opportunities for
resurgence. Few Americans at the time questioned the Bush administration's
ready conflation of the Taliban and al-Qaeda, but the two were and are
appreciably different. Al-Qaeda is a mostly Arab but multinational global
network of Islamists hostile to the U.S. and its policies towards the Muslim
world, growing in strength due to the continuation of those policies; the
Taliban is a primarily Pashtun organization reflecting traditional Afghan
Muslim fundamentalist values and fiercely opposed to foreign domination. The
former is sophisticated, headed by well-educated men; the latter is largely
illiterate, headed by clerics learned only in Islamic literature. The former
wants to attack multiple targets to foment a generalized confrontation
between the West and Islam; the latter wants to mind its own house and
maintain Afghan traditions with all their xenophobic, medieval, patriarchal,
misogynistic, anti-intellectual appeal.
A mix of Taliban militants and al-Qaeda forces resisted the U.S. invasion;
hundreds at least escaped into Pakistan's Federally-Administered Tribal
Areas and North-West Frontier Province. Having driven bin Ladin and his
followers out of Afghanistan, the U.S. declared a great victory and without
skipping a beat moved on to invade and occupy Iraq, which had nothing to do
with 9-11. The latter crime inevitably produced outrage globally, but
particularly in Muslim countries like Pakistan, where the prestige of bin
Ladin, already high in 2001, has soared ever since. (A recent poll showed
his approval rating at 46%, compared to Musharraf's 38% and Bush's 9%.)
Preoccupied with establishing an empire, U.S. leaders lost interest in
al-Qaeda. Indeed in March 2002 President Bush referring to bin Ladin
declared, "I truly am not that concerned about him." As for the al-Qaeda
forces in Pakistan (whose very existence close U.S. ally Musharraf denied),
they were Pakistan's problem. The U.S. had unleashed a huge problem on the
Pakistani state by invading its neighbor, toppling the Afghan government,
and forcing al-Qaeda to relocate into Pakistan where sympathetic tribesmen
(who have always resisted firm incorporation into the state) offered them
safe haven. Pashtuns straddle the boundary of the two countries; Pakistani
Pashtuns are largely sympathetic to the Taliban, and now a Pakistani Taliban
is growing in strength in the Taliban and elsewhere.
Thus the "good war" in Afghanistan preceding the generally discredited
war-based-on-lies in Iraq was in fact a very bad war so far as Pakistan was
concerned. It brought Afghanistan a new warlord government, in which opium
is again the chief commercial crop, prettified by a "democratic" election
and the appointment of a longtime CIA contact, Hamid Karzai as president and
de facto mayor or Kabul. It is increasingly challenged by the recrudescent
Taliban and new recruits who have regained control of much of the south.
Karzai from his weak position keeps offering them peace talks, which they
reject, demanding the invaders leave before any negotiations.
For the U.S. the "good war" has meant 474 soldiers dead (116 so far this
year); "coalition" dead have increased every year since 2003 and almost as
many European troops have died during the last two years as Americans.
Support for the Afghan mission has declined in Europe as its relevance to
"counter-terrorism" becomes increasingly unclear and its character as an
unwinnable counterinsurgency effort becomes more apparent.
The war in Afghanistan saddled Musharraf with a mounting Islamist rebellion
in the Swat Valley and elsewhere; grave dissatisfaction within the military
at the unprecedented deployment in the frontier provinces (where troops have
performed poorly and unenthusiastically against Islamists); and personal
unpopularity related both to his ties to the U.S. and to his abuses of
power. Adding to his woes, the U.S. military struck targets within his
country (without his consent, he claims), and threatened to take further
action against Taliban or al-Qaeda forces in Pakistan. Then the Pakistani
Chief Justice opposed his bid to run for president again, and needed to be
arrested, causing a nasty political crisis. In an embarrassment to Musharraf
the Supreme Court ordered the justice's release. In the meantime supporters
of former prime ministers Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif clamored for their
return.
The natural thing for a beleaguered strongman to do in such circumstances
would be to declare a state of emergency and assume emergency powers. But
the U.S. State Department told him no, don't do that, let Bhutto come back,
work out some accommodation with her. Let the two of you share power and
erect an anti-terrorist united front. So Musharraf hesitated until November,
when he did indeed declare a state of emergency, meeting with Washington's
public disapproval. The U.S. threatened to cut off some non-military aid if
he didn't quickly lift martial law and hold elections in which Bhutto might
compete. Musharraf negotiated with Bhutto, trading cancellation of
corruption charges against her for his agreement to respect the
constitutional provision that disallowed him to be both president and
military officer at the same time.
Quite possibly Musharraf was thinking, "These people, who have already done
so much to destabilize Pakistan, now want to destabilize it further by
forcing me into this." But he did, and Bhutto got killed, maybe by his
people (cui bono?), maybe by al-Qaeda, maybe by homegrown Islamists angered
by Bhutto's Washington ties, which are even more intimate than Musharraf's.
Maybe Musharraf will now cancel the election. Maybe he will hold it,
arranging to win big. Either way, Washington analysts agree his position is
weakened by the assassination. Pakistan, more or less stable as of 2001, has
in the interval been knocked off balance by U.S. action in the region. Told
it must be for or against the U.S., it was obliged to obey, with grim
results.
Unprecedented militant Islamism. Unprecedented support for bin Ladin and
al-Qaeda. Unprecedented support for the Taliban. Unprecedented Taliban-like
attacks on Buddhist monuments, parts of Pakistan's cultural heritage. The
assassination of a popular pro-Western political figure on whom the U.S.
State Department had placed its bets. Anti-Musharraf rioting in the wake of
the assassination. Dire consequences indeed of Musharraf's alliance.
_______
--
NOTICE: This post contains copyrighted material the use of which has not
always been authorized by the copyright owner. I am making such material
available to advance understanding of
political, human rights, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues. I
believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of such copyrighted material as
provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright
Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107
"A little patience and we shall see the reign of witches pass over, their
spells dissolve, and the people recovering their true sight, restore their
government to its true principles. It is true that in the meantime we are
suffering deeply in spirit,
and incurring the horrors of a war and long oppressions of enormous public
debt. But if the game runs sometimes against us at home we must have
patience till luck turns, and then we shall have an opportunity of winning
back the principles we have lost, for this is a game where principles are at
stake."
-Thomas Jefferson