Urdu Poetry Forum

Bush's casus belli against Pakistan



By IRFAN ASGHAR

President Bush's paint-by-numbers policies and lamebrain schemes have brought the world on the edge of a precipice and converted the US into a nation which is more divided and more isolated than ever and has a foreign policy in free fall. Bush will go down in the annals of history as the prime mover of an ill-fated war and as a dim-witted figure who precipitated the US into its big decline while frittering away its money, international political capital and soldier's lives.
How can history take anyone seriously who eulogises freedom but practices torture, pleads for the truth but is mendacious one without limit? Many in the current crop of historians have already declared Bush's presidency an indelible scar on the fair face of humanity. To say the least, he is likely to join the phalanx of mediocre presidents like Franklin Pierce, James Buchanan and Andrew Johnson. All this is lent colour by Bush's approval ratings which have plumbed new depths.
Indubitably, Bush has committed many gaffes during his eight years presidency, but the latest faux pas which he has committed in the shape of giving carte blanche to the US forces on the down-low about carrying out operations in Pakistan - both air and ground, without imprimatur of the Pakistani government, has taken the biscuit. This policy of crossing into Pakistan is fraught with many pitfalls and is bound to boomerang on US as Bush and his acolytes have not made allowance for too many imponderables. If we take a panoramic view of the situation, the casus belli for operation inside Pakistan can be discussed on the following counts:
For starters, America heaps the blame on Pakistan for not doing enough to trounce the militants and says that it is losing forbearance with Pakistan's incapability to rein in militants who use the country's tribal areas to attack US-NATO troops inside Afghanistan. If we analyse, this contention is all wet. Pakistan is doing what it can and it is bright-eyed in this regard. Pak army is conducting major military operations in Swat and other tribal areas to rout out the militants and in this bid, it has mowed down hundreds of militants.
In August, 500 militants were taken out. Pakistan has done a better job of snuffing out Al-Qaeda in the region than the US and other allies. Ninety percent of Al-Qaeda arrests have been made by Pakistan's intelligence and security forces.
The icing on the cake is that Pakistan has held out an offer over and over again to clamp down on insurgents if they have taken refuge in the country. However, Pakistan itself is paying the price of its operations in the form of suicide bombings on its territory. The latest suicide bombing at Marriott Hotel Islamabad is a glaring example of this.
On the top of this, Pakistan purveys logistical support to the US troops in the shape of fuel and munitions. Whereas the US is striking civilians inside Pakistan on the pretext that tribes from Pakistan's side of the border have made incursions into Afghanistan, targeted NATO forces and fanned the flames of insurgency. This view is confuted by the fact that insurgency in Afghanistan is in the ascendant in several provinces that are not coterminous with Pakistan. There is also exiguous evidence to provide that the ISI is aiding and abetting Taliban.
The real causes of insurgency in Afghanistan are poppy cultivation, rise of warlords, little amount of development assistance and absence of state institutions. Moreover, the reality is that both American forces and strategy have failed miserably in Afghanistan. The US government needs a fall guy to dump its incompetence on and Pakistan is just that.
So what stands out a mile from this discussion is that Bush has badly failed to establish a case against Pakistan as all his arguments are ill founded.
For all practical purposes, the Bush administration is fighting a desperate battle to notch up a major success in the War On Terror in the form of capturing Osama prior to the US presidential elections. As the elections are drawing near, its incursions inside the Pakistani territory are ramping up. All this is a stab to ensure a win for the Republicans in forthcoming polls. Bush also wants to claim some success in the war as part of his legacy when he bows out of office. By attacking the tribal areas and chalking up some success, Bush wants to stave off the criticism levelled at him because of his fatally flawed strategies in Iraq and Afghanistan. But here again, true to form Bush is emanating myopic vision and making a boo-boo. Bush's contention that US will have a walkover in Pakistan is highly asinine. Pak army has avowed unequivocally that it will defend its borders at all costs and will not allow US to lob missiles on Pakistani territory.
Hats off to General Kayani as his warning to the US chimes in with the aspirations of the people of Pakistan. But be that as it may if the US makes raids inside Pakistan, I am safe in the knowledge that Bush will meet his Waterloo in Pakistan and Afghanistan because what will happen if Pakistan, all of a sudden, closes the border to all NATO re-supply traffic to Afghanistan. If Pakistan ditches the "anti-terror coalition", US enterprise in Afghanistan will go for a Burton.
Furthermore, what is a crying shame for all the nations of the world and what makes the conscience of humanity get pricked is that this hyped-up War On Terror, which has taken the lives of hundreds of thousands of people, injured millions and infringed the liberty of hundreds of millions the world over thus far, is phoney one. The reason for this is that the war has never intended to contain terrorism.
The 9/11 attacks were little more than a "big deception" stage-managed by the US administration in order to spread chaos, control energy sources and make the whole world bow to US national security needs. These attacks have been employed for mobilising the American public behind the neo-conservative project of using wars - multiple and endless, if necessary - to entrench America's global dominance.
Furthermore, the War On Terror is a new tool for the projection of American power and terrorism is a new cover for imperialism. What gives some credibility to the argument is that the US has, in the past also, used political Islam for the advancing of its own agenda and purposes. It used Islamists to expel the Soviets from Afghanistan, a feat that ultimately gave the Americans the upper hand in today's world.
America's foreign policy needs to change its tone and attitude, open up and reach out. The imprudent Bush administration is also in desperate need of changing its tenor because its arrogant criminal mentality and crass stupidities have inflicted monumental damage both at home and abroad. The irrational policies pursued by Bush have made America to be viewed as "the most wicked" country which can flout all the standards of conduct in the pursuit of its imperial objectives.
The writer is a foreign affairs analyst
E-mail: irfanasghar99@yahoo. com